On Tue, 2003-05-27 at 12:31, Christopher Wong wrote: > On Tue, 27 May 2003, Pavel Rozenboim wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: Christopher Wong [mailto:chris@xxxxxxxxxxx] > > > > > > The "real world" operates in a separate reality from the > > > anything-but-Microsoft world. In that strange world, people are more > > > interested in playing video and audio than in the alphabet soup that > > > this world babbles in. DivX, OGG, MP3, WMA, MP4 ... who cares? All a > > > Windows user cares is that he can play video and audio -- streaming or > > > file -- out of the box. He does not care that he is using WMA, WMF or > > > MP3 as opposed to DivX and OGG. It just works most of the time, in a > > > way that is only a dream in Red Hat. And that's what matters. > > > > Actually, doing all this on RedHat linux is much easier (thanks to > > Mattias and fedora maintainers) then on windows. On windows you have to > > download and install quicktime, divx, real player and lots of other > > software and also buy a DVD player to be able to watch all the common > > audio and video content. On RHL it's all available from a single > > repository and takes just a few minutes to install. It happened to me > > many times that I had to parse strange MS media player errors and search > > the internet to find out what other codec I miss, while mplayer and xine > > never failed for me. > > You are looking at this from the anything-but-Microsoft world. The "real > world" is far easier than you think. The Windows user gets the Windows > Media Player out of the box. MP3? Streaming audio? Streaming video? DVD > player? CD ripping? CD burning? It's all there. The Windows user needs to > do exactly NOTHING to get all these features. The Red Hat user starts off > with zilch. False. Patently so. Out of the box on RH9 I have numerous options to burn/rip CDs. Of course, if you install *SERVER* you won't find them; but then, if one installs SERVER and expects to be able to rip audio files and DVDs, the fault is not the vendor's. Maybe you should try an install so you can speak with knowledge, not FUD. heck w/RH9, do an install and when logged in, put a blank CD-R/RW into the burner, and watch Nautilus open of a window to drag-and-drop files to to burn. > As an exercise, try enumerating the number of steps needed to watch the > trailers in http://www.apple.com/trailers in your browser with Red Hat. > Ugh. 1. Subscribe to Crossover-plugin (pay money) 2. Download crossover-plugin RPM 3. Install crossover-plugin 4. Use GUI tool to install Quicktime using the exact same installer you do on Windows 5. Start browser 6. Enjoy Compare this to MS-land: 1. Buy MS Windows (pay money) 2. Download Quicktime installer 3. Run Quicktime installer 4. Decide whether or not you want quicktime or WMP to run various files 5. Reboot system 6. Start browser 7. (cross-fingers) Enjoy Now, step 1-3 gets "amortized" over additional plugin installations, such as RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, and others, just as step 1 does in MS-land. But hey, let us go the other way. -> Make a PDF RedHat? Out of the box. MSWindows? Nope; go pay money. -> Make presentations, spreadsheets, text (or "office") documents. RedHat? Out of the box. MSWindows? Nope; go pay money. -> Range of photo and image manipulation editing, from basic to 3-d to high-end? RedHat? Out of the box. MSWindows? Nope; go pay money. -> Take OS cd and install to wife's machine. Legally. RedHat? Out of the box. MSWindows? Nope; go pay money. -> Development tools, compiler, etc. RedHat? Out of the box. MSWindows? Nope; go pay money. -> Project Management tools RedHat? Out of the box. MSWindows? Nope; go pay money. -> Ability to use zipped files? RedHat? Out of the box. MSWindows? Nope; go pay money.(or perpetually upgrade WinZip trials) -> Financial Management Software RedHat? Out of the box. MSWindows? Nope; go pay money. -> Public/Private Key usage/generation/management (such as GPG/PGP) RedHat? Out of the box. MSWindows? Nope; (go pay money?) -> Full featured Email clients, capable of calendaring, scheduling, and multiple account features, easy-to-use filtering, etc. RedHat? Out of the box. MSWindows? Nope; go pay money. -> Multi-platform capable Instant Messaging RedHat? Out of the box. MSWindows? Nope -> Secure remote login capability RedHat? Out of the box. MSWindows? Nope Zilch indeed. -- Bill Anderson RHCE #807302597505773 bill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
