TLUG Mailing List

On Sun, Jun 28, 2015 at 9:48 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@example.com> wrote:

On the whole, are you satisfied with LibreOffice and the other Linux
software you have used? Do you have specific requirements other than
those listed so far you need to have satisfied?

I suppose, as I know to usually use clear language, that "Linux" was "Gnu/Linux" ?

> As long as the tool(s) = computer can give me that, I am not much
> interested in the inner workings of the machine and I am not really
> warming up to the idea of learning a whole new language
> ("computer") just in order to use that tool.

Linux for the personal computer does not offer "zero-configuration"
installation, and probably never will.

Well, I will disagree: An old guy here wanted to switch from Windows, and came to my home for me to install the system.

He wanted for some reasons the "Mint" distrib. My job was to boot on CD, and enter his name and my wifi password.

I was a little afraid of his printer, as he did not have it. Later he told me that he just plugged it, and it worked (scanner included).

Today, many distributions are really "zero-configuration". My Ubuntu is (except when I upgrade, coz' my own changes), that Mint was too.

I don't see anything "stupid" about that! At present Linux doesn't
need protection against the kinds of viruses that turn thousands of
Windows machines into 'bots every day, but that's more a matter that
the user types, the "biodiversity" inherent in open source, and the
number of hosts available make it a less attractive target than it is
of the OS itself. But you don't need root to send spam from a Linux
system, and if you have login access to a user account on a host, it's
much easier to get root if you need it to set up a "black" server or
something. The risks are present even if they haven't manifested
themselves broadly on personal workstations yet. Ask anybody who runs
a mailing list or a bugtracker or a wiki about defending against spam!

I am not sure to understand you, as you mix the receiver and the sender.

Having a wiki spammed depends only on the wiki software, which is not related to the OS. That one will not help to stop spam.

I'm sorry, but since you have yet to succeed in configuring a Linux
machine that does enough of what you need it to do, anything based on
Linux that you try to use for work *must* be considered "experimental"
at this point, or you're risking a real disaster that costs you
clients. You are going to need to maintain a separate production
machine that "just works" for the time being, and from what you say
your Optiplex/XP's days are numbered.

All you've told us so far is how Linux has failed to work for you, but
that you want to get away from Microsoft systems (and your kids have
apparently succeeded in that). You really need to tell us more about
your motivation for persisting in using Linux. Otherwise, we're going
to have to tell you what *we* would do in your place, and that's a
mistake because we all (or almost all) use Linux because we want to.

I cannot agree more (GNU/Linux missing apart). Your discussion on Android is not "GNU/Linux", you may be more clear on that: a kernel is a kernel, no more, no less. Android is surely not Gnu/Linux.

br.

2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2.

Re: [tlug] Self-introduction