Linux People Should Say, ‘You’re Welcome, Windows Users’

[DB]

No, I didn't.  I followed the provided link, and found:

"Supports FLAC, mp3, m4a (Apple Lossless, AAC for iTunes & iPod), Windows Media Audio (wma), Wave and AIFF."  No mention of .ogg.

Then I looked at the next link you provided, and saw that it requires windows, which makes it pretty much useless.

Not useless. Just useless to you apparently.

BTW, I won't make the same mistake twice. Have a nice day.

[Blizzardnh]

You didn't look very hard:
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central-ogg-vorbis.htm

I reward people who produce tools that make my life easier and do what I want to do. That's how you get people to make those tools. It isn't expensive and saves a lot of my time and my time has value.

Top 5 Linux DVD RIP Software.  https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-dvd-ripper-software.html

[ShadowAce]

Dual booting has been around since at least the early 90's, FWIW.

It's "bleeding edge", only patched for about 13-18 months, and really doesn't play well with being upgraded (or it didn't used to, I got sick of running an OS where you were expected to reinstall around once a year and went to a RHEL based distro).  Not entirely like, or unlike, the relationship between Ubuntu and Debian.

@InHeavenThereIsNoBeer

You are correct--It used to require a full reinstall for a stable upgrade.  However, that is no longer the case.  I run several Fedora Boxes--laptop, desktop in a dual-boot configuration, and a VM on a Windows host at work.

Upgrading is now a matter of running two dnf commands.  One to download the packages, and the second to reboot and perform the upgrade.  Very smooth, and very easy.

BTW--I have installed and run every single Fedora version with the exception of 13.  I got lazy around that time and just decided to skip it.  Then the updates stopped, so I went ahead and upgraded from 12 to 14. 

[geronl]

I don't think I've ever bought software for any of my laptops in over a decade. I'm an intermediate-level user, but still, I can't say I've ever found myself lacking something I needed.

When my HDD died in 2010 or 2011 (I hardly remember Vista...) I asked the Geek Squad (we were owed a free service) to install a clean HDD (they thought I was nuts apparently). I installed Linux Ubuntu and have been using it ever since. I'll have to upgrade soon though, will probably stick to Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Audacity, Firefox  and GIMP and LibreOffice do as well as what I would need from the MS products.

The only thing really lacking is all the great games. Not that my old machine would play them anyway.

[Doug Loss]

When my HDD died in 2010 or 2011 (I hardly remember Vista...) I asked the Geek Squad (we were owed a free service) to install a clean HDD (they thought I was nuts apparently). I installed Linux Ubuntu and have been using it ever since. I'll have to upgrade soon though, will probably stick to Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Audacity, Firefox  and GIMP and LibreOffice do as well as what I would need from the MS products.

The only thing really lacking is all the great games. Not that my old machine would play them anyway.

If you're looking for games on Linux, look at Steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/linux

[geronl]

If you're looking for games on Linux, look at Steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/linux

It's like a repository, still too few of them really. Besides, I have too little RAM on this particular machine to play them. I did note a long time ago that Second Life is on Linux for the weirdo's and furries that seem to dominate that "game"....

[Doug Loss]

It's like a repository, still too few of them really. Besides, I have too little RAM on this particular machine to play them. I did note a long time ago that Second Life is on Linux for the weirdo's and furries that seem to dominate that "game"....

Well, I'm not a gamer, but from what I've been told Steam is where it's at for Linux games.  But pretty much any games these days will have minimum system requirements, and if your system doesn't meet them you're just out of luck.

[Taxcontrol]

Just remember that at one time Windows was SO BAD, that IBM's OS/2 was a serious contender.

[geronl]

Well, I'm not a gamer, but from what I've been told Steam is where it's at for Linux games.  But pretty much any games these days will have minimum system requirements, and if your system doesn't meet them you're just out of luck.

Very many games, even on Steam, do not have Linux versions

[ShadowAce]

Very many games, even on Steam, do not have Linux versions

True, but Steam does have at least 2000 Linux games.  That's more than enough.

[geronl]

Just remember that at one time Windows was SO BAD, that IBM's OS/2 was a serious contender.

lol. It tried. I think some hobbyists have kept it "alive". It is fascinating to read about some of these hobby OS's

[geronl]

True, but Steam does have at least 2000 Linux games.  That's more than enough.

for a summer.

(just kidding)

[JustPassinThru]

Just remember that at one time Windows was SO BAD, that IBM's OS/2 was a serious contender.

Yup.

The WHOLE REASON Linux became a widespread, if cultish, community was, frankly, Windows wasn't doin' it.

MacOS was proprietary and reflected the eccentricities of its leaders; and later the lack of direction of the people who led the palace coup.  The iMac with OS8 was hardly Internet friendly.

The free market intervened.  Frankly, in the early days, when Netscape and other tech wannabees bribed the Clintonistas to bringing antitrust suits against Microsquish...I'm surprised they didn't get an injunction shutting down all the Linux distro sites.  Free is a competitor like no other.

[ShadowAce]

I'm surprised they didn't get an injunction shutting down all the Linux distro sites.  Free is a competitor like no other.

That would've been impossible.  Not only from a technical point of view, but also from a legal one.  Linux originated in Finland.  It wasn't until after he graduated from school did Linus move to California.

[JustPassinThru]

That would've been impossible.  Not only from a technical point of view, but also from a legal one.  Linux originated in Finland.  It wasn't until after he graduated from school did Linus move to California.

You could explain that to the Napster people, to the Limewire people, to the Craigslist people - as all of them were shut down or restricted in what they could offer in the Untied Skates of Amerika.

It wouldn't have been possible to stop a Finnish site from hosting a free OS distro; but it would have been easy to get a court order to force American ISPs to block access to it.

[Doug Loss]

You could explain that to the Napster people, to the Limewire people, to the Craigslist people - as all of them were shut down or restricted in what they could offer in the Untied Skates of Amerika.

It wouldn't have been possible to stop a Finnish site from hosting a free OS distro; but it would have been easy to get a court order to force American ISPs to block access to it.

You mean to try to block access to it.  They wouldn't have succeeded, trust me on that.

[JustPassinThru]

You mean to try to block access to it.  They wouldn't have succeeded, trust me on that.

Yes, there will, would have been, work-arounds.

TOR didn't exist back then.  There were UseNet sites listing opaque proxy URLs, sure...but the salient point I was making was, they didn't even try.  Didn't even lay the PR foundation; by getting the nooze mediuh to interview all the poor put-upon people so hurt and ruined by the Free OS Forces of Darkness.

Nope, it slipped right under their radar...which I guess shouldn't surprise me; they're as dense as they're unsubtle.  But it does, anyway.

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

@InHeavenThereIsNoBeer

You are correct--It used to require a full reinstall for a stable upgrade.  However, that is no longer the case.  I run several Fedora Boxes--laptop, desktop in a dual-boot configuration, and a VM on a Windows host at work.

Upgrading is now a matter of running two dnf commands.  One to download the packages, and the second to reboot and perform the upgrade.  Very smooth, and very easy.

BTW--I have installed and run every single Fedora version with the exception of 13.  I got lazy around that time and just decided to skip it.  Then the updates stopped, so I went ahead and upgraded from 12 to 14.

Thank you.  Seems I was spreading some outdated information.

I think I quit around F12.  Besides the backup server, I only have one system at home with disks in it, and mythtv is not backward compatible, so when I have to upgrade, I have to do a bunch in one shot and it pretty much all needs to go right the first time (though these days I use a second logical volume for / so I can boot into either the new or "safe" /).  I got tired of being forced to upgrade roughly yearly just to get basic patches, and doing so using an iffy process.

[roamer_1]

I don't think I've ever bought software for any of my laptops in over a decade. I'm an intermediate-level user, but still, I can't say I've ever found myself lacking something I needed.

TRUE. I think the only retail software I continue to purchase is Paragon, Acronis, and Kaspersky. Everything else is OSS.

[roamer_1]

That would've been impossible.  Not only from a technical point of view, but also from a legal one.  Linux originated in Finland.  It wasn't until after he graduated from school did Linus move to California.

Oh, but they tried... Remember SCO and Groklaw?

[ShadowAce]

Oh, but they tried... Remember SCO and Groklaw?

I remember quite well.  I also remember the results 

It wouldn't have been possible to stop a Finnish site from hosting a free OS distro; but it would have been easy to get a court order to force American ISPs to block access to it.

One site may be blocked, but thousands of others would have arisen in response.  It would be technically impossible to block Linux without shutting down the entire Internet--not to mention that the Internet itself runs on Linux.

[Doug Loss]

One site may be blocked, but thousands of others would have arisen in response.  It would be technically impossible to block Linux without shutting down the entire Internet--not to mention that the Internet itself runs on Linux.

Exactly.  And even if they did, many of us have friends outside the US who would be happy to provide us with DVD-ROM copies.

[JustPassinThru]

Exactly.  And even if they did, many of us have friends outside the US who would be happy to provide us with DVD-ROM copies.

Yet they've done just that with Napster and LimeWire...and Pirate Bay, even operating behind TOR, got taken down and a number of persons with contraband, arrested.

It's really not a point worth fighting over - I was just expressing amazement.  Netscape would spend the money to buy the political leaders to use government to dismember Microsoft - but around the corner, someone else is writing a whole OS, just as good, sometimes better, and giving it away.

Funny how things work out.

[Doug Loss]

Yet they've done just that with Napster and LimeWire...and Pirate Bay, even operating behind TOR, got taken down and a number of persons with contraband, arrested.

It's really not a point worth fighting over - I was just expressing amazement.  Netscape would spend the money to buy the political leaders to use government to dismember Microsoft - but around the corner, someone else is writing a whole OS, just as good, sometimes better, and giving it away.

Funny how things work out.

Yes, but those were applications that required network connections to work, where Linux is an OS that did not.  Oh, and Linux isn't the only free OS out there.  NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, ReactOS, Haiku, Syllable, FreeDOS, probably more.

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

Yes, but those were applications that required network connections to work, where Linux is an OS that did not.  Oh, and Linux isn't the only free OS out there.  NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, ReactOS, Haiku, Syllable, FreeDOS, probably more.

emacs