I've been playing with Linux since 1995 and in the very beginning it was a pain in the ass for me and my friends to use it properly and productive. The missing drivers were the main problem. no matter if you were using an isdn card or a scanner, you coulnd't find, compile or write your own drivers. Hardware vendors did their best to keep it this way. There has been no support, no drivers or anything else for any system except windows. I do not want to discuss the reasons here, but as the headline states: exactly this is now the best part of Linux.

Timewarp. 2013. some examples:
I have a cheap Nikon Camera, plug it into my linux desktop and bing, am able to control it completely with my gphoto program, take photos, download them on the computer, compile timelaps films, etc.
Or my scanner, an Canon scansomething. plug and scan. The program "sane" just uses it as any other newer scanner.
My HP Laserjet: just plug it in, use a common pcl driver and CUPS, and print, even in duplex mode.
There are so many examples on how easy Linux is to be used nowadays. No driver CD's needed. Just simply use the tools.

Thew Hardware support is so extreme good because of the need to build common interfaces with little device specific code at the backend. You do not need to install a bloated 40 megabyte diver suite for your scanner, with unusable software , which will probably never be updated again or a 54 megabyte printer driver for just showing you the status of the toner cart...

I hear people talking about a problem in the linux desktop market, but in my view windows has the problem. Drivers refuse to work in newer win versions, older programs refuse to, also. The user interface has been made unusable, even worse is the most used program "word". O M G - completely totally unusable. terrifying

This whole situation, combined with easy to install and use distributions like Fuduntu blow away all doubts: Linux will dominate the whole pc market in a couple of years, not only the servers.


Have fun playing with fuduntu!

p.s. yes, apple os is indeed usable, stable, good looking and very good in hardware support (due to the lack of hardware :P ) but not affordable to everyone.
p.p.s and yes, playing really new games is only possible on windows .... YET... http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/ ... 04151.html

finally, to prove my claim some screenshots:
my desktop showing Xsane

and a scanned random pc of paper...


my camera as detected by gphoto (via console)

In der rpi gruppe auf google+ las ich von der möglichkeit eine kamera über das usb kabel auszulösen.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/117098976115661643090/posts/X8d3HNv1vAe
der autor installierte zusätzlich ein lcd display um die kamera komplett ohne monitor betrreiben zu können.

aber das wirklich interessante daran war für mich die existenz der software gphoto2,
welche als trigger eingesetzt wird. unterstützt werden 1500 digitalkameras, und obwohl meine nicht auf der liste der unterstützten steht, funktioniert sie trotzdem
\o/
mit ffmpeg werden die einzelbilder dann zu einem filmchen zusammengesetzt.
ich freu mich auf den sommer, wenn ich mit der 70€ digicam nikon coolpix ein timelaps video posten kann

geilomat!
webdoktor

Climm is the command line multi messenger.
available on http://www.climm.org
to get it run under the raspbian wheezy distro you need to compile a boatload of packets, as the distro doesnt deliver nearly no needed dependencies:

climm requieres gnutls and tcl (a compiled version, the raspbian tcl package seems to be borked)
gnutls needs to be an outdated version! (i tried 2 days with vers. 3.1.5... 2.8 is working ;) )
gnutls depends on gmp, libgcrypt and nettle
libgcrypt requires libgpg-error and so on,
a few other dependencies have been solved with sudo apt-get install blablabla....


and now:

Zum Geburtstag gabs einen winzig kleinen raspberry pi von HFCOMA.
wahnsinnig geil das kleine ding. und weil es so günstig und ausdrücklich zum hacken da ist, hat sich eine riesige hackergemeinde dran gemacht das beste aus dem minicomputer rauszuholen.

der neueste clou ist die portierung des betriebssystems plan9 auf den rpi. das werde ich mir unbedingt mal anschauen.



webdoktor

OK. now this cost me 6 h to figure out.
The story: my wifes computer is rather old and since half a year if woulndt play flash movies / plugins at all. I installed chrome to use html 5 to watch youtube, but some still didnt play, as "comercialized" clips still need the flash plugin.
ok now i really wanted to watch this years x partys live stream on http://scenesat.com/video (a c64 demo party) on her computer, but.... no flash no party...

So I set down and googled for this problem
System: Ubuntu
Browser: neither Firefox nor Chrome nor Chromium works
Flash installed: 11.2 (latest version)

I followed all the good tipps: delete double installed flash players, apt-get purge flashplugins, reinstall again and again..
nothing worked for me. even not downloading the flashplugin by hand and putting it in the correct folderworked.
Firefox just flickered, Chrome told me about

shockwave flash. konnte nicht gestartet werden

and chromium said "missing plugin"

but i was confused: i heard chrome brings its own plugin called "pepper" ... nope it wasn't used on my computer...
so i renamed the pepper plugin and put it in the plugin folder (as suggested in more than one forum), but: not working _at all_ BIG SHIT

Ive tried everything 10 times, till i found out whats going wrong:

REASON:

As well Pepper flash plugin as adobe flash plugin 11.2 use a CPU feature called SSE2
chrome noticed this and didnt install pepper.... UBUNTU F*ING DID NOT ... it installed libflashplugin.so version 11.2 on my Athlon 2200+
Bummer

6 goddamn hours trying and getting 'good tipps' on how to fix it in forums (ubuntu forums): "remove conflicting versions ,,, blablabla"
I'm both pissed and glad - pissed about ubuntu and adobe trying to auto install the 11.2 on an athlon and glad i figured it out on my own... on my search i've seen 100 of ppl with exact same problem, and noone helped them

FIX:

2 minute fix: download the (older) adobe flash player version 11.1 from the archived versions site from adobe.

when you found this page you already know how to install this by hand.
note: this only helps if you use a 32 bit athlon processor or your /cpu/proc doesn't tell about SSE2 feature


need sleep now :/

webdoctor