I can think of one pretty quick. Linux, more like Seamonkey, Konqueror and maybe some other browsers, have had tab browsing for years. Didn't IE just get that? Where did they get that from again?

Windoze is known for getting their ideas from others then hoping people will believe it was theirs all the time. This is funny.

1: I did not claim that Microsoft had the patent on it, nor have I ever in any of the threads. The Mac does it as well, and they actually ripped off the idea from Xerox.

2: Your links point to things that convert from deb or rpm packages to ones slackware can handle and vice versa. Unfortunately I've talked about those already.

3: The subject of compiling from source has already been talked about, but it seems you missed that part of the conversation. Having to compile from source is about as far from "easy to use" as you can get--exceptions maybe being having to compile this to be able to compile this so one can finally compile THIS, just to find that you have to recompile the kernel to compile THAT, so after you do that you find a couple more things that require more compiling of the kernel and other programs. Yes, it gives you the info on what dependencies you're missing, but there are so many things that can go wrong when trying to build a program. That is not an answer IN THIS CONTEXT of things that are "easy to use". Yes, it can be done, and for an experienced user it isn't that hard, but it is definitely NOT something a novice could just pick up and do. One might argue that one doesn't just pick up the Mac or Windows, but it happens all the time.

A gui, icons, click the mouse--people in their late 80's can learn that--I've tutored the elderly in using computers. Think about teaching someone who's never used a computer how to use the Mac or Windows and how to get programs working, and then fathom how hard it would have been to teach them how to compile before they can even use the programs they want to use, or sit there for a few hours while you get all the dependencies and attempt to compile before teaching them how to use the program.

Also, it has already been established that different people remember things differently. Some people remember text easier than sounds and visuals, and some people remember sounds and visuals easier than text. Linux has the potential to be the best of both worlds.

Well, for all of those guys saying compiling things from source are hard, you're probably just doing it wrong. Even in binary distros, just installing GCC, -devel versions of required dependencies, which are almost always in the README files, and typing almost ALWAYS worked. And in Gentoo, it's even easier. just and it compiles everything from source. I haven't have a package fail to compile all year.

>> "A gui, icons, click the mouse--people in their late 80's can learn that--I've tutored the elderly in using computers. Think about teaching someone who's never used a computer how to use the Mac or Windows and how to get programs working, and then fathom how hard it would have been to teach them how to compile before they can even use the programs they want to use, or sit there for a few hours while you get all the dependencies and attempt to compile before teaching them how to use the program."

probably theres a discrepancy in your time management ...


//anyway ... i always support the ideas of releasing binaries ... and make it a must for every programs ...

//.2 cent ...


.

Funny you say that, I very rarely have trouble compiling on mine either. If I do, it is usually something I did or a wrong setting on my part.

yup ... agree totally ...


//time management is the worst drag for mankind where everytime there seems to be always a need for you to clear the "debris" first and foremost ...


.

I just learned a new one. I was reading a Q/A section in my newsaper the other day. The user asked for a way to expand their desktop without needing more monitors. The tech guy pointed him to to an addon that Microsoft provides, called Virtual Desktop. Sound familiar? It even provides the exact same taskbar icons as the pager that comes with KDE or Gnome (and Fluxbox's pager addon).

I've always believed that if a person has never used something before - in this case a computer - then whatever version they use first (Windows, Mac, Linux) won't be any more difficult than the others because they hadn't used the others either. If they had to compile a program before using it, they can learn it because they don't already expect it to work any other way.

Hrmmm...Gentoo and compilation ease? A trend?

Kizzume, if you'd stop posting long enough to go check out another distro (as many have suggested already) you'd see that Linux DOES offer more powerful package management than what you're dealing with currently. It doesn't have to be an uphill battle. You can download and install Sabayon (precompiled Gentoo) and then have all the power and wonder of the portage system for package management without the "difficult" Gentoo install that seems to scare people so bad.

You're right, people learn differently, and people respond differently to varying environments. I prefer speed and efficiency to ease of use and eye candy...I prefer the CLI to a GUI, and I understand that between my operating system and me, I'm the one that has more capacity to learn. I don't wait for the operating system to catch up...I'm chasing the knowledge regardless. And you're probably right, I don't understand people who complain that this OS, which can easily be learned inside-out in a matter of months, is "too difficult" or whatever.

I use Gentoo because even though it has a bit steeper of a learning curve than "typical" Linux distros, the payoff is that I understand my system and I know it more thoroughly. Who cares if I spent a few hours hunting down some arcane kernel error? (Which I've done before during an RSBAC kernel install on my Gentoo server at home (actually the compile didn't give me ANY errors, but when I went to boot the new kernel I got "DWARF2 unwinder stuck" for a wonderfully helpful error message)...so don't think I haven't had issues during the compile/install/run routine that you've complained about). Point is, I learned something from it.

If I would have chosen a distro that is based around ease of use and eye candy, I wouldn't know anywhere near as much about Linux today as I do. And want to hear the strangest part of all?

Stuff that I viewed as "difficult" and "a pain in the *&^*&%^!!!" even just a few months ago are now routine and easy. I used to be scared to death to compile a kernel...and then I did it a few times on my old Red Hat system, and suddenly it's just another package. I used to think configuring xorg manually was difficult...then I did it a few times and now I could configure it in my sleep. Compiling packages is no different, but with a package management system designed for binary packages, it can be very frustrating!

Maybe I'm just strange, but I bet if you queried a good portion of the members here, you'd find that quite a few Linux users are exceptionally knowledgeable. They didn't get that way by double clicking on icons.

You keep bringing up the issue of compiling programs on your own. Frankly, though, how often does an average user end up having to do that on Linux? Unless you're talking about "hardcore" distros like Gentoo and Slackware, chances are very high that you can find what you need in the distro's package repository.

As for the "purpose" of Linux, I really don't see why Linux has to appeal to the mass market. I don't disagree with those who work on achieving that goal; like you said, it's all about choices. I don't think the "Linux is NOT Windows" article denies that either.

yes thanks dalek, so what i was asking is what is stopping xine, ximian-evolution, open-office, gimp, gaim, ... from having pre-compiled x86 executables that you could just untar to the directory of your choice and you can just run from there (á la firefox~1.5)

most windows programs have an unnecessary installer too.

but most games i have, i install once; download the no-cd hack for it; then i tar -cvjf the install directory and move it to my ext3 drive. for example, last year i replayed 'deus ex' so i copied it to my fat32 drive and did tar -xvjf and it played fine. (ten times faster than looking for the install disk and clicking thru the install process)

even i have a drag-n-drop executable in my project (albeit, the only thing it does is read/ serches thru text-files):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/shh-str-search/

what are your thoughts ?

Well, I know I have installed Mozilla on windoze before and it ran from it's own directory. I didn't "install" it really, I just copied the folder over. I was told that by doing it that way, it makes it harder for a virus or something to infect the OS, not impossible, just harder.

If I recall correctly, I have ran OOo from a CD on windoze before. No install or nothing that I can remember.

I don't have a clue about games though. The only games I mess with is Solitaire. LOL

Right now I've booted back into Windows because I started becoming bored with the list of programs that are available using apt-get. I still haven't gotten a single emulator to work, I've tried compiling about 15 programs now, all failing miserably, usually due to 64bit hardware architecture and there's nothing in any MAN or --help that I've been able to find to show me how to force compile them to 32bit architecture. I've asked, but haven't gotten any responses other than people telling me that it's not that hard to do.

What exactly does "./configure && make && make install" do? What are the &&'s for? What does the double make do? What is "emerge program"? Or is this post a joke? If not, where are webpages that talk about these kinds of options for compiling? Those are the pages I was looking for in the first place which nobody could guide me to--they'd always ask me "what program are you trying to compile" instead.

Where do I get this info? Seriously.

Basically, just about any program that can't be installed through the use of apt-get. That is a lot of programs.

Okay, get me Mame with a gui. Get me x64 (vice emulator) with a gui. Get me Frodo (c64 emulator) with or without a gui. Get me a nintendo (nes, snes, n64) emulator with or without a gui. Get me a Sega (master system, genesis, dreamcast) emulator with or without a gui. Get me an Amiga emulator with or without a gui. Heck, get me ANY emulator that actually works! Now, maybe the CLI interfaces to the other emulators than X64 might actually be usable, and maybe the other CLI based emulators won't require 20 files to get it to work like X64, but I can't find any that don't require that I install from the source, and I can't get any of them working.

So yes, tell me all about it. I'd love to get some emulators actually working.

First off, this:

./configure && make && make install

is really three commands. The "&&" tells the shell to continue if no error occurs, at which point the shell continues on to the next command in the list. "make" does the actual work of building the software, and if you pass "install" to it, it attempts to install to your system. Yes, you *can* run "make install" without the intermediate "make", but it's a bad idea should something go wrong.

emerge is the frontend to Gentoo's package management system, portage. Say for instance I want to install openoffice...I type in

emerge openoffice

and openoffice (plus dependencies) get downloaded to my machine and compiled/installed. Think of it as a really intelligent "./configure && make && make install". If you install "openoffice-bin" (precompiled), then the emerge command just runs "./configure && make install". If you install a source package, emerge configures, compiles, and installs it for you. If you just want to see what *would* be done, you can give emerge the -p (pretend) switch, and it lists the packages that will be downloaded and installed. To rebuild your entire system, run "emerge -uND system && emerge -uND world... -uND = update packages, New use flags, and Deep dependency checking). Portage does this all within a "temp" directory (defaults to /var/tmp) so no damage is done to your system should something go wrong.

If you've EVER attempted to install KDE or gnome from source, you HAVE to appreciate portage...haha Type one command and walk off to go do something else without having to worry about hunting for dependencies or launching the next package install...it's all automated.

Like I said, check out Sabayon if you're not quite ready to pull a Gentoo install (though the documentation is wonderful), and run something like "emerge kde". Go grab a beer and find something to do, because it'll take a while, but you won't have to touch it again until everything is ready.

edit - duh...kde comes precompiled with Sabayon...so ummm...look at http://packages.gentoo.org and find something that you think sounds interesting, and install it by typing emerge <program name>

I understand yuor frustration. That said, my question above is, is that what an average user does? Not that I have many friends, but none of them even know what a game console emulator is.