Linux alternative

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

yes, but as I say, you are quite expert, my sister had a pc with windows, and to allow her to use linux the only way is to install linux by me :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

You're kidding right? Check out https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OCR for a quick overview of the current state of affairs.

If programs plan to become cross-platform then initially writing for Linux seems to be the optimum route.

If a programming team delivers a usable Linux product in one year, then
for a second platform, it will take the same team six months to deliver it.

If a programming team delivers a usable Windows product in one year,
then it will take a second team that is twice the size of the first
team, two years, to deliver the program on a different platform.

FWIW, writing to WINE/LibWINE is equivalent to writing a program for
Windows, in terms of overall productivity, and cross-platform support.

Furthermore, with WINE/LibWINE, your program won't have the same look
and feel as other software on the same platform.

jonathon

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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.

It also means that bug fixing is an order of magnitude more
difficult,because bug isolation requires looking at:
* your source code;
* The WINE/LibWIN library;
* The OS that the bug was reported on;

No, I'm not really kidding. Command line programs are only the start of the journey.
It is quite a bit more to have something that is well integrated with
the corresponding display and text tools.

I couldn't find a good OCR solution for linux either. Project for
someone?

Cheers
Harvey

I also battled to find a good OCR program for a couple of years on my Linux System (PClinuxOS)!!

Then about two years or eighteen months back I came across the combination of YAGF with Tesseract.
This combination works fantastically with basically just "clean-up" to do on almost any scanned document.

I can recommend this to anyone who needs, or uses, OCR as a regular job, (as I do).

IanW
Pretoria RSA.

I have to use 8.1 on my work computer and have 10 in a virtual machine.
While 10 is an improvement on 8.1, it's still nowhere near what W7 was.

I've found a number of people simply expect _any_ computer to look, act,
and feel like Windows. I installed LibreOffice on the computer of a
client of mine because MS Office Starter Edition kept acting funny when
he would try to open MS Office documents attached to email messages.
One day, we were talking about his using Excel vs Calc to update a
spreadsheet. He insisted he couldn't use Calc because it didn't do what
Excel did. I asked him to show me the things he could do in Excel but
couldn't do in Calc and we both discovered he actually _could_ do all of
the things he needed to do in Calc but the way he needed to do those
things were a little different. In another case, I showed an IT guy I
used to work with an Ubuntu system. He wanted to run an application and
went straight to the lower left corner of the screen, looking for the
"Start" menu.

The more people learn Windows, especially as their first computing
interface, the more they tend to think "all" computers behave that way.
Of course, this isn't an absolute statement. :slight_smile:

Something else I've found is non-Linux users tend to expect a higher
standard of performance from Linux for it to even be considered a
"viable option". For example, if Linux can't support {fill in the
blank} perfectly, "Linux isn't ready for prime time". Let's forget the
fact that Windows might have issues supporting {fill in the blank} as
well. lol

This thread could not have come at a better time since I recently read
the TechRepublic article and another article about Linux being an
alternative to Windows. In the other article, I was floored by various
comments made by others who had read that article. Comments about how
Linux is good for "basic" things and not good for "productivity". So,
if you want to just read email and surf mainstream websites, Linux is
great. If you want to do "real" work, you need Windows for that. I
had to laugh since I find myself doing "real" and "productive" work on
Linux on a daily basis, and without using the command line unless I want
to use ImageMagick to process some images in batch.

I've switched my mom to Linux and while she's not doing anything
sophisticated, I've noticed her computer question volume has decreased
significantly. Her computer usage hasn't changed much from when she
used Windows XP except I think she's actually listening to more music on
her computer now, while reading email and surfing the web.

Sorry for being so long winded. :slight_smile:

Peace...

"The other" Tom

Tell that to all the scientists who use supercomputers. The vast
majority of them, including my cousin, run Linux. Also, a while ago,
all the computers on the International Space Station were switched from
Windows to Linux.

http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/open-source-insider/2013/05/international-space-station-adopts-debian-linux-drop-windows-red-hat-into-airlock.html

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/155392-international-space-station-switches-from-windows-to-linux-for-improved-reliability

Apparently viruses can even survive in space!

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/12/international-space-station-virus-epidemics-malware

That's not entirely accurate. There are a few (not many) companies that specialize in selling Linux-preinstalled machines. The two that immediately come to mind are System76.com and ThinkPenguin.com .

-malgosia

True but largely irrelevant. You can't go to the local Best Buy or Staples and pick up one.

Heh heh. But then the _real_ top reason would be that you can't acquire a Linux machine in a hurry. True enough.

No, the real reason is that people don't have the option in front of them to even realize that it is possible.

If you want state of the art software, that costs a fortune, you run *Nix.

If you want almost state of the art, that costs a small fortune, it is
as likely to run on Mac OS X, as on Windows.

If you want software that is almost state of the art, but is
"affordable", you run Windows.

If you want software that is "good enough for most purposes", you run Linux.

Joe Sixpack wants something slightly better than "good enough for most
purposes", but doesn't want the cash outlay that state of the art
requires. Thus far, Windows has been that "happy medium".

jonathon

On Sat, 18 Jul 2015 18:10:21 -0400
Malgosia Askanas <maskanas@pair.com> dijo:

The top reason people find hard is almost certainly that you have to
install it.

That's not entirely accurate. There are a few (not many) companies
that specialize in selling Linux-preinstalled machines. The two that
immediately come to mind are System76.com and ThinkPenguin.com .

My System76 Bonobo Extreme boots Xubuntu from cold to ready to go to
work in nine seconds. LO Writer launches instantly, less than one
second. It was designed for gaming, but I use it mostly for writing
academic papers.

I disagree with most of this, but the "good enough for most purposes"
part really bothers me. :slight_smile: "Joe Sixpack" is most familiar with Windows
and will stick with it. Familiarity is definitely worth its weight in
gold. :slight_smile:

Peace...

"The other" Tom

Agreed. There may be some niche software that runs on Windows or Macs that beats the Linux alternatives but for general purposes, I find Linux to be far better. I hate working on Windows or Macs compared to Linux. There are just too many things that Windows and Macs don't do that are easy on Linux.