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Leo on this? That would be a killer app.
But do you really need to run Linux for that, or can you just install Python on a stock iPaq?

Lazy, hell. You don't really believe this, do you?

I don't go to every machine I manage, I use shell scripts. When the machine boots, init configures the system. Hardware configuration is part of the entire scheme. If it fails, the user (not an admin) should then get someone else to fix it as it's not thier job to know how. If the hardware configuration software is worth it, there should be few situations where it does indeed fail. Kudzu (Red Hat's) is damn good. If the Debian folks want to reinvent the wheel, they can.

Getting the proper modules loaded automatically is exactly the kind of task that software does well. Looking up hardware details and slogging through kernel notes is an entirely automatable process...and automation is why we have computers in the first place.

I used to fiddle around with modules every time I upgraded the kernel -- either from source or from a new distribution. Kudzu (also used in Knoppix BTW) does an amazing job of auto configuration...so why not use it or something like it?

1. Would you use a boot CD like Knoppix if you had to configure the modules and other drivers each time you went to a new machine? It would take the joy out of it, making you do the work a computer is entirely capable of doing.

It doesn't make you any less special that the system figures out something that you also can figure out. Yes, experts should know how the system works. Tinker with modules.conf if you like. I personally would like to fiddle with other things beyond the base hardware configuration since I already know how it works.

That said, if you're a professional let me put in a plug for InstallBase. This is a TK-based, cross-platform installation program; Solaris, Windows, and Linux. It provides a good balence between simple and detailed configuration, as well as a silent mode. Currently, I'm using it to bring sanity and automation to a mismanaged network.

Here's something you likely agree with. The network management document I'm writing says -- up front -- installation is not running an install program. I'm a strong believer that If you don't know what the answer should be, using a computer to tell you is an act of trust in something that has proven itself untrustworthy; it is foolish.

InstallBase (the tool) is used becuase it meets the goal of automation, though to use it or any other tool properly you have to know exactly what it is you want it to do. That takes concerned effort. The result eliminates needless work and inconsistant human mistakes that happen when each machine is managed a little differently. (If done wrong, you get consistant mistakes...so, there you go!)

About demos being unrunnable on a modern computer, have to say that it really sucks. However, there's still projects like DemoDVD and Amidemos which try to archive demos as videos.

Also, to my and many others delight, open source project called DOSBox has managed to get its project up to the state being able to run quite a few older demos as well. Even some of the trick effects using VGA hw registers work fine, although there's still some room for improvement with that. :) Note that you'll need more or less top of the line computer to get enough emulating power.

PS. The Second Reality you mentioned still doesn't work...

I'm not entirely sure about Yahoo, but I know that Microsoft has published excessively complete documentation describing the MSN protocol, and based on this, there are a number of open source implementations of MSN client. Even if a messaging service cracks down on 'unauthorized' clients, the protocols are still known to the extent necessary to provide the public with a high quality open source client that encompasses all the widely used protocols: Gaim

As to acquisition of screen names, it occurs to me that a purely alphanumeric string without a consistent, identifiable structure would be rather hard to glean from web content. An email address x@x.com can be scanned with a simple regular expression, but acquiring aim screen names would be difficult unless a particular type of bulliten board always displays users screen names in the same place, in the same way, or something to that effect.

You can in theory get started developing DXVT even without Microsoft Visual $1000. The free MinGW port of GCC is enough to get DirectDraw running, and there exist some nice DirectDraw wrappers such as the Allegro library.

http://monctonlug.sourceforge.net/

I am currently publishing several several-hundred-page technical manuals using the following workflow:

All documentation is edited using an ordinary plaintext editor.

The documents are marked-up using ReStructured Text conventions. This has satisfied 99% of my needs. I've decided the convenience of ReST outweighs the need for the remaining 1% of the frills I want.

I use CVS for revision control. There may be an RCS involved in the backend; I don't operate the server that hosts my repository.

The ReST documents are converted to XML using DocUtils. The project coordinator, by the way, has proven himself a superlative programmer. DocUtils rocks, and will also transform ReST to HTML or Latex.

The XML is converted using XSL templates that I've created. Saxon then transforms the DocUtils XML to XML:FO, and FOP transforms that into PDF.

Pretty fucking spiffy, if I do say so myself.

I also currently use HT2HTML to transform ReST to HTML. I use it in preference to DocUtil's native HTML transformation because it allows me to do a few nice tricks. In the future I plan to migrate entirely to another set of custom XSL tranformations.

This system has proven extremely productive. At any time I could pop a few bucks for a commercial XSL:FO->PDF engine and stomp the few gripes I've had with FOP (my number one issue is lack of keep-with-next functionality; however, FOP is under a complete refactoring, and will emerge with full functionality). Saxon has been superb, DocUtils has been wonderful (and I've been able to contribute to the overall design), and ReST is quite pleasant to read and write.

Overall, I highly recommend this workflow.

Your source material becomes extremely reusable, eminently accessible, and free from commercial encumberances.

(footnote: if you do go this route, please don't flood the DocUtils developers with suggestions and ideas. Work out your idea in detail, consult the developers' mailing list archives, and make full consideration of side-effects. Only then suggest it. They've been at this so long, and had so many discussions, that they've become a little short of patience with loud-mouthed newbies. I suspect most popular open-source projects get that way...)

I am currently publishing several several-hundred-page technical manuals using the following workflow:

All documentation is edited using an ordinary plaintext editor.

The documents are marked-up using ReStructured Text conventions. This has satisfied 99% of my needs. I've decided the convenience of ReST outweighs the need for the remaining 1% of the frills I want.

I use CVS for revision control. There may be an RCS involved in the backend; I don't operate the server that hosts my repository.

The ReST documents are converted to XML using DocUtils. The project coordinator, by the way, has proven himself a superlative programmer. DocUtils rocks, and will also transform ReST to HTML or Latex.

The XML is converted using XSL templates that I've created. Saxon then transforms the DocUtils XML to XML:FO, and FOP transforms that into PDF.

Pretty fucking spiffy, if I do say so myself.

I also currently use HT2HTML to transform ReST to HTML. I use it in preference to DocUtil's native HTML transformation because it allows me to do a few nice tricks. In the future I plan to migrate entirely to another set of custom XSL tranformations.

This system has proven extremely productive. At any time I could pop a few bucks for a commercial XSL:FO->PDF engine and stomp the few gripes I've had with FOP (my number one issue is lack of keep-with-next functionality; however, FOP is under a complete refactoring, and will emerge with full functionality). Saxon has been superb, DocUtils has been wonderful (and I've been able to contribute to the overall design), and ReST is quite pleasant to read and write.

Overall, I highly recommend this workflow.

Your source material becomes extremely reusable, eminently accessible, and free from commercial encumberances.

(footnote: if you do go this route, please don't flood the DocUtils developers with suggestions and ideas. Work out your idea in detail, consult the developers' mailing list archives, and make full consideration of side-effects. Only then suggest it. They've been at this so long, and had so many discussions, that they've become a little short of patience with loud-mouthed newbies. I suspect most popular open-source projects get that way...)

I am currently publishing several several-hundred-page technical manuals using the following workflow:

All documentation is edited using an ordinary plaintext editor.

The documents are marked-up using ReStructured Text conventions. This has satisfied 99% of my needs. I've decided the convenience of ReST outweighs the need for the remaining 1% of the frills I want.

I use CVS for revision control. There may be an RCS involved in the backend; I don't operate the server that hosts my repository.

The ReST documents are converted to XML using DocUtils. The project coordinator, by the way, has proven himself a superlative programmer. DocUtils rocks, and will also transform ReST to HTML or Latex.

The XML is converted using XSL templates that I've created. Saxon then transforms the DocUtils XML to XML:FO, and FOP transforms that into PDF.

Pretty fucking spiffy, if I do say so myself.

I also currently use HT2HTML to transform ReST to HTML. I use it in preference to DocUtil's native HTML transformation because it allows me to do a few nice tricks. In the future I plan to migrate entirely to another set of custom XSL tranformations.

This system has proven extremely productive. At any time I could pop a few bucks for a commercial XSL:FO->PDF engine and stomp the few gripes I've had with FOP (my number one issue is lack of keep-with-next functionality; however, FOP is under a complete refactoring, and will emerge with full functionality). Saxon has been superb, DocUtils has been wonderful (and I've been able to contribute to the overall design), and ReST is quite pleasant to read and write.

Overall, I highly recommend this workflow.

Your source material becomes extremely reusable, eminently accessible, and free from commercial encumberances.

(footnote: if you do go this route, please don't flood the DocUtils developers with suggestions and ideas. Work out your idea in detail, consult the developers' mailing list archives, and make full consideration of side-effects. Only then suggest it. They've been at this so long, and had so many discussions, that they've become a little short of patience with loud-mouthed newbies. I suspect most popular open-source projects get that way...)

Sounds like you're doing some fun stuff there. I work for MNN cable access in NYC. We just finished rebuilding our studio where we just got done dealing with these same issues. I understand joo.

1> Lighting. This is probably the most important part of making a show look good. I think I'd be doing you a disservice to say "get two inkies, three 5K fresnels, blah blah blah." You should really consider bringing in a good lighting designer who can not only recommend some good fixtures, but who can also put together some stock light plots that will look good for 95% of all productions. Never sleep on good lighting for a studio. It really makes all the difference.

2> Cameras. We went with the Hitachi Z3000W as our studio camera. It's digital, it has great resolution, and a wicked nice lens. They provide a lot of bang for the buck (can't remember how much we paid, tho.) Take a look at Triax cabling for connecting the cameras back to Control. It's flexible, the signa's clean, and they're a lot easier and cheaper to replace. For a teleprompter, we're just using QTV with WinCue. Works fine.

3> Audio. We had some Behringers around but they didn't stand up to the abuse we put it through. Then we found the Sony ECM-55B. It's our workhorse lav. I've had nothing but headaches with wireless so I'm not going to comment on them.

4> Decks. There are a ton of Good Broadcast Reasons to go with BetaSP but it's just so damn expensive. I love DV. Because we're public access, we have to work with civilians who can't afford $20 per tape. Let them master to DV at $4 a pop and they can go home, finish in iMovie or Premiere on their home computer and bring it back in to us all clean and digital like. Sure, it's compressed and of course it might artifact, but working with analog in post is a system bandwidth hassle. Meanwhile DV works at full-res on my mom's iMac. Until Thompson decides to make the Filmstream for $3K, I'm sticking with DV. I say go with DV if you can (DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO, whatever.) You can't beat the price.

5> I'm not a big fan of the Streaming In A Box solutions. What you get for your streaming really depends on what you want to deliver. Do you want to provide video on demand? Bring the video into a Mac or PC via FireWire, use Discreet Cleaner to convert the file to MPEG4, Real, whatever, and drop it on a streaming server with lots of storage, hordes of RAM, and some fat ass bandwidth. Just looking to simulcast your broadcast? Even easier: run the program output of your master control switcher to a video capture card on a superfast PC. Start up some live encoder software (QuickTime Broadcaster, Helix Producer, MPEG4IP) and have it send a unicast stream to a replication server attached to the net. With live streaming, you don't need any storage at all (unless you need to archive.)

6> Newsdesks. Check out uniset. They make good looking inexpensive sets and CYC panels (for doing green screen). We've been very happy with their stuff.

One last thing: check out DVLince - an all-DV server based production workflow for under $300K. Sony just bought them to rebrand it as their own gear. It might not be exactly what you need, but it's worth checking out.

But the bottom line is that nobody should ever have used a Mac iPod on a PC in the first place.

I have a first-generation 5GB iPod for Mac that was given to me as a gift. I run Red Hat on my desk, so I found gtkpod and gnupod to make it work. I have since formatted back and forth between Win and Mac filesystems (recently got a G4 Powerbook) several times as a test, and it works fine. There should therefore be no reason at all why an iTunes update would corrupt the firmware irreparably, as it appears to have done from the posters' descriptions, aside from buggy or sloppy programing. (Or malice.)

As far as I can tell, the only difference between the two "versions" of the iPod is the filesystem with which the drive is formatted (HFS+ for Mac, VFAT for Win). Other than that, the hardware is exactly the same. (If you think about it, making two different types of hardware would have been prohibitively expensive from a manufacturing standpoint.) Unless someone can provide specific hardware details to the contrary, I'd say Apple is definitely screwing the pooch here.

Simple, right? You just click on their name and hit "ignore" and it's not a problem anymore, right? Well, what if you had to click 10,000 names in an hour? It would be an unreasonable task for somebody as lazy as I am...I found myself spending more time dealing with these bots than actually conversing.

It is said that "Every new feature is the scratching of some developer's personal itch." Well, being a developer (albeit one with marginal skills and even less time) with a personal itch, I thought to myself "There must be a way to automate the filtering of all these messages."

Sure enough, open source to the rescue. My Instant Messaging client software, gaim, provides the ability to include modular plugins to modify the behavior of the software. Eureka, I could write a plugin that would filter out annoying chat messages!

So I sat down, scratched my head, and wrote one for gaim that attempted to filter out annoying messages. After a few revisions, I had something that filtered out ~90% of annoying messages, without any false positives. It was easier than expected, because most messages that we don't want have one or more common characteristics:

Linkified messages whose URLs do not match the linkified text (e.g. Click HERE to see hot girls!)

Multiple messages containing links

Long messages (more than 20 characters) repeated verbatim

So all one need do is check these messages for these characteristics and you've got a pretty good filter. Unfortunately, gaim tends to change its API from version to version, so it is always getting broken. But you are welcome to take a look at it and contribute fixes if you like.

SovBob

Simple, right? You just click on their name and hit "ignore" and it's not a problem anymore, right? Well, what if you had to click 10,000 names in an hour? It would be an unreasonable task for somebody as lazy as I am...I found myself spending more time dealing with these bots than actually conversing.

It is said that "Every new feature is the scratching of some developer's personal itch." Well, being a developer (albeit one with marginal skills and even less time) with a personal itch, I thought to myself "There must be a way to automate the filtering of all these messages."

Sure enough, open source to the rescue. My Instant Messaging client software, gaim, provides the ability to include modular plugins to modify the behavior of the software. Eureka, I could write a plugin that would filter out annoying chat messages!

So I sat down, scratched my head, and wrote one for gaim that attempted to filter out annoying messages. After a few revisions, I had something that filtered out ~90% of annoying messages, without any false positives. It was easier than expected, because most messages that we don't want have one or more common characteristics:

Linkified messages whose URLs do not match the linkified text (e.g. Click HERE to see hot girls!)

Multiple messages containing links

Long messages (more than 20 characters) repeated verbatim

So all one need do is check these messages for these characteristics and you've got a pretty good filter. Unfortunately, gaim tends to change its API from version to version, so it is always getting broken. But you are welcome to take a look at it and contribute fixes if you like.

SovBob

distributed folding is, granted not as appealing to the eyes, but makes up for that with productive results. also makes a decent benchmarking util. win32 screenshot. i like using it with multi-gnome-terminal w/ transparency turned on ontop of a snazzy desktop background image.

Secondly, if the GNU/Linux operating system were to use a different kernel, then it would be the GNU/XXXXX operating system.

You mean like those non-Linux versions of Debian, like Debian GNU/Hurd, Debian GNU/NetBSD, Debian GNU/FreeBSD, Debian GNU/Win32 and the upcoming Debian GNU/ELKS (based on the ELKS kernel for 8086 and 80286 et al), right? What is your point again?

The best explaination of this whole naming farce I've read so far is Chapter 10 of Free as in Freedom by Sam Williams. It's available online. Instead of pretending to be unbiased, it actually shows every biased point of view, from different angles, showing that basically all of the people involved have their own agendas and egos.

Linux vs. GNU/Linux OS naming schism is not a simple issue and should not be treated as such. It represents the Open Source fork of the Free Software movement and is equally complicated as the infamous Lucid Emacs vs. GNU Emacs schism. Your Score:5, Insightful comment (yes, I am jealous) is an extreme oversimplification of a very complicated and interesting issue.

Don't need to keep that old DOC PC around to play Star Control 2 anymore - try the open source remake, The Ur'Quan Masters. This is actually built from the source of the 3D0 version, so includes all the niceness that made the 3D0 version superior.

Wonder how well the maintainers of Warp Pipe understand open source licenses. In the first forum link, he says that their "license acts much like a standard BSD license." If that was the case, wouldn't they have even less reason to complain than if it was under the GPL, depending on the degree of the "much like"?

If you happen to be on Windows, and you might not, Media Player Classic plays these. Just download the swf file and grab the slider and scroll to after the "Loading" screen.

Yeah, they did crack down. But within a day, a workaround was found.

What for? Similar applications have been available for Mac OS X for quite some time. To name only one: StreamRipperX.

Those interested in a nicely-hacked, small-footprint version of WMP should take a look at Media Player Classic.

The nice thing about WMP is that it's a self-contained executable, it allows you to add any DirectShow filters you may have installed, supports Quicktime and RealMedia (that's right! get rid of those ugly, bloated pieces of dogshit), as well as DVD support and built-in support for TV cards.

Basically, it does everything, weighs in at under a meg, and looks and feels just like Media Player 6.4. Get it. Now.

As open source software, it can be ported by other people, to mac OS X for example.

How about using iCommune instead ? It's been on OS X for about 1 year, IIRC.

You are really missing out. Get with the program. WMP is crap. It can't play every video format, it is slow, and its interface is chubby and wastes space. It was strange how WMP actually got slower after WMP 6.4. The interface was also changed to the chubby monster it now is, with large space wasting empty borders.

The absolute best video player for Windows is open source, has an interface similar to WMP 6.4, is faster than any other video player, and it can play any and every video format! It is called Media Player Classic.

Seriously, you are missing out. Install the latest WMP so that you have the latest MS codecs, do the same with Quicktime, Real, DIVX, etc... (again in order to get the codecs) and then install Media Player Classic. Give yourself a week of using Media Player Classic for all video playing, and I know you won't go back to WMP. You won't be able to tolerate WMP's slow startup times, sluggish performance, its chubby interface, and its lack of codec/format support.

Media Player Classic. Just keep repeating those words. Open source, free, faster, more versatile, and just plain better! One media player to rule them all!

What are you waiting for? Just try it!

How about Media Player Classic? It started out as an open-source clone of the non-bloated Media Player 6.4, but since then has added numerous features not present in any Windows Media Player version without adding bloat.

This looks like a free one that does among other things the same thing:
VDM Sound Project

Rendezvous Proxy will take care of this for you. Use the two products together, problem solved. Easy as cake. I have used Rendezvous Proxy and it does work.

Hey, start coding.

Good to hear that apt can do all that - time for me to start learning Debian. :)

QVCS is an easy guide (and packages) for creating a POP-Toaster using Qmail, Vmailmgr, Courier, and Squirrelmail. I stumbled across it looking for a good Webmail system. I'm not much of a Linux sysadmin, but this guide was thorough enough to get me up and running without a hitch.

Never heard of Arch. I've used VSS, but only for small projects. Ditto for CVS.

What is laughable is that Eugenia still had those old RPM dependency hell issues. You would have thought they would have been solved by now, or that somebody would have created a decent desktop based on a base distribution with decent package management tools.

She was trying to install third party Shrike RPM (Shrike == RH9). Packages built for different distributions should not be expected to work, and generally will not work, no matter whether you're running Debian, Gentoo or FC.

Fedora with some very nice package management (this is old page, Fedora up2date doesn't use RHN, but instead supports both apt and yum repositories) tools.

Here's the project to convert U7 to run on modern platforms, using the original data files: http://exult.sourceforge.net/. Even has a Zaurus port.

the masses will follow.

Make fluxbox the default gui. KDE and GNOME are too caught up in chasing the coattails of the windows Way Of Doing Things.

Fluxbox (and blackbox) are different, and they looking really f-ing cool when you add transparency to windows, lots of flashing dockapps with useful info, and fast looking background pics.

look at these freakingcoolscreenshots.

I want my winamp-like OS. No windows look and feel.

Oo, neon lights...drool, drool, eye candy, flashy things, neat

look into hotplug

Just go FLAC like I did and future proof your audio collection.

actually exult, an ultima 7 engine, runs on Zaurus SL-5500 and up - native

actually exult, an ultima 7 engine, runs on Zaurus SL-5500 and up - native

What you are after is iSCSI. iSCSI standards for Internet SCSI and is a "method of encapsulating SCSI over TCP/IP". iSCSI allows a network share to appear as a local scsi drive to the operating system. So you need a server that supports the iSCSI protocol and a client that support it also.

This site seems to be quite informative on the status of the various Linux projects. Check this out for a server implementation

If you're interested in Linux, my advice would be to set up a second computer for Linux. You could either remote access it, use a KVM, or use something like Synergy to access it.

If you setup dual boot and just try to completely switch over, it probably won't happen too easilly. You may find it a pain to have to keep rebooting just to use Linux.

Though I've used UNIX/Linux intermittently for about 8 or 9 years, Windows has been my primary OS for most of that time. This didn't change until about a year ago. First thing I did was assemble a brand new PC that was a little better than the hardware in my Win2k PC, but pretty much equal. I installed Debian by using Libranet.

With two sets of monitor/keyboard/mouse, and one monitor smaller than the other, it was a pain, and I was always swapping monitor cables and moving around keyboards. So I spent the money and got a nice 4-port KVM. It was worth the $130 I paid for it, it has made my PC setup so much more friendlier, and has made it possible to switch most of my tasks over to Linux.

I'm not 100% Linux, but I don't see what the problem is with using both Linux and Windows. Linux I use for most of my tasks: any kind of internet-related task (browsing/e-mail/IM/file transfer/etc), coding/hacking, servers, documents of all kinds, etc.

Windows I use for various multimedia purposes. Audio recording, listening to music, watching video/movies, burning CD's, watching TV. I pretty much use my Windows PC like an appliance. Sure, I could do most of this in Linux (though not audio recording, at least not yet), but I haven't had the time to figure all that out, and I don't want to move all the hardware out of that machine. I find all the multimedia stuff in Linux to be buggy, incomplete, or just a huge ordeal to setup. Yes, I'm aware of XMMS, mplayer, Audacity, gatos, etc. Yes, I know where to get debs for mplayer, but these didn't magically make everything work, there are still a lot of video files that won't play. I'm going to have to do more research to figure all this out.

Win2k is a KVM button-press away for me, but I actually find myself using Linux most of the time. I could easilly replace my Windows machine with a Mac running OS X. In fact, once I've got some money to burn, I'll buy a Mac (probably next year sometime). I'll still keep Win2k around, even if I do this.

Why limit myself to one OS? I like to have it all. Thanks for listening to my ramblings. Good luck using whatever operating systems you use.

Two years ago I was looking for a fine cross-platform toolkit, and I came across wxWindows.

It's very strange that this toolkit gets so little publicity, as it has a very rich API and lots of nice features - such as a sweet sizer-based XML resource system that makes creating GUI a breeze. It also has wxConfig classes which allow one to easily store configuration settings without worrying about the underlying system (registry on windows, files on UNIX). Its HTML help classes provide an easy, cross-platform way write help. wxWindows supports XPM files under all systems to spare the programmer from having to convert one's icons to the appropriate system format on every system. It's all in the API Reference

Disclaimer:
I can't say I've done any very serious applications with wxWindows, just a light AOL Instant Messenger - it fits on a floppy and requires no install. I've seen enough to know it's a great toolkit, though.

I find that FC1 is not yet ready for the masses, but I arrive at that conclusion from a different angle than Eugenia Loli-Queru's--I'm using nothing on the system but what was supplied to me on the FC1 discs. I have no interest in doing things I can't do with non-free software (and a lot of things I can do with free software don't interest me either). I don't care about Flash or Java, and I'd rather play Ogg Vorbis files/webcasts than MP3s. I'm testing this on a 840.015MHz Pentium III (according to /proc/cpuinfo) with 768MB RAM.

Unfortunately, FC1 is still not something I can fully recommend to my friends who aren't so technical. I don't think it was a good idea to release the OS with the Add/Remove Software panel program not working and the RPM database being flaky. I keep bumping into problems with these two aspects of the system when I try to fix something in a way that can be easily removed or upgraded via RPM.

Some things I wished were a part of the default install for a workstation user include an OCR program (GOCR, for instance). I think OCR support is important and I'm not wedded to any particular OCR program, but GOCR (or JOCR) seems to be compatibly licensed and offer easy-to-use CLI access. With more users and more programmers, GOCR will become a better program for OCRing. The Add/Remove Software panel problem and the RPM database problem Loli-Queru mentioned make installing additional packages more difficult than they should be.

Other parts of FC1 I find mildly annoying, but not showstoppers: the up2date registration screen seems pointless to me now that it appears you don't need to register to get FC1 updates from the default location. I'm not sure why I was asked to supply an extant RHN ID or create a new one. To the uninitiated user, this could come off as peculiar to the point of wondering if their system is legitimate (at least until they see that updates are available to them). Focusing unfocused windows by clicking on their titlebar seems to make the window stick the mouse (and the cursor turn to the plus pointer). This was unexpected and not pleasant; because of this behavior I inadvertantly move windows a lot.

Unlike Loli-Queru, I would not have expected other packages to work seamlessly with FC1 out of the box (as Loli-Queru expected Flash to work). I figure those packages will come along as more people use the system.

One thing that could make bug reporting easier is if there were simpler categories in which to report errors. Novices are unlikely to know that something odd on the display (like the visual noise I get when moving windows around) is an XFree86 issue as opposed to a Linux kernal issue or a GNOME issue. To get helpful commentary from users, I think it would help to not have to know all the layers of a typical GNU/Linux installation. But this means more people crawling through bug databases reassigning bugs to the proper place. I'm not sure how to best handle the problem, but I think making bug database entry simpler and easier to do ad hoc is a step in the right direction.

Overall, it's an interesting system and I plan to give FC some more tries before I decide to go with another distribution. I'll continue to use RH9 or Debian as my day-to-day GNU/Linux distribution until FC3 or FC4 is out.

Happy hacking.

One way: when you post something to Slashdot, reach the many, many faculty and graduate students who read it by including a URL. Two others:

1. I assume you're talking about higher ed. If so, submit a story about your announcement to Kairosnews and the sites linked from there.
2. Put your stuff in Freshmeat and/or Sourceforge.

I regularly read all of these sites looking for courseware news. I know other folks who do the same.

cbd.

It's a Sourceforge project and slated to be GPL.

The goal is to produce a valid, relevant, cross-platform benchmark that doesn't cost thousands of dollars.

What? sourceforge is hosting 70,925 Open Source projects, how is that being out of commission?

It's free, open source and the Linux-NTFS developers say it's reliable: http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/man/ntfsclone.ht ml

I don't thin its official mandated anywhere, but most implementations do allow it. Basically, if you use glOrtho to make an orthographic projection, and set the window coordinates to the pixel values of the window, then you're primitives should get drawn to pixel bounderies. If you need pixel-for-pixel exact lines, then disable line anti-aliasing.

NGL uses ths functionality to implement an entire UI using OpenGL.

There are some very light and simple xterms that have transparency. I for one use aterm, which is the simplest/lightest terminal emulator I've found so far. It's even lighter than rxvt.

dcfldd is a dd clone/replacement commonly used in forensics work. It let's you generate a hash to ensure what was read is what was written. It's available here.

They claimed I violated the DMCA just by posting a link to their public CVS Server. When will this madness end?

Supports booting from floppy, cd or PXE boot and away you go with a fully unattended windows + applications install.

Takes slightly more setup than a ghost system but can be exteremely useful and more importantly free..

Ratpoison is a simple Window Manager with no fat library dependencies, no fancy graphics, no window decorations, and no rodent dependence.

escape C-a
bind x exec rxvt -fn 12x24 -fg gray -bg black -bd black +sb &
bind m exec /usr/local/mozilla/mozilla &

#!/bin/sh

xsetroot -solid black &
rxvt -fn 12x24 -fg gray -bg black -bd black +sb &
exec ratpoison

For my GPL'ed PHP Captcha sofware:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/session-captcha/