Dan
While I sympathize with the replies of other group members to the effect that we're a Linux users' group, not a Linux trainers' group or a Linux evangelists' group, and that Colin's post doesn't give enough detail for us to help much, these statistics scare me. Something's wrong here.
Not necessarily. If the group reading this is satisfied with the direction ALUG is going in then I'm 'odd out' and will have to seek other solutions. The group may consist largely of trained computer professionals for whom this idea is irrelevant, and other users may be happy to potter along in their own time. I could be the only one using this list who wants this.
There are other solutions - some costing, some long distance (for me). I'm merely asking if the local one is a possibility. But there's no suggestion of the group having to change if it doesn't want to.
Colin, perhaps you could tell us what your job is, and maybe give us some examples of tasks you've been unable to transfer to Linux, or have been able to transfer, but only at low productivity. I think it probable that we'll be able to come up with some tips to change this.
My job is not really relevant to this, but anyway I'm a video editor in broadcast television - working freelance mostly at Anglia TV, (and I'm doing a late shift on Thursday to midnight). Prior to that I was a cameraman. Anyone viewing broadcast television over the last 20 years will know of the consistent decline of the medium, and sadly I can see no end to this in ITV. Budgets are shrinking and so will quality, but the story is repeated in many other industries. We're also told we may have to work into our 70's if our pensions are to be worth anything. So tentatively I'm keeping an open mind for other avenues to move into if the work I do declines even further.
As to specifics, MJR was good enough to sort out my computer at a ALUG meeting where apparently Apache was loaded (with the O/S) but wasn't functioning. To be useful to me I'd like to load PHP as well, but reading about this (from "PHP & MySQL web development" book) seems to indicate two types of integration, and anyway when I tried it following notes in there it didn't work.
Under Windows loading a program is pretty much cut and dried. All have installers, and basically get on with it. I'm pretty sure that my failure here is almost certainly down to my lack of knowledge about the basics of what I'm doing.
Putting this problem on the list would be difficult as (now) I can't remember exactly what I did or at what point the load failed. Perhaps I'll have another stab at it this wekend. But I doubt the group would want me to thrash around with this sort of problem on the list? What happens when the next piece of software I try out, also doesn't install / run? Wouldn't it be far better for all concerned if I could acquire the basics of what's going on, rather than trying to post possibly stupid beginner problems on the list?
As to low productivity, this may be psychological as much as real. I get the impression that everything happens faster on my Win2000 system (Athlon 1.2GH, 392MB) box than the Xandros (Athlon 2.1GHz, 256MB) box - Win2000 loads in 70% of the time of Xandros despite the slower older system. Even the Win2000 control via a LAN of Xandros windows is better than the KDE control. But the real issue is that when any problem occurs on the Linux system, work stops as solutions are difficult to find. Some of the help files which I have accessed are pretty poor. This is I'm sure just a matter of acclimatisation, and it would be helpful to speed this up.
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