On 03/08/2014, Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 7:42 AM, Bret Busby <bret.busby@gmail.com> wrote:
On 03/08/2014, Andrew McGlashan <andrew.mcglashan@affinityvision.com.au>
wrote:
On 3/08/2014 4:39 AM, Brian wrote:
<snip>
And the reason I decided to respond was to ask your reason for not
wanting to use wheezy. Or, rather, if your reason is more important
than your need to communicate cheap.
It is not a matter of communicating cheap.
The ADSL/landline phone package that we have, includes free calls
within this country, and, free landline calls to the countries that we
are most likely to call.
It is the videocalls facility - a technology that is way underused -
"I don't want people to see what I really look like".
I assume that wheezy is Debian 7.
I have Debian 6 set up, and, whilst I have a more powerful computer
with Debian 7 installed on it, Debian 7 appears to be "not up to
scratch" when compared to Debian 6.
I have now managed to get the Debian 7 computer working with LXDE -
GNOME 2 is not available for Debian 7, but, LXDE wil probably do - it
is the best desktop environment (insofar as suitability for me, is
concerned) that I have so far found.
But, Debian 7 does not have iceape, and, Seamonkey is too dificult to
get working.And, so, I will likely continue to use Debian 6, as my
primary operating system, until an acceptable version of Debian, is
available, with iceape (iceape seems to be excluded from one version,
then reappears in a later version, then is excluded, then
reappears...).
So, I will continue to use Debian 6 for most of my stuff, and, may use
Debian 7 from time to time.
With the Skype 2.2 (beta), running on Debian 6, I was able to connect
successfully, and, successfully make videocalls, with people running
Linux, and, with people running MS Windows.
It worked, so Microsoft broke it.
[...]
And you knew that was going to happen. Or you should have known.
Anyway, you definitely know now.
No, I had no advanced warning, as mentioned elsewhere in the thread.
But, I know now, and, have lost access to videocalls.
Annoying.
So, you can build your own chat application if you want, including
video and audio. The entertainment and communication industries are
trying their hardest to prevent you from getting hardware that isn't
roped and tied to IP-laden standards, but you can still do it. All you
have to do is convince the people you need to communicate with to use
your application.
I do not have the skills.
And, I am now too old, and past it, to learn skills like that.
Or update your OS or get a separate machine to dedicate to an
"ordinary user" level OS or something.
I have another computer, as mentioned above, that runs Debian 7, and,
it gets powered up, sometimes. Using that, for something like Skype,
is a bit like having a landline, and, plugging the phone in, for an
hour or so, each week, or each month.
(I don't use skype, in spite of my sister's hints, because, as much as
possible, I don't want anything Microsoft touches on my stuff. When
wheezy goes unsupported and the only upgrade path contains systemd,
I'll have a hard choice to make. Hopefully, I'll be ready to use
openbsd on a daily basis by then. If not, I may decide to use skype
after all.)
I will likely continue to use Debian 6, long after its support ends. I
have a Debian 5 computer, running, as it runs an application upon
which I rely (although, no doubt, the wisdom of my continued use of
the unsupported application, which is not available on Debian 7, and,
I think, on Debian 6, running on the unsupported operating system
version, would likely be challenged)
I had tried PC-BSD, but, could not install it, and could not get any
support from the PC-BSD people or their mailing list. No
acknowledgement of , and, no response to, the critical problems.