[Digikam-users] Generic Linux question

Tue Aug 30 09:49:55 BST 2011

We need to admit that different people have different reasons to switch 
OS. I do it for both practical and philosophical reasons. Philosophy: I 
do not like making rich American companies even more rich because this 
does not promote financial, social and environmental sustainability. 
Practical: I can do many things in Linux that are impossible to do in 
Windows. Ever tried to format a 500 Gb USB disk with FAT32 in Windows 
(which, by the way, is a standard Microsoft format)?? Same with software 
and, specifically, photo managers. Therefore I am looking forward to see 
a stable dk version 2. In the mean time I get along with version 1.9.

However, I work with a VM every day because I need to interact with 
other individuals/companies that use Microsoft or OS/X. I run several 
applications on a daily basis that are only available in Win. Therefore, 
in order to produce, I have no choice but to work over more than one OS. 
But I use Linux as a base and as a default. To achieve anything in the 
world these days one needs to be adaptable, open to what others do. 
Unfortunately, Microsoft and Apple operate on a basis of noncompatible, 
closed systems. Then you depend solely on marketing strategy, not on the 
merits of the product.

Let us promote openness of products, standards, and most of all, thought.

Kind regards,
Willem Ferguson.

On 30/08/2011 09:20, sleepless wrote:
>
> Op 30-08-11 08:21, Martin (KDE) schreef:
>> Am 29.08.2011 22:32, schrieb sleepless:
>>> Hi Paul,
>>> Op 29-08-11 22:03, Vlado Plaga schreef:
>>>> On Sat, 27 Aug 2011 23:34:24 -0400
>>>> Paul Verizzo<paulv at paulv.net>   wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I have spent the last several weeks trying out about ten Linux
>>>>> distros in Virtual Box.
>>> I have been there and I would no one advice to, make a dual boot or
>>> switch completely, which I admit is not a simple matter.
>> A complete switch may be simple or may be not. This depends on several
>> experiences a user had before. An experienced windows user may have
>> problems with the unix/linux way of doing stuff. On the other hand: my
>> daughter for example has problems with windows. She is used to linux and
>> always try to run dolphin to handle her files. She says that windows is
>> so complicated.
>>
>> I have switched to linux completely (almost, there are two programs out
>> there I need an VM for - once or twice a year). And it was not hard.
>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>>> Closing, the question is about how Linux apps are updated......
>>>> Others have already supplied relatively detailes answers. I just want
>>>> to add: the way software is distributed in Linux simply is quite
>>>> different to the Windows (or Mac OS) way. You may notice that many
>>>> complex applications only require a fraction of the disk space
>>>> comparable applications use on these commercial systems. My e-mail
>>>> program (Claws Mail) for example has an "uncompressed size" of less
>>>> than 4 MBytes, according to the package manager. On Mac OS 10.5 "Mail"
>>>> uses 289 MBytes! One reason free software applications can be so small
>>>> is because they share a lot of "libraries" - but that of course makes
>>>> it difficult to update, because quite often newer versions of
>>>> applications require newer versions of the libraries which are no
>>>> longer compatible to the older versions... thus braking other
>>>> applications that depend on the same library. Of course package
>>>> management software is there to make sure such brakeage does not 
>>>> happen,
>>>> but it's a complex issue nevertheless.
>>>>
>>>> Also free software more often than commercial software follows a
>>>> "release often, release early" philosophy. This of course means that
>>>> released software is not that stable and can have more bugs.
>>> I am 6 months on Ubuntu, found for over 60 applications alternatives.
>>> Exept for the update service there is no appliction that messed up my
>>> system in 6 months once.
>>> Never lost any data. In windows I was half of the time busy to keep my
>>> system going and to restore lost data or many times restore the entire
>>> system, which took emensely amounts of time. In Ubuntu I have my system
>>> running again within at most a couple of hours.
>>> In windows I had on dayly basis trouble to keep my internet going. Now,
>>> with Ubuntu if my pc runs I have connection. Windows I had to 
>>> restart at
>>> least 2 times within evry hour, I have now may one reboot in a week.
>>> Although I worked under windows mostly with free software too, the
>>> applications that I heavy paid for did not have any exeption related to
>>> instabillity, and beside that the never could do what you expected,
>>> always you had to something extra or somthing new. A never ending 
>>> story.
>>> Windows became from 95 worse with every new release, I think in the
>>> Linux world it is the other way around, at least till now I believe 
>>> that.
>>> I worked with a lot of different photomanagement programs. Digikam is
>>> the best, the most intuitive and productive I ever used. First time
>>> since dos I have a stable system.
> Maybe I have just luck, I hope it is not a dream, and I wake up some 
> time.
>> I have to use windows every now and then and it is rock stable.
> Yes, if you use it every now and then, preferably never installing 
> something new and working with no virusscanner, firewall, anti spyware 
> etc etc running in the background and most of all never changing a 
> thing to your hardware, and not constantly having to run trough 
> validation processes because you put something new in your computer, 
> and the beast is not saying ¨do not shut down your computer if you 
> just decided to do so, and it is not saying ntldr not found in the 
> morning if you realy need to work, and it is not going in a startup 
> loop and so on and so further.
>
> The telephone is ringing a lot here by panicking windows users, never 
> had a linux user to help.
>>   Never
>> had data loss in the last ten years. With my linux boxes I had crashes
>> and data loss up to a no longer usable system (about 5 years ago). This
>> to solve needed an experienced admin. Linux (as a OS, not the plain
>> kernel) is a good system, but it is far from perfect. There are so many
>> things left to do.
>>
>> Sometimes you have to pay for your freedom. And it is worth to do so.
> pay for freedom? what freedom? the freedom of windows?
>> What I don't get: There are many users out there who want to let windows
>> behind. But they do not switch to linux but Mac OS-X. This OS is
>> completely different from windows as linux is, but they don't use linux.
>>
>> Martin
> Hi Martin,
> Your answer confuses me. Why are you on Linux if windows is so much 
> better?
>>> Regards,
>>> Rinus
>>>> The severe
>>>> bugs in DigiKam 2.0.0 could be one reason it is not yet included in
>>>> Debian "unstable" (a kind of rolling release) which otherwise often is
>>>> quite fast in picking up new versions:
>>>>
>>>> - Face recognition is in the user interface, but according to 
>>>> developer
>>>>     Marcel Wiesweg it does not work yet:
>>>>     
>>>> http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/digikam-users/2011-August/013766.html
>>>> - The new XMP sidecar support is only half-implemented:
>>>>     
>>>> http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/digikam-users/2011-August/013996.html
>>>>     https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=220545
>>>> - On many (Debian Linux) platforms digiKam 2.0 does not even compile:
>>>>     https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=279581
>>>>
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness#Endianness_and_operating_systems_on_architectures 
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Thats all true, but the list of great features working is huge compared
>>> to this.
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Vlado
>>>>
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