[Discuss] Last Night's VLUG Meeting

Thu Apr 10 21:56:40 PDT 2008

Yes, Joan, I think Alan has a strong philosophical argument for becoming 
expert in one particular environment rather than "a jack of all trades 
but master of none". Not wanting to put words in Alan's mouth but I 
don't think he was referring to the differences between Linux 
distributions but rather between say major OS's e.g. Linux, Max, Windows 
etc.  I like to think of the differences between the "major" Linux 
distros is more akin to, once having chosen to embark on an Open Source 
journey deciding which make of car you will use to get there.  Please, 
don't take this analogy any further i.e. to buses, bikes and donkeys!

I must say that running multiple OS's is particular tiresome for me at 
the moment.  Having passed onto my wife my Linux /XP dual boot and 
buying a new Linux / Vista dual boot, I found my Legacy Windows software 
won't work on Vista.  Also, before "discovering VM" I had installed 
QuickTax, first on the XP and then on Vista using up my two "allowed 
computers licences", so I can't install QuickTax on my Win2000 VM.  This 
situation has me flipping back and forth between XP, Vista, Win2000 and 
Linux simply to get the damn taxes done. I know I could get another 
QuickTax License but this requires me to fax a pleading form to Intuit 
and wait three days.

The future looks brighter however, once I have all my Legacy data on the 
Win2000 VM, I can forget about Vista and XP except when my wife needs 
help with her photo printing.  Incidentally, my wife currently uses HP 
photo software (free with the Printer) for managing the printing on her 
HP Photosmart 8450 printer, which allows full control over, number of 
photos per page, layout etc plus photo album, viewing and editing 
features.  I personally am not much interested in photography so have 
been unable to come up with a compatible Linux alternative - can anyone 
recommend some suitable Linux programs to do this sort of thing?  How 
about the hplip driver?

John

Joan McIlmoyl Cleghorn wrote:
> You've raised an excellent point Alan. It is one of the most difficult
> challenges in first moving to Linux - trying to choose a specific
> distro.....<g>
>
> As a Windoze user who is trying to migrate to Linux, I'm in the situation of
> having a couple of programs that simply aren't replicated in Linux (and are
> my primary programs) so I will find it necessary to use some vm-type
> program. However, this doesn't concern me overly as my beginning in owning a
> pc and using Windoze immediately morphed into becoming an OS/2 lover. Of
> course, this allowed me to access Win 3.11 & DOS 6.2 in the same way.....no
> need to reboot in order to access whatever program I needed in Win or DOS
> and easy switching back & forth between GUI & command line. Sound
> familiar?<g>
>
> Your point in not switching between multiple distros is exactly why I'm
> taking so long to decide on my preference<g>....I will have quite enough
> challenge in keeping up with whichever distro I do choose as well as Win
> whatever....... I have to say though that having access to vm-type programs
> is what is going to allow me to become a primary Linux user and, will also
> encourage others from the Win world.
>
> 8-)
> Joan
>
>
>
>   
>> Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:25:38 -0700 (PDT)
>> From: "Alan W. Irwin" <irwin at beluga.phys.uvic.ca>
>> Subject: Re: [Discuss] Last Night's VLUG Meeting
>> To: discuss at vlug.org
>> Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.60.0804100754440.3309 at ybpnyubfg.ybpnyqbznva>
>> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>>
>> This whole thread has been most interesting from the POV of the best way
>> to
>> run multiple OS's if you _absolutely must_.
>>
>> However, I want to sound a note of caution; you potentially lose a lot if
>> you spread your attention over multiple OS's rather than concentrating on
>> one.  Computers are not toasters; each OS keeps adding lots of useful
>> features (and some which are not useful of course for any particular
>> individual, but those and the useful features all take time to evaluate).
>> So
>> getting absolutely the most out of a single OS is essentially impossible;
>> nobody could keep up. For example, I keep learning new things about Linux
>> all the time which I have previously missed, and I know I keep falling
>> further and further behind.  The serious computer user ends up doing as
>> much
>> self-education about their OS that is possible, but it is never enough.
>>  If
>> you spread that effort over two or more OS's your efficiency on all OS's
>> suffers.  That doesn't mean you are prohibited from changing OS's, but
>> when
>> you do so, you should try to leave that old OS behind as quickly as
>> possible.
>>
>> So if, for example, you have mostly converted to Linux but there are one
>> or
>> two windows apps which you feel you must absolutely run, I would advise
>> you
>> think carefully about the above point about spreading your OS attentions
>> too
>> thin.  Also you should look closely at the costs of that residual windows
>> habit, e.g., the initial time/effort required to figure out the best way
>> to
>> run multiple OS's (as in this thread), the on-going time/effort required
>> to
>> keep the windows OS secure and up to date, etc.  Of course, the costs are
>> not all on one side.  There is an initial cost to changing from commercial
>> to open-source alternative applications, and there may be some on-going
>> costs as well (such as the open-source alternative may not be quite as
>> convenient to run). OTOH, if you give an alternative an honest try, you
>> may
>> find your concept of what is convenient was simply dominated by old habits
>> rather than real convenience, and you are likely to find some features in
>> the open-source alternative that you really like.
>>
>> Sites to help you find good alternatives to windows apps are
>> http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html and
>> http://www.osalt.com/.  The first is simply an extensive table of
>> alternatives with no annotation.  The latter annotates both the commercial
>> applications and their open-source alternatives.  The annotation
>> emphasizes
>> the positive aspects of all commericial and open-source applications
>> rather
>> than being negative about any.  That is fundamentally sound
>> salesmanship/advocacy which I really like.
>>
>> Alan
>>
>>     
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