LOL...
I was reading it and the further I got into it, I was like... "where do I start to respond..." :D
Daz3d dominates the 3D art and CGI animation space now in sheer numbers - and even for pretty advanced tasks. They own Hexagon, Carerra, Bryce and a few other older packages too - and I own all of those as well. But really, there is very little reason to leave DAZ in most cases, and those are becoming fewer and fewer as more features or plug-ins become available.
And... I guess I was talking "FOSS" more than Linux but using the terms interchangeably. The issues are really more inherent in FOSS sourced software than Linux itself. When you move FOSS software to Windows/Mac - the "Linux" issues tend to come with it, anyhow. Often - it is *better* to run a FOSS app on a *nix - I'm not sure why. Gimp is cross platform now, too, right? Most of the biggest apps are.
The Open Office/Libre Office things never work *quite* right as far as cross compatibility with Microsoft Office suite - which is still dominant - but not so much as it was. That is another area where Google and other online suites are providing "good enough" for most SMBs - and overall less expensive in the long run.
Sun May 16 2021 09:35:12 EDT from Nurb432Blender was/IS cross platform :) I'm purely speaking of the OSS component here, didnt mean it to be a linux/windows/whatever thing in this case.
And i agree it was complex, but so was any other 3D tool of that caliber. And they all had their own quirks for an interface. Its not like a text editor or spreadsheet something that was pretty 'standardized'. In the old days it was better documented. Over time features have become more important than documentation. I do agree that is a shame, as unless you *really* know it, you are missing out on features. It was also REALLY resource friendly back then. Tiny, ran on older hardware, but took advantage of better hardware if you had it.
Truespace was another that was not so 'intuitive' either, but once you got use to it, things were fine. For a real bizarre one Amapi3D. Once you get proficient in one, moving around is tough.
I was a huge fan of TS until Microsoft bought it and killed it. I still am not sure why they did it. Used to compete in the annual contests.. One of our interns at Ford, got him involved 3D using TS, he ended up getting hired as a logo designer and moved to corporate. He was a natural, just never knew until i showed him a few things. In no time he was showing ME stuff.
Much like Poser, Bryce was pretty easy, even for the beginner. Used to use it for landscapes to import into other things all the time. There is a 'poser like' OSS 3rd party app now that supports Blender. ( and OpenSim ). That is a fork however, as the original guy just one day vanished and pulled all his code from everywhere.
Staroffice was another 'success story' of sorts. Commercial package ( i had bought it too, i always did pay for what i used on a regular basis ) then at some point sun micro systems bought it and opened the code ( as much as they could, the DB module was proprietary, for example ). Ended up becoming LibreOffice eventually, after forking 'OpenOffice' which was the re-branded starOffice code, in the beginning.. Tho i still liked the old SO way of doing things as a 'single package'. Email/files/browsing/office/communications all in one consistent place. A lot like Ashton Tate's "framework" a decade earlier, which im sure you can guess i was a fan of. Same idea, everything under one roof and everything 'worked the same'.
And im rambling about times gone by, simpler times.. Ill stop now.
If you use the proper formats, these days i have found its no worse than different versions of office trying to read its own formats. Ms Access, agreed there is zero compatibility other than being able to access the data. No forms/etc. But in the past RTF, and today ODF, etc seem to do just fine for other items, when i need it. Long ago I stopped trying to to 'export to xyz native 3rd party app format' and just stick with the open formats.
Even DIA does an ok job of exporting to visio these days. ( done that a few times, office is too cheap to get me a copy so i do it in DIA, send it to the boss and let him clean up the import. )
But to be honest, i dont care about interoperability for the most part, i use it standalone, and dont share documents. Im more worried about functionality, does it do what i need? And normally the answer is yes. Especially these days. ( like back when i used smartsuite in the mid 90s.. it was MY stuff on MY machine. didnt care about other people )
Sun May 16 2021 10:14:50 AM EDT from ParanoidDelusions
The Open Office/Libre Office things never work *quite* right as far as cross compatibility with Microsoft Office suite - which is still dominant - but not so much as it was. That is another area where Google and other online suites are providing "good enough" for most SMBs - and overall less expensive in the long run.
There's no need to argue in favor of Linux. Linux has already won. It is the fabric of standard computing. Every area of computing except for the legacy desktop is absolutely dominated by Linux. And we no longer care. It works great, and someone else's failure to install it does not diminish its utility to the rest of us.
Windows is slowly turning into Linux anyway. As time goes on it will matter even less.
Even now, you are logged in to a VM that runs on a host that is also my Linux desktop. Try that with Windoze 10.
vBox?
And what about that vm stuff they have built in now? I forget what its called as my brain is fried today. Never messed with it but guy at work does for testing apps.
Sun May 16 2021 02:29:37 PM EDT from IGnatius T FoobarEven now, you are logged in to a VM that runs on a host that is also my Linux desktop. Try that with Windoze 10.
I suspect the people logged in to the VMs wouldn't enjoy all of the desktop reboots.
And what you're thinking of is WSL (Windows Services for Linux). It is basically Microsoft's attempt to keep web developers from buying Macs or running Linux natively. And for that it is actually pretty decent. I use it for development of tools we'll run in production on Linux, mainly automation tools. And I use it to make my daily driver look and feel like a Linux machine. It's no substitute for the real thing though.
it was HyperV i was thinking about. I had to go look it up. Its what the windows dev guys use on their desktops. VBox was just another option i could think of in that you *could* run vms on windows desktops. Does vmware workstation still exist? I know their other server product that ran on desktops is long gone. I forget the name there too, but ran it when i was on the vmware team.
But i do agree about the forced reboots all the time.
These are the people it works for - and there are enough of you to make it a viable alternative.
Long ago it failed with people who had these issues, badly enough that it became a non-starter and they're unlikely to ever look at it again.
I couldn't write for Tech Republic using any of the Linux office suites. Long documents bog down, Object Linking and Embedding was unreliable, and would cause formatting issues - and worst of all, it wouldn't translate into Office right - which is what CBS used, like most major publishers - at the time. I honestly doubt that has changed. I tried, a couple of times - and it caused issues with getting things to publication on time. You just don't get too many chances when there are real deadlines and it affects bottom lines if those deadlines get missed because something gets mangled in the hand off because you were using something other than the industry standard.
MSOffice on OS X was fine. MSOffice on Windows was fine - but when you're writing for publication and you need a chain of reliable interoperability from start to finish that doesn't mangle something - FOSS Office suites were *not* reliable. I'm pretty secure that is still pretty much how it is today. The FOSS Office suites are good enough if you don't care about interoperability and do not share documents. Exactly.
I mean - I honestly had better luck with writing articles on Google Docs for publication than any of the free Office suites (this is between around 2010 and 2015). But, I generally wrote the basic document in Google Office, and did any final edits and saved in .docx format before sending it up to my editor.
Sun May 16 2021 10:29:45 EDT from Nurb432If you use the proper formats, these days i have found its no worse than different versions of office trying to read its own formats. Ms Access, agreed there is zero compatibility other than being able to access the data. No forms/etc. But in the past RTF, and today ODF, etc seem to do just fine for other items, when i need it. Long ago I stopped trying to to 'export to xyz native 3rd party app format' and just stick with the open formats.
Even DIA does an ok job of exporting to visio these days. ( done that a few times, office is too cheap to get me a copy so i do it in DIA, send it to the boss and let him clean up the import. )
But to be honest, i dont care about interoperability for the most part, i use it standalone, and dont share documents. Im more worried about functionality, does it do what i need? And normally the answer is yes. Especially these days. ( like back when i used smartsuite in the mid 90s.. it was MY stuff on MY machine. didnt care about other people )
I could do that in 2009 on VMWare or Citrix.
This image was easy to cut and paste inline into this post without any extra configuration - because I did it on a mature, stable GUI based OS... not a Linux windows manager. ;)
Sun May 16 2021 14:29:37 EDT from IGnatius T FoobarThere's no need to argue in favor of Linux. Linux has already won. It is the fabric of standard computing. Every area of computing except for the legacy desktop is absolutely dominated by Linux. And we no longer care. It works great, and someone else's failure to install it does not diminish its utility to the rest of us.
Windows is slowly turning into Linux anyway. As time goes on it will matter even less.
Even now, you are logged in to a VM that runs on a host that is also my Linux desktop. Try that with Windoze 10.
I can clip/copy/paste in one step too. What most people do. its that i want to often resize that gives me the extra step.
( or if i screw my paste buffer up :) )
Debian has tried to approach that problem with the non-free repos -
but they should be enabled by default. Instead of "Most Hostile"
toward closed source, Linux should have "Most Permissive" toward
closed source as the default, and let the purists opt OUT of non-free
distro repos.
The idealism of the Linux community kind of bugs me.
It is obvious you hate the platform, so I am pretty sure you are not the target audience. Therefore, not exactly somebody who is going to convince a distribution to switch policies.
If you want non-free packages then either enable the repositories or pick another operating system you don't love to hate.
I am far from a Linux advocate nowadays, but a big selling point from common distributions is you can expect a certain type of licensing from the software included in them. A big bunch of its user base is using Linux specifically for this reason. What you ask when you ask for a distribution to switch repository or licensing policies is for them to piss on their current, standing user base so they can pander to a different userbase (and fail at that).
Just not gonna happen.
I couldn't write for Tech Republic using any of the Linux office
suites. Long documents bog down, Object Linking and Embedding was
unreliable, and would cause formatting issues - and worst of all, it
wouldn't translate into Office right - which is what CBS used, like
most major publishers - at the time. I honestly doubt that has
changed. I tried, a couple of times - and it caused issues with
getting things to publication on time. You just don't get too many
chances when there are real deadlines and it affects bottom lines if
those deadlines get missed because something gets mangled in the hand
off because you were using something other than the industry
standard.
Most publishers don't want anything but RTF nowadays. Some will accept text files with markup. If you send a *.doc(s?) most of them will shove it up your ass nowadays.
Linux has not failed on the desktop. Some people have failed at the Linux desktop. The rest of us are doing fine.
heh
Mon May 17 2021 10:19:34 AM EDT from IGnatius T Foobar
Linux has not failed on the desktop. Some people have failed at the Linux desktop. The rest of us are doing fine.
I do fine with the Linux desktop.
The kind of attitude I am seeing here from people who worship at the temple of the Penguin *is* part and parcel of why Linux has not, and will never succeed in a broad consumer sense - unless you cover it with so many layers of abstraction that the end user NEVER has to see the Linux of it.
And that is the ironic thing. FOSS advocates are the most likely to talk about how sloppy and inefficient Windows code is - how it uses brute power to force its way through sloppy code when Linux can do it much more efficiently.
But to get "Linux" accessible by mass market end users - hell, even most IT shops - you've got to bury the Linux so far away from the user that they have no IDEA what the base system is. Linux becomes the worst offender at everything it claims to oppose once you make it competitive.
Darknetuser is so off base with his response about my opinions of Debian that I doubt he has it right about what "modern publishers" expect, either.
But it is OK. I know this kind of defensiveness to honest, true criticisms comes from basic insecurity. Linux guys *know* I am right - and that is why they get so pissy when I call them out on it.
Being a cheerleader for something that could use improvements isn't *advocating* for it. It is actually the exact reverse.
I worked in an IT shop that was a piece of shit when I arrived there. I quickly started gutting the parts of it that were the worst. At one point, the COO who had built the company with her buddy out of a server running in a living room (who had no business doing anything other than SQL DBA roles...) told me, "This is how we've always done it, and it is working fine!"
No. The way you've always done it is a piece of shit, and it wasn't working fine. You're just so married to what you've done you can't see a better way.
So it goes with Linux devotees.
Mon May 17 2021 10:19:34 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar
Linux has not failed on the desktop. Some people have failed at the Linux desktop. The rest of us are doing fine.
And with softies too :)
/me ducks
Kidding aside, oftentimes "better" is relative, and even if you are on top of the stack, there is still room for improvement. I doubt any fanboy feels that things *cant* be improved, just that it may not be worth the effort for such a small change.
And of course since i'm really in the Daemon camp by nature, i'm not "rooting" for penguin, even tho i think its a better choice for most people than what Microsoft offers. ( and has been for a long time ) Us *BSD people do accept our system's limitations, and work to overcome them.
Mon May 17 2021 11:12:19 AM EDT from ParanoidDelusions
So it goes with Linux devotees.
The one thing that apple did early on that i did like, was they did not use shared libraries for apps. They were encapsulated into the folder.
I'm of course not in that world any more but i am pretty sure that changed, but at least at one point it worked that way. Sure it wasted space, but it was far safer, and made moving apps around a lot easier.
And while i hate to give MS any credit, they at least thought about centralized management earlier, where apple did not and didnt have the 'enterprise mentality' for a long time ( do they really have it now? ). Unix, you could do it due to the nature of things, but it was not by design. ( all are much better now of course ). I honestly cant remember about OS/2 as when i was working with it, we didnt do any real management of the devices and treated them all as standalone.
Of course those are my opinions, nothing based in hard facts or reality.
Mon May 17 2021 03:54:53 PM EDT from IGnatius T FoobarWindows also failed on the desktop because it's harder to configure than a Mac.
Feh.