Alan Browne
On 2013.11.30, 13:08 , ray carter wrote:

ray carter
On Sat, 30 Nov 2013 11:52:52 -0500, Alan Browne wrote:

Alan Browne
On 2013.11.30, 10:52 , ray carter wrote:

Savageduck
I will say this, you should be seeing a difference, a big difference in the image quality between files produced by your G2 and your 600D. If not, the problem might lie in some peculiarity in your photographic technique, but most importantly I have a feeling your hardline choice of OS is your real problem, and it is distracting you from paying attention to improving your photography.

ray carter
There is much more that goes into the selection of an OS, at least for most of us, than the impact of one application.

I have proudly used Linux exclusively for over a decade - I've yet to find anything important to me that I can't do with it and in the process, I've saved thousands of dollars.

Alan Browne
Meanwhile in the professional world of graphics design, including photographic editing, the "creatives" choice remains OS X coupled to application suites from Adobe and others.

ray carter
Many of us are not "professionals" in "graphics design" - quite frankly, I don't have the same requirements, so it does not matter much what they use.

Alan Browne
The point being (that you're artlessly trying to step by) is that what's good for the pros makes sure there's lots out there for the non pros. That includes PS Elements, for example, and numerous plugins for that as well as the pro versions.

The only thing Linux users seem to crow about most is "it's free, it's freee@!!!!!!" - and then they complain about there not being a free app to do a particular thing...

Linux "market share" for desktop continues its decline as OS X rises (Macs being more affordable than ever has a lot to do with that...).

In desktop use, as of 2013 OS X stands at about 6.5% (up from a few percent at the start of the intel switch) and Linux has declined to 1.6% from a high of around 2.5% or so.

ray carter
PROBLEM: There have never been reliable numbers for that. How, for instance, would one even pretend to know how many desktop machines have Linux installed?

Alan Browne
The sites that provide these numbers just look at web traffic and accumulate the stats. They of course are not looking at company servers and embedded widgets because they are looking at desktop use.

ray carter
BTW: Linux is probably the most used OS on the planet. All those Android platforms run a Linux kernel and Java VM.

Alan Browne
Which is beside the point - the numbers provided are for desktop environments. There are also stats for smartphones:

iOS: 55.9% (belying your claim above) Android: 30.6%

and the others. (Same source as the first stat).

(Don't forget that while sales of smartphones has been tipping away from Apple, there are about 700M iPhones out there, the vast majority still in use.)

Linux remains a strong choice for servers, embedded systems and so on - but it's pretty lame for desktop since the major productivity apps are not produced for it (bandaids like WINE are a PITA). There are narrow cases like thin clients for data entry and the like.

(Hmm - it's been a few years, maybe time to install it again for a look at the latest. Is Ubuntu still the best general purpose choice?).

ray carter
That would be a matter of taste. Lots of folks seem to think 'Mint' is now in that position. My preference is Debian Stable (currently Wheezy) with the gnome classic desktop

Alan Browne
Well I'll try Mint - because the Ubuntu failed to install (stuck after the registration). Ubuntu's website is misleading:

You select OS bit width (32 or 64) so of course I chose 64 (intel i7). It downloaded an AMD-64 iso. I can't find a 64 bit intel image there (at least not easily).

There is a confusing explanation here (Wikipedia): "Prior to launch, "x86-64" and "x86_64" were used to refer to the instruction set. Upon release, AMD named it AMD64.[3] Intel initially used the names IA-32e and EM64T before finally settling on Intel 64 for their implementation. Some in the industry, including Apple,[4][5][6] use x86-64 and x86_64, while others, notably Sun Microsystems[7] (now Oracle Corporation) and Microsoft,[8] use x64 while the BSD family of OSs and several Linux distributions[9][10] use AMD64."

Which suggests the image I DL's should work - but clarity is not part of the package... I'll try one more time with some parameters (memory and disk) changed...

W