Re: N900 flashing with windows8
 

I am using Windows XP. I will not install Windows Vista (though the seller of the PC had given Windows Vista disk with it, or half-a-dozen of disks; don't know where to put it, since I am not using it). I will not use Windows 7. I will not use Windows 8.
I might switch to React OS. Or, I will be running a Linux by then, even though it is a difficult task for me; my PC is file-and-printer-and-tomcat server for local network, and I cannot be sure that other Windows computers will be able to interact adequately with file-sharing Linux server, or that this printer will work on Linux, or that tomcat can be accurately transferred to Linux. And, I don't know why, I have Apache and SQL servers installed, though I have no use for them. And don't forget Microsoft Office Word... I don't have it open now, since I am using SeaMonkey-Composer, but there is a large quantity of .docx and .doc files stored, from earlier years.
And are there comfortable Linux utilities for OC-recognising PDF files, DJVU files, editing-and-filling-in PDF files? What is Linux alternative of Microsoft Paint? That's the most serious problem. I am also still using Microsoft Photoeditor, from long ago, because it's difficult to find such combination of versatility and simplicity. GIMP is too large, too complicated.
7Zip is already a better file manager than Windows Explorer. It's not saying much, since Windows Explorer tends to freeze when there are too many files in a folder, or a directory is not accessible. Also, all Windows Explorers are killed when I have to restart a frozen taskbar...
I would like for operating system to be modular. Windows has desktop-and-file-explorer mixed together in one file: explorer.exe. Fortunately, Maemo is much more capable: no windows are lost when hildon-desktop is being restarted, and hildon-desktop works much smoother than Microsoft's explorer.exe.

Re: N900 flashing with windows8
 

I've been Windows-free for nearly four years now; breaking the addiction can be hard, but for me has been worthwhile.

File sharing generally isn't a problem; while Linux can't support the most recent Windows file sharing systems, Windows itself seems quite happy dealing with the version of Samba available under Linux. Printer support is, admittedly, more hit-or-miss. Not sure about Tomcat; if you're talking about the Java JSP stuff, that shouldn't be a problem...

OpenOffice.org is not as pretty as Office, but is compatible to an extent, and can do much of the same work. It can read and write at least older .doc files. (And honestly, it's a bad idea to allow your personal or business documents to be locked up in proprietary file formats at all...)

Well, OpenOffice.org has some ability to edit PDF files, and there are a few other editors out there. You could always just purchase Adobe Acrobat for Linux...

I know what you mean; nobody I talk to seems to like the complexity of modern image manipulation software (even on Windows; my brother insists on using an archaic photo editor on Windows, because he can't stand any modern alternatives). There are several small paint programs around, but I think you'll find they all have their own quirks.

In the end, moving to a new operating system means getting used to a new set of tools. You can pretty much do all the same stuff in Windows and in Linux, but you can't always do it in the same way or with the same company's products. You just have to invest the time and effort necessary to overcome the differences...

Re: N900 flashing with windows8
 

It's not much of an addiction; it's mostly a habit. When I use Maemo, I enjoy its interface; I don't miss anything from Windows. However, on the desktop, I have many habits. For example, can Linux go into Hibernate - I use Hibernate every evening, and Windows uptime can easily reach a month, when I would suddenly check-for-updates-and-have-to-restart? Apparently, yes - s2disk of userspace software suspend. Does Linux have a comfortable file-explorer which would store its session (similarly to most modern browsers) between restarts? What is the cleanest way to manage background processes (similarly to Windows "Services")?
Fortunately, I haven't used Internet Explorer for a very long time. But my personal bookmarks are chaotically divided between Google Chrome, Firefox, Nightly, and SeaMonkey. I use only SeaMonkey, currently, but I wouldn't want to erase this data. I have purged Safari, recently... And also removed RealPlayer (good-for-nothing-adware) and DivX. Now, the only way to play videos in browser is through Adobe-Flash - or WebM, since it's apparently built into browser, and doesn't require an external plugin. I should install VLC player, probably...
Linux's gconf is better than Windows Registry; Windows Registry has too much keys, and I cannot determine which of them are safe to delete, and programs generally _don't_ clean up their registry during uninstallation, and I don't trust third-party programs to clean up the registry without destroying the system.
Good to know.
I will have to look it up with the manufacturer of the printer. The current printer-software for Windows is done quite well; giving detailed relevant guide about the specific error ("no paper" or "paper jam", for instance) when the printer reports it.
Yes, I am. Apparently, it's cross-platform. How difficult will it be for a Linux-installed server (Samba, or Tomcat) to read/share/modify/write files of Windows-partition if I install Linux as dual-boot with Windows, with intention to migrate to Linux without destroying Windows installation?
I would rather use LibreOffice. But yes, it's a bad idea to lock up documents in proprietary file formats. The problem is, I still doubt you can find an HTML+MathML+SVG editor to edit documents which contain formatted text, with links and tables, with pictures (vector and raster, both), and with formulae. Xinha was the closest one when I had met her about five years ago - but as I see it, SeaMonkey's Composer is better. And .odt is as human-unreadable as .doc itself; not much difference, for the user...
RTF is interesting; WordPad itself is handy, it knows subscript and superscript despite having no GUI-buttons for them, it reads tables despite having no GUI to write-modify them... RTF specification even includes description of shapres, like rectangles and ellipses!.. But Seamonkey Composer can surely do the same, and HTML format is more open-widespread, even though size of the file is larger, due to redundancy of the markup.
TeX is creepy - I don't know why I don't like it.
ConTeXt is alluring, since I dislike the Latex's idea of insulating the user from the art he creates.
Graffiti Markup Language is amusing, and inspiring; I hope to see Origami Markup Language in the future.
LilyPond is beautiful, especially considering that Denemo seems to be able to recognise music through the microphone, besides allowing to type it on the keyboard. It's also handy that the music can be exported from Denemo as MIDI musical file.
I would rather use PDFedit.
Archaic photo editor on Windows... Yes, I use it, and mostly not for photographs, but for icon-editing - like, inverting the colours without losing the transparent background (that's one disadvantage of Point, it doesn't understand transparency).
I know. I enjoy using XPaint on Maemo; it has simplicity and versatility of Paint, and recognises transparency. Unfortunately, it says that colour information is irretrievably lost when using any display depth less than 24 bits. N900's canvas depth is 16 bits.
Best wishes.
_________________
Per aspera ad astra...

Re: N900 flashing with windows8
 

I'm the wrong person to ask about this one. :) I actually never turn my computers off or put them into sleep mode; I just let them run 24/7. (Admittedly, I'm playing around with my own mail and web servers, so I've got a reason to keep at least one of my machines up all the time.) My uptime is limited mainly by how long I can go between power outages that I can't bridge with my UPSs; I normally get about a year to a year and a half uptime on my Linux boxes.

Ah, you mean a GUI file explorer? The two major GUI environments today are Gnome and KDE, and I think both of them have some form of session management. I tend to favor using the command line to manage files myself, so I can't really speak for either of them...

You'll want to choose one of the user-friendlier distributions, they have GUIs to support service management. Ubuntu would probably be a good choice, I think. (Again, as I mostly manage services via the command line, I probably shouldn't comment here.)

The Windows Registry is almost a unique feature in the history of operating systems; I don't think any OS before or since has gone to such lengths to integrate user-application parameters directly into itself. Certainly, you don't have to reboot Linux or OSX every time you install or remove a piece of software.

Ah, that depends entirely on the file system being used. The old "FAT" system, originally used in MSDOS and older versions of Windows, is fully supported under Linux (and practically every other OS in the entire world, it seems). NTFS, the more recent file system used by Windows, is trickier -- there are drivers to read and write it, but because it is heavily patented by Microsoft, these drivers aren't 100% reliable (as they can only be built by reverse-engineering NTFS). I haven't tried playing with NTFS under Linux recently; it seems that "NTFS-3G" does a good job, but I'm not sure I'd want to trust my data to it.

When I was dual-booting Linux and Windows, I just went ahead and used old-fashioned FAT partitions to share data between the two OSs. They may be less efficient than NTFS, but they still work just fine.

Ah, well, it's not so much that a user can read the file, as it is that a programmer can get the technical details on the file format. The OpenDocument Format (.odt, etc.) is an open standard, anyone can create a parser to read those documents. (And I don't personally think they are quite as unreadable as Word docs.) Word, of course, uses a closed proprietary format, and only by careful reverse engineering has it become possible for non-Microsoft products to read .doc files. (And, of course, this is a big reason why Microsoft always comes up with new, incompatible changes to their .doc files with every release, to try and keep ahead of the reverse-engineering folks...)

:) :) I've gotta admit, I understand your feeling. Heck, I got my BS at Case Western Reserve University, the alma mater of Don Knuth, who created TeX; even there, where you could find lots of people to teach you how to use it, I just couldn't really get into it.

Actually, icon-editing was the one reason I finally broke down and worked my way through the intricacies of Gimp. It is a massive, complex image editor, but it really can do just about anything you want, if you put enough time and energy into it. :)

Re: N900 flashing with windows8
 

I finally installed Unbutu on my Computer beside Windows (I can't imagine my life without windows). But it's only for N900 purposes. As I said windows 7 is a bit tricky with maemo 5 but for daily use, i will definitly not use a linux OS.

Re: N900 flashing with windows8
 

Just wondering here, is there some specific issue about Linux that turns you away? I know there's lots of software that will only run on Windows (unless you're using Wine or CrossOver or something), but in the last few years, the user interfaces available on Linux seem to be approaching the level of quality available on Windows or OSX...

Re: N900 flashing with windows8
 

I was going to dual-boot Ubuntu and Windows when I first ventured into Linux OS's.
After installing Ubuntu from a CD and finding it did everything better and faster than a Windows machine, I couldn't justify buying Windows.

Talking about Office, LibreOffice worked fine in opening/editing newly created .xlsx spreadsheets.

I now can't see myself using anything but Debian based OS's in the future.

Edit:-

I very often but my Ubuntu system to "Sleep".
It takes but a few seconds to wake back up after pressing Esc

Re: N900 flashing with windows8
 

Your own mail servers?.. Admittedly, it's better than to depend on Yahoo or Google or Microsoft for mail.
Could solar electricity help with power outages?..
Something lighter and simpler than Gnome-KDE (xfce, maybe?). But yes, I prefer to use mouse instead of keyboard.
I was thinking about Minix, but it still doesn't have Firefox; I doubt it is able to run Seamonkey at this moment.
Yes, it is annoying, to restart the computer after updating Adobe Reader or Flash Player or something.
I see. Further research is needed. I am generally wary of partitions.
Thank you for advice.
Like Skype changing its protocols. No surprise Microsoft bought it.
I was reading his books, once, long ago...
I know. I have GIMP installed as portable app, I have used it several times, it's magical, rivals Photoshop, and so on... But I don't use Photoshop (cannot remember the last time I have seen Photoshop; years ago, at least), and most of the time, I don't need magic of GIMP. Though it's good to have it as backup, just in case.
No surprise.
"Sleep" is, most likely, Stand-By. I prefer Hibernate. Partly, because I don't want the computer to be noisy when I sleep. Partly, because I wish to conserve energy.
Best wishes.
_________________
Per aspera ad astra...

Re: N900 flashing with windows8
 

Yeah, I know. :) But once you get the hang of it, it really is pretty easy to set up a mail server in Linux. Now, getting DNS set up and working, that is a major hassle...

Hmm, I'd think solar would be much less reliable than the local power company. In any case, I normally use power outages as an excuse to spend some time loading the latest patches onto my Linux boxes. :)

Ah, well, let me note here that lighter does not equal simpler; in fact, just the opposite. Gnome and KDE (and Windows and OS X) are so massively bloated for the express purpose of making life easier for the user. Much effort has been placed into providing all the utilities and features (and documentation and help) that the user could possibly want. These GUIs go out of their way to do as much of your work for you as possible. The lighter GUIs, such as xfce, only perform the minimal functions of displaying and managing windows, and generally expect you to handle the rest of the tasks involved in managing applications and hardware yourself...

Whoa, Minix -- the Andy Tannenbaum OS? I haven't looked at that in years... The last I remember, it was pretty much intended mostly for students and hobbyists wanting to learn how to write their own OS. I hadn't heard that it'd become a desktop system on a par with Linux.

Ah, you need to try out small-form-factor machines. :) In particular, I've been drawn back to Apple by their Mac Mini; under normal operating conditions, you really can't hear the thing at all. You have to push the machine hard to make it heat up enough to run its fans at full blast, and even then, it only makes a quiet "whooshing" noise. (I remember the Dell XPS I used long ago; every time I booted up the machine, it sounded like I was starting up a jet engine... :) )

Re: N900 flashing with windows8
 

the only thing i go crazy on windows is usb hardware like camera webcam dongels(pkey mxkey etc) printers etc i want a system that can handle s*it load of uptime or simply ripping the power button should have a solid browser like firefox that can run for long without closing or restarting unlike windows i wana get rid of restarts able to transfer photos from cams simply witout sitload of cds and apps to do that and running my web and stream server that COPERNICUS will help to set up and plaguey viruses:)