[ale] just installed LibreOffice in Linux, should have been easier

[Ron Frazier]

see  below

On 03/14/2011 05:29 PM, arxaaron wrote:
> On 2011/03/14, at 15:16 , Ron Frazier wrote:
>
>    
>> Hi Aaron,
>>
>> Comments below.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Ron
>>
>> On 03/14/2011 12:21 PM, aaron wrote:
>>      
>>>        
>>>> On 03/13/2011 08:06 AM, arxaaron wrote:
>>>>
>>>>          
>>>>> I love it when people take the most difficult route to
>>>>> a destination and then blame the people who provided
>>>>> the map.
>>>>>
>>>>>            
>>> On 2011/03/13, at 20:11 , Ron Frazier wrote:
>>>
>>>        
>>>> I followed the instructions on the LibreOffice website download
>>>> page.
>>>> How am I supposed to know there are all these easier methods
>>>> elsewhere?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>          
>>> A fair question.
>>>
>>> GNU / Linux and FLOSS are about freedom and choice and informed
>>> control,
>>> so there are always lots of choices and the easiest or best option
>>> isn't always
>>> the most obvious.   My snark came from your misguided comparisons to
>>> Mafia$oft windisease, which you seemed to be praising for allowing
>>> you
>>> NO freedom and NO choice and NO control.
>>>
>>>        
>> I was praising the fact that I got LibreOffice up and running on
>> Windows
>> a heck of a lot faster and easier than I did in Linux by following the
>> most obvious method of installation.  Granted, there was an easier
>> method I didn't know about at the time.
>>
>>      
>>>   This was a repeat of your lopsided comparison of file transfer
>>> speeds
>>> where you shackled Linux to the
>>> leaden weights of a closed source, proprietary, alien file system
>>> before the race and then praised the guy that forged and locked those
>>> shackles in place for appearing to be faster.
>>>
>>>        
>> I guess there is no fair way to do that test.  What I was really
>> comparing was user experience on one OS vs the other OS.  I didn't
>> want
>> to do the test from the system drive back to the same drive.  The only
>> destination drive I had was formatted to NTFS.  So, Linux apparently
>> cannot transfer to NTFS as fast as from EXT4, and Windows cannot
>> transfer to EXT4 at all.  So there's no real way to do the test that
>> isn't apples and oranges.  Even with Windows, I was sort of
>> complaining
>> about the fact that I was getting 60 MB / sec across a SATA interface
>> that should be capable of 300 MB / sec.  The fact that Linux was doing
>> 30 MB / sec, which I can do to a USB 2.0 drive, while I was testing on
>> SATA, was even more annoying.
>>
>>      
>>> Mac is an expensive Apple. Windisease is a worm ridden, rotten to the
>>> core Apple.  Linux is a vast array of fresh and healthy (but
>>> sometimes
>>> tart...) citrus fruits, free for the picking. Without a major
>>> effort to account for
>>> the weight of
>>> commercial roadblocks and restrictions that are tipping the scales,
>>> almost any level of direct comparison across the proprietary divide
>>> is
>>> inaccurate and unfair.
>>>        
> I realized I need to expand the Mac analogy to read:
> "Mac is an expensive, overly polished Apple with a very solid and
> FreeBSD core."  :-)
>
>    
>>>        
>> This is probably a flame war for another day, but here's how I see it.
>> Let's discount the last 5 years.  For the 20 years prior to that, if
>> you
>> wanted a GUI based computer that's relatively functional, stable,
>> usable, and affordable, you bought a PC with Windows.
>>      
> You obviously know nothing of computer history.
>
> Mafia$oft  didn't have a viable (stable, functional) GUI offering until
> windisease 3.1 was released in 1992.  Versions prior to the 3.0 1990
> release, were clumsy layers on top of Me$$yDOS. As always, the
> criminal computer corporation played the assimilator, not the innovator.
>
> Mac and Amiga, with fully integrated GUI systems, the later also being
> the first complete, multi-media, multi-processor desktop system running
> a priority preemptive multi-tasking operating environment, were
> available
> in 1984 and 1985 respectively.  Amiga, of course, became the template
> for every personal computer design since.
>
> The rest of your arguments a moot as they are based an entirely flawed
> premise.
>
> [snip moot points]
>
>    
OK, you have a valid point.  My dates were off, and I failed to mention 
some other contenders.  I'm willing to admit when I make a mistake.  I'm 
not a history buff, by the way.  Lets use your own math.  Microsoft had 
a viable GUI OS in 1992.  I should have said discount the last 5 years, 
for the prior 14 years, ... whatever.  That takes us back to 1992.  
Based on this article, here's what people COULD purchase or obtain by 
1992 with a GUI.  Note, I can't determine from this article which 
products were still on the market in 1992, only those developed before 1992.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_graphical_user_interface

Apple Lisa
Apple Mac (which I mentioned)
Apple IIgs
Atari ST
Amiga
GEOS for Commodore 64
MS Windows
Unix based X Windows systems (I don't consider this to be widely 
available to the general public.)

OK, so those were available.  Now based on these other articles, and web 
browser statistics, here's what people DID buy or obtain between now and 
then:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

Apple Lisa - doesn't exist today - descendants do
Apple Mac (which I mentioned) - 7 %
Apple IIgs - doesn't exist today - descendants do
Atari ST - doesn't exist today
Amiga - doesn't exist today
GEOS for Commodore 64 - doesn't exist today - new one doesn't count
MS Windows - 87 %

Linux with user friendly GUI - didn't exist in 1992 - now 1.65 % 
depending on which article you read

So, to paraphrase my prior statement, if you discount the last 5 years, 
what people DID buy or obtain, in overwhelming numbers, if they wanted a 
viable GUI PC for the 14 years prior to that, was MS Windows or Mac.  
The market figures show that those two solutions were the most 
commercially viable and viable for the consumer during the time period 
in question.

Linux wasn't a contender in the GUI game in the time period in 
question.  In the last 5 years, it has become a contender, with the 
various popular GUI front ends.  Now that it is a contender, and pretty 
much on par with Windows and Mac in regards to the user interface, it 
can and will attract more general users as long as there aren't too many 
other barriers to entry.

>>> Still, while your platform comparisons are invalid, your observations
>>> about
>>> Linux software installation needing simplification have merit.
>>>
>>>        
>> Wow!  Does that mean I'm no longer the black sheep of the family?  8-)
>>      
> No, it means that even a broken clock is right twice a day.  :-)
>
>    

You're so charming!

>>      
>>> Not surprisingly,
>>> an answer to your concern from the FLOSS community is in the works:
>>>
>>> According to the lead article in the Newsdesk section of the April
>>> 2011 Linux
>>> Format magazine, a collaborative developer group that is being
>>> supported by
>>> most all the major distros has emerged to work on a unified FLOSS
>>> software
>>> repository and installation API.  The Project Bretzn goals are to
>>> simplify
>>> software access and installation across all the mainstream Linux
>>> distro
>>> choices.  The article notes that if Canonical is willing to make
>>> their
>>> "Software Centre" available under a different license, the unified
>>> repository and installation API could be available in as little as 6
>>> months.
>>>
>>>
>>>        
>> Actually, I think that project is really cool.  If they can make it
>> work, I think it will be much easier for more people to use Linux.
>>
>>      
>>> “The current package
>>> managers expose way too much
>>> complexity to the end user. The normal
>>> user doesn’t care about dependencies,
>>> libraries and other internals. They care
>>> about screenshots, descriptions,
>>> ratings, tags, comments,
>>> recommendations from friends and
>>> other features that current package
>>> managers don’t provide,”
>>>
>>> Video of the meeting is at<http://youtu.be/BHeP2ZBwS_U>
>>>
>>>
>>>        
>> Just out of curiosity, how did you get the text?  Do they publish
>> their
>> articles on the internet?  I've started reading Linux User and
>> Developer, which may be the same publisher.  It would be neat to get
>> that online.  That's a neat article you quoted.  Those British
>> magazines
>> are beautiful, but SOO expensive.
>>      
> I'm still finding Linux Format magazine worth the investment.
> Definitely
> the most broadly informative of the Linux mags I know of, at least for
> those of us outside the sysadmin and development domains.
>
> All of the issues are available to subscribers for viewing and download
> in pdf format - I cut and pasted the text from that - but I don't know
> if they
> allow non-subscriber access to older issues.
>
> Check out  LinuxFormat.com and see.  They also maintain TuxRadar.com,
> which has lots of reviews and podcasts and such.
>
>    

I'll have to take a look at those.

> peace
> aaron
>
>    
<snip>

-- 

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Ron Frazier

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