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But, given the fact that we all NEED a Social Security card to WORK, a Drivers Licence to DRIVE, a ID to buy Cigerettes and Beer, why not have ONE ID?

I am a long standing Libertarian (As in lp.org, not liberal), and I am very for the National ID. Your kidding yourself if you really think that the ID is the problem. The ever expanding government is the problem, not some piece of plastic that makes it hard to counterfit an easier on my wallet weight!

and for the record, I'm not a full Libertarian, ONLY because I am isolationist, very much a Jeffersonian, as our founding fathers intended. I think the government fell apart with "the great FDR" who made us the world's policeman ... which the LP's "open borders" doesn't transision well into given the world culture now days.

How the hell did THIS crap get moded to +5 on ./? I thought much better of the readers and mods....

You get that much "a pop," either your raking in BOATLOADS of cash, or the "suckers" are about a year apart in frequency. JUST TO TELL YOU IF THE AD IS INTERESTING? Yet 90% of the TV ads SUCK?

If that's all true, well then here is my resume! I'm well educated and extremely critical by nature!

With all due respect, I'll listen to you guys when it comes to tech stuff

Oh, BTW, for you, that's going to cost "10M a pop" from now on. Consider each Slashdot page load "a pop." My lawyers will contact you shortly.

PS: VMS is an OS, and an old one... Good luck trying to call it!

Yea sure, there were a number of people working on BUILD, but have drifted off... I probably could put in a little time myself. rob@current.nu

I still say we do it, long term, 3-4 day, maybe 2-4 week full content, powerful mirror of best images.

My Mirror of some stuff is at http://www.current.nu/
EFF god help me...

Prove GNU spirit is good for something!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if not, I will admit to being one that pushed the idea, and end up leaning on EFF, so donations there (Free me only after all of Elcomsoft are in Russia!

Notice, the site that Gile's page refers to, http://bash.current.nu/ is gone, hacked. Hope to see it back soon, and complete. BUT, there is another site that actually has the bashprompt package at http://www.neuro.gatech.edu/users/cwilson/cygutils /unversioned/bashprompt/, but that one is so old it refers to the bash.current.nu page before they even got thier own homepage.

Bashprompt, the original BASHISH was cool. I helped the project a little, providing screen captures of the themes, and making a theme of my own for bashprompt. Their server was recently cracked, and they've run out of funding. Lets all pitch in and save this project. Mods: mod this one up please, thx

da w00t.

Bashprompt, the original BASHISH was cool. I helped the project a little, providing screen captures of the themes, and making a theme of my own for bashprompt. Their server was recently cracked, and they've run out of funding. Lets all pitch in and save this project. Mods: mod this one up please, thx

da w00t.

Mine looks sorta like this, with some color added:

I have a pretty nasty script that hacks it together. I wrote it after reading the Bash Prompt HOWTO and visiting a Bash themes site that has since been haxx0red. There are more good example prompts, though, at this site. Here's my script, base 64 encoded (sorry, but uuencoding is not conducive to slashposting):

But I guess it's not /. news until they can be sure to be the LAST to report it! Hmm.. Ya, but those wireless microwaves... Wooo doggy, uber geek, but... Ah, nevermind, it is sort of cool, just a bit more pointless. Just glad there are at least one or two other sources of Geek news than slashdot...

Manufactures would just figure out what was the cheapest way to get their number up, even if it meant graphics rendering went to hell because they spent all thier budjet on cache or something... It wouldn't be a fair comparison. You need lot's of numbers, AND, don't think the CPU is the only thing that will effect them!

Hmm, maybe someday I'll find some free time to finish hwinfo2html then at least I would feel a little better about comparing system... But... I have zero time, and it has a LONG way to go before being truely usefull.

Honestly, Largo (Justin Stressman) has a Window Maker theme site that probably runs the biggest legal risk, because he will snake ANY cool image for a theme. I've discussed it with him, and he goes to some effort to reference and _credit_ the original source of the images. Although his work involves extensively modifying images, in most cases to the point where the original image is almost impossible to identify, he still credits the original source whenever possible. That, coupled with the fact that we will probably pull them at the request of the original artist, probably gets us by. It's good for the artist (acknowledgement), and good for him.

Any news, software, or other content on the sites is either 1) Just referenced, not locally copied, 2) Mirror of something that is clearly public domain, or 3) our own damn work. So, there shouldn't be any problems there.

But yea, it's a big concern. For the last year we (mostly me) have been going through some legal research about founding a "corporation" for the sake of distancing personal liability. And it's not cheap ($150 in paperwork to become a incorporated is just the beginning, it's really the time and money involved with "staying legal" that makes it tough). Makes the "hobby" not much fun. Also makes you think about trying to make some money off the thing, just to cover your costs, but that's even more work.

But, what it really depends on is your ultimate goal. You didn't really make that clear. If you are out to make a buck as a news portal selling ad space, you have a very tough road to go. Then you HAVE to make it right and legal, and cover all the bases. That means it will cost you money to get started. If your just doing something with no ads, that your doing for the joy of it, then just reference your sources, paraphrase, and link the original for content. For hobby sites, you just cross your fingers, hope and pray, and try to believe that if a big company takes you to court for "copyright violations" on your none profit hobby site, a jury will laugh them out of court, and see it for what it is, one guy with a web page vs. a multibillion dollar company.

If you think this is tough, you would love the discussions I had to have with a University sys admin about how Largo's stuff isn't porn, it's art, and it's not a serious threat to the universities bandwidth. Luckily, we pay our own bandwidth now and can do whatever the hell we want (and it shows in the slow speed of our site).

The problem for many people who might otherwise be interested in it is that it depends on Objective-C which is a minority language by any standard. The good thing about Objective-C is that it's built in to most of the more recent versions of the GCC, the bad thing (to the unfamiliar) is that it's the bastard child of C and smalltalk. Myself, I find it eminently readable and robust, so I'll go on using it even if it is "totally irrelevant".

For free software it all comes down to personal preference, that's why there won't be a One True Interface ®. Now or in the future, that's not to say that certain interface idioms won't become nearly universal, or that better education and more experience won't raise people's expectations. But as long as anyone can modify or alter any aspect of their system (a good thing) and as long as the only check on releasing code is the choice of uptake on the part of the users there will be only minimal interface consistency.

This isn't a bad thing, the people who want consistent UI standards are acting as if the Free Software Movement is a unitary entity that should be acting in concert towards a defined goal. Ha.
Gnustep Links for the interested Official Gnustep site
Unofficial Gnustep Site
WindowMaker
Swarm Project not part of Gnustep, but an interesting use of Objective-C.

--

Objective-C is, in and of itself, a wonderful langauge, but comes with very little functionality. Even many of the fundamental object capabilities depended on NeXT's FoundationKit et al, which for a long time, was only available in Nextstep, and just before NeXT's assimilation by Apple, in Openstep, which was Nextstep's libraries licensed to other vendors.

The GNUStep project is trying to get these libraries up to speed, meeting and in some cases exceeding the OpenStep specs, but without them, it is very difficult to develop in Objective-C on any platform but NextStep or that rare zebra, OpenStep for Solaris.

For more info on GNUStep, I suggest looking at newsWire.

For years people have proclaimed "now you have the code, you can make changes if you want." Well, guess what, 99.5% of the people who use software don't know how to make changes!

So again I'd like to point out, "Now that you have the code, you can OPTIMIZE it for your system." And, yes, that does really matter. And, no, you don't need to know how to program to do it.

Take the example of Mandrake, maybe you think Mandrake is all hype, it's not. I started using Mandrake about a year ago after getting sick of recompiling everything by hand. I have done tests to prove to myself that Mandrake benchmark scores are higher than other Linux distributions like Gentus Benchmark Results on the exact same system (NOTE 1).

And that's not the end of it... that's just Pentium optimized, I could throw a few more flags in for kicks and tweak the scores more.

So, when I can get a gain of almost 40% using FREE software, try to compare the costs of doing it with hardware. A system that would be 40% faster (using hardware alone) would cost significantly more. Or, your going to get better preformance even on better hardware with optimized flags... so....

I'm a little supprised that this benifit to Open Source (that applies to all hardware types, not just x86) is soo overlooked, and "the ability to change the code" is so bragged about.

NOTE 1: Gentus is completely based on Red Hat, and Mandrake has it's roots in Red Hat software optimizations. Gentus is Red Hat with specific additions for Abit hardware, thus the better disk access times with Gentus (I can use ATA100) that with Mandrake (using only UDMA 66).

For years people have proclaimed "now you have the code, you can make changes if you want." Well, guess what, 99.5% of the people who use software don't know how to make changes!

So again I'd like to point out, "Now that you have the code, you can OPTIMIZE it for your system." And, yes, that does really matter. And, no, you don't need to know how to program to do it.

Take the example of Mandrake, maybe you think Mandrake is all hype, it's not. I started using Mandrake about a year ago after getting sick of recompiling everything by hand. I have done tests to prove to myself that Mandrake benchmark scores are higher than other Linux distributions like Gentus Benchmark Results on the exact same system (NOTE 1).

And that's not the end of it... that's just Pentium optimized, I could throw a few more flags in for kicks and tweak the scores more.

So, when I can get a gain of almost 40% using FREE software, try to compare the costs of doing it with hardware. A system that would be 40% faster (using hardware alone) would cost significantly more. Or, your going to get better preformance even on better hardware with optimized flags... so....

I'm a little supprised that this benifit to Open Source (that applies to all hardware types, not just x86) is soo overlooked, and "the ability to change the code" is so bragged about.

NOTE 1: Gentus is completely based on Red Hat, and Mandrake has it's roots in Red Hat software optimizations. Gentus is Red Hat with specific additions for Abit hardware, thus the better disk access times with Gentus (I can use ATA100) that with Mandrake (using only UDMA 66).

It used to be at http://cajun.current.nu/ but that seems to be down. Anyone know who's maintaining it?

Try http://cajun.sourceforge.net/.

People seem to be kind of confused about what GNUstep is and implies, I'll try to clarify:

GNUstep is: an implementation of the OpenStep API. The OpenStep API makes it quite easy to develop programs for it, as the developer doesn't have to worry about the little things, and spend their time innovating and writing great code . It's cross-platform (between Windows w/ the YellowBox, anything running GNUstep, Mac OS X/Cocoa). It's a dream to develop with, and the Objective-C language, to me, is much nicer to use than C++ (although I think there's wrappers for Java, and perhaps C/C++).

GNUstep will: Allow for easy ports to platforms running GNUstep from source written under OpenStep, Rhapsody, or Mac OS X (using Cocoa/YellowBox). This encourages cross-platform development, and hopefully will help bring many apps to Mac OS X/Cocoa, as well as Linux/FreeBSD/etc.

GNUstep is not: a window manager or a desktop environment. Desktop environments can (and quite easily) built with GNUstep. In fact, someone is working on a NeXT-like file manager right now, which is working and developed under OpenStep, and easily recompiled on a FreeBSD box using GNUstep.



For more information, see the GNUstep website or the unofficial GNUstep website, both of which have plenty of information on the OpenStep spec, and where GNUstep is going.

In short-- definately check it out!

Aaron

Some of his stuff gets a bit "out there" (and I wouldn't go there if you're really easily offended by suggestive stuff), but he also has some of the best Goth-ish stuff I've found. And some of his stuff has actually inspired artistically-challenged me to try designing some of his own.

The underlying structure would have to be the same, becuase after all, the hardware would be the same, there are no "gender bias computers" unless all of a sudden we call the iMac or something a womans computer, and then one of the Mac distributions becomes a "womens" distribution...

The file structures would have to be the same, because without interoperability, they would be seperating themselfs in the workplace, and files couldn't be shared, and they couldn't be a "team" player...

What's left? I think I would suggest (at the risk of really offending EVERYONE, and generally making myself look like a pig), that women might have a great place in GUI or theme development.

In thinking about it, browsing through the GTK, KDE, WindowMaker, E, and other themes, there isn't a whole heck of a lot out there for women to like. I know my wife was just flat out offended by some... and Caitlin Fairchild themes sure aren't gong to win them over to Linux...

Women have always been very "visually smart." (here goes the really chance for me to look like a PIG). As artists, they have always been impressive, and GUI overlayers (like themes) would be an awsome place to get more women involved and stop some of the gender bias of UNIX. I tried to create a theme once myself for my wife (see this pathetic attempt). But she ended up useing KDE, and wanting me to buy her a book on GIMP so she can do her own graphics.

Frankly, I don't think many of the GUI enviroment "visual layers" (hard coded or themes) really are as attractive to women as they could create for themselfs. I would love to be able to point my wife to a "women's theme pack" or something, but themes.org has soo much almost naked women, sci-fi, or dark and demented stuff, she doesn't even want to waste her time looking at them.....

So, a distribution? I don't know. But are plenty of areas for them to work in. The hard coded application and kernel stuff, I would hope women wouldn't divert from the general code, and contribute to the base where all people can benifit. But as for GUI, I think they would be well justified in comeing up with some creative visual stuff that would please _THEM_ insted of having to sort through all the borderline porn themes to find something they can stand working with.

I see the link is broke, so it's also covered here:
http://mu.current.nu
and at
http://www.pdabuzz.com

People use BASIC because they don't know any better and/or they are lazy. The same thing goes for using the proper 'Too' and punctuation. ;-)

I think Apple is finally doing the right thing in letting Yellow Box sell itself. Most long-time Apple developers were freaking over the prospect of having to recode for Yellow Box. Voila, we get Carbon and they are happy. Check out StepWise though to see just how many quality Yellow Box Apps are already shipping for Mac OS X, an OS not even due to be delivered until early 2000. Too bad on the Yellow Box for NT licensing front though. I will personally bet that the problem there is Adobe and not Apple.

Even if Yellow Box should tank the API is alive and well, getting stronger each day. Check out
GNUStep or the GNUStep NewsWire for details. At bare minimum the fellow asking the original question needs to take a look at this.

But, the only thing we found was for Tru64, so the "chiefs" decided to get some more SGI's, and keep the commercial UNIX problems all with one company. :-( I do know for a fact though, that if the preformance (espically FP w/ Fortran) would have been there from a commercial Linux compiler, not only would there be a Alpha Linux box here, but a couple PIII's running Linux too. For pure hardware preformance, there would have been a lot of nice hardware we could have got for the price of the Origin and Octane we got insted.

In the end, brand loyalty won, because it came down to a risk on something unknown, with questionable preformance from unknow compilers, compared to knowing how SGI would screw us already. As for Linux developed with a commercial compiler I say YES! I have long been a believer that people who don't optimize thier compiles, but go out and spend $700 more for a CPU that runs 20% faster are total idiots! It depends much on if the distribution was put together with the compiler, or if the compiler is included, and the price tag. Actually, I have thought about this for over a year now, and I think it was last summer some time I came to this conclusion:
"If someone is selling a C compiler for Linux, and they claim it is better than GCC, why in the world don't they bundle it with a whole Linux distribution that was compiled with thier compiler?"
If in fact the preformance was better, you may well be able to spend say $100 to $300 on a commercial compiler, and get a system that was 35% faster overall. I mean, even GCC can make your system up to 30% faster if you use the right flags (see my tests and the claims of Mandrake Linux). People are always looking for the latest greatest hardware boosts for an edge, and it's very short sighted to think about spending all that money on faster hardware when you have the source code right in front of you, and your runing unoptimized binaries.

If Intel REALLY wanted to support Linux, they would port thier compiler to Linux (which is an OUTSTANDING C compiler for x86), and let VAResearch sell Red Hat recompiled optimized for each specific CPU using Intel's compiler. They would probably see a preformance boost that they can't get out of hardware alone.

Along those lines, I also believe that AMD should really start backing the GCC project by donating half a dozen of thier new Athlon processors to the top developers in GCC. If they did that, and shiped instruction set specs and details, there could be a -march=athlon flag that could potential put thier preformance WAY ahead of PIII.

I'm also hoping that IBM pays some close attention to GCC now that they are supporting the Linux community, with the G3 and the older Cyrix based stuff they still own, they could really make Linux on thier hardware "wake people up."

Don't get me wrong, I think GCC is doing pretty darn well. But I do think that GCC development and support is much more important than elevating Linus to the level of a god.

MU News has been tracking this story a bit, and has some links if you wanna learn more about MAJC.

GCC is a fairly good compiler for x86, even when compaired to commercial compilers. GCC is really getting better every day for x86, literally.

But if you compare Alphas with True64-UNIX (formarly DEC-UNIX) and commercial compilers to Alphas running Linux using GCC, there is a HUGE gap in preformance. There is a simple solution though... Get the GCC guys some 21264's ASAP ;-)

BTW, IBM is seems to putting faith into other people's CPU's for Linux ports is a popular idea now, check MU for a story on IBM porting Linux to PowerPC 405.

If you know who might need a host, email me at rob@freshmeat.net.

Oh, I don't work on coldfire. check out mu.current.nu if you think those links are cool. It's sorta slashdot like, but focused on this kind of news specificly...

System tuneing is IMPORTANT. Important enought that it can make one OS faster than another. I think we should be pointing out that open source is much more tunable, not only in the ability to modify the code, but also in the ability to optimize it for specific hardware. (quick note on some stuff I tried to see the diffrence, click here)

Why can't someone do some intellegen testing on this, and give credit to the people who REALLY make GNU/GPL and all of open source a success, the folks who write the COMPILERS! Linus did write some nice stuff, as well as many others, but without the right compiler, it's worthless.

I wonder who compiled apache, and with what compiler, and what flags ;-) Compilers do matter, as I just learned myself today, I wonder how much they would affect apaches preformance.

> All I want out of MP3 is to record my tapes and

> LPs onto my hard drive, squunch them into

> MP3 format, and burn them onto a CD, 100 at a

> time, so that I can play them in my car.

> Anybody with a How-To?


For the playing in the car part, you might want to check out Cajun


--

http://www.current.nu/kde/

I kept hearing people talk about it, and ideas floating around. Someone asked me for some webspace for it, I slaped the pages together, and stuck them up.

Unfortunately, I personally don't want to lead any of these projects, I only offered the site space, and some server side stuff (mailing list setup/mantainance, etc...). And, so far only about a dozen people have showed any interest, so there isn't much to do or talk about yet. If anyone wants to work on it, let me know, I'd be happy to give ya some space, or just the list of names I have so far....

for those who wanna see what is in there.

This is the goal of the CAJUN (Car Audio Jukebox UNIX) project, isn't it? :-)

http://gnustep.current. nu/comments.php3?sid=99/01/27/125608 is the correct link for the story.

They aren't my posts, but I thought they were interesting, so I decided to share them with you ;-)