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For those on the list using or contemplating Linux, this was interesting.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/alternative-is-the-question-linux-is-the-answer/
No one really addressed software only written for Windows - e.g.
Dragon Naturally Speaking.
There doesn't seem to be a good open source or Linux-based voice
recognition software.
That can be a deal breaker.
But, for those of us not interested in grappling with W10, it's a conundrum.
Charles.
There's some pretty decent Linux voice recognition software out there, and lots of articles talking about the various options.
Frankly though, I'm confused as to why more software vendors don't compile to libwine and get software that runs on both (and Macs). They could also switch their database options to Sqlite or MariaDB and reduce their costs while getting a more reliable product.
It seems some people are just into bondage. 
Thank you for sharing that, Charles (I'm the author). Glad to know it resonated.
Jack
Thank YOU, Mr. Wallen, for your article.
Although I know, this does not belong here, just a word.
I have been trying (STRUGGLING) to move away from MS and get friendly with Linux for 7-8 years now!
So far with little success. Yet, I still keep trying.
To quote from your article:
"Each of these distributions ... are ideal for users seeking an alternative to Windows. ... They are user-friendly and will get the job done."
That is definitely NOT my experience.
Maybe the statement (and Linux) is meant for computer specialists. I am not one of those.
Whenever I ask my (what must sound to the computer experts) stupid questions, I get in every of the many friendly communities the advice:
"If you don't know s**t about computers, you should not dare go near the damn thing (=Linux)."
My experience is, that Linux is making the transition VERY difficult for non-experts, ordinary mortal men, that "just"
want to work with the computer - without knowing about computer science, software design, programming techniques etc.
But I am probably boring you.
Sorry for that.
Thomas
yes it can be. As someone dependent on NaturallySpeaking, I can tell you that most of the native limits speech recognition solutions do not measure up and would probably take a multimillion dollar effort to make a functional equivalent.
Then there is the issue of supporting it, fixing bugs, adding features, working with the community current open-source funding techniques just don't measure up to the financial needs of critical projects like this would be.
So how is it, I am using NaturallySpeaking to dictate on the next? Well the wine solution is pretty fragile and doesn't work with the latest NaturallySpeaking. It still has problems with using community supported extensions such as natlink and vocola.
Instead, I'm using a different solution which is running NaturallySpeaking in a Windows virtual machine and using a tool I developed called speech bridge (See github) to link speech recognition functionality in Windows to whatever the hell Linux is doing.
It's moving slow, I am changing things as I need them. I'm getting to the point where I could use some assistance but I'm going to hold off asking until I have a good specification/Definition.
--- eric
Thank you for sharing that, Charles (I'm the author). Glad to know it
resonated.Jack
Thank YOU, Mr. Wallen, for your article.
Although I know, this does not belong here, just a word.
I have been trying (STRUGGLING) to move away from MS and get friendly
with Linux for 7-8 years now!
So far with little success. Yet, I still keep trying.
many thanks jack,
I'm not an expert, I start to use linux, basically opensuse, in 2000, and I agree with thomas, my son, my sister, my nephews uses linux, but, if I didn't install it and configure it and solved the problems that rised up and sometimes continues to pop up, they never started to use linux. too complicate...
There are only two or three Win-only software I need to use, that I have not found an easy to use alternative for a .deb based Linux OS. Also, I have not found any way to use my external USB-based wifi antenna, for "better/faster" useful access 10 floors below my router's antennas. IF so, then Linux would be use for that work "environment",
Also, for the "speech issue", I have never been able to got that to work properly for Ubuntu and Linux Mint, as least text to speech. I have not worked with speech to text or speech "system control" before, so I have not really looked into that, much.
hi. personal experience. I started using linux about 12 years ago installation and configuration are just a bit longer than in windows systems (but you can find a lot of documentation). Linux systems are, by the way, more transparent (if you want to know what happens behind the interface), customizable and versatile than windows systems. You can run linux on micro computers (e.g. raspberry), very old computers (I have ubuntu on a notebook with 256 mb ram); you can use a wider set of data formats (texts, images...) and so on. then it depends on your needs: if you have particular softwares or hardwares that require windows... However, open source software (LibreOffice, Gimp, Blender...) has made impressive progresses in the last years, so that just a small number of users can note the difference (provided they don't just trust the name or think that higher costs mean higher quality).
Paolo Debortoli
The same issue afflicts Windows. It's just that Windows usually comes pre-installed. Having performed a lot of installs of both types, I've found the Linux installs to be simpler and a lot faster. Windows may get to the login screen a bit faster but then you've got interminable updates to install with reboots needed between most of them.
As for needing assistance, I find a lot more problems cropping up with Windows than with Linux. And yes, most end-users aren't equipped to deal with them but that isn't dependent on the operating system. However fixing Windows problems is more difficult and sometimes even fruitless (e.g. Windows Updates that mysteriously fail).
I've used Linux pretty much exclusively (except for an income tax program that I haven't got to work in wine) for 18 years. I find Windows to be awkward and limiting. And after looking at Windows 8, it seems to be getting worse, not better.
For those on the list using or contemplating Linux, this was interesting.
....
Frankly though, I'm confused as to why more software vendors don't
compile to libwine .....
libwine is about 'bondage'......
Not really. Wine has a free license (LGPL). While the individual programs you run on Wine may have other licenses, you aren't obligated to use programs whose license doesn't meet your expectations.
What Wine and Libwine do is allow developers to develop and test cross-platform programs on a Linux platform. I have a program that I developed exactly that way. While I could compile a Linux-specific version, I find it easier to just market the single version since it runs on Linux and Windows.
The point is that there is no extra work to develop and sell a Linux version of your software if you use the right products. And you not only get a larger target market but also give your customers greater flexibility.
For example, I support a small office that uses a Windows-only program. The developers not only don't make a Linux version but they double-down on bondage by only using Windows databases (Access or SQLServer for an extra charge). Had they supported MySQL/MariaDB, I could have at least moved the database to a separate server without worrying about extra licensing, etc..
Windows is like a pyramid scheme that way. They sucker developers into using only their products so that users have no choice but to buy licenses to run their products properly.
And that is exactly why you should not _DEVELOP_ using libwine
(using it, because there's not yeat a good alternative, is a complete different story
Hi
+1
But Wine is about bondage in the sense that it keeps you using stuff that
is made for Windows.
Making stuff that needs Wine in order to work kinda keeps you locked-in to
the Windows world.
By contrast we see many native Gnu&Linux programs are then ported over to
Mac and Windows apparently without a huge amount of effort. Firefox and
LibreOffice/OpenOffice are great examples of that as they have then become
serious competitors to alternatives that were only written for Windows and
then have been unable to be ported to anything else.
If programs plan to become cross-platform then initially writing for Linux
seems to be the optimum route. Writing for Mac seems to be the next best
option.
Starting with Windows means programs or almost anything else faces a
nightmare up-hill struggle. Even Microsoft themselves take an extra whole
year to port their office suite to Mac and even then it's a stripped-down
version.
Writing for Wine is a neat trick that i have not heard of before. It
sounds like it neatly avoids any need for porting at all. Wine runs on Mac
too so that is all 3 major platform covered in one hit. It feels like
there must be an inherent flaw aside from the ethical issue of not quite
breaking free of the Windows world. If not why on earth wouldn't everyone
be doing this? 
Regards from
Tom
this makes me wonder what the top two or three things are that people find hard in adopting Linux.
I don't want to count the yrs I've used Linux. I was never a full-time user of Windows, I used OS/2 before Linux and Desqview on some version of DOS before that.
for the most part I'm barely aware of the operating system: launch a program and work or play is my mode. never gave up command-line habits either, the pictures confuse me like holding a conversation via charades.
f.
Hi
I'm sure people on this mailing list might be happy to help with 1 or 2
questions about how to do a certain thing or 2 in linux. Such questions
often turn out to be quite popular threads even though they are a little
"off-topic".
I think a lot of people take a similar route to me. Even now i still use
Windows occasionally (admittedly usually only because i'm forced to or
because someone doesn't know how to use it and/or has broken it).
I suspect that most linux users have a dual-boot somewhere with an option
to boot into Windows. I think it's something that almost everyone does
somewhere near the start of their journey into linux land. I guess what
i'm saying is that i suspect that linux usage is always growing so fast
that most linux users are fairly new - that certainly seemed true in the
Vista era and maybe early in Win8's era too.
Err wrt "In most instances, all an argument proves is that two people are
present." i don't think that is true at all. I have often seen people
disagreeing with a position they were recently adamant about. For example
my boss orders me to do something. I do it. Then he tells me off for
doing it and claims he'd never had said that. I've also found myself
arguing with myself too. I'm not sure if an argument is possible even if
no-one is present but it wouldn't surprise me.
Regards from
Tom
I couldn't find a good OCR solution for linux either. Project for
someone?
Cheers
Harvey
The rather dishonest propaganda of proprietary software tends to be: "if
you don't pay for a product, then you *are* the product". What they fail
to say is that if you do pay for a product, you are also the product and
pay considerably to remain the product as well.
Cheers
Harvey
That's not really a good argument. Software freedom is about choice. A lot of people don't have the option to quit Windows right away (if ever) so I give them the option of running software that runs on multiple platforms - the same as Mozilla, The Document Foundation, GIMP and a lot of others do.
Being Open Source and under a Free License, I can't keep anyone else from recompiling my software to run on Windows, so why shouldn't I do it myself?
Not at all. Wine gives people the opportunity to leave Windows while still running the same software. So long as that software is under a Free license, what makes it any different from stuff that runs on JVM (for example)?
I don't need to port my programs when I use Wine/Libwine. They run perfectly on both platforms, And I don't need to have anything to do with Windows whereas if I "port" my programs, I need a Windows platform to test them on.
I feel like I'm perfectly free from the Windows world except that I need a VM to run an income tax program and to run Windows versions of browsers (did you know that the Windows version of Firefox doesn't always render pages the same as the Linux version?).
There is actually a fair amount of software developed to Windows APIs. Samba and Mono (and programs that use Mono) are two that come to mind immediately. Some people oppose this (especially when the Windows APIs aren't public) but others accept it as a small price to pay to spread Free Software.
The top reason people find hard is almost certainly that you have to install it. Windows comes pre-installed and there are always those nice people in the <big box store service desk> who will reformat your drive and reinstall Windows for only a small charge once it gets messed up.
The other two reasons are:
- package <whatever> that I depend on only runs on Windows, and
- game <whatever> only runs on Windows.
All three problems are going away slowly but not without M$ fighting back.