Did you nuke your HDD with DBAN? If there was physical damage to the drive, this won't help. But if the damage was just to the data, it will and you should be able to install any OS you want.Originally Posted by Curlydave
Just Give Me the Beans!
Did you nuke your HDD with DBAN? If there was physical damage to the drive, this won't help. But if the damage was just to the data, it will and you should be able to install any OS you want.
Just Give Me the Beans!
I personally like the Songbird music player- which you can get for Windows or Ubuntu. I've used it in both, though I've been using Ubuntu exclusively since Windows kicked the bucket on me. I don't really play games, so I see no reason I should ever use Windows again.
It's not like I paid for Windows anyway (um...by that I mean I got it for my birthday...cough- hey look over there!) but I'd much rather use an OS that is developed by the user community and given away for free than proprietary software made by people who are only interested in world domination.
Also, anyone else think the "Windows 7 was my idea" campaign is astoundingly hilarious?
Iced Almond Soy Ubuntu, No Foam
Actually, the Linux core components are, for the most part, developed by companies and employed developers. The contributions from programmers who truly do unpaid work in their spare time is small. This is also why Linux doesn't have many of the desktop issues when used in a server environment: the server market is what these companies are chiefly interested in. In a way, it could possibly be said that Linux on the desktop is a by-product.
In the end, it's still about money, though. Unless you live at home or ride the welfare system, food, rent, electricity, etc aren't free. I don't work for free, so I don't expect others to work for free either.
Just Give Me the Beans!
I know that pro developers do most of the actual development for Ubuntu, and that they're a for-profit business trying to make money.Actually, the Linux core components are, for the most part, developed by companies and employed developers. The contributions from programmers who truly do unpaid work in their spare time is small. This is also why Linux doesn't have many of the desktop issues when used in a server environment: the server market is what these companies are chiefly interested in. In a way, it could possibly be said that Linux on the desktop is a by-product.
In the end, it's still about money, though. Unless you live at home or ride the welfare system, food, rent, electricity, etc aren't free. I don't work for free, so I don't expect others to work for free either.
The difference is that Linux-based systems are totally open to the user, so those with knowhow can modify their OS however they want (I'm not one of those people- but thanks to this forum I can rely on help from those who do know what they're doing).
And while Ubuntu is out to make money, they're doing it in such a way that their users recieve maximum benefit- in that they don't have to pay for the product. How freakin' cool is that?
I mean, in my mind that's a huge evolutionary leap foreword in the evolution of capitalism. A company that offers a product for free and only charges for customer support for those who want or need it.
And its encouraging that producers of digital media- namely a very small handful of musicians and film makers- are taking an open-source approach to their distribution.
Proponents of the old paradigm of trading data for money are resistant to change- but all digital data is de facto free whether it's copyrighted or not. Companies like Canonical and Google, and artists like Trent Reznor or filmmaker Hanna Sköld are realizing that you can make money while offering something freely to the world; without owning what you produce in a traditional sense. It's freakin' beautiful.
Ubuntu Green Coffee Beans
As an active everyday protest for Nihilism.
Iced Almond Soy Ubuntu, No Foam
Linux has a desktop market share of around 1%, and it has been that way for the past two years (no one has exact figures, though), so this system doesn't work all that successfully as long as Linux on the desktop is in the current state. Ubuntu is one Linux distro among many, and while it lowered the entry level (in terms of required knowledge), Canonical/Ubuntu do not give back much code or developer time to the whole Linux community. RedHat, Novel, Sun, the Debian project, even Google - those are the real contributors that enable a user-friendl-y/ier distro like Ubuntu.
The concept of providing a product for free and charging for service isn't really new, though. It only seems to work to a certain degree because at some point the number of "leechers" will too greatly outnumber the number of "contributors" (paying customers). "More users" does also mean "more paying users", but it seems that costs skyrocket unproportionally faster. You'll notice that Canonical removed offers like free CDs (shipit) for everyone who asks, we'll have a commercial software store in one of the 2010 Ubuntu releases, Ubuntu One is also a commercial service (beyond the very basic offer), etc. Money always has to come from somewhere.
I'm not criticising this, though. As I said, I don't work for free, so I can't expect others to. (This isn't entirely true, since throughout my professional life so far I have always volunteered time and experience in one form or another, but this was only possibly because of paying jobs that took care of my bills.)
Just Give Me the Beans!
I don't see what Ubuntu has to do with Nihilism. But the open-source model is an anarchistic one- in that it lacks the typical hierarchical relationship between producer and consumer that puts the rights of the seller above the buyer by allowing the seller to completely dictate the terms of the purchase agreement, a relationship that developed with the advent of fixed prices replacing haggling.
Quad Shot of Ubuntu
I gather then that some of you have such a limited understanding of Open Sourcing that you deem it a possible or likely failure? I'm not so certain of that. Consider it a swap meet where the use of money is banned. Why would you do that? You ask. Because money is not the best determinant of need, ability, or willingness. Put the matter on a totally different footing, and you will find some rather interesting results.
The Unix community is a closed community, and inhibitive to many who would want to do more. Linux has largely replaced it, not just because it is free, but because it is wide open to innovation and shared efforts.
You can try out different things, make your own determinations of what works best, submit your own bug reports, get the existing source code for yourself if that interested, and almost everything you do is somehow associated with an open community free to advise, suggest, and test your findings.
Not even pausing with the Unix community (which, after all, can do much the same thing by participating with Linux as well), but going right for either Windows or the Mac OS, you show me another environment where so much can be achieved simply on a volunteer basis.
You think every company and paid programmer that does anything with Linux expects to profit directly against the Linux community at some point? It is more likely that they see that they can drastically cut their overhead when competing against their competition that may be going for a Windows-based or Mac-based solution. Development costs are likely lower, less concern about patent infringment, able to reuse existing code if found, lots of willing Alpha and Beta testers out there, and all they have to concent to is letting a portion of their code go into the Open Source movement.
Their potential market can also benefit, since costs associated with adding networking, PCs, an operating system per PC, and such means less drain on them if focused around Linux, since there are way fewer costs involved. Also fewer dictates from the hardware and software providers, since there is no lock down on the equipment of software to be used. That all adds up.
Red Hat took it two steps further. It became responsible for its version of Linux, freeing the customer of another concern, and it really profits through its service agreements that it makes with those customers. That hits two other areas that Windows was exploiting in its claims of the time.
What else does Linux do? It allows many individuals to go as far into this area as they want, without forcing them to look for specific school programs, or even to lay out major sums for classes, books, instructors, even eventual certification. All they really need is a working PC and access to the internet. They may not know what they are looking for at the start, but the information is all over once they decide what to search for. Those that hope to reach a point where they can profit from what they learn have got a problem to deal with. Up to this point I was equating the whole matter to a cashless swap meet. But now this intent means shifting over to a cash-based premise, putting the matter outside the Open Source area. They can still come back, of course, but we all know that trying to make money at this game is difficult, and the question may be more of what are you then prepared to move on to.
Instead of making money from it directly, it might be more a matter of deciding what you can use it all for. Maybe it will serve as sort of a mental tool for other purposes. I really learned the process of logical thinking through my computer studies, and I have applied this many times over in my life, even to the decision of whether to extend my Navy enlistment for additional technical schooling or not (I did).
Look, you read what I write, I read what you write. Are either of us getting paid for this? I think not. It's rather our way of participating. Others who can or have done more might participate at a higher level, just because they can. You might see where you feel that you could make extra money if you could do as much, but how you see their efforts is not the way they necessarily see them. After all, if you ever benefitted from what others did, you might want to make some payback in kind if you are able to do so.
Iced Almond Soy Ubuntu, No Foam
If I read and wrote here for 12 hours a day, and didn't get paid for it, I couldn't do it. Likewise, if I worked only 2-3 hours at my job per day, I could not get the work done and they needed to employ at least four other people who also worked 2-3 hours a day. They all would have to have a paying job (a different one) in order to be able to buy food, pay rent and bills, etc.
So, the money has to come from somewhere. Sure, you can create something entirely based on volunteer work. Having run various volunteer programs over the past two decades, though, I have learned one thing: volunteers are not guaranteed to be reliable and you cannot expect X hours of work, X lines of code, etc from them.
Just Give Me the Beans!
OK, thankyouI was responding to a market share comment.
I agree, most likely this concept will continue to accelerate especially in corporate environments where custom applications are needed and basing those on open source is an excellent option. Most of the charting, patient tracking, data processing, medication dosing at my workplace is based on OpenSuse or Ubuntu but running through VMWare on old XP desktops. Several are Microsoft as well but all co-exist on XP desktops running from Linux servers. One does not need to abandon their Windows or OSX to gain productivity with Linux.
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