I think that the idea of an auxiliary language is a nice one; I'm fine w/ "World English" (i.e. neither Br.E. nor Am.E.).

But localization is important to get Zenwalk to the masses. Grandmothers, kids etc. who are usually not that fluent in English will be more comfortable seeing simple words such as Received in their own language, and native languages also give users some comfort in knowing that other users are not necessarily a continent away. It's psychological. As such, ZW sets a fine example for other distros:)

Not to mention that as word smiths we are responsible for taking care of our own tongue.

A long, boring post w/ lots of b*tching. I've read somewhere that the greatest lovers of *nix are it's greatest haters, so maybe it also applies to GNU/Linux. You have been warned.

I try to be honest, so I have to say, that I'm lazy, selfish and I think that l10n alone will help neither the youngest nor the oldest potential zenwalkers. There still aren't many first-rate games for GNU/Linux. UT2k4 and chess are enough for me, but it will be a big loss if f.e. SC2 won't be available for the penguin. Unfortunately games = graphics, and you know how it looks like wrt brand-new drivers ... MS Office became de facto standard in a semi-criminal way, but nonetheless it *is* a standard (in Poland at least). The situation is slowly changing in favour of a free/open computing environment, but there's still a long way to go. WTF am I expected to do if have to pay taxes (not that I like to pay ;-) ) and I have to use MS-compatible software to do so?? Sure, you can go to court to plead your case, but it'll take years, cause "they" have deep pockets and are using their money to slow down the (hopefully) inevitable.

GNU/Linux and free software / open source in general have a lot to offer, but they're far from perfect and how am I going to chase bugs in a piece of code that lacks comments? Possible, but not easy and surely not motivating. You know what, for most programs I don't want the source, I want the app to work. Documentation (if there is one) is often out of sync w/ the code - there are whole pages w/ things "to be implemented", and even w/ things that got removed a long time ago but nobody bothered to update the docs. I am willing to spend my time to help but not w/ a project that is doomed. If I ask a dev why did he write _this_ in _that_ way and I get the answer "Gosh, I dunno, don't remember, 'twas a long time ago" there is not much I can do, I don't have a crystal ball.

What's worse, Linux is portraying itself as a silver bullet to all your troubles. What troubles? My WinXP was working near-flawlessly. It had some quirks but 99,5% of the time it just worked. Zenwalk is leaner, more flexible and free. Is it enough for people w/ similar Windows experience to mine to make the switch - localized or not? If it ain't broken - don't fix it; if you're happy w/ OS XYZ, resist the urge to fiddle w/ a new one and instead take your significant other to dinner / take your dog for a walk. It's kinda true, that Vista may be one of the best things that ever happened to GNU/Linux. Did Bill get a present from rms for the 25th anniversary of GNU? Maybe he should have had ;-)


http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/lkml/#s9-14
(emphasis mine)

Well, I believe MS doesn't hire farmers only. I have nothing against this particular answer just that often Linux tries to force everyone into believing that it's better than Windows but fails to deliver. You think that "force" is to strong a word? Let me show you an example. If I'm talking to a friend who's using Windows and I tell him that I use GNU/Linux, I'll get "Oh ..." <blank stare>. Ok, he may be a little ignorant, but he's not calling me names. If I'm talking to a Linux guy and I'll say that I'm quite happy w/ WinXP on my desktop there's a 50% chance he'll get mad at me.

I hate hypocrisy. For me it's the single worst thing if you say "I'm better" but you just hide all the ugly pieces in a better way than the other guy, so you can trick someone into believing it's true. If someone dives deeper he'll find out the truth and if it doesn't look as rosy as you've presented it, he may feel cheated.

Linux is really flexible, but the variety has it's drawback in that it's quite hard to make all the pieces work together. You can have it your way ... if you're willing to work on it for half a year. For many people it's not worth it.



And if you really want to get ZW to the masses, maybe you should think about changing the name of the distro? It may sound cool to some people, many won't mind the dolphin, but some people are disinclined to use sth that promotes religion/believes other than the one they're practising. FreeBSD's "horned ball" makes a better logo than their devilish mascot. For my part, I don't mind zenwalking along :-)

interesting post Karol. i often have this kind of discussion with others. of course, your points are mostly valid. but one thing i have to mention is that we are not in any way a religious organisation. to be more precise, we do not (at least, I do not) go on selling 'goodie goodie' linux images everywhere. and we are pretty slack, too. if you had time to read the manual, you would probably found a line saying that ZW does not come with some sort of fervent community spirit (like some other distros).

going back to documentation. i am trying my best to keep everything up to date. i think making manuals, and user guide books are important, at the end, so are translating them in as many languages as possible. writing documents and translating them are boring and not rewarding at all. i get some support from the team, and this gets me going basically.

you are lazy, good. you are selfish, good. i am also lazy and selfish, but i think it's better not to generalise all the linux users as you described up there. we all know that linux is not perfect. and of course, ugly points are mentioned much less - but that's also the case with MS. they always highlight good points. so i do not really see hypocrisy there.

what else...

of course we want to get ZW to the masses, but at the end, it's them who decide. And to be honest, i do not care less if they choose ZW over ubuntu or whatever.

If you need more help proof reading the English stuff, I can help.

Scott

yes Scott, please. That would help me a lot.
cheers

That's why I'm here :-) I don't want to sound cliched starting each post w/ "I think ZW rocks", but I do think it does. Maybe I'm too old to express enthusiasm that way or maybe it's not my style. I prefer to do sth to make it even better, but I haven't yet decided what will that be. I've posted an idea/opinion that the menu items should open a window titled exactly the same - be it Network Manager or Wicd Manager but keep it consistent. Give me a week more, ok? I have a bunch of things to finish and then I'll be yours, tsuren :-)


I'd prefer to translate them into as few languages as possible. For me it's the natural progression from "fight features" and "do one thing good".


I don't mind writing docs at all, but I doubt my English is better than the folks who are writing it. If you need sb - anybody - just say so, I'll be glad to give it a go to see if I have the skills.


Don't get the hypocrisy part personal. What I mean is that Windows was first, then came Linux and said ":Look, I'm much better". But for now GNU/Linux is just different. Some people are happy to see Linux everywhere, "It runs Linux" has become fashionable. Sadly, it has little to do w/ technical sophistication. I was complaining about the general tendencies in GNU/Linux-land because I don't like the "for the masses" approach. Of course it's just my (naturally) biased opinion and you are free do disagree.

karol, I enjoyed reading your post, but I beg to differ on some points.

You ARE RIGHT that MS Office is the de facto standard today. It also sets the premises for what the standard has to be, being as big as it is, just like Lotus did back before MS took over. The way to change into a FOSS alternative then, is not money but legislation. The Norwegian government recently put forward a motion that ALL official documents has to be available in the Open Document Format or, where not available, PDF. This is for social historical reasons. You can't let PUBLIC DOMAIN information slip into the hands of someone who demands payment every four years for a new installment to read/write what is ultimately free information. As for the software itself, MS Office 2000 through 2007 has some horrendous errors. Outlook crashes once a week at the least (I have a lot of e-mail pst folders). The difference between v 2000 and 2007 is that the latter does not display the error messages themselves. Whoppee! Word is an expert in creating self-destructing documents, sort of like James Bond. What's funny is that corrupted documents that display nil in MS Word are often 100% fine in Open Office..! Therefore I ask users with this problem to open it in OO Writer, save it again, and see if it works. It hasn't failed yet.

So legislation first. Then put FOSS into the bureaucracy, schools and infrastructure. Our experiences from France (the police will switch 100% to OSS) says there's A LOT of money to be saved after the implementation and training. What politician doesn't care about cash?

I work at an institute with around 100 employees and all of them (minus one running CentOS and two others running mac) are running Windows XP or Vista. I have worked here for several years, through the service packs, upgrades in Office suits and whatever hype-software was going on at the time. I fix the glitches of Windows XP EVERY DAY. I have come across SEVERAL serious bugs in MS software dating years back that there are no patches for. I have been contacted by MS employees to receive word that they are not going to fix it either, because I "signed" the EULA. What kind of answer is that? Really?
Ultimately I was also offered a job in MS, but that's another story.

When people ask me what I think of XP, I say it works like magic. And, I continue, it works like magic because nobody knows if, how and why it works. It is in fact just like magic. Nobody knows how it's going to crash either, but it WILL crash. There's no way of saying "well, your problem happened because of x, y and z, and is a consequence of the action A" because nobody knows what's going on. MS doesn't. This is where FOSS will ultimately "win". Transparency ensures better practice and code systematically. The Startrek Enterprise will run on open source because it is the only sane choice.

While yours and mine private experiences of XP at home are good (or at least averagely stable), I will not attest that it is a good or stable system. There are many cool features in Windows XP, but on closer inspection they are half-assed implementations of packages from the FOSS community. Finally we are also seeing games and major software packages being ported to linux (or at least Java that some predict to be the future of everything). I am not a hypocrite saying this. Yes, I use Windows XP on a daily basis, but that is solely because it is the chosen platform of my work place, a decision made before my time. I need a working system to reproduce bugs and give proper support. I know most of it by heart though, I can use Russian and Chinese variants in troubleshooting without many problems. In Linux the latter is a no-brainer because I can simply get the localization I want (where available). I also use Ubuntu at home on my gf's computer and I really dislike it. It has adopted some of the dumbing down that I hated in Windows. Don't underestimate even your most stupid user. They may put their USB key into the ethernet connector, but if there's anything standing in the way between them and Software XYZ they will find a solution themselves. It is more about attitude than actual skills. I am using Zenwalk at work right now, and as soon as I get all my pst files exported from Outlook I will integrate it fully into this Windows server environment. Like you I am lazy, so I'm waiting for my cousin to fulfill his own transition so that I have some instructions and tips. For the record, let me add that Windows Server products are not that bad at all, and are considered pretty stable once you get to know them.

As for outdated packages and being a silver bullet, there are considerations to be made as well. Yes, there are outdated packages floating around without any good documentation, or outdated documentation on newer packages, but this is bad practice in the OSS community. And it will bite you [the developers]. Eventually it will give you a lot more headaches than you imagined and could kill the project entirely. Who knows how many dead projects there are on sourceforge. But Really. Who Cares? IF the project offered something that even just a few people really wanted, it will be picked up and carried on in another project. That's the beauty of it.

Linux _can be_ the silver bullet insofar you know what you are doing. Do I know enough to make it solve all my problems? Far from it. But it can and I have the possibility. While Windows XP on the other hand, even in a 100% MS environment and with full MS certification, will still behave like the senile cripple with ADD that throws up random errors every once in a while for no apparent reason. Did you know, for instance, that on some particular wireless network cards the Windows Update program itself disconnects Wifi connections? If you did then you know by experience. You know because you are becoming an MS Wizard. Literally a wizard, learning the magic. Because there is no other way to learn these things that MS never attest to or even care about. You've already paid them, why should they care? They care insofar it means more money.

I don't mean to be grouchy, it's just that while XP may work fine at home or in a simple environment, it is A LOT of extra work in a business environment. It is simply unfit for many tasks in a network based environment. Using Linux is the sane choice here. The reasons why *nix or mac users get mad at you are as many as the users themselves. I often feel that IT people who are angry are simply not educated enough in the subject matter or somehow fail to communicate what they're really trying to say. It's frustrating not to get the point across, especially if you're socially inept. So on behalf of them let me say that the system of GNU/Linux is better built than the NT kernels of today. It's like comparing the Eiffel tower with a house of cards. And yes, you will find numbers, research and data to support this argument. There is a reason why the top scientific minds in the world at the LHC chose linux as their operating platform and not Windows or a custom OS (even though some run Win and other desktops virtually), and I am trying to convince our researchers to do the same. Add to this a number of US govt. institutions including the IRS, FBI and more. With Barack Obama as president in the USA there will be additional emphasis on transparency, see the lectures of his friend Lawrence Lessig for instance, not to mention the various proposals in the EU which has already resulted in Internet Explorer 8 asking you if you want to use it as a default web browser if Firefox is installed.

And some will say that my "evidence" is only anecdotal. Of course it is. It is based on my years-long experience in the field. And as for localization it will help bring GNU/Linux to the masses. It will not be the major engine to do so, but it will help a lot.

Erm... now I know why you guys are in the documentation department...

Anyways, very interesting read. Tx Sigg3.net.

A what's your take on PEBKAC? How often are/were you asked to help sb only to find that the mouse wasn't connected (so the OS was unusable for that person) and (s)he didn't bother to check, just assumed that (s)he can't possible fix it herself/himself? What do you do when you've spend time and money and they still haven't got a clue? Round 'em all up, line 'em against the Great Wall of China and <bang bang>?
How do you search for a particular e-mail in your folder? Do you use the search feature or you just scroll through 5000+ messages? I'm surely not a hacker, not a computer guru, but I'm often in a situation I don't know whether to laugh, cry or resort to violence.


The govt bought a piece of software from a company - a Windows-only app. If sb f*cked up and agreed to such a deal, it won't be easy to *make* the company give up the code, publish specs etc., if it wasn't part of the original deal. You can't order a contract null and void just because sb didn't care for FOSS.
And the idea of classics in f.e. MS doc format had me literally in stitches.


They make nice keyboards and mice :-)


And what about the cost?


Great minds things alike ;-) I've read he switched from FOSS advocacy to fighting corruption - my man!


I've already posted that question, but maybe sb knows what are ZW's homegrown apps? I believe they are few (netpkg and friends) so localizing them shouldn't be hard. And why can't we make the ZW guide like you've made ZW itself: a nice collection of different apps? Those apps should have manuals/guides, so we could simply incorporate them into ZW guide. Fostering collaboration, standing on the shoulders of giants and stuff.




Touche :-)

PEBKAC makes around 30%-40% of my work, and 100% of some support guys'. Which is why I am currently documenting some easy step-by-step tutorials people will have to go through BEFORE consulting tech. In any case, PEBKAC will always be one source of error, but some systems (including Win XP, OS X and *buntu) don't really help by having a Fix It button available. My take on PEBKAC (and simple troubleshooting when the problem does NOT EBKAC) is that it boils down to attitude. If you're not inclined to try, or have decided not to understand it, then you're screwed. But most people can be fooled into learning, thankfully.
EDIT: Let me just add that in the days of typing, people hired typists 'cause they couldn't learn typewriters. It is attitude mostly. Good software should encourage the right attitude.

Searching in Outlook is pretty simple using the Windows Desktop Search utility, a replica of Google Desktop. With a keyword and some extra parameters it takes me a few seconds to find one (1) e-mail among several gigs of them.. Just remember to index manually once in a while so that it doesn't index continuously. Gmail is naturally indexed, and other e-mail apps will follow suit. I don't see why you are asking this..?


Good:)
As for MS disclosing code, that is not what I meant. The legislation should encourage the use of FOSS. Some will try out of curiosity, others for financial reasons. When others again see that It Works, they'll switch too. Why not?


Same as running a Linux server, perhaps minus licensing fees. If you know how to run it, you know how to run it. (I don't.)


They are very similar in subject, both involving transparency. FOSS fights corruption in code:)

Outlook (2003) has some build-in search utility too.
I'm just p*ssed that people tell me (f.e. on the phone) to resend them some e-mail, because they can't find it. ("You know, I have 3 GB of e-mail on my Gmail account - how do you expect me to find it?") I respond by reminding them the subject line and asking why don't they search for it -"Ugh, and how do you do that?" At this point I'm fuming. <Counts to ten. Again.> Ok, how sb not living under a rock doesn't automatically draw a line between "Google" and "search"?! And that box right next to the Gmail logo??



To voice my frustration, sorry for that. Maybe we should finish this conversation because we're reaching the limits of off-topic here :-) Yep, it's my fault, I'm gonna spank myself later.


BTW I'm looking for sth like (s)locate but it should search *inside* the files - .txt, .sh, .c etc. - no fancy binary formats (pdf) support needed, HOWEVER it would be great if that tool could search inside archives (also compressed ones). It would run as a cron job, just like locate.


should return path_to_filename and a snippet w/ the searched term (if it found one) - about 3 lines, so I could check if the context matches what I was looking for.
I tried Beagle and it's ok, but maybe sth smaller, text-based?

The linux find command is quite excellent, but very powerful. So you should learn some of the parameters to get the most out of it. In combo with the xarg command you can search and replace, for instance. See manpages or this page. In addition, there's tools like grep, locate and a whole lot more depending on how or what you search for. I see you're looking for something to search inside files. Grep is usually the thing here.
There's a good intro here: Linux commands to help you navigate
Kind of noob, but great for an overview.

Thanks for the links, I've used all those commands before, but I was looking for sth where less tweaking was needed: recursive grep is painfully slow (compared to db-based tools) and uses tons of memory. Using "grep -R" on a large dataset is (as of now) the single case I run out of memory - it took my full 1 GB RAM + 0,5 GB swap and crashed. Narrowing search (going over the dirs one by one) worked, but even then each of the searches took a minute. I also had some issues wrt mountpoints etc. (I ran it over a development environment).
If the files were having "regular" extensions like .sh, .txt etc. it would be far easier, but there is no need for them in GNU/Linux - Linux means freedom and freedom means hassles ;-)

You can also use Find of course. The trick is to fork it right, so that you're not overwhelmed by the ongoing action. It this is a dataset, why not use a database instead? (Just a suggestion, but I don't know the situation.) Anyway, when Haiku OS finishes, it will probably be lighting quick:)

I'm not good with scripting in bash, but people do amazing things with the simple tools of find, locate, grep etc. We just have to learn how to use them.