Chinese Pirates Launch Ubuntu That Looks Like XP 580
An anonymous reader writes "Ylmf, famous for pirating Windows XP, have just released a version of Ubuntu that looks just like Windows XP. Really, really similar. Apparently because Microsoft were cracking down on the actual Windows XP pirating — though I think they will still suffer for ripping off the GUI exactly." Of course, if that's the sort of look you like for your desktop, you need not risk any download cooties or language barriers; a reader in the Ubuntu Forums suggests this instructional video for giving Gnome the XP treatment.
why? (Score:4, Funny)
Why would I want a perfectly good Linux machine to look like a Windows machine?
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Re:why? (Score:4, Funny)
Just add a cron script that has a 5% chance to reboot the system every half hour, and you're there! :P
Re:why? (Score:5, Funny)
Not quite.
You'd need to find some way of slowing down file transfers too, add an a few dozen random "utilities" to the systray, set it to check in with Ylmf every few weeks and nag you about it, run another dozen or so malware and anti-malware apps in the background to eat some extra RAM and cpu cycles, send all your financial details off to the Russian mafia, deduct $90+ from your bank account for every app you've installed and lock itself so only 3 themes work.
That'd be a bit closer to the Windows Genuine Advantage experience...
The worst bit is .. (Score:3, Insightful)
.. that it would STILL be better than Windows..
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Well the command line would be one good way.
If you want a GUI gnome-schedule [ubuntugeek.com] looks good too.
Re:why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Those who fear the CLI shouldn't even own a freaking computer. Crybabies and whiners. "Oh, I can't do ANYTHING, unless there is a pretty picture for it!!"
Sit your sorry ass down with the manual for MSDOS 5, 6, or 6.22 and LEARN the basics of computing. Then, pick up another basic - it's called BASIC. From there, you can branch out to some scripting languages.
Run a machine for 6 months with absolutely NO GUI installed - then you might be competent to talk about how good, how bad, or how inconvenient any part of a computer might be. Including the CLI.
You probably can't operate a standard shift automobile, or roll a window down unless it is electrically powered.
Mindless putz.
How do you avoid putting your bra on backwards?
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Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
MSFT Windows? Again nearly nobody that uses it even knows about CLI, and frankly even with me working PC repair I can count the number of times I've had to go CLI on one hand with fingers left over and the last time was so long ago Win9X was the dominant OS.
You must do just very basic PC repair then.. Anything of any decent complexity requires Command Line in windows. Powershell is a good example, along with scripting (Just try to run a network with over 20 machines without VBScribt, or batch files.. ) Group Policy commands (such as "GPUpdate /force") and even windows update (Wuauclt /detectnow, you don't just wait overnight for your patches, do you?) It's a few lines of Powershell to create a report that lists (via WMI) what bios version and computer model every machine is running in your domain. it is thousands and thousands of dollars for software that will do that for you! Hell, even Deployment, with either Sysprep, or the newer formats in Vista and Windows 7 require lots of Editing of Config files to do anything useful.
Good luck administering any new MS tool, like Exchange 2007, Windows 2008R2 Active Directory, or SQL server without Command line knowledge.
GUI's have always been the realm of Newbies.. MS is finally realizing the power of the command line the last 5 years or so...
I agree that new users are intimidated by the command line.. Hell, I've helped out in teaching Senior Citizen classes.. They are intimidated mostly by the mouse!!!
However, the only people that I have met that think that the command line is for old Dinosaurs, are guys that work at GeekSquad, and charge you $120 to run MalwareBytes and a defrag. Even the accountants at my work realize how handy scripting is, thats why Excel supports Macro's so much!
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Enough with the shouting random words. Esp. when you don't have a lot of interesting stuff to say.
In fact, most people do hate Windows, and they love Google Search. And while Windows is a nice easy to use GUI, Google Search is a CLI. But it's easier to use that CLI than to use the beautiful GUI they have.
It's not that CLI or GUI are harder/easier by themselves. It's that some jobs are more suited for a GUI, and some others are better for a CLI, and it's pretty much proven that people can adapt to either.
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Re:why? (Score:5, Funny)
Just add a cron script that has a 5% chance to reboot the system every half hour, and you're there! :P
For those of you who first started using PCs less than ten years ago, he's referring to the lack of stability Windows suffered from back then.
Are you from the future?
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Just bought the wife a brand new laptop for christmas. Booted up Windows 7, straight factory install. She bluescreened it within an hour.
Moving a desktop widget.
I don't even want to *know* how that is possible.
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My Windows 7 install crashes every day or two.
Yes it's probably drivers but that was always the case with Windows and is due to its development model.
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I'm a huge Linux guy, but I try everything to see how it works. I have a copy of Win7 Ultimate, and it's actually working pretty well. It's crashed a few times, but I was tuning the overclocking of the CPU and GPU at the time. Otherwise, it's gone pretty good. When I went to shut it down to install a newer video card yesterday, it refused because some application didn't want to shut down. Instead of just going down, it hung on a screen that says an application wouldn't stop, so it could
Re:why? (Score:5, Interesting)
This would mean people who were earlier using Windows would be a bit more comfortable using ylmf's ubuntu rather than the regular one.
I don't see why it would make a difference. If you drive a Volkswagen and then go and drive a Toyota, the indicator and wiper switches are the opposite way round on the steering column, and the instrument panel looks different. If you're really lucky, reverse gear is in a different place on the gate, too. You don't get people whining about how they need to make the Toyota look exactly like a Volkswagen before they can drive it - they just accidentally wash the windows instead of indicating a few times for the first hour behind the wheel. Then they get used to it.
Having never used Windows before it took me about two hours to get my head round XP, mostly due to having to learn how to solve complicated GUI puzzles to find setting that I'd normally use the command line for (like "Start -> Control Panel -> Network -> Connection -> TCP/IP -> Advanced -> set IP address" rather than "ifconfig eth0:0 192.168.1.100" to alias an ethernet port - the exact path through the GUI may be wrong). If you can't learn to live with the differences you probably have some underlying psychological condition that needs addressed.
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see why it would make a difference. If you drive a Volkswagen and then go and drive a Toyota, the indicator and wiper switches are the opposite way round on the steering column, and the instrument panel looks different .... Then they get used to it.
The trouble is that most people don't do this, it looks different so they panic and can't use the machine. I have seen people unable to use their machine because the icons have moved around — I kid you not!
Having never used Windows before it took me about two hours to get my head round XP,
You are exceptional, as a most of us who read slashdot, we will take something new as a challenge, play with it & try to understand how it works — then start using it.
The thing that most of us geeks fail to understand is that most users have little insight into how their machine works, they know that if they press this button something happens; but the why escapes them (even a why that is ''obvious'' to most of us). Because of this if anything changes they are no longer on familiar territory and become worried.
This could be fixed by teaching/training that dealed with a computer/word-processor/... by teaching understanding — but even if a user gets any training the teacher probably does not have the insight to do this. Also such training would take a bit longer and be harder than the ''point, click, do'' courses that are most of what is on offer — so they would not sell in spite of the long term benefits.
Re:why? (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is not the people, it is how they are educated. For example, they are taught from school onwards that a "PC" has windows on it, with MS office, and that a "Mac" exists that is not a PC, and looks totally different, but does a similar task.
This is why most people I know will sit in front of a Mac and accept that it is not going to work like windows, and are even more tolerant of kinks, quirks and differences.
To do a car analogy, it's like someone being taught that a Honda is a "car", and there is this other thing called a "motorbike" that looks different and is used by fewer people. This Honda has a unique interface like no other car (but may be similar to them). If people drive Honda's all their lives, then they get into another car, they will freak out and get confused, because in their mind All cars should work like the Honda. If they were to get on a motorbike, they would realise "yes, I was told, different to cars" and will actually expect the unexpected, they will be aware that it's different and they will engage and try to learn how to operate it.
I've see this with people. My former gf's mum was like this. My former gf tried to switch her to Ubuntu, but her mum freaked out at the different buttons, the different "look" and the different order of her icons. After a couple of days she flat our refused to use Ubuntu. This same person would then go on to get a Mac, and spend 4 months trying to learn how to use it. The Mac's interface was more alien to her than Ubuntu's, but in her mind Macs were supposed to work differently to PC's, so this was ok and she just needed to learn. To her Ubuntu was still a "PC" and therefore must look and act exactly like Windows unless something is badly wrong.
My brother was in the same boat, at school they were teaching him this PC=="MS Win & Office" thing, and he would always have trouble when he borrowed my machine. So I went and taught him how to use an OS, Word processing and other office software, in general. NOT Windows, Word and he rest of MS Office. Now he is comfortable using pretty much any OS, in fact he prefers Ubuntu now, only booting windows in a VM for his "e-textbooks", that only work on IE with windows, and he isn't interested in computers (being a humanities student).
Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:why? (Score:4, Funny)
This would mean people who were earlier using Windows would be a bit more comfortable using ylmf's ubuntu rather than the regular one.
I don't see why it would make a difference. If you drive a Volkswagen and then go and drive a Toyota, the indicator and wiper switches are the opposite way round on the steering column, and the instrument panel looks different. If you're really lucky, reverse gear is in a different place on the gate, too. You don't get people whining about how they need to make the Toyota look exactly like a Volkswagen before they can drive it - they just accidentally wash the windows instead of indicating a few times for the first hour behind the wheel. Then they get used to it.
The first cars [wikipedia.org] came into popular use over one hundred years ago. The computer [wikipedia.org], relatively speaking, is only about fifteen to twenty years old. Certainly the internet is about the same age, and it has completely redefined what a computer even is.
Car analogies aren't really applicable because the car was in heavy use when these people were born. They have never known life without one. Compare the same to a teenager today and perhaps you'd see less resistance to learning a new way to operate a computer.
InstallXpGnome.sh (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do such a perverted thing to Ubuntu? To get it past the thought police at work, perhaps. Of course, they might wonder why your PC looks different on the network, and find out the truth when attempting to apply policies (like pushing updates to antivirus or windows) or other Microsoft domain masochistic practices.
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Why would I want a perfectly good Linux machine to look like a Windows machine?
You might not want but the audience is Chinese and perhaps this is what they do want. It glorious to get rich; it's not so glorious to be spending your precious time clicking around trying to get used to vagaries of Gnome.
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It reduces the shock factor when you introduce a new worker to his new computer. He may ask a few questions later about OpenOffice and the mail client though.
Re:why? (Score:5, Funny)
Your support people shouldn't have to waste their time, teaching people to use a new OS or office suite. Feel free to use this canned reply to any frivolous questions.
"Mr. Wimplestain, can't you see that I'm very busy? Isn't there a "Help" button at the top of your interface? Aren't you being PAID to use that software? Why don't you actually put the software to use, and click that "Help" button? I take it that you are literate, or you wouldn't have been hired. After you have read "Help" from top to bottom a few times, maybe you can come back and teach ME how to use Open Office, alright? NOW GET TO WORK, BEFORE I REPORT YOU, YOU GOLDBRICK!!"
Insert some profanity as appropriate, for effectiveness. Office workers seldom understand anything, unless it's emphasized with plenty of profane terms. They're mostly just mindless zombies, after all.
Re:why? (Score:4, Insightful)
A very good question. If someone went *all out* and coded the Control Panel and the MMC, it might be okay. But as far as the primary desktop, I really see no need.
As for the underlying stuff, it would allow people already familiar with Windows (MCSEs mostly) to make an easier transition. Looking at Ubuntu, 99% of the functionality is the same. I can setup screensavers (and power profiles), configure networks (including wireless), and install/remove programs. If someone emulated that stuff, my peers would have one less system of clicks to learn.
Particularly, I wish the MMC was better emulated inside Ubuntu. I can partition drives, start and stop services, add users and groups, control file shares, and check the system logs from inside one interface.
And the hardcore people (script gurus and PowerShell users) could (would probably) always learn the underlying systems.
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Why is having to know lspci more of a fail than having to descend into the registry to find the same information? At least lspci allows you to display just the information you are looking for.
It's not more of a fail, it's an equal fail. First the complaint is about Windows not having a tool that lets you find this information, but that is patently false. I detailed two means for finding this information. The fail is about complaining about a problem with Windows which doesn't exist, instead of googling for a way to find the information in the first place, which is what I did, booting another operating system to find information that Windows will cough up? That's a gigantic failure. Period, the e
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You want the fantasy that Windows works?
Re:why? (Score:5, Funny)
To overcome pro-windows bias.
Think of it as the linux version of the Mojave experiment.
Already been done (Score:5, Interesting)
Think of it as the linux version of the Mojave experiment.
People were told KDE4 was Windows 7 [zdnet.com.au]
Re:why? (Score:4, Funny)
Interesting that Chinese pirates have been able to do what the giant Microsoft could not. Make a version of Windows immune to spyware, viruses, trojans, have an uptime of years, not have to reboot after minor proggy installations and be able to use apt-get for updates.
Profit!
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Why would I want a perfectly good Linux machine to look like a Windows machine?
The geek factor, obviously.
Besides, you can use it to make fun. Just imagine a new student, or a secretary, trying to comprehend what is wrong, when they try (against the policy of the institute) to install their favorite game/chat/other distraction.
Year of Linux on the Desktop (Score:5, Funny)
Why would I want a perfectly good Linux machine to look like a Windows machine?
Don't you get it? In China, 2010 is the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
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Obviously it is better in a considerable amount of things. Otherwise no one would pay for it.
And you need to know 90% of the people (or more) do not think the way you do.
Re:why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Simply put, yes. They are a victim of the marketing department at Microsoft, which (look back for the article last week) has admitted to paying "independent" shills and stacking discussion panels to endorse their inferior product.
It is marketed better and more ruthlessly - that's why anyone pays for it.
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Bullshit. The proof? I like Windows. In fact, I like it a lot better than any Linux distro I have ever used. Just last week I went to install Ubuntu on one of my older laptops and it failed to even boot. Windows XP? Booted and installed with no problem whatsoever.
Keep telling yourself those crazy conspiracy stories about shills and marketing if it makes you feel better. Meanwhile those of us who live in the real world will continue to use what we really want while you continue to declare each year for the n
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And 5 people are going to reply with stories of how Windows XP couldn't get wireless, sound or the trackpad working while Linux got done in 20 minutes. And 5 people will reply back with their pro-Windows stories. The plural of anecdote is not data.
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Right, because more dollars always equals more quality. Monster cables FTW!
We'll leave aside the fact that the vast majority of computers come with windows preinstalled, so the buyer has no choice anyway - he pays it as part of the total price whether he likes it or not.
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Because they were hidden.
I knew they were on the dell site and it took me a while to find them.
Clinking on the computer icons took me to windows computers.
Re:why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember Andy Warhole entering the urinal in the art show and winning! There are some very, very idiotic people who have no taste at all. They usually think they are sensitive and all knowing. Ubuntu can look really great. But a box stock XP machine looks cheesy to me.
It was Marcel Duchamp, not Andy Warhol, who entered a urinal into an art show, (and he did this 11 years before Warhol was even born)
And far from winning, the urinal was never actually put on display in that show. The only reason it got into the show was because the organizers accepted all submissions they received.
The point of the urinal wasn't to be looked at in the same way we look at a Michelangelo, it was to draw attention to how we look at art vs. mass-produced objects. What exactly is the distinction between a fine art object, and a non-art object? How does placing one in the context of another change our reaction?
How we approach something drastically changes how we think about it.
The same thing can be said for Windows vs. Linux. We look at Linux as being vastly superior in nearly every way, and we can't understand why regular people see it differently. When we approach linux as nerds, we miss the 1st thing that non-techy people see. That is the interface. its not about being more powerful, more stable, more flexible, and free, to them, it's about being familiar.
making Ubuntu look like XP might not be pretty, it might be cheesy, but how would a non-nerd approach it? with fear and confusion, or with the comfort and familiarity they are accustomed to? this could very possibly be a great way to help gain support in the Linux world.
Open source windows (Score:2, Interesting)
When Microsoft was convicted of monopoly abuse, the judge should have forced Microsoft to release the source code of XP under the BSD license and thereby restore true competition to the operating system market.
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And in turn release a plague of garbage OS code on mankind.
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It probably could have been cleaned up fairly well, excepting a few bad features.
Re:Open source windows (Score:4, Funny)
I'm in that 1%, you insensitive CLOD!
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I don't know about you, but the first *nix (FreeBSD 4 or 5) system I used, network setup was much easier than Windows. Hell, I still have to download drivers for the nic on every clean Windows install. Now getting XFree86 working right back then on my shitty hardware, thats another story (and now, using Ubuntu, I've never had graphics not work out of the box--although that can't be said of every
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the judge should have forced Microsoft to release the source code of XP under the BSD license and thereby restore true competition to the operating system market.
The most likely result securely anchoring Windows as the OS of choice for the masses.
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Microsoft wasn't just a successful corporation, they broke antitrust fair trade laws. The nature of operating system software hinders the ability of people to shop around for the best alternative. For example if you need a piece of application softwa
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The court found that Microsoft were the criminals. They looted the pockets of their customers. Their intellectual property was developed with ill-gotten gains.
Someone call the woodsman! (Score:5, Funny)
User: What a pretty GUI you have.
YImf: All the better to confuse you with, my dear.
U: And what strange fonts you have.
Y: All the better to break your layouts with, my dear.
U: And what a lack of app support you have.
Y: All the better to irritate you with, my dear.
U: And what terrible hardware support you have.
Y: All the better to eat up your time with, my dear!
Just then the hunter entered the house and cut the YImf right down the belly.
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Funny how in an effort to "protect" some people we prevent them from knowing of the dangers they face.
Finally Linux Gets a Decent GUI!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
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While intended as a joke, isn't this what Windows fan boys have been saying for years? "It does not act like Windows, it is not not ready."
Well now someone took a can of paint and slapped it all over Ubuntu, and it looks like Windows. I guess it is ready for prime time!
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It has a lot of games. Compatible with hundreds, it appears.
http://www.playonlinux.com/en/ [playonlinux.com]
But installing them is still round-about.
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However, it looks like its based on WINE and despite all the progress the WINE project has made in the last few years there are still applications and games that will not run, or run poorly, under WINE.
Until game/application companies start to provide versions of their games/apps that work natively on Linux this area will continue to be one of the holds up mass adoption of Linux.
FYI, I've been Linux only for over 3 years.
Desktop, laptop and firewa
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Looking after a few dozen desktops used by developers that like to tweak things is a really good way to see how inconsistant the MS windows environment really is. Hmm, I wonder which side of the screen I have to move the mouse off to get to the hidden start menu on this one.
Since Win 3.11 was ready for prime time I suggest you fanboys stop taunting with the "is linux ready for the desktop yet" line. IMHO it
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If they knew a bit more about MS Windows I suppose they wouldn't be fanboys any more.
Re:No (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll bite... but I know where you're coming from, and its not from the PoV of a linux user. Most of the things you mention are not issues in Linux world.
Linux's love of the command line
Well, firstly Microsoft is getting big into command lines now, with Powershell and WMI scripting backends for everything. Most ordinary users won't see this, but then, neither do most Ubuntu users. Naturally, there is more that can be done to improve the GUI for Linux, but this progresses forward daily.
Kernel compiling
Nobody compiles a kernel anymore. You get it from your distro, and compile it only if you're really nerdy or need something very very specialist. At least you have that option, in Microsoft's case you'd be stuck.
Tons of distros
Possibly true, but generally there are 3: RedHat, Ubuntu and Suse. There are others, but they are almost niche players no-one heard of. I don't think having the 3 main distros is a bad thing, you tend to use Redhat in business environments, Ubuntu for 'ordinary' users and Suse in Europe. I'm happy with that, I'm also happy that Oracle Linux is Redhat - they can rebrand it for their specialist area and no-one's going to lose sleep over that.
Dependency hell
Oh now you're joking. See the security updates for visual studio. In conjunction with 'WinSxS hell' suddenly DLL Hell (that was an urban myth as far as I was concerned, I don't think I ever saw it) has been replaced with a new version dependency on the side-by-side packages installed where if you don't have the right version, your app simply doesn't start. We've been hit by this for months now and it refuses to go away. You can't even put the right dlls in the app's path as the compiler references them in the assembly paths explicitly. Its a chuffing nightmare only solved by everyone running with all latest updates (and the VC redistributables are only installed by Microsoft Update, not Windows Update).
Lastly, we have in Windows 7 a lot of apps that don't run, and quite a few of them don't run in XP mode (which itself breaks VMware by not playing nicely).
I guess we should all go and buy Macs!
Graphics (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't read Chinese, and I'm not about to download that--but is the point supposed to be that pirating windows is illegal and repainting Ubuntu is not?
Here's the thing: based on the screenshots, it's virtually certain that they used the copyrighted graphics that come with Windows to make this. Depending on how thorough they are, they may have used a fair amount of copyrighted text, as well.
As such, they are still "pirates". Why not just keep pirating Windows? What does this accomplish for them, exactly?
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Well, for starters, they end up with a more secure and stable product.
This is not a troll. Windows may be secure (for some values of secure, and after investing a lot in malware scanners), but pirated Windows is notoriously crappy. Even MS acknowledges that (exaggerates it even - it's a good story for scaring your customers straight).
Re:Graphics (Score:4, Interesting)
copyrighted graphics ???
copyrighted text ???
Sorry Dorothy but this ain't Kansas. IANACL (I am not a Chinese Lawyer) but I doubt that the broken US concept of copyright will go far in another country, especially one like China. Plagiarism is seen as a compliment there so M$ would get laughed at if they complained about it. To say that someone is copying your product is one thing but to say that someone has made their product look like your product is another.
This is a complete waste of time (Score:2, Funny)
Why still? (Score:2, Insightful)
and the blue screen of death? (Score:4, Funny)
It will be in high demand (Score:2, Interesting)
What about Icon and Graphics Copyrights? (Score:3, Informative)
Pirates (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that "real" pirates are back on the world stage, maybe we can get rid of this dumb use of the word pirate? I, at least, was pretty confused for a couple of seconds as to why pirates would do any sort of software trickery.
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I'm strictly reformed these days, and have be
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Links (Score:2, Informative)
The Linuxologist ran a story covering the video [linuxologist.com] (and accompanying conversion script), mentioned by the OP, a while ago. Apparently there's an entire project [online02.com] for a gnome GUI conversion to make it look like XP.
I think it's pretty useful for convincing family members to make the switch to Ubuntu and cut down on personal Windows-related maintenance time.
What about Windows 2000? (Score:2)
Meh... I'd rather have it use the Windows 2000 UI.
This actually makes sense... (Score:2, Insightful)
Excellent! (Score:4, Funny)
This is so perfect it isn't even funny. I can now replace the XP on my parent's computer with Linux and they won't know the difference. The "family support plan" just got a whole lot easier for me.
Linux XP (Score:5, Informative)
Of course. Open source rarely gets the GUI right. (Score:4, Insightful)
The typical "open source" solution to a badly designed GUI is to make the GUI reconfigurable, with "skins" or "themes". This is an admission of failure.
Blender, the animation system, is about to do this. All 3D animation systems are complex, but Blender has an unusually confused GUI, with changes in each release and out of sync documentation. So, in the next release, 2.5, Blender will support "themes", plus some scheme for custom Python code to rework the GUI. Now the developers can blame the user.
The other classic vice of the Unix/Linux world is the one-way GUI. Input is graphical, but output is in a text window, because the GUI is wallpaper over some text-oriented application. This comes from a design flaw of UNIX - when you run a subprocess, you can pass in a list of arguments, but all you get back is an exit status and maybe a text stream. "exit" should have had "argc" and "argv" parameters via which the subprogram could return structured results to the caller.
For a painful example of this problem, make a wireless network connection with a Linux EeePC. All the GUI gives you is success or failure. Errors are hidden in a text window with incredibly confusing blither from about six programs used to set up the connection, several of which produce error messages in normal operation.
For better or worse, the Mac got this right back in 1984, and it's still worth reading the Macintosh User Interface Guidelines. Two rules often forgotten: "You should never have to tell the computer something it already knows", and "An alert box consists of a sentence explaining the problem, and a sentence suggesting what to do about it." The idea that you should never have to tell the computer something it already knows means that it's not acceptable to make the user copy information from one place to another. The Linux community does not get this at all, and the Windows community sometimes forgets it.
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For better or worse, the Mac got this right back in 1984
Funny you should say that, because my abiding memory of using Macs in the mid 1990s was "Application Hypercard has quit unexpectedly due to error #{error number}"
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Why? Because artists made it, and they know how they want to use their own program for their own work more than you do.
Blender is getting customisation support only to make it more accessible to people that are too stupid or too lazy or don't ha
Re:Of course. Open source rarely gets the GUI righ (Score:5, Informative)
"The other classic vice of the Unix/Linux world is the one-way GUI. Input is graphical, but output is in a text window, because the GUI is wallpaper over some text-oriented application. This comes from a design flaw of UNIX - when you run a subprocess, you can pass in a list of arguments, but all you get back is an exit status and maybe a text stream. "exit" should have had "argc" and "argv" parameters via which the subprogram could return structured results to the caller. "
From what century are you writing this? 18-th or maybe 19-th, I wager?
Re:Of course. Open source rarely gets the GUI righ (Score:5, Interesting)
You are almost right, partly. :)
I have an EeePC and I know *precisely* what you are talking about. I agree it is bad, but I disagree with your solution entirely. This problem is amenable to a much simpler solution, there is no need for any drastic architectural changes. The basic architecture here is sound, there is no reason why the GUI-box should not just report success or failure and leave the actual diagnostic output to another box that the user only has cause to invoke if there is a problem. The real problem here is that errors are reported even when nothing is wrong. The best I can see this is due quite simply to the fact that no one is willing to pay one or two employees (they dont have to be highly skilled, just computer literate enough to track down scripts and edit them) to finish the job when they make a distribution. In this case, there are error on the EeePC that are normal all over the place, not just in this one box, but bloody everywhere. They are caused by using generic scripts, designed to work on an extraordinarily broad range of different installations, with no customisation. It is a relatively tiny amount of work to go through these scripts, figure out which lines are actually unneeded and inappropriate on *this* distribution, and remove them. Simple as that.
Now, when I fire up a newly installed white-box, I see a lot of similar spurious error messages scroll by. This is to be expected - I am using a general purpose distribution and it makes sense for the default scripts to have this result and to expect the person installing it to go ahead and take a few minutes to customise the scripts and get rid of the spurious commands, either by deletion or simply commenting them out. The only complaint I have in that setting is that it does, on occasion, seem unreasonably difficult to track down the scripts in question, as if the builders of the distro never even thought of anyone wanting to clean the thing up post-install. This attitude, or my perception of it, grates the nerves, it is just shoddy engineering. Error messages should NOT be normal, and an OS installation cannot be said to be complete until they are all cleaned up. When the user sees an error message they should be able to have confidence it is a real error. Instead they learn that it is 'normal' to have spurious error messages all over the place, they learn to ignore them, and then when there is a real error message that does need attention - it is ignored too.
On the EeePC, however, it is not excusable at all. This is a very specialised distribution created *specifically* for this hardware. There is no excuse whatsoever for these scripts not to have been cleaned up so that they produce no error messages on their intended hardware before the image was burned, period.
Another very annoying feature of that particular Operating System is that it does not support swap partitions. This really boils down to the same problem - the company producing it obviously couldnt be bothered to budget just a handful of hours with someone familiar with linux for this thing! More specifically, it appears that Asus was told by the manufacturer of the SSD used that it should absolutely never be used for virtual memory. This advice could only have come with someone that is familiar with Windows, but not with computers in general and certainly not with linux specifically. SSDs do have a limited number of read/write cycles, you see, and Windows WILL thrash virtual memory whenever given it, without rhyme or reason, it just insists on rewriting it fairly often. Allowing Windows to use an SSD for virtual memory is a very bad idea. But Linux does
Re:Of course. Open source rarely gets the GUI righ (Score:5, Informative)
all you get back is [...] a text stream. [...] could return structured results to the caller.
Parsers. 'Nuff said.
Two rules often forgotten: "You should never have to tell the computer something it already knows"
I'd like to extrapolate that: you should never have to tell the computer the same thing twice. You should be able to make the computer act on general rules.
I really hate that with Network Manager, I can't tell it "whenever you see one of the essids [home, work], connect automatically". Why the hell do I have to spend my precious time clicking stuff when I already know what I'm going to click on?
(Linux lets me express general rules about what my computer should do, in the language of shell scripts etc.; for that, I love it. Thanks also to wpa_supplicant's roaming mode.)
Re:Of course. Open source rarely gets the GUI righ (Score:5, Insightful)
The Linux community does not get this at all, and the Windows community sometimes forgets it.
On this front, the Linux experience is worlds better than the Windows one. My biggest frustration when trying to sort out problems on other people's Windows boxes is the frequency with which one gets an error message which amounts to "Something went wrong, but we're not telling you what." The big mistake which the Windows developers make is hiding information from the user so even if you are capable of understanding the technical aspects of the problem, you're not allowed to see them.
It's true that the average user either ignores technical information in an error message, or goes into a panic when it appears, but there should always be *some* way of getting at it. Windows is dreadful in this respect.
Be careful what you demand Microsoft... (Score:4, Insightful)
For the longest time while Microsoft was busy solidifying its monopoly position on the desktop, it did nothing short of encouraging copyright infringement by actually reporting "pirated copies" of its OS in its reported figures.
Once that mission was accomplished and any sort of competition was put behind them, they started using stronger means to protect their software. But perhaps the measures are too strong in today's "Linux curious" environment.
When a Linux desktop distro looks exactly like Windows XP, people already know how to use it. And with WINE being in a rather mature state, lots of software will run just fine... (including malware, I'm afraid...) It still will not be long before people realize they are not using Windows, but are quite able to use it... they will also realize that they CAN use it and may not need Windows after all. Perhaps this is something Microsoft doesn't want people to know.
Make WinXP look like KDE; Make GNOME look like . (Score:5, Informative)
Make WinXP look like KDE http://www.tech-atom.com/windows/ultimate-linux-transformation-pack-for-windows-xp.html [tech-atom.com]
Make GNOME look like WinXP http://ubuntu.online02.com/xpgnome [online02.com]
Make WinXP look likeUbuntu http://pc-hacks.blogspot.com/2007/10/make-up-over-your-windows-look-like.html [blogspot.com]
Make WinXP look like Enlightenment http://www.litestep.net/ [litestep.net]
Make Linux look like Win95 http://fvwm.org/ [fvwm.org]
It all makes my head hurt.
Re:Make WinXP look like KDE; Make GNOME look like (Score:4, Informative)
You forgot:
Make GNOME look like KDE [kde-look.org]
The other way around is built into Qt4 (Gtk theme).
This is GREAT... (Score:3, Funny)
.... just what I need to fool my clients into using Ubuntu instead of crappy Microsoft XP.
why it looks like XP (Score:5, Interesting)
So a friend who's working on the Incognito LiveCD project have got news from people being beaten and jailed by police in china. And how did they got discovered? Well, they used the LiveCD at a internet café and the owner realized that that's not windows and called the police.
Having linux looking like windows could be a privacy feature.
probably 99% actual windows source code (Score:3, Informative)
doesn't look like XP (Score:5, Informative)
It appears that the screenshot was taken from the real Windows XP, and Ylmf OS does not look much like XP, but rather exactly like Gnome.
Here's a screenshot taken from someone who installed the ISO in VMWare and changed the locale to English: http://i50.tinypic.com/2lar9s0.jpg [tinypic.com]
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
xmms has always looked like winamp and can even use winamp skins
Re: (Score:2)
Please .... Amarok is sooo much better than Winamp, do not degrade it just to appease the masses...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
All the pro-China/anti-US comments. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....
All the paranoid merkin wankers 5,4, Oh.. Already here I see.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That's not impressive, they hadn't worked out the icons to look the same for instance.
Er, what? When I look at the screenshots, I see exact same icons as in XP. So much so, in fact, that I'm certain that they've just ripped them out of XP resource files.