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Domain: tarball.net

Stories and comments across the archive that link to tarball.net.

Comments · 7

  1. Guess you don't know a lot about FLTK do you? by Svartalf · · Score: 2 · on Review Of The Sharp Zaurus 5000D

    "Mmm... ugly, non-portable, AND obscure. A winning combo. QT can at least be used on Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, etc. :)"

    FLTK can be used on Windows, MacOS, Linux (and anything running X11...). As for "ugly"- that'd be the default UI look and feel. You can produce NICE looking UI code with FLTK (Witness "Post Office", a mail program using FLTK as the GUI lib (http://www.tarball.net/postoffice)- it looks as polished as many commercial products.) and the default UI look and feel is about to get an update with the 2.0 release that is currently in development.

    Don't get me wrong, Qt is nice. Qt, however, is much, much larger (even with Qt Embedded) than FLTK (2 or so Mb versus 200-400k for FLTK!) and requires special pre-processors to make the code go.

  2. Re:cisco ios emulators by sybex by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 3 · on Is There A Cisco-IOS Emulator?

    I've tried one of those simulators, I don't recall the name of the program, but I think it was written by Todd Lammle. Very poor. (To his credit, he writes better books.) It was not the kind of thing you could hack around with. I suppose my greatest complaint is that very simple broken configurations would actually work when they're not supposed to. Very simple problems, like setting up static routes in only one direction, and having reply packets make it through. Despite all these bugs, it costs roughly $300. I *ahem* evaluated the product before deciding that it didn't perform as advertised.

    I was lucky because in Toronto we have a study group. They have a router lab available online for Toronto-area residents. It is not cost effective nor all that rewarding to allow people to book time on the routers globally... but you might want to search the web.. you might find something.

    Your other option as somebody recommended is to build your own lab. Most people studying for their CCNE do this. Writing the exams is the only reason I could think that somebody would ask specifically for an IOS emulator.

    I did a quick search and there does appear to be a Cisco IOS emulator for modifying ipchains rules using IOS commands. It looks pretty young. It didn't exist when I was studying for my CCNA http://www.tarball.net/cish/

    I should probably give it a try some day.

  3. Tried XFMail and Postoffice and couldn't build by goingware · · Score: 2 · on Is The Microsoft-Free Office Possible?
    I should point out, in response to some who have written me, is that I'm not trying to use my Linux box as a mail server. It's a laptop that's not always connected to the net. I just want to use my hosting services like any Mac or Windows user would.

    I tried XFMail and Post Office today and couldn't get either of them to build.

    I spent about an hour with each of them. Post Office required a bunch of undocumented environment variables to be set in order to get it to build.

    I think it's critically important that no software require an environment variable to get it to basically function. If it does, you can be sure the user will select a product from Microsoft or Apple instead.

    This is with a Slackware 7 system.

    XFMail hasn't been maintained in a year, and although it's taken new life as Archimedes it hasn't been released yet.

    It is possible to retrieve it from CVS and build it that way. I'll give it a try

  4. Re:My experiences by Scarblac · · Score: 1 · on A Suit's Experience With Linux

    > 2. I'm missing IE and Outlook Express.

    For an Outlook replacement, the following is cool: http://www.tarball.net/postoffice/

    It works like Outlook, but it knows what standards are, what a clue is, and so on.

    Missing IE? Well, any good graphical browser would be nice... Netscape sucks, Mozilla needs like 700M diskspace if you want to compile it, ...

  5. Re:Motif "ugly" while GTK "beautiful"?? by pim · · Score: 1 · on Death of CDE & Motif?

    As for head-bashing, I agree that Motif & gtk are both wacky to program for, but what graphical API isn't?

    FLTK. And it doesn't even have to look bad;).

    HTH, HAND.
    Pi

    --
    . -- Perth

  6. Re:Work for a cool company! by pim · · Score: 4 · on How Do You Fund an OpenSource Project?
    I can second that. I do parts of the development on Post Office and other GPL projects during work hours with the knowledge of my employer.

    The secret is to look at projects that need to be done inside the company and then define a more generic solution to the problem, that will also fare well outside of the company playground. This is win/win/win for you, your employer and the outside world:

    • You win, because you're now no longer coding on a specific project to satisfy only a stupid customer who, at the end, doesn't even grasp the amount of work you did for him/her.
    • Your employer wins, because they can offer the same solution to multiple customers without extra overhead. They also get more stable code out of you because of the benefits that come from it being an open source solution.
    • The world wins, since it gains another useful program.

    Of course, if you're bringing an existing project to a new job, careful selection of an employer that will not be micromanaging every piece of code your produce becomes essential.

    Good luck,
    Pi
  7. Re:Yes... But is it free? by pim · · Score: 1 · on V2 OS

    Personally, I can't understand why this project exists. Speed? Hardware is fast, it's always getting faster, and existing operating systems are as fast as you make them. Being the speed king matters for all of 7 months, when Intel releases a new revision of their processor that negates all your hard hacking. Well, if they're having fun writing it, I guess it has a place.

    The primary intended purpose for the OS was to act as a framework for realtime computer-controlled video playback in a "black box" fashion. The lack of a lot of accepted OS features like memory protection is part of its featurelist. For an embedded realtime system with only one real purpose, a framework like this can make a lot of sense.

    You also have to bow for the job Joost has done in relatively little time with a notable lack of available hardware documentation. The hack value of it all is, IMHO, pretty high.

    Pi
    Madscience Labs - Rotterdam

    Get PostOffice