The sense of community not mean you sitting around waiting for the others to solve problems. That is not the mentality. If you have complaints or think something is wrong with Linux, you should try to do something about it, but being a member of the community, participating in discussions at least. And not just waiting for others to solve problems.
If you disagree with that and you are not willing to collaborate from within, better you can still use Windows, which is a good operating system.
Installing programs in Linux is very easy, but you seem to want Linux become exactly equal to Windows (not talking about ease of doing things, but of procedures) and that will not happen. Linux is a different operating system, no means more difficult to use.
Anyway I do not understand why you are so strict with Linux. The last time I tried to install something in Windows it asked me to connect to the internet, enabled cookies, allow activex. After downloading something that it was not the program, but a software downloader. That program downloaded the other program, then execute this new downloaded binary, etc etc. … that does not seem very easy to me. Maybe you’ve done it so many times that you think that’s easy.
Regarding the ease of installing software belonging to companies, that does not depend on the community. The company is one that should be responsible for building packages for popular distributions (like they do with binaries for Windows). A good example is VirtualBox (currently belonging to Oracle).
About GPU’s, well:
So you become a member of an official Linux Mint forum and you try to argue that you said here with other Mint users and developers.
For the vast majority of cases, the process isn’t even remotely that complex in terms of the number of steps. For many pieces of software, it’s more like this.
-Download the installer
-Run the installer
-Double click the icon placed on the desktop
And for Blender it’s just download the zip, extract the files, cut and paste the folder into the spot you want it, open the folder, and double click the icon.
It’s not even remotely like the process you describe, and even the more complex cases gives you clear instructions to guide you through it.
Apologies if this is turning into Windows vs. Linux, but I don’t think there’s an excuse for something as basic and as encompassing as an OS to be purposely complex to the point where it forces use of the community forums to get step-by-step instructions for basic tasks.
On Linux “for many pieces of software”, it’s more like this:
-Open package manager
-Search for software and install
I do not say that Linux has no problems, but I think it is not as hard as you say.
I do not want this to become Windows vs Linux too. But please note that you windows users have spent many years learning Windows, and you will not learn Linux in a week or one month. It is a completely diferent system, and the things are done in different ways.
Ace, this is much as they describe - either using a package manager or even as you describe - download the zip and unpack to where you want, same as on Windows.
In Ubuntu based distributions you can install Blender just searching from the package manager. If you want to always have the latest version, you can add a PPA, which is also easy to do. If you had Blender installed from the package manager, you can run the Blender binary downloaded from the official site (tar.bz2, just like a .zip). The only possible problem may arise if you had never before install Blender from the package manager and you want to run the blender binary from tar.bz2 file. Then before you must open the package manager and search and install the package: “libsdl1.2debian”
So you have the first three easy ways to install and use Blender, and perhaps this can be a bit difficult in the latter case. But that’s not the end of the world either.
Let’s try this, paraphrasing that thread you linked to:
//Begin rant
I’m trying so hard to switch to BlenderSUB[/SUB] but it seems like every freaking time I try to doSUB[/SUB] something, I need to do an hour of troubleshooting online. And to make it worse, each answer differs from the next.
And why oh why is the latest insert-random-addon-here[SUB](official Blender)[/SUB] version not available from the Blender download page[SUB](Ubuntu software center)[/SUB]?
//End rant
Did you even read the thread?
The first poster extracted on a hard drive where he could not change permissions of files. Extracting on his home folder, which he should have done in the first place, solved it. How is that Linux fault?
And the second guy was trying to run an .exe and was dumbfounded because the OS asked for an app to run it. Have you ever tried running a Linux executable on Windows? Would you need an app for that? Would you be able to do so?
This is running dangerously close to a flamewar here but I’ll try to clear this up. I use both Windows and Linux.
Basically if you have been using Windows your whole life you will not adjust to Linux easily just like you won’t adjust to Windows over a fortnight if you have been using Linux before. Because they are totally different OS’ they will obviously not work the same way. The common misconception from Windows users is that it is hard to install software under Linux, sure it can be a bit difficult at first if the developers haven’t really put much effort into the Linux version so that you will be forced to install a bunch of dependencies and do a lot of commands through the terminal but for most cases it is dead simple to install the software you need via the software center, it is even pretty easy to add a ppa to your system to get automatic updates for your software every day. However just like there are software installers for Windows there are software installers for Linux. The Foundry have easy installers for all their Linux software, just run it and click the icon.
I’m still on Windows as my main OS just because of the Adobe Suite (is what we use mainly at work), but I prefer Linux without questions. I know I can install Adobe in linux using Wine or something similar but haven’t had any luck with that, it’s always glitchy and keeps crashing on me. The 3D packages (Blender and Maya) are the only ones which run much better in Linux than other OS, but I need PS, AI, and AE almost everyday… So for the moment Windows it is
Heck, I found it hard enough to run Blender headless on Ubuntu Server 12.04, 13.10 and on the Amazon Linux. (All via remote console)
LuxRender was easy, just install 3 or 4 libraries from the repository, install upzip/zip, download the LuxRender executable and run it like ./luxconsole -s -u <slave ip address> luxfile.lxs
Blender on the other hand, required several libraries for headless rendering, and after apparently installing them, doing a whole heap of shit to get it working, most dependencies being resolved, would still complain about missing some library (that appeared to be installed, perhaps a diff version) on all 3 above mentioned OS’s. Never got that working.
@YAFU, I like Blender, I like LuxRender and I like the communities that surround these software(s). I generally try to be a part of them as well and get involved in discussions. You make it seem like I should like/support Linux because… I like OSS, or its a nice thing to do?
Generally installing most software is easy in Linux, and I do use the console to do most of it as it saves time. But get an executable that was compiled who knows when, and have fun trying to run it (Ie if its not from the repo/ppa, getting it to run is a bitch)
As you said its a community, and when things don’t work, they may get fixed. Much like Blender focus’s on things often is aligned to what those funding its core developers have chosen. This is largely influenced by its community, but these forums also show that a fair bit of it isn’t on features a large set of the community want always either. With Windows, I pay my $150 (new 8 Pro install) and get a system that works for me all of the time. Same reason I own a (PS only) subscription at the moment. I can’t do with GIMP or other alternatives. No matter how nice their community is.
My current OpenSuSE Linux system was first installed in 2003, then updated and copied from HD to HD as their sizes grew. 10 years of fine tuning… And it just worked when I got a 64-bit CPU. I’m just not ready to re-start from scratch yet. I’ll consider it only when OpenSuSE will drop support for 32-bit CPUs… (Most probably one or 2 years later.)
Just a note: We will most likely discontinue the support for Windows XP middle of 2014. So be prepared. Microsoft stops support for it in April already.
In general I can only recommend everyone to use a modern 64 bit Linux/Windows/Mac OS X operating system.
I use Windows just because it works well with my hardware and software. Unfortunately linux is not supported by many hw/sw manufacturers and this is not gonna change soon.
I dual-boot Sabayon on my desktop and run only Mint on my Laptop, but let’s not pretend that Linux is super user friendly…
Software outdated by years on the repos, libraries of questionable stability, complete lack of access to certain libs under certain flavors without building yourself. Let’s not even get started on having to create symbolic links, or what to do when repo and dependency cleanup tools just completely break and every terminal command under the sun can’t put humpty dumpty back together again. On top of that there is poor driver support from both GPU vendors, questionable software support from most vendors if you’re not interested in going FOSS, and myriad other issues that take real work to get around. And I won’t even start with the headache if you’re a PC gamer
I have no problem with these things, and even enjoy crushing Linux problems because I’m technically minded, but it seems a little disingenuous to just say “Hey, switch on over, everything just works now!”. That’s not the way to get new users; they’ll just assume that 'nix users are liars after a day of playing around.
And, indeed, unless someone else steps up, official XP and 32-bit OS support are going away from Blender within the next year. Blender already doesn’t officially support 32-bit processors. Some people need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century…
I tried Ubuntu on an old eepc and it worked fine, Blender even ran from the external sdcard until Ubuntu wanted to upgrade and the ssd became too small. So I tried to use it as a parallel system on my main computer at home (dell studio xps 435mt) but Ubuntu doesn’t support the Raid0 HDs Dell put in (at least not for people like me with poor technical knowledge).
I also tried to install it on my old but still fast notebook (Dell Inspiron 5150) but Ubuntu didn’t support the nvidia graphic card and crashed each start up so I put XP back on.
So my point is, if you want to use Linux/Ubuntu, I guess you’ll have to get a system tailored for it. The idea to just put it on your existing systems to easily “jump ship” from Microsoft will probably not work.
Different story with blender. I managed to run blender on every system so far and it always worked right away.
Blender is extremely easy to run almost any system so what’s to complain about?
It’s a shame XP support is being dropped but on the other hand 2.69 is rock solid and will still work on XP for a long time…
It’s a shame that people stick to a 12 year old operating system, risking themselves and everyone else because of viruses etc. You don’t want to know how many XP computers are part of a bot net because of its security holes.
Really?
So showing someone that his blanket statement is completely wrong is now being disingenious and a liar?
I used to teach kids that never used computers before with crappy laptops on XP.
Guess what? They didn’t find it user-friendly, or remotely easy.
Am I to complain about Windows because of that?
Clearly they didn’t know enough yet, but their first instinct was to complain about how the computer worked.
Ubuntu, same as Blender, has been my tool of choice for more than 5 years now. They work for me.
I couldn’t care less about what others chose to use, but if those others start spreading misinformation based on hear-say, I really don’t know what you’d expect.
Ace’s comment was choke-full of ignorance.
I don’t know what his reasons were, since he stated he wasn’t trying to start a vs. war, to have and defend an opinion on something he’s never even used. If that’s not flame baiting, I don’t know what is.
