What DO you lose with Linux ???
Apologies for duplicate postings, but I'd like to make sure I sound
a diverse population.
Today' London "Sunday Times" feature "Innovation" (pp 10-11 of "News
Review", http://www.sunday-times.co.uk ) has an article by David Hewson
(of "Linux, the Program from Hell" fame) entitled "Linux wins backing of
computing giants".
His attitude to Linux is much more moderate than it was: the article
is basically balanced and fair, including some sound negative comment.
However, he states:
"Behind the hype there is precious little sign of Linux becoming
a serious, versatile desktop OS. If all you need is a browser
to get through the day, it's fine. But if I boot the PC I am
using right now into any kind of Unix the list of stuff I lose
-- music composition, accounting and personal finance to name
but a few -- is endless because the applications just aren't
there. On top of that, Linux is difficult to set up, fails to
understand the difference between a desktop PC and a notebook,
and lacks any kind of plug and play facility."
I'm sure the last sentence is simply wrong in point of fact.
If, in the previous sentence, he'd given a longer "list of stuff I lose"
one might be in a better position to respond constructively.
However, can I ask people what they would use for "music composition,
accounting and personal finance"? I'm aware of good programs for
creating musical scores which can also generate MIDI output, but I'd
hardly call them top-flight composition tools; and it does seem that
the accounting/finance area is thinly served.
He didn't mention OCR (optical character rcognition) either. Where is
the OCR program for Linux that works?
Now that vmware is out ( http://www.vmware.com ) people who want to
can run Windows applications on top of Linux without, it seems, losing
much or indeed anything, so this could be the basis of another line of
reply to Hewson's article: he can start up Linux and the "list of stuff I
lose" would be empty because it would all still be there!
Comments, info, contributions, anyone?
Best wishes to all,
Ted.
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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@nessie.mcc.ac.uk>
Date: 28-Mar-99 Time: 12:49:27
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