Re: OT: Why you should not use Windows : issue 1

I'm afraid I have little sympathy for admins who can't cope with a CLI.

One of the things MS have learned recently (4-5 years) is that a GUI-only solution is shit. They're pushing CLI hard, in the guise of powershell. There's plenty now which can only be done via powershell, with the GUI only offering cut-down options.

This means things can be scripted.

Reply to
Clive George
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Ignoring for the moment that you have misunderstood the scenario, you are also completely wrong about financial services not employing Linux geeks. They are full of Linux/Unix geeks. Windows is used for desktops and some applications, but the Enterprise infrastructure and all large apps run on Linux/Unix.

OSX is irrelevant since Apple exited the server space many years ago, although a significant percentage of geeks do choose to use Macbooks for their own portable computing requirements.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Nope (so you can take off that foil hat) ... because I'm not really interested in any of this stuff (I'm a 'hardware guy') I only glanced at the table shown in the link and misread the 'Name' to be the name of the companies and the 'Operating system' to be what they were running on their servers. It was a mistake, it was not done intentionally.

So, in this case you were right to be confused (even though I was still only making a joke).

However, unlike you I am more than willing to admit my mistakes (once I understood what that mistakes were).

On that then, you know you denied the existence of separate video cards on laptops and insisted I was wrong (to cite just one example)?

What do we say ... ? ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

Yup, perfectly classic response for a Linux geek (and why it continues to fail on the desktop where ordinary people might need help).

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

It is a pretty good answer to your question "How come?".

Remember one of my original comments in this subthread - that you accuse people of doing exactly what you're doing? You're doing it again. There's nothing new in what you wrote, I understand it quite well thank you.

I'll grant he's being a bit slack with wording here, but it's not hard to parse it into something more sane rather than going off on one. The implication is that if companies, especially financial ones (there's the link), aren't prepared to allow *nix, MS will have them over a barrel without them (MS) needing to go as far as you think they do.

A corporate desktop suffers the same things as a home user's computer. The same vulnerabilities apply.

You don't need to deliberately build obsolescence (what you say MS might be doing), it happens - people want new features, more security, more stability. The captive market merely ensures that when that obselescence happens, the money gets spent without having to consider the things you've brought up.

Though actually MS are doing what you deny they're doing - "better, faster, smaller, moire (sic) secure, more resilient" - Win7 is better, faster, more secure, more resilient than XP, don't know about Win10 yet but I've seen MS are actually making efforts in that regard, Server

2012R2 is better than Server 2008, etc.

I'm no MS fanboy (ask my colleagues...), but I have been impressed at some of the things they do, and they are improving.

Reply to
Clive George

En el artículo , The Natural Philosopher escribió:

It might get lost in all that empty space.

Reply to
Mike Tomlinson

Are you lazy or just stupid?

Google it

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

The only thing that ever impressed me was how they made such a lot of money out of such a piece of utter shit, and who they convinced so many people that it was actually jolly good.

I think Microsoft completed the disillusionment with consumer tech that started working for Clive Sinclair, when I finally realised that in marketing especially to buyers who are not too sure what they are buying, what counts is bullshit, and product quality is totally irrelevant.

I had a friend who wrote a simple piece of code, that requested and released kernel memory. IT would lock up any NT server. You know the good stuff that was all derived from VMS allegedly. IT continued to demonstrate buggy memory management for at least three releases. He told microsoft. They didn't fix it.It was the cause of thousands of server crashes for years when applications did what his program duplicated.

It frightens me how many critical applications in serious businesses run on Windows.

STUXnet....

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher
[12 lines snipped]

At one of my previous jobs, the Windows admins reported to me. I always found it mildly entertaining that whenever they were troubleshooting stuff, more often than not the first thing they did was to drop into a CLI.

Reply to
Huge

[96 lines snipped]

Every financial institution is rammed with *nix machines. Just not on the desktop.

[4 lines snipped]

Nope. Corporates don't allow their users admin access to their machines, anti-virus is up to date and the machines aren't allowed to talk directly to the Internet. At least in any corporate where they know what they're doing.

Reply to
Huge

I'm not wrong because I assumed that to be the case (all you say). I was joking remember (even if I miss read the table etc).

Yes, and I know that as well, especially so since Apple went Intel and said Geeks could then also run Windows natively. ;-)

I know many that have told me such and did so myself with my (3) Intel Minis.

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

And it appears that if you allow users to "Bring Their Own", generally they choose Macs.

Reply to
Huge

Being that Jaguar was once owned by Ford, you are right to leave that weasel word *sometimes* in place. ;-)

Ok, well I have one up on you in this case then as I found it relatively easy to install the printer on my Ubuntu 14.04.

I'll let you know later.

Ok. I did have a fairly modern printer running on my Dads old eMac (G4) if that counts?

So, cut the bs for a second please. Do you actually know that the scanner function (don't worry, I'm not interested in the Fax!) definitely isn't supported under Linux, even if I pay for some software?

If it isn't supported I won't bother trying to make it work.

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

And a few mainframes too in the older ones :-)

But the barrel is still there for corporate desktop.

Reply to
Clive George

found no mention of any ricoh scanner newer than 51 years old anywhere

formatting link

For some reason people who love reverse engineering Ethernet and video and wifi chipset drivers don't have much interest in scanners.

And Ricoh just doesn't care about anything cept windows, so there ya go.

WE had an all in one once in my company. It never worked reliably even ion windows, so we chucked it

Fax we used a fax modem on a server. a few people had scanners, and we had workgroup level printers

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

And that's the bottom line on all this isn't, the ability (interest?) to try to make sense of stuff *and* the (ideally not) 'going off on one'.

I thought we were all mates here (well, as much as any disparate group of nutters could be) and it's 'all done in the best possible taste'? ;-)

I don't 'hate Linux' in just the same way I don't 'Love' Windows, it's just atm, I can't get, or Linux won't do, many of the things I (personally) want to do.

This Ricoh printer is a classic example of the sort of failing I see over and over.

So, I'm *given* a fairly new printer by a mate (he got fed up with it not being online when he needed it so got something else). I therefore don't have much choice in the 'what' or it's compatibility with any OS. I knew it was Windows compatible because that was what my mate was using and I looked online and also saw drivers and utilities for OSX.

So, the first thing I did when I got it was reset it to factory defaults (then I have a known starting point) and found it on my Lan (from W10) with an ip scanner I could have checked the printer panel but it's upstairs and I'm not ).

I then used the Windows utility to upgrade the firmware (from W10 and using the ip address, over the LAN). Ricoh offered an OSX version that I didn't try. No Linux version that I could see so I have no idea how you could upgrade the firmware with Linux.

W10 couldn't find the printer on its own and didn't offer a specific driver when I gave it the ip address. However, it did offer a list of Ricoh drivers and possibly the one for that specific printer but I'd already downloaded the one for my printer for W10 32 bit from the Ricoh site and told W10 to use that. I then installed the scanner driver / until found the printer on it's own and I scanned over the LAN.

Then I rebooted into Ubuntu 14.04 and opened the printer app. I clicked Add and 'Network Printer' and it found the printer Automagically. It then didn't have the specific model so I chose the nearest match and a test print came out ok. I've yet to make sure it can use the duplexer but I have my fingers crossed.

I opened 'Simple Scan' but ignoring the fact that it seems to lock up, I'm not sure how I could tell it to use the Network Printer-scanner, (or any specific scanner) even if I wanted it to?

Is there a more capable scanner package that I could try do you know please (anyone)?

As it happens, it doesn't really matter if it isn't supported but would be a(nother) deal breaker if I actually wanted to make Linux my daily desktop?

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

Shame. ;-(

I wonder if my printer is sold under any other badges (quite common in the bigger printer world) and if there is a scanner driver for that (I'm not asking for an answer to that, just thinking out loud).

Ok. The mate that gave me this one bought it because it was the same as the one he got in his office as it was so good and reliable (for both network printing and scanning).

I'm not really bothered about the Fax but it is still nice to know I have the feature if ever needed. Plus (as mentioned elsewhere) I also have PamFax (an online Fax prog and something to do with Skype) and that works well from PC or phone.

I'm hoping to replace my little mono - duplex HP that I bought second hand a few years ago but now seems to be slowly dying. I also have a Cannon colour laser (also on the network) but isn't doesn't do auto-duplex and that is handy for printing manuals and saving paper in general.

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

I think you're assuming a bit too much friendliness. Usenet is the home of some pretty deep spats. OS advocacy has always been a good source of that.

Reply to
Clive George

"Microsoft has vast resources, literally billions of dollars in cash, or liquid assets reserves. Microsoft is an incredibly successful empire built on the premise of market dominance with low-quality goods."

-- Former White House adviser Richard A. Clarke --

Reply to
Martin Barclay

;-(

Oh indeed, and none moreso (from my experience so far) than in the Linux n/gs.

Yes, you are right, it definitely seems to bring the whole 'tribal / gang' mentality out in some.

And whilst I'm sure there must (will) be some fanatics in the Windows n/gs (I say that because I've never had need to use them myself, not needing help nor being a Windows advocate etc), in most cases I believe most Windows users (especially the non-technical ones), really CGAF about the 'OS' on their computers, wanting it to be as transparent > invisible as possible.

It's only once you get to those solutions that are considered as 'alternatives' (to Windows), like OSX and Linux, do you generally se this defensive attitude rearing it's ugly head.

But then I guess some of that is to be expected ... just like any minority they must get fed up being (as they see it as 'picked on') when they could probably avoid most of it by addressing the genuine issues people raise (or at least accepting them honestly) and then trying to find a solution, or at least a 'work-round'.

To be fair I'm nearly as happy with an honest 'it doesn't work on ' as at least I then know it's just not me or some faulty hardware. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Reply to
T i m

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