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I'm interested in a graphical browser

Such as Links 2.0?

Lynx. It's lean.

I suggest you have a look at links instead. Much better.

And in case you couldn't guess, I'm interested in a graphical browser. :-)

Ronja!
The site seems to be down at the moment, but hopefully it'll be back soon.
In any case, it's a 10 megabit optical link that can be built at home from readily available parts.
Slashdot stories here and here .

Or a RONJA system might be cheaper albeit a bit more difficult to build due to not being preassembled (or even in kit form), and a definate hack job.

if this is in an NES box i would buy one for sure. i have been able to master any controller since!

Well, you can always build your own!
Simple parallel port interface, just uses 5 diodes. (Although, I needed to add a transistor)

Of course the Linux Joystick Driver supports it!

I just built me a two gamepad adapter for my
original gamepads, with an emulator you get that great old NES corners-of-joypad-cutting-into-hand feeling!

Austria

ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/linux/Mandrake-iso/i586/ (Vienna)
Czech Republic

ftp://mandrake.redbox.cz/Mandrake-iso/i586/

ftp://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/OS/Linux/Dist/Mandrake/m andrake-iso/i586/ (Prague)
Estonia

ftp://ftp.aso.ee/pub/os/Linux/distributions/mandra ke-iso/i586/
France

ftp://fr2.rpmfind.net/linux/Mandrake-iso/i586/ (Lyon)

ftp://ftp.ciril.fr/pub/linux/mandrake-iso/i586/ (Nancy)

ftp://ftp.proxad.net/pub/Distributions_Linux/Mandr ake-iso/i586/ (Paris)

ftp://linux.ups-tlse.fr/Mandrake-iso/i586/ (Toulouse)
Germany

ftp://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/Mandra ke-iso/i586/ (Esslingen)

ftp://ftp.join.uni-muenster.de/pub/linux/distribut ions/mandrake-iso/i586/ (Muenster)

ftp://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pub/linux/Mandrake-iso/i 586/ (bayreuth)
Hungary

ftp://ftp.linuxforum.hu/mirror/Mandrake-iso/i586/
Netherlands

ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrake/Man drake-iso/i586/

ftp://ftp.surfnet.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrake/M andrake-iso/i586/
Russia

ftp://ftp.chg.ru/pub/Linux/mandrake-iso/i586/ (Chernogolovka)
Sweden

ftp://ftp.chello.se/pub/Linux/Mandrake-iso/i586/

ftp://ftp.du.se/pub/os/mandrake-iso/i586/ (Dalarma)
Taiwan

ftp://linux.cdpa.nsysu.edu.tw/pub/Mandrake/mandrak e-iso/i586/
United Kingdom

ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/sunsite.uio.no/pub/un ix/Linux/Mandrake/Mandrake-iso/i586/ (Canterbury)
United States

ftp://ftp.cse.buffalo.edu/pub/Linux/Mandrake/mandr ake-iso/i586/ (NY)

ftp://ftp.orst.edu/pub/mandrake-iso/i586/ (Oregon)

ftp://ftp.software.umn.edu/pub/linux/mandrake/Mand rake-iso/i586/ (Minnesota)

ftp://helios.dii.utk.edu/pub/linux/Mandrake/Mandra ke-iso/i586/ (Tennessee)

ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/Mandrake-iso/i586/ (Illinois)

ftp://mirrors.secsup.org/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandra ke-iso/i586/

ftp://raven.cslab.vt.edu/pub/linux/mandrake-iso/i5 86/ (Virgina)

ftp://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/mirrors/mandrake/Mandra ke-iso/i586/ (Hawaii)

Australia

ftp://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Brisbane)
Austria

ftp://ftp.univie.ac.at/systems/linux/Mandrake/8.2/ i586/ (Vienna)

ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Vienna)
Belgium

ftp://ftp.belnet.be/packages/mandrake/8.2/i586/
Costa Rica

ftp://ftp.ucr.ac.cr/pub/Unix/linux/mandrake/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/
Czech Republic

ftp://ftp.cesnet.cz/OS/Linux/Mandrake/mandrake/8.2 /i586/ (Brno)

ftp://ftp.fi.muni.cz/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Brno)

ftp://klobouk.fsv.cvut.cz/pub/linux-mandrake/Mandr ake/8.2/i586/ (Prague)

ftp://mandrake.redbox.cz/Mandrake/8.2/i586/

ftp://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/OS/Linux/Dist/Mandrake/m andrake/8.2/i586/ (Prague)

http://ftp.fi.muni.cz/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Brno)
Denmark

ftp://ftp.dkuug.dk/pub/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Koebenhavn)

ftp://ftp.sunsite.dk/mirrors/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Aalborg)
Estonia

ftp://ftp.aso.ee/pub/os/Linux/distributions/mandra ke/8.2/i586/
Finland

ftp://ftp.song.fi/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Espoo)
France

ftp://ftp.ciril.fr/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Nancy)

ftp://ftp.club-internet.fr/pub/unix/linux/distribu tions/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Paris)

ftp://ftp.info.univ-angers.fr/pub/linux/distributi ons/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Angers)

ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/linux/distributions/mandrake /8.2/i586/ (Paris)

ftp://ftp.proxad.net/pub/Distributions_Linux/Mandr ake/8.2/i586/ (Paris)

ftp://ftp.u-strasbg.fr/pub/linux/distributions/man drake/8.2/i586/ (Strasbourg)

ftp://linux.ups-tlse.fr/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Toulouse)
Germany

ftp://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/ (Esslingen)

ftp://ftp.de.uu.net/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/

ftp://ftp.fh-giessen.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i58 6/ (Giessen)

ftp://ftp.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/pub/os/linux/mandrak e/dist/8.2/i586/ (Wolfenbuettel)

ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Goettingen)

ftp://ftp.join.uni-muenster.de/pub/linux/distribut ions/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Muenster)

ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/os/unix/linux/Mandrake/ Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Munchen)

ftp://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i5 86/ (Chemnitz)

ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i 586/ (Clausthal)

ftp://ftp.uasw.edu/pub/os/linux/mandrake/dist/8.2/ i586/ (Wolfenbuettel)

ftp://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i 586/ (bayreuth)

ftp://ftp.uni-kassel.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i58 6/ (Kassel)

ftp://ftp.uni-mannheim.de/systems/linux/mandrake/8 .2/i586/ (Mannheim)

ftp://ftp.vat.tu-dresden.de/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Dresden)

ftp://ramses.wh2.tu-dresden.de/pub/mirrors/mandrak e/8.2/i586/ (Dresden)

ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/Linux/ mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Aachen)
Greece

ftp://ftp.duth.gr/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Thrace)

ftp://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Athens)
Hong Kong

ftp://ftp.wisr.eie.polyu.edu.hk/linux/mandrake/8.2 /i586/
Hungary

ftp://ftp.linuxforum.hu/mirror/Mandrake/8.2/i586/
Ireland

ftp://ftp.esat.net/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/
Italy

ftp://bo.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Bologna)

ftp://ftp.edisontel.it/pub/Mandrake_Mirror/Mandrak e/8.2/i586/
Latvia

ftp://ftp.latnet.lv/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/
Netherlands

ftp://ftp.nl.uu.net/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/

ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrake/Man drake/8.2/i586/

ftp://ftp.surfnet.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrake/M andrake/8.2/i586/

ftp://ftp.wau.nl/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Wageningen)
Poland

ftp://ftp.ps.pl/mirrors/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Szczecin)

ftp://ftp.task.gda.pl/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Gdansk)
Portugal

ftp://ftp.dei.uc.pt/pub/linux/Mandrake/Mandrake/8. 2/i586/ (Coimbra)

ftp://tux.cprm.net/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/
Russia

ftp://ftp.chg.ru/pub/Linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Chernogolovka)
Singapore

ftp://ftp.singnet.com.sg/opensource/linux/Mandrake /8.2/i586/
Slovakia

ftp://spirit.profinet.sk/mirrors/Mandrake/8.2/i586 / (Bratislava)
Spain

ftp://ftp.cesga.es/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Galicia)

ftp://ftp.cica.es/pub/Linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Sevilla)

ftp://ftp.rediris.es/pub/linux/distributions/mandr ake/8.2/i586/
Sweden

ftp://ftp.chello.se/pub/Linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/

ftp://ftp.chl.chalmers.se/pub/Linux/distributions/ Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Gothenburg)

ftp://ftp.du.se/pub/os/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Dalarma)
Switzerland

ftp://ftp.pcds.ch/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Neuhausen)

ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/mandrake/8.2/ i586/ (Zurich)
Taiwan

ftp://linux.cdpa.nsysu.edu.tw/pub/Mandrake/mandrak e/8.2/i586/

ftp://linux.csie.nctu.edu.tw/distributions/mandrak e/Mandrake/8.2/i586/

ftp://mdk.linux.org.tw/pub/mandrake/8.2/i586/
Turkey

ftp://ftp.ankara.edu.tr/pub/linux/dagitimlar/Mandr ake/8.2/i586/ (Ankara)
United Kingdom

ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/sunsite.uio.no/pub/un ix/Linux/Mandrake/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Canterbury)
United States

ftp://ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributi ons/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Georgia)

ftp://ftp.cise.ufl.edu/pub/mirrors/mandrake/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/ (Florida)

ftp://ftp.cse.buffalo.edu/pub/Linux/Mandrake/mandr ake/8.2/i586/ (NY)

ftp://ftp.nmt.edu/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (New Mexico)

ftp://ftp.orst.edu/pub/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Oregon)

ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/distributions/mandrake/8.2/i 586/ (Virginia)

ftp://ftp.umr.edu/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandrake/8.2/ i586/ (Missouri)

ftp://ftp.uwsg.indiana.edu/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586 / (Indiana)

ftp://linux-cs.tccw.wku.edu/pub/linux/distribution s/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (WKU-Linux, Western Kentucky University)

ftp://mirror.aca.oakland.edu/linux/mandrake/8.2/i5 86/ (Michigan)

ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/Mandrak e/8.2/i586/ (Wisconsin)

ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Illinois)

ftp://mirrors.ptd.net/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (Pensylvania)

ftp://mirrors.secsup.org/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/

ftp://uml-pub.ists.dartmouth.edu/mirrors/ftp.mandr akesoft.com/pub/Mandrake/mandrake/8.2/i586/ (New Hampshire)

ftp://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/mirrors/mandrake/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/ (Hawaii)

http://mandrake.dsi.internet2.edu/Mandrake/8.2/i58 6/ (For Internet2 academic institutions only)

Build it yourself visible light wireless link:

http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~clock/twibright/r onja/index.html

How about this, its fast, small and you don't even need X!

This one IS cost effective.

And much more funny to set up.

What lasercomm discussion would be complete without it?

From the Ronja homepage:

Build your own optical data link from common elementary parts - Ronja is an Open-Hardware optical datalink that connects two PC's point-to-point. Ronja's design is licensed under the GNU Public License: you get all the necessary documentation and construction guides free. The construction costs are minimal; it's probably the cheapest wireless system ever. The operation is very
reliable and immune to interference.

Take note, people - when the USA Patriot Act enforcers of protocol come, laser may be the only way to comm...

You forgot links. This browser is an invaluable tool (specifically the text mode operation, which supports frames, etc) and it's getting better all the time!

If you like Links, try Links-2, a fork that adds graphics (X11, AtheOS, framebuffer and SVGALib!) and javascript support.

It seriously rocks. Even the original Links author contributed code to this fork. Finally, a great graphic browser has arrived to the console. I use X much less often now...

The site you are looking for is Twibright Labs : Ronja, good luck ;).

By searching 'optical link' in .cz on (advanced) Google, I found http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~clock/twibright/r onja/ .
Searching 'ronja' on /., I found http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/22/143221 1&mode=thread&tid=137

Or heat, for that matter. They definitely do. But they have different parameters, such as ability to traverse walls, or how willingly they bend and reflect.
Take this thought experiment: you have two dark not interconnected cellars, a SW walkie-talkie, a flashlight and a heater. You can use only walkie-talkie to communicate. :-) As the others won't pass through the walls even with much higher power.
But yes, using laser point-to-point links such as Ronja, interception comes out of question unless you are on one of either of the roofs or anywhere in direct line between the two lasers..

But I guess that it depends on the browser. links unleashes a can of whoop-ass regardless of the *nix flavor that it's running on.

The irony is that some fool will probably be inspired by this, and attempt to implement it for real.

Sounds like Pavel Machek's project for running Gtk+ over curses. (Yes, this one is for real.) That's from 1999 - I doubt he's still maintaining it....

I refer you to Ronja.

We could all be using RONJA. Don't tell me you're not....

I think you've just described RONJA. It's 10Mbps and rather easy.

lynx is so 1996, man.

links is the current state of the art in console web-browsers.

If you didn't spend all your time being a condescending ass, maybe you'd know.

dillo homepage

yeah my absolute favourite! faster than opera!

links is a nice browser too btw

and and if you just need porn, you don't need a browser but porn-get

Dilo if you don't mind imperfect rendering (doesn't do frames yet).

If you don't mind having a text only interface, Lynx and Links are both good and surprisingly functional.

Of course fast does not necessarily imply best but it's a welcome addition.

Of course, you will need plenty resources to run them, which kills that other Linux-zealot bullshit argument alleging Windows slowness, but they are quite stable and effective.

Lynx is a full featured piece of shit. Links is a proper text browser that renders tables and frames and doesn't discard your keybuffer when it needs to tell you something.

I'm surprised nobody's brought up the do-it-yourself option:
RONJA
It's been on slashdot a couple of times.

Sure it only uses LEDs but it could use lasers rather easily. It would only up the price, and possibly increase the bandwidth.

Neat.. Health Canada actually has something useful. and... I somehow feel like I'm in a session of parliament, because you should probably quote more of the Health Canada page you linked to:

The power of light emitted by these battery-operated lasers used to be less than one milliwatt (Class 2 lasers). But now the power has increased to between 1 and 5 mW (Class 3a laser) to obtain a brighter beam. Unfortunately, it also makes the laser more dangerous to the eye.

Below 1 mW, even in the worst case situation at night, the eye directly exposed to the laser light has time to activate the blink reflex, approximately 0.25 seconds, before injury occurs. But at levels between 1 and 5 mW, so much light rushes into the eye that it suffers a temporary condition called flashblindness. It is similar to the effect that occurs during flash photography where the image of the flash source remains in the eyes for a few seconds and then fades away.

There is no long-term effect from flashblindness. Normal vision usually recovers after a few seconds. But if one forces oneself to look directly into the beam, then permanent blindness might occur depending on exposure duration. This would be equivalent to looking directly at the sun for a few seconds.

One thing I did forget about is the blinking part. Since 650nm is actually red, the physiological response is to blink. This is one of the reasons class 4 lasers so dangerous: you may be looking directly into the beam and not blink until pain is induced, but by that time it's likely too late and dammage has been done.

There's no doubt that at the Rx end significant attenuation will have occured and it will be harmless. But it's not exactly bright (bad pun) to be looking at the Tx end close-up for more than a second or so. After all, we're talking about 5mW here.

Lynx? Who's still using Lynx? Who ever used Lynx? And why is j00 not r3wting for Links instead? A textbrowser surely much more deserving of your praise (it does tables and frames, and even sortof manages to map #RRGGBB values unto the VT100 color codes).

must be tough being the only person on the planet that knows anything about computers.
maybe he's right

I gotta say, on the one hand, Lynx is ok for browsing Slashdot.

But links is a hell of a lot better.

Added bonus: If you're using it in an xterm, even inside a screen session, you can use the mouse to click on hyperlinks instead of using the keyboard to scroll past the million hyperlinks you're not interested in.

Here is a link to pie menus for gtk+

Knud

The most reliable browser I've used in a long time is this one, and I suggest you dump all your fancy crash-prone graphical kluges for it. Porn addicts may disregard my recommendation.

Links is a text only web browser like Lynx but with a different feature set. See http://artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~mikulas/links/ for more details.

What is in between 300 feet that you can't string a simple cable?

If you absolutely have to have wireless, look into radio modems (also known as packet radio). Most of these are relatively inexpensive, small, and easy to use. Most require some kind of backend transmitter/receiver - a cheap hacked CB would work.

Also, look up homebrew lasercomm systems - some of these use actual lasers (here is one such project) - I have seen one (Ronja) that uses high brightness LEDs.

There are many solutions to this problem - but the cheapest (not to mention easiest, and quickest) one is a cable.

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Sometime ago I wrote pie menus for Gtk+ (pie menu extends the ability of common menus by "gesture recognition").

I think I revive my almost two years old project and implement pie menus as a gtk theme (some Gtk+ developers suggested that)

See, e.g., the comments of the author of the Linux joystick driver.

Or look at the source code for the driver... nice comments in there.

My best suggestion would be Links

I know, that seems a little crude, using a text-only browser on X11, but, if you properly configure the viewers for it, you can view images, etc. in other child windows.

I use Links for a lot of my quick-look-up style web-browsing, due to its lightweight and speed.

I know this message is half in jest, but use links instead. It does everything lynx does, plus leaves your breath minty fresh, too.

You mean, like this?

http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~clock/twibright/r onja/

or this?

"Lighthouse Communications Inc., Littleton, CO Constructed and tested an optical through-the-air communications system with a 10 mile range. Proposed methods and wrote description of a wide area, high speed information broadcasting service. Service would provide terabytes of library type information to subscribers at high data rates. No FCC approval needed."

http://www.djandassoc.com/projects.html

or, like this?

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/budget/peds_98a/06 03006a.htm

(and we humans are quite stupid).

Speak for yourself.

The ammount of power needed to trasnmit data through a light beam in open space is really big,

No, it isn't.

turning the whole process whortless.

Lasers can removed "whorts," too.

That's why we use laser light in a restricting environment (aka optic fiber). Sorry, but it's the worst use for a telescope I could ever imagine....

Laser light communications holds great promise for providing high bandwidth, line-of-sight communication between points that cannot be spanned by cable. A few years ago, some astronomers pinged a laser modulator off the Galileo space probe when it passed near Earth. If Galileo had been equiped with an optical demodulator, it would have been able to decode our signals as it zipped by at thousands of miles an hour.

See also:

http://www.spie.org/web/abstracts/1400/1417.html

or

http://www.spie.org/web/abstracts/1800/1866.html

"In the Galileo Optical Experiment (GOPEX), optical
transmissions were beamed to the Galileo spacecraft by
Earth-based transmitters at Table Mountain Observatory
(TMO), California, and Starfire Optical Range (SOR),
New Mexico. The demonstration took place over an
eight-day period (December 9 through December 16) as
Galileo receded from Earth on its way to Jupiter. At 6
million kilometers (15 times the Earth-Moon distance),
the laser beam sent from Table Mountain Observatory
eight days after Earth flyby covered the longest known
range for laser transmission and detection.!"

Note: I haven't actually *tried* booting into ultrapenguin linux...for the time being, Solaris is fine for me.

Look, folks, object orientation is just one tool of many in the big box of software tools. Use it when appropriate, use something else when it isn't. This guy rants rants about OOP basically on three grounds, all of which are straw-man agruments:

1. OOP doesn't live up to the hype of its most zealous proponents (What does?)
2. When you do stupid things with OOP, you get stupid results. (What did you expect?)
3. Contrived, obviously-false statements about OOP are not true. Examples taken from the document: "Myth: Only OOP has automatic garbage collection", "Myth: Only OO databases can store large, multimedia data", "Myth: Components can only be built with OOP", and so on. These aren't legitimate myths widely believed by folks who use OOP; these are straw men propped up so that he could knock them down.

The reality is that OOP is a good tool for solving a lot of common problems. It's also a lousy tool for solving a lot of other common problems. When OOP isn't the right tool, don't use it.

Just use the right tool to begin with. When it comes to programming paradigms, there are lots of tools in box:

• rule based
• procedural
• functional
• object oriented
• logic based
• contstraint based
• declarative (often in terms of w/ functional and logic based)

Use the right tool for the job. You'll be glad you did. (And you won't have to put up a web site just to rant about your bad experiences with using a hammer to place dry-wall screws.)

I'm a couple of years on from my first tentative steps in GNU/Linux, and I can assure you you won't regret the move. I originally set up my PC as a multi-boot NT/95/Debian box, then when I bought a new games PC, my old one went exclusively Debian. Now my games PC is dual-boot, and if it weren't for Diablo II, my last Windows partition would be a distant memory.

I haven't used KDE, so I can't comment, but in my experience GNOME as a desktop environment adds little to usability. The GNOME/Gtk+ libs are good for developers (if only someone would document the Perl bindings properly), and provide a nice standard look-and-feel, the CORBA stuff may one day turn out to be useful, but that damn footprint thing, and the associated bells and whistles add nothing but about half a minute to x startup time. I spent about a year with the footprint, waiting for 'apt-get upgrade' to finally give it some discernable purpose, but eventually gave up. Seriously, there are some good things about the GNOME project, but the sooner you comment out exec gnome-session in your .xinitrc file, the better. A good window manager like Enlightenment is all the desktop eye candy you could ever want.

Read the From DOS/Windows to Linux HOWTO. On Debian it's found at /usr/share/doc/HOWTO/en-txt/DOS-Win-to-Linux-HOWTO .txt.gz. It shouldn't be far away on other distros.

Most of what you will need to know can be found in the HOWTOs or man pages. Best/quickest way to read HOWTOs is:

If that seems like a lot of typing, refer to this HOWTO for why it isn't.

To supplement the online docs, you may want to get O'Reilly's 'Running Linux'; also 'Linux in a Nutshell' is good on those occasions when you know there's a command to do such-and-such, but you can't remember what it's called. The 'apropos' command is also helpful here (in fact you'll save time if you use 'apropos' before reaching for a book). Your distribution-specific docs should also get at least a skim-through

If you really want to get to know your system, I'd recommend you resist the temptation to do everything in X windows. Steer clear of GUI configuration tools unless the docs for the relevant package explicitly ask you not to edit config files by hand.

Go for a wander about your hard drive, looking at your directory structure and what goes where. The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard for POSIX-compliant systems is also helpful for explaining the rationale behind the directory heirarchy. Last I heard, Red Hat doesn't conform to the standard (Debian does, of course), but that may have changed.

Once you've started settling in, you'll need a good text editor and web browser. Forget the vi versus emacs debate. FTE is a thing of beauty, and I can't understand why it isn't raved about more often. I had a friend who installed GNU/Linux purely on the strength of this cool text editor he'd seen me use. It's easy for Windows users to pick up, and in a lot of cases has Windows-style key bindings (Ctrl-c, Ctrl-v) as well as Unixy ones (Ctrl-Ins, Shft-Ins).

Web browser. You'll want Mozilla, so you'll also need one that doesn't suck up all your memory and crash. Links (not Lynx), is jaw-droppingly brilliant. Runs in text mode, yet displays tables and frames. Supports cookies, launches helper apps, has right-click context-sensitive menus, and so on. Good for those occasions when you've stuffed up X-windows and you need to search www.deja.com for a fix.

Now you've got a web browser up and running, check out:

• The Linux Documentation Project
• linuxcommand.org

The anger about this issue is not just some loopy over-reaction by a bunch of nutcases. I'm an ex-web developer precisely because this keeps happening.

It is worse, worse, FAR worse, to partially and imperfectly implement a technology than to leave it out altogether. CSS and the DOM are unusable because of the half-assed implementations by both Microsoft and Netscape. What's more developers won't be able to use them with confidence, and without agonising work-arounds (the if browser='Netscape6.0' kludges) until the last buggy implementation is out of circulation. How long will it be until the last of your audience stop using the current crop of browsers? Three years? Four? Five? However long it is, Netscape have just added another year or two for you. Thank you Netscape.

This is in no way a minor issue, when the platforms you're writing for are so flaky that you can actually crash them using nothing but Style Sheets!

Well, you may argue that Netscape had no option but to demonstrate it's utter contempt for it's users and developers yet again; the hard-headed realities of the marketplace made them do it. They had to release a browser before standards compliance was complete, therefore they had to release a browser that breaks the standands. No, here's the other option:

Release Netscape 3.0. Throw in the some pretty themes, the irritating sidebars, the instant messaging, crappy mail client, crappier authoring tool, pile on the new bells and whistles to your hearts content and call it Netscape Everything Suite 6.0 Platinum Professional Millenium Edition. Who's gonna care that is doesn't even attempt to handle HTML4, CSS, or the DOM? Not most users. Not the "web designers" who create tables full of gifs in Dreamweaver.

And here's the best part: people can put together sites that are standards compliant, confident that their content will be ready for future browsers that will implement the standards properly, and "degrade gracefully" in browsers that don't.

In the meantime, we can encourage people to use Links. It may not look too pretty, or support the latest standards, but at least it doesn't break them.

Links is text WWW browser, similar to Lynx. Links displays tables, downloads on background and uses HTTP/1.1 keepalive connections. Get it from freshmeat. I can warmly recommend it over lynx any day [screenshot ]. w3m is worth a try also but I prefer Links to it.
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If you're really keen, a link to some info on Prolog is here.

I think it is true that Prolog is also neither "complete" or "correct", so caveat emptor. Oh, and you'll probably get the error "out of local stack" often - stupid infinite trees :P

Cheers,
SuperG

After you have a CVS GMC VFS library (Go-Go-Gadget-TLAs!) you can use the excellent podfuk to instantly allow you to use the CVS archive as a filesystem!

...or links
...or w3m
...or wannaBe^2

The freenet developers just can't decide what they want this tool to be. Is this a tool for violating copyright, or is it a tool for the real propagation of free speech?

As someone who follows the development of Freenet closely, I can tell you that the core developers agree that it is for free speech. Copyright gets draged along for the ride, but since they don't particularly like copyright anyway, they continue. However, they don't apreaciate people calling it "a better Napster", and neither do I.

I also find it interesting, that the developers believe in deleting documents that are unpopular

It wasn't intended to be an infinate storage space, like the Eternity Service was, but big hard drives make it so that only the most unpopular documents aren't there. Also, if there is a specific group of people who are allways asking for a specific set of docs, it will propagate around that group, whereas the rest of the network dropped it long ago.

Additionaly, as hard drive space becomes cheeper, it will be less likly that stuff will drop out. I personaly have a 30 GB drive, with one partition of 20 GB just sitting there, unused. I have no issues with devoting this to Freenet. Even Microsoft bloatware would have a hard time filling that space :). If I had a big pipe on that computer, lots of stuff could be stored and requested, but it would take a very long time for a very unpopular file to ever drop out of my storage space. Unpopular in the sense that absolutely no one was asking for it.

Even in addition to that, the drop out provides a protection against those who would spam the network by requesting a useless file. As they request the Freenet key, it will propagate to machines closer to them. The next time the user requests that file, it will call a node it knows its on and no others. That means the rest of the network would drop the file and only a few nodes close to the would-be spammer would have it.

but won't let people who enter keys delete their own documents.

For one good a simple reason: If the FBI came a raided you, demanding at gun point that you delete that doc describing, in detail, say, the Carnivore, you couldn't do it, even though you inserted it into the network. Why exactly is it so important to delete files you inserted, anyways?

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Did you look at the website of the guy who wrote overkill? It's pretty funny, wonder what his attraction to strawberries is???