Why is a Linux based eePC pricer than XP one at PC World?
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From: Ian Rawlings on 27 Nov 2008 04:44 On 2008-11-26, Nix <nix-razor-pit(a)esperi.org.uk> wrote: > I just wrote my own build system (nearly packaged now, but it's hard to > figure out how to preserve user changes across reinstalls when the user > can customize virtually every aspect of its behaviour). I never bothered with packages until Gentoo came along as it offered a neat halfway-house between my desire to compile packages for the system in which they were to run and the ease of use of a packaging system. It's not as easy as something like ubuntu, but I can decide whether to include a GUI for example or support for various other features and so prevent large influxes of useless libraries. And best of all, the hard work is done by other people ;-) -- Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire! http://youtube.com/user/tarcus69 http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarcus/sets/
From: Daniel James on 27 Nov 2008 08:42 In article news:<pan.2008.11.26.12.51.44.504104(a)mc2-brunel.deb>, William Poaster wrote: > One of the *main* reasons why computers with M$ windows installed are > cheaper than Linux ones, is because they have "demo" versions of > applications (like M$ Office) installed & the vendors *pay* to have > them put on the system. Very likely ... but I don't think the EEE PC has much, if any, of that. Just XP and (a fully licenced copy of) Works, I think. > I assume the bigger disk is to accommodate these demos, & the M$ > bloatware. No, you misunderstand. The Windows version has a SMALLER disk -- if you buy the linux version you get extra disk space instead of a Windows licence but the price is the same. The linux versions -- even the 4GB EEE 701 -- come with OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, and quite a lot besides. A much better deal than XP+Works! Cheers, Daniel.
From: chris on 27 Nov 2008 09:48 Daniel James wrote: > In article news:<gghb5b$m47$1(a)dux.dundee.ac.uk>, Chris wrote: >> Of course you can make Linux as complicated and long-winded to install >> as you like ... > > It's not that Gentoo is especially complicated or long-winded, just that > it installs from source so you have to compile all the software rather > than just unpacking a binary archive. To me that /is/ more complicated and long-winded. Spending hours/days compiling openoffice is not what I want to spend my time on. When I install a program it's because I want to use it now, not in an hour's time.
From: Bruce Stephens on 27 Nov 2008 13:26 chris <ithinkiam(a)gmail.com> writes: > Daniel James wrote: >> In article news:<gghb5b$m47$1(a)dux.dundee.ac.uk>, Chris wrote: >>> Of course you can make Linux as complicated and long-winded to install >>> as you like ... >> >> It's not that Gentoo is especially complicated or long-winded, just that >> it installs from source so you have to compile all the software rather >> than just unpacking a binary archive. > > To me that /is/ more complicated and long-winded. Spending hours/days > compiling openoffice is not what I want to spend my time on. > > When I install a program it's because I want to use it now, not in an > hour's time. Quite. And on the whole I don't care much if it need extra dependencies. On rare occasions I'll want to tweak things a bit, but at least on Debian building source packages is easy enough: "apt-get source ...", fiddle with it a bit, bump the version, and do "pdebuild". There are even setups that cause automagic rebuilds of everything if I want the pain of gentoo. I imagine ubuntu is the same, and on Fedora the last time I built a package wasn't too painful; presumably one can become accustomed to that system, too.
From: Nix on 27 Nov 2008 15:38
On 27 Nov 2008, Ian Rawlings spake thusly: > I never bothered with packages until Gentoo came along as it offered a > neat halfway-house between my desire to compile packages for the > system in which they were to run and the ease of use of a packaging > system. Last time I used Gentoo (years ago) it was really painful to maintain your own local patches, because it maintained the source trees using rsync, overwriting any local changes. This seemed like a bit of a waste of the potential power of having all that source available... -- `Not even vi uses vi key bindings for its command line.' --- PdS |