On Thu, Jul 17, 2003 at 05:30:58PM +0100, John Haxby wrote: > Rodolfo J. Paiz wrote: > > > IMHO the single greatest difference between Winders and Linux on the > > desktop is that, in Windows, EVERYTHING works fairly well together. > > One comparison although I have dozens: I set up a printer in Windows > > in only one place, and every app works with it. In Linux, I have > > gotten my printer to work well and easily through the magic of CUPS > > (after years of hating LPR and failing with it), but individual > > applications often require separate integration. > > > > If this kind of problem could be reduced, we could push Linux > > penetration far more aggressively. > > > You get this with central control -- if you get to dictate the shape of > the platform then you can get everyone to follow you. If you provide a > limited mechanism for a resource then everyone will have to use it. > Warts and all. This printer discussion reminds me of the days when I was still running Amigas. Printing was a royal pain in the arse on the Amiga - every app seemed to do things a bit differently and it was a constant battle to see if the output was going to be on the page properly. Eventually I sold my last Amiga and bought a Macintosh. Man, what a difference! Everything "just works". Printouts were always exactly where I expected them to be on a page and I saw consistency everywhere. I later switched to Windows (and still run it as my home desktop) and to a large extent, it feels like the Amiga days. Purchase several greeting card programs and see how they fare - you'll see different apps put things on the page differently, and margins are usually screwed. I haven't done much with Linux printing lately (my current printer isn't even supported), but I saw a lot of things that reminded me of the Amiga days. Mind you, the Macintosh I bought darn near 10 years ago and the Linux subsystems couldn't even approach a 10-year old Mac. My pet peeve is obviously printing - if we can't print what we see on the screen, we will, in general, be dommed on the desktop. No matter how much time you spend on the desktop apps, if I can't print the document I'm looking at in a reliable fashion, I'll find something that can. I still Windows because I can't trust the printing subsystems (yesterday's pain: IE print preview looks good, paper gets truncated words). Desktop application developers should never had to write print drivers - all the printing work should be handled by the OS, with the apps querying the OS for what the printer looks like. There is no way that WordPerfect or StarOffice should even have a setting to tell the app what the printer is. I've told the system once, and once is enough. I'll get off my soapbox now. > Don't be tempted to stifle change to get uniformity. Enjoy the > diversity -- revel in it. Don't ever forget that Windows is a WYSIAYG > (what you see is all you get) environment. Diversity is what gets us in trouble some times. Sometimes it helps to be able to tell an end user to do it the only way, and that's the only way you have to support. Otherwise, you end up spending all your time supporting the end users and not enough time getting the real work done. -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:ewilts@xxxxxxxxxx Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program -- Shrike-list mailing list Shrike-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/shrike-list
