What is your operating system of choice?

Page 9 of 10 [ 156 posts ] Go to page Previous 1 ... 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Next

Previous topic | Next topic

one1ai
Deinonychus

Joined: 3 Mar 2005
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 340
Location: / home / Earth / Sweden /

04 Nov 2009, 9:58 am

Aseld wrote:

twoshots wrote:

I currently use Vista, but my heart will forever be in DOS, the only operating system that can really be called beautiful.

Sacrilege!

My operating system of choice is gNewSense, for ethical as well as technical reasons.

At least we are 2.

gNewSense is based on Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 . It doesn't have firefox because firefox recommends non-free software add-ons, so they forked it and made "icecat", which is based on the latest versions of firefox, so we get everything firefox already has without the recommendations for non-libre software.

I dual boot it with Ubuntu 8.04, which I use only to play 3D games, because gNewSense rejects non-free 3D drivers for my graphics card because my 3D card manufacturer doesn't want to support free libre and open source software(floss). Guess I have to get one from a company that supports floss.

Scientifically linux is a kernel, and popularly referred to as an Operating System. This is not wrong. This is reality.

_________________
Bitcoin is not complex. If you understand Public-key cryptography, Digital Signatures and Proof of Work algorithms like HashCash(SHA-2/SHA-256) as a concept it will not be too hard to comprehend it.

RaceDrv709
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 1 Nov 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,078
Location: San Antonio, Texas

04 Nov 2009, 12:11 pm

On my desktop and laptop, I have Windows 7 Ultimate and Ubuntu Karmic. I also revived my mom's old laptop with Ubuntu Karmic and will put it on ebay after I replace the battery and hard drive.

_________________
Music is my gateway to freedom. My instrument of choice is the trumpet.

Orwell
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 8 Aug 2007
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,518
Location: Room 101

04 Nov 2009, 2:13 pm

one1ai wrote:

Aseld wrote:

twoshots wrote:

I currently use Vista, but my heart will forever be in DOS, the only operating system that can really be called beautiful.

Sacrilege!

My operating system of choice is gNewSense, for ethical as well as technical reasons.

I'll never understand gNewSense. You're taking a proper subset of Ubuntu's functionality with a lagging release, rather than just installing Ubuntu and avoiding whatever proprietary stuff you don't want. You could quite easily run Debian with a kernel-libre and only activate the Main repository (leaving contib and nonfree commented out) to have a completely free system that covers much more functionality than gNewSense ever will.

_________________
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Audiophile
Deinonychus

Joined: 31 Oct 2009
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 342
Location: Northern Illinois

04 Nov 2009, 4:56 pm

Mac OS X Tiger, none of the preferences are hidden under "advanced" tabs and it's not quite that bloated as Leopard is. I do like Vista because it's design isn't the normal office blaness that previous Micrsoft's OS's were.

but if I had a choice that would give me full compatibility with today, it would hands down be OS 9, you dump apps to a ram disk and almost never need to use your hard drive.

I've only upgraded OS's because everyone around me has done so and I need to stay in the game with formats as well as speed.

_________________
If you eat two skittles at once, do you taste a double rainbow?

Fuzzy
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,223
Location: Alberta Canada

05 Nov 2009, 1:59 am

Ubuntu 10.04, but only for the next 6 months. Then my favourite will be 10.10.. and so on.

_________________
davidred wrote...
I installed Ubuntu once and it completely destroyed my paying relationship with Microsoft.

one1ai
Deinonychus

Joined: 3 Mar 2005
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 340
Location: / home / Earth / Sweden /

05 Nov 2009, 11:21 am

Orwell wrote:

New versions of gNewSense will be based on Debian. gNewSense is one of a few fully free distributions whose goal is to have and recommend only free libre software.

Fuzzy
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,223
Location: Alberta Canada

05 Nov 2009, 3:22 pm

one1ai wrote:

Orwell wrote:

New versions of gNewSense will be based on Debian. gNewSense is one of a few fully free distributions whose goal is to have and recommend only free libre software.

Yeah, I dont understand how that is any better than the strict rules of Debian.

_________________
davidred wrote...
I installed Ubuntu once and it completely destroyed my paying relationship with Microsoft.

one1ai
Deinonychus

Joined: 3 Mar 2005
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 340
Location: / home / Earth / Sweden /

06 Nov 2009, 10:48 am

Fuzzy: Depends on what your personal idea of "better" is, for this case.

Fuzzy
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,223
Location: Alberta Canada

06 Nov 2009, 11:54 am

one1ai wrote:

Fuzzy: Depends on what your personal idea of "better" is, for this case.

Maybe my question begged this vague sort of answer.

I'll try a little better.

What does gnewsense offer over Debian?

_________________
davidred wrote...
I installed Ubuntu once and it completely destroyed my paying relationship with Microsoft.

Orwell
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 8 Aug 2007
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,518
Location: Room 101

07 Nov 2009, 2:31 am

Fuzzy wrote:

one1ai wrote:

Fuzzy: Depends on what your personal idea of "better" is, for this case.

Maybe my question begged this vague sort of answer.

I'll try a little better.

What does gnewsense offer over Debian?

It's Stallman-approved.

From what I can tell, the FSF (ie Stallman) objection to Debian is that it is possible and relatively easy to add repositories containing non-free software. This stuff is community-maintained (not an official part of Debian) but given that all of Debian is community-maintained, the contrib and non-free repos are at least semi-official, and there are a lot of other third-party repos out there offering proprietary stuff. (Of course, since gNewSense uses APT, it would be quite simple to add, for example, Opera's .deb repo and install proprietary software)

GNewSense, as far as I've been able to determine, adds nothing over Ubuntu or Debian in the sense of new features or improved functionality. All it does is restrict user options to only an extremely strict free software definition. All well and good if you're a free-software fanatic, don't mind your software lagging a bit behind current development, and don't need any of the functionality that gNewSense removes, but for most people it's just not practical. I know that for myself, gNewSense is impossible- my wireless card absolutely requires a proprietary driver as an open-source one does not yet exist.

_________________
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

one1ai
Deinonychus

Joined: 3 Mar 2005
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 340
Location: / home / Earth / Sweden /

08 Nov 2009, 3:52 am

Orwell wrote:

All well and good if you're a free-software fanatic

That attitude doesn't help in any conversation. Being a free-software activist means you'll have to make sacrifices. I guess you've made sacrifices. If you are happy with the sacrifices you've made you can stop making more.

[quote=none]I'll never understand gNewSense. gNewSense is a proper subset of Ubuntu 8.04 functionality on x86 architectures and Debian Lenny functionality on the mipsel architectures, rather than just installing Ubuntu/Debian and avoiding whatever proprietary stuff I don't want.[/quote]
I installed gNewSense partly also because using Ubuntu made me use Ubuntu forums where lots of non-free stuff are mentioned all the time. I switched to change community. I don't mind if they talk less, but I want to find people that care about software to be free/libre. Even free culture. I don't like elitist talk, like "we can do this" "we can do that".

Fuzzy
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,223
Location: Alberta Canada

08 Nov 2009, 5:35 am

one1ai wrote:

I installed gNewSense partly also because using Ubuntu made me use Ubuntu forums where lots of non-free stuff are mentioned all the time. I switched to change community. I don't mind if they talk less, but I want to find people that care about software to be free/libre. Even free culture. I don't like elitist talk, like "we can do this" "we can do that".

Thanks. That is the sort of details I was looking for. I can see how that is different from Debian.

_________________
davidred wrote...
I installed Ubuntu once and it completely destroyed my paying relationship with Microsoft.

Orwell
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 8 Aug 2007
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,518
Location: Room 101

08 Nov 2009, 11:45 am

one1ai wrote:

Orwell wrote:

All well and good if you're a free-software fanatic

I try to use free software as much as I can, but with the hardware that I currently have, my computer simply will not run without some proprietary stuff. I'm not in a position to go and replace my perfectly functional computer, but I know what to look for next time I'm in the market for a new laptop. I guess that's what annoys me about a lot of the gNewSense crowd: they don't accept that some people do need support for some proprietary things (the only proprietary software in Debian by default is some firmware to make it possible to install on computers that need that software). I've been told that I just need to get a laptop that doesn't require proprietary drivers (like I have the money) or that I should have checked before I bought my current laptop (I wasn't into Linux at the time). It's not a realistic stance.

_________________
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

one1ai
Deinonychus

Joined: 3 Mar 2005
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Posts: 340
Location: / home / Earth / Sweden /

09 Nov 2009, 2:39 am

Orwell wrote:

but with the hardware that I currently have, my computer simply will not run without some proprietary stuff.

Will not run at all, or will not run the way you are used for it to run?

Orwell wrote:

they don't accept that some people do need support for some proprietary things

That's an overgeneralisation. It's all about making more sacrifices than you currently are making. If you don't want to make more, be happy with the sacrifices you've made.

Fuzzy
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Age: 52
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,223
Location: Alberta Canada

09 Nov 2009, 8:43 am

one1ai wrote:

Orwell wrote:

but with the hardware that I currently have, my computer simply will not run without some proprietary stuff.

Will not run at all, or will not run the way you are used for it to run?

The laptop of a student(orwell in this case), without internet, isnt of a lot of practical use.

Orwell wrote:

they don't accept that some people do need support for some proprietary things

Quote:

That's an overgeneralisation. It's all about making more sacrifices than you currently are making. If you don't want to make more, be happy with the sacrifices you've made.

No, it the literal truth: No proprietary software allowed in gnewsense. You cannot generalise around that. It is either true, or it isnt. Which is it?

_________________
davidred wrote...
I installed Ubuntu once and it completely destroyed my paying relationship with Microsoft.

Orwell
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 8 Aug 2007
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,518
Location: Room 101

10 Nov 2009, 3:23 am

one1ai wrote:

Orwell wrote:

but with the hardware that I currently have, my computer simply will not run without some proprietary stuff.

Will not run at all, or will not run the way you are used for it to run?

I can't get Internet access without a proprietary wifi driver. Given that a number of my classes distribute homework assignments via the Internet, I'd be more or less screwed if I was unable to connect to the Internet. Sorry, but passing my courses is more important than avoiding a proprietary device driver.

And even if I didn't need the internet for schoolwork, Linux (and computers in general) are pretty crippled without internet access. How am I going to install updates or useful programs?

Quote:

Orwell wrote:

they don't accept that some people do need support for some proprietary things

That's an overgeneralisation. It's all about making more sacrifices than you currently are making. If you don't want to make more, be happy with the sacrifices you've made.

gNewSense is a distro for hardliners. I mean, the borderline commies at Debian went so far as to reject Firefox as not free enough, and they're still not extreme enough for some people? I can understand wanting a distro with a stricter free-software stance than Ubuntu has- it almost encourages its users to unable nonfree repositories. But there are plenty of distros like Debian and Fedora that maintain strict policies on software freedom while a) making it possible for the user to make their own choices on their own computer and b) actually innovating and providing something new and better to their users. I don't see gNewSense doing that.

_________________
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Page 9 of 10 [ 156 posts ] Go to page Previous 1 ... 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Next

Jump to:

What is your operating system of choice? Post Reply New Topic

What is your operating system of choice?