[davidnoakes]

Millions want a fast, preconfigured office system.

Linux still doesn’t supply it.

So which distro do I use for fast boot, fast program launching, with a complete, fast launching word processor with the two most popular fonts (eg. Arial and Times Roman)? And how many hours will I waste building it this time?

Throw in a quick internet browser that doesn't hog processing power, and you've satisfied the requirements of 100 million people.

Every linux I’ve chosen runs like a dog, takes years to set up, and works only partially because you can never find and install all the bits.

Open Office runs like a dog too, so please don’t recommend that. Abiword is nice and fast, but I've never got the fonts to work.

Most of us work in offices, and linux still doesn’t cater for that.

Unix failed to become the standard for the same reason. Launched in 1969, if it had come with a fully configured word processor as part of every install, Microsoft would never have got off the ground in 1981, and the world been spared the ghastly scourge of Windows.

But history repeats itself. Every mistake has to be made again and again.

And idiot Linux developers copy every Microsoft mistake, building in massive size, vast complexity, so many features they get in the way of productivity, mind bogglingly slow performance on stunningly quick hardware.

Its some achievement to build a linux as slow as Windows, but every distro I've used is as slow or slower.

In 1994 I was running SCO Unix on 4MB ram on 25 mhz 486 chips. It was quick as lightening. Now we run linux on 256 MB ram and 1,000 mhz 686 chips, and its a dog.

Then the whole of Unix was just 40 MB. And yes, you could easily do WP and browse the web in that size. Now linux can arrive on 5 CD roms and take up 1,600 MB. That kind of inefficiency can only be matched by Microsoft.

No one will build the simple, preconfigured and ultra fast linux office distro 100 million people want. History shows us that.

So will someone please tell me how to do it myself, which linux distro, which WP and browser software, where to get all the bits, tell me how to configure it so it doesn't run like a dog, and I'll waste another couple of days.

David Noakes. UK

[devils casper]

Which Linux distros have you tried till now?
there are tons of Linux distros that will run pretty fine on that machine. MicroSoft Fonts are pre-installed in some distros and its very easy to install those in others.

[bigtomrodney]

Originally Posted by davidnoakes

Throw in a quick internet browser that doesn't hog processing power, and you've satisfied the requirements of 100 million people.

I agree that most people just surf the net, but the processing power that it takes is not on everyone's mind. If people did actually worry about their processing power they wouldn't run antivirus software. Sadly the reality is a lot of people just buy a new PC when theirs 'slows down'.

Originally Posted by davidnoakes

Unix failed to become the standard for the same reason. Launched in 1969, if it had come with a fully configured word processor as part of every install, Microsoft would never have got off the ground in 1981, and the world been spared the ghastly scourge of Windows.

You've got to be joking me. Unix wasn't a desktop system in 1969. Desktop computing was pretty much science fiction at that stage, and to consider something as powerful as a Unix server for something that a typewriter could do would be considered crazy.

Originally Posted by davidnoakes

Then the whole of Unix was just 40 MB. And yes, you could easily do WP and browse the web in that size. Now linux can arrive on 5 CD roms and take up 1,600 MB. That kind of inefficiency can only be matched by Microsoft.

I will agree that across the board all operating systems seem to be growing bigger and bigger for a proportionately smaller gain in functionality but you are not comparing like with like. A Linux distro may take 1.6GB, but the Linux operating system can be booted from a floppy.

It is the continual addition of user requested features and things to make the system 'just work' as some would put it. If you are a power user who know what they need, then just use that. There are plenty of slimline distro available too. I would hardly call adding a complete desktop environment in terms of applications inefficient. Why spend months tracking down tools to do the job when you can have them all in one package? 5CD roms for complete libraries of software for all uses amateur to professional. But you can get an entire system including office and net tools in the form of Ubuntu. One CD. And that includes several Windows apps in case you don't like Linux. That couldn't be fairer.

Originally Posted by davidnoakes

No one will build the simple, preconfigured and ultra fast linux office distro 100 million people want.

Many do, but the base truth is 100 million people don't want a simple ultrafast system. Bear with me here. You can provide someone with an ultrafast system that does everything they want and then they'll say thanks. And proceed to ask for extra features and functionality until we're back to square one. The fact that most people use KDE or Gnome is testament to that. There are plenty of ultra fast and lightweight DEs out there that people won't use because they want all of the extra functionality and configurabilty.

Ultimately I have two points to make

• If you want to use a system at 1GHz and 256MB of RAM remember that is 7 year old technology. If modern operating systems seem slow that's because they are designed to run on newer hardware. Let's see you run a fully loaded Vista on that. To be honest though there are plenty of distros that will be blazingly fast on it.
• You can have a system as fast as you like, but remember every feature you remove to achieve this has to be lost or taken up by you. If you don't know how to undertake that task yourself but still want that functionality you have a choice to make. It's a sliding scale between ultra fast/low functionality and slow/too much functionality and you need to decide at what point in between you want to be
• Lastly, why did you post this on Linuxforums.org? If you have a problem or just want to be part of the community come here and hang out with the rest of us. If you have an urge to write an opinion based article I would suggest it would be better suited in a blog or submitted to a magazine/newspaper. What you have done here is lecture for the most part end users on what is wrong with Linux. I think most members are too busy using their Linux systems for day to day use to be concerned with another of the bi-weekly rants on "what we're doing wrong".

[tech_man]

You keep referring to the fact that "We run linux." What "Linux" are you running?

[Juan Pablo]

You have got some good points, but most of your post is based on unaccuarate information and being this your first post and attacks to an OS most people here like a lot, this looks more like trolling than anything useful

Sorry if this is a bit harsh, but it's just my opinion