[Digikam-users] Generic Linux question

[Martin (KDE)]

Am Dienstag, 30. August 2011 schrieb sleepless:
> 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, 

Every now and then to me is about 8 - 10 hours a day. I have to use it 
for may daily work. And trust me, I am not a office only user.

> 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.

I know that. My telephone is ringing as well from several windows 
user. It is ringing from linux/unix users too.

> 
> >   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?

Oh sorry, I thought I was clear in this. I use Linux because Linux is 
heading to the right target, but it is not there. I use it beyond many 
other do. I have set up a shared file base via NFS. This sounds easy 
in the first hand, but have you ever tried nfs based home folders with 
a laptop loosing the wireless connection every now and then? This will 
crash your desktop. You have to go a different way (I use rsync via 
ssh to sync the users home folder at login and logout).

I use single-sign-on (kerberos) for all computers in my network (linux 
only) wherever it is possible. Again, what will your notebook do if 
you are out of range of your network? Login is no longer possible 
(This is solved by the sssd though). I have a groupware server running 
(which support kerberos only partially), a proxy server (kerberized), 
mailserver (kerberized as well) a central user management but it was a 
bunch of work to get all things running (and guess what - I learned a 
lot doing this and don't regret it).

If you buy a Windows small business server and five client licenses 
for a couple of euros all this is included. And you can handle it with 
a few mouse clicks. You can even use the command line if you want. It 
is possible to query data from within the active directory server in 
the command line to a detail no linux shell is able to. If you ever 
tried the MS-powershell you will see what integration really is (or 
may be).

I use Linux because my freedom is worth it. But this does not include 
blindness of what others are able to do. Desktop wise Linux is already 
on par with windows (imho). Feature wise it may be better but 
configuration wise it is not. But it is getting better every day and 
it is nice to see how things evolve.

Windows is not better than Linux it is different. But it is not worse 
either. The main point for me is: It is not free.

Coming back to digikam: To me it is THE tool for managing photos. That 
is the reason I use it since a 0.x version. Many friends of mine are 
surprised how fast I can filter for some persons or locations. I don't 
know any other software that can do this (kudos to Gilles, Marcel and 
all the others working on it).

Regards

Martin