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On Fri, 22 May 2009 17:44:36 +0100, Tom Potts <tompotts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > its so much easier... > http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/software-installation-in-linux-is-difficult/ > Tom te tom te tom Too... many... places... to... reply... to... My views: 1) If you are unhappy about the way "drivers" for hardware are handled by Linux, complain to the hardware manufacturer. Hardware manufacturers are people too - they won't know that there is a demand for Linux "drivers" if people don't tell them. 2) If there is a specific bit of software that runs under Windows only (or Mac, for that matter), by all means try to get it to run under Wine to get yourself out of a bind but make it known to the software developers (ie whoever wrote Quicken, or Ableton or whatever) that you are unhappy that their software does not work NATIVELY under Linux. Software developers are people too - they won't know that there is a demand for their software to run NATIVELY under Linux unless people tell them. 3) Do not compare apples to oranges unless you're bananas or nuts. Comparing software that comes as a pre-compiled, statically-linked binary (ie an unnecessarily large file or set of files - your average setup.exe based software) with software that comes as targzed sourcecode is daft. Compare like with like - installing prepackaged-binary software under Linux (ie "Add + Remove Programmes" on Ubuntu/Debian) with a setup.exe style installation by all means, or compare installing software from source under both systems. Do not mix and match! 4) Do not talk about "average" people. Be specific about the target group you mean to discuss. If you mean the "average gaming-oriented" computer user, then say so - their background and expectations may well be considerably different to the "average email-and-wordprocessing-only" computer user. 5) Avoid the word "should". For example, "software should be a piece of urine to install". Really? And what about those poor souls who's setup is different to yours? Remember, your opinion does count - that doesn't mean it is the only one that matters! If you mean to say "I would like it if software was a piece of urine to install", then say so. Now, with specific regard to graphics "drivers", here's my hapenny-worth: Not so long ago I installed Ubuntu onto a 160GB USB2 harddrive. The purpose of this setup was so I could take my own Linux system with me and use it on any of the College workstations that I was sat at (I was a lecturer, by the way). Across the various workstations that I used there were 5 different graphics configurations with 3 different chips - Intel, nVidia & ATI with the ATIs being attached to 3 different types of display (single monitor with rubbish resolution, single monitor with a decent resolution, dual-head with both having a decent resolution). I wrote a little script that ran on startup before the login manager started that would detect which machine I was running on (easiest way - look at the network card's MAC address... they're unique, afterall) and copy the correct Xorg config file into place (amongst other things) before X had started. I would dearly love to see a Windows or Mac system that can be taken from point to point like that and have the flexibility to have 3+ sets of graphics drivers installed and working without issue or hassle. Incidentally, the hardest part was trying to get my head around automatically establishing which workstation I was at... until it dawned on me to use the MAC address of the NIC. I'm sure I had more comments to make, but I can't remember them now. Stay tuned! Grant. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html