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Slashback: Newton, Wal-Mart, Eats
Honestly, where would they have unloaded that anyway? yorgasor writes "Yahoo reports that the stolen copies of Newton's Principia have been successfully recovered. The thieves are also suspected of other thefts from several Moscow and St Petersburg libraries."
They have everything. An anonymous reader writes "Looks like Lycoris joins Lindows and Mandrake in being preloaded for walmart.com: 'The new $199 Desktop/LX Certified MicroTel PCs include the Desktop/ LX operating system. Desktop/LX also includes the following incredible software features without any additional downloading:'"
Who needs a war? Krieger writes "I found this link to the definitive browser wars at HardOCP, where you get to play checkers to prove your browsers superiority. Taking the browser wars to a new high/low?"
Here's the hook, can you pass that sinker please ... JoeWalsh writes "According to this article, earlier this month RMS visited India and tried to convince them to use Free (as in freedom) Software. Then along comes Bill Gates this month, handing out free (as in beer) software, and suddenly India isn't interested in RMS's message. A choice quote: "We are a poor country. We cannot develop operating systems and platforms on our own." Did RMS tell them they couldn't use GNU/Linux, or is this more Microsoft propaganda at work?"
I'm very the stolen copies of Newton's Principia have been successfully recovered. I was having trouble around here without the laws of physics.
What they don't tell you in the advertising is that many of these cheapie Walmart PC's run a processor from Cyrix that VASTLY underperforms Intel/AMD chips of the same speed. Another example of how MHz/GHz are not a good measure of system performance. Also, another example of how there's no such thing as a free lunch.
I think India's rationale for going with Bill Gates offering over Richard Stallman's offering is fairly simple to explain: Bill's offering a finished product, no polish necessary, at no cost. RMS is saying you can have the greatest software in the world if you put your mind to it and pointing to a bunch of half-written software.
Which would you rather have? Just take a look at the statistics in the places where people can choose to pay for Windows or get Linux free to get an idea of why the opportunity is so tasty to India.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
play checkers to prove your browsers superiority.
/. and prove your webserver's superiority
or post on
I would like to add that i see nothing here about food. move along.
OH GOD, The Humanity!
If you are going to build a government office, which do you want to spend, $100 an hour for 2 days for a contractor who will set up a linux server and show you how to set up linux machines, or $300 for each of 200 copies of xp, plus a $150 an hour contractor to set up an insecure xp or maybe a novell sever, plus $90 * 200 for each copy of ofice, plus $god only knows * 200 for the administrative software? (this isnt all, but the rest will be shared no matter what OS)
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
Priceless art, texts, etc, aren't the sort of thing you'd unload onto Ebay, but there is still a market for them. I'm sure several rich private collectors would have loved to get their hands on it. Nobody would dare flaunt it in public.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
stealing something like that I hope they throw the book at them. Just not THAT book.
...I wish I could convince an entire country that not paying for software is just too damn expensive.
I don't get it. Where are the "eats for the desperate computerist"?
I thought that this was a comment on something like the Dilberito.
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
You know, /. has gotten things wrong before, but mixing up Checkers with Connect Four is a first.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
They are having some server problems so I have included portions from the article here
Via wins big Wal-Mart Linux PC order
C3-Cyrix-Centaur selling 300,000 PCM?
By Mike Magee: Tuesday 19 November 2002, 09:58
TAIWANESE SEMI firm Via has secured an order from massive shop Wal-Mart for two of its C3-Cyrix-Centaur X86 based processors. The Economic News reports that Via and Wal-Mart will create two budget machines running flavours of the Linux OS. There's also a plan for the chip company to make low cost sub $300 machines running Windows Eyecandy. The article claims that Medion is also set to clinch a deal with Via, while Legend and the Founder Group also use some of the C3 processors.
Help fight continental drift.
Maybe it's as simple as giving away disks with GNU/Linux already on them, verses just saying it can be downloaded. Having the disk that can be used (by anyone) to perform an install, is a lot different than having to first download a distros ISO, and burn it to a CD.
I don't know what RMS did on his trip, he may have actually tried to give disks away...
The problem is...it's probably easier to take the hand of someone offering what appears to be the quick fix, rather than reach for the life vest that someone else tossed you.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
In a quote from the article, Bill says:
"We can save money in terms of speed of development or by being able to run on less expensive hardware."
So I guess that's why WinCE handhelds are less expensive than Palm pilots. Oh, wait, they aren't less expensive. Oh but then there is desktops. Oh wait, what about the $199 walmart PC running linux being less expensive than the Windows counterpart... Considering that Linux runs on just about anything, the "less expensive hardware" just is totally untrue. Let's see Windows XP run on a 386 with 8M ram. Nice FUD Bill.
Instead Microsoft tried to cram everything but the kicthen sink into their bloated piece of shit, and then had it sink its cancerous roots into the entire OS while trying to circumvent the W3C by implementing their own psuedo HTML (and let's not even talk about the nightmare that is Active X).
Netscape lost because they got fat and lazy while Bill sank millions and millions of dollars into the bottomless pit and waited for them to bleed to death first. Just like the USA did to the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Newton Joke:
Damn.. why did we have to get the laws of physics back.. my wifes tits were starting to look mighty fine without gravity.
Walmart Joke:
Do we really want Linux to be associated with people who sport mullets?
OK, I'll supply one. Remember when that guy who draws Dilbert was going to launch a line of prepared food products for geeks... like Dilburritos, or something like that?
When things seem really bleak and hopeless, just think about what a total, colossal failure that must have been, and you'll be cheered up in no time!
- Have a picture
That article doesn't say that Wal-Mart is selling 300,000 Linux PCs per month. It says that Via is selling 300,000 C3s per month to buyers including Wal-Mart.
I hope those theves get there library cards taken of them and a 90p fine for each day they didn't return the book.
This is great! And remember, everyone, if you are getting your ass kicked by Galeon, I just might be doing the ass-kicking.
Walmart is the beginning of the end of American Middle Class. They kill a lot of small individually owned mom and pop stores when they move into a town. In the future we will all get to work for them at minimum wage and buy cheap crap from Asia. It is ironic that everyone is up in arms about M$'s behavior but is very passive about what is happening to small businesses. In my view both M$ and Walmart are predatory.
I grew up in the Fulda Gap, where did you?
"Did RMS tell them they couldn't use GNU/Linux, or is this more Microsoft propaganda at work?"
Maybe India just noticed how Bill doesn't get bent out of shape when you don't refer to it as Microsoft/Windows.
So Bill Gates is giving out software to India for free and that "Microsoft was willing to "dramatically lower" its price for socially relevant projects"? As a college student, I feel that as A SOCIALLY RELEVANT being, I am justified in giving myself a free copy of .NET.
Has anyone tried Lindows? How is it? Does it list what windows software is known to run under it??/
Only 'flamers' flame!
Wal-Mart also ships both low-end and mid-range Intel and AMD systems, with Linux or no operating system installed
1. Imagine a beowulf cluster of these.
2. ???
3. All your base are belong to us.
Hiring (or promising) to hire a whole bunch of Indian programmers. Heck i would adopt windows on a couple of boxen if M$ decides to invest heavily in TI market..after all those people are not going to spend their whole lives working for MS...sooner or later they will move on, and presto! Inda has educated progammers with world class experience!
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
that to choose awomen, you must see her without her makeup..
:)
Bill Gate looked better without makeup than RMS did
Don't Tread on OpenSource
I don't understand how Walmart expects to sell this stuff. The price tag that is on this kind of computer will appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator customer. One that doesn't have money or the internet. So how are they supposed to buy it without internet access? And if they do buy one and when they can't run the lastest games(re:windows based games on it) they will return them. (Or pirate old copies of Windows 98 to run on them.)
Most people "in the know" would avoid them would they not? Most Linux geeks that I know would want high end equipment not cheap junk. I've got an old celeron that has trouble running X. How the heck is this going to run Lindows, lycoris or Mandrake 9?
So I can't figure out who this is marketed at? College students? First time "trailer home" computer buyers?
Some one there made a bad business move IMHO.If you have stock in Walmart I'd sell.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
I went to that site to play a fair game of Connect Four in the hopes of getting a final answer as to which browser is truly better than the others. Unfortunately, hoodlums have logged in with multiple browsers to throw the game by playing poorly with one browser in the hopes of defeating a defenseless opponenent!
I mean, truly, who plays checker 3 to slot 1 when the opponent has opened with a classical Harvey the Wonder Hamster attack in slots 4,5, and 6!!
Outrageous! I see the only way this will ever be settled is through the time-honored (and FAR less unruly) game of Go Fish! Harumph, I'm taking my checkers and going home...
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
A diplomat [or insert any M$ name here] is a person who can tell you to go to hell [or buy their products...all the same] in such a way that you are actually looking forward to the trip!
Live for the present, learn from the past, and dream of the future!
I'm = I am
The verb is present. The sentence is missing a predicate adjective/nominative. Not, as another Slashdot English whiz pointed out, an object. "To be" is not transitive (and thus taking an object).
----------
I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
Whenever someone says something like that I hear: "We are a very poor country. We are all dunces. We can't raise our standard of living. Therefore we will eat at the crumbs and wallow in our own pity.
It's a shame people don't respect themselves more. And it's not like php requires that much more development ability then ASP does.
-BrentDo you know something we don't, is the wrting on the wall at Microsoft, are they stopping windows or something?
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Sell a cheap machine and offer the possibility to several linux vendors to get their wares pre-installed. Let them compete with one another and get the best price for the software and the best software packages.
I've gotta hand it to Walmart, they have really figured out how this game should work. I realize that right now, they are offering 3 distros, but ultimately I suspect that, for support purposes it will be easier to trim it down later on. They can just let these guys fight it out for a while to see which one gets the best response from the public.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
"With Desktop/LX, you get peak performance from your $199 Microtel PC the oment you power it up."
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=oment
No entry found for oment.
2 suggestions found:
omen
ament
Can you say spellchecker?
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
You sound as this is a bad thing, (Sorry if I misread your intent) isn't this exactly how a market economy is supposed to work.
Free choice is a good thing and if they have to limit their offering at a later stage at least the "losers" had their chance.
Help fight continental drift.
You've foolishly overlooked a few key important points.
1. MS isn't going to offer this software to India for free forever. As soon as MS deems that they can suck India dry, they'll start charging. Now, they're simply trying to make India dependant on Microsoft, so that people there have to use MS Windows and MS Word. Later on, they'll start charging outrageous prices. Just like what drug dealers do: free to try, addictive, and then you get to pay through the wazoo.
2. Substantial costs of using Windows such as security, downtime, etc have been ignored.
3. The cost of dealing with the BSA and paying them off of they threaten to sue has been ignored.
4. If India needs Windows to do something it doesn't do, they're screwed. If they use Linux, all they have to do is hire a few programmers.
For what the government needs to do, Linux is fine -- perfect, in fact. It can install on many standard types of hardware, and it has some good GUI defaults (i.e., KDE/GNOME) along with good windowmanagers (i.e., WindowMaker). Office suites like OpenOffice are quite easy to use. If they really want MS Office, they can use CrossOver Office.
The most important point here is #1. MS is like a drug-dealer. Sure, they'll give stuff to you for free in hope of making you dependant on it. Then once they're sure you're dependant on it (and they'll do things to make you dependant on it through their updates), they start charging. Sort of like the MP3 FRAUD: let them use MP3's for free, then when everyone's using it and it'll be difficult to switch to something else, suddenly introduce royalty payments. THESE FRAUDULENT FUCKS ARE NO BETTER THAN DRUG DEALERS.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Cartman: Tell them we'll have punch and pie.
Kyle: We're not gonna' have punch and pie!
Cartman: More people will come if they think we have punch and pie!!
Hey India wouldn't be a poor country if they didn't let religon rule there lives.
America wouldn't be a poor country if we didn't let scissors rule our lives.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Do we really want Linux to be associated with people who sport mullets?
Is that worse then being associated with smelly dorks who sit around playing D&D and obsess about star track and buffy all day?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If Walmart or Microsoft is going to take over the world, don't moan about it, BUY THEIR STOCK! You'll OWN a piece of it, and probably MAKE SOME MONEY in the process. These corporations exist not for oppression, but rather to make money for their shareholders.
I don't support Microsoft, and I think my money could be invested better in other places, but if I believed they were going to own India and China, I'd consider buying a piece of that pie.
- An orgy of clicking and death!
That reminds me... My Girlfriend blessed Bill Gates last night. I asked her why, and she said that He was responsible for the ubiquity of the mouse wheel and therefore for the extreme dexterity of the middle finger of my right hand.Sorry, but it's a true story.
Heh, scroll on my scrigidies. Goddamn Right.
There comes a time in every man's life when he must say, "No mother! I do not want any more Jell-O!"
Another factor, that I am sure is not lost on the government leaders in Bangalore, is that Bill Gates is also using this trip to trumpet the Gates Foundation's donation of hundreds of millions of dollars to help the sick/poor of India. Regardless of the motive, Gates' philanthropic efforts are extraordinarily generous. I'm sure this contributes to them speaking up in Bill's defense.
I wonder how Stallman was generally received in India. He has a reputation of being difficult to deal with, and aggressively confrontational on tangential issues (e.g. shouting matches about making sure the transcripts of his speech were freely available). This may be tolerated in the U.S. where his reputation and eccentricities are known. But, in a country less familiar with him, would he just be dismissed as a jackass?
And lastly.. The attitude of the gov't representative in Bangalore is disappointing. India's intellectual wealth is probably it's greatest resource. Particularly in a high-tech center like Bangalore, they should be easily able to employ linux / free software experts. But, the Indian government has never been known as progressive, or embracing of change. Some well placed donations above board, and greased palms under the covers goes a long way.
..it's too bad walmart doesn't have these machines on the shelf, or at least one of them, one of the mid range models perhaps. The local walmart here you have a choice of one-an HP I believe-running xp. On the software shelf, xp. I don't see anything wrong with a low end budget computer. that's why these markets have terms like that, high end fulla blinkenlights and quad fans, down to these cheap systems. Something for everyone is a *good thing* methinks. Around here the few independent and white box shops offer almost the same low end config for around 600$ and up in a lot of cases and are getting it (when they sell them), mostly because people just don't know any better. Pickups they know, tractors they know, used or new 4 wheel buggys they know, computers, nope, microsoft=computer=it has to be expensive, and as such most people still don't have them. Just yesterday I saw one guy had a 486 bundle all used everything for 250$. I was incredulous, but I guess folks don't realize that out in the "heartland" there's not enough choice. That's the tradeoffs in a lot of matters. And it's hard to shop around and order online if you don't have a computer in the first place, yes?
I don't necessarily approve of walmart,it's business model in general, not really, but at least there's finally some effort to break the stranglehold of microsoft-only and expensive-only for computing.
Caution! Do not trust Indian ministers specially IT ministers. They barely know anything about Linux other than the name. If you ask them to name a operating system other than that by MS or Linux they wouldn't know. It is a matter of time before they will make the switch.
Really? Maybe you should explain that to these morons! :)
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
My uncle wanted a computer as cheap as possible (as a 2nd PC in his house). I had him order a walmart PC with Mandrake. What he got was a decent PC with an AMD Athlon processor, 256MB Ram, 20GB hd and onboard video/sound, along with a PCI ethernet card and modem, all assembled. When I came over to help him set it up, I just plugged in the keyboard and mouse and monitor (which he already had). It was much easier than building him one, and it only cost $400. Then he said he wanted Win2k instead of Mandrake... well guess what. The walmart PC cam with a single CDROM that had drivers for all the hardware for every version of windows! So 40 minutes later, he had a full Athlon system. I didnt have to install any hardware or hunt down any drivers on the internet. Walmart is doing a good job with their PCs.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Anybody notice that googlebot won four games in browser wars? Wget won one so far. One has to wonder about the skills of the average IE user versus an automated bot.
I don't know how much money M$ spent on IE, but whatever you say about them, it was well programed and stable. You're certanly right about Netscape being fat and lazy. People don't want a browser that's going to crash every five minutes. (nor do they want one that takes five minute to load, not that IE wouldn't if you loaded it seperately, I would guess).
It's not like you can't compete against Microsoft, but you need to have a quality product if you want to.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Perhaps the fact that Gates announces $100-million support to fight AIDS in India has something to do with the change of tune. That and $12.5 million to improve immunisation services.
At least all the money people sink into M$ is going somewhere good. Too bad we have less of our own money to give away ourselves.
I attended both the talks they gave in Bangalore.
The general feeling among the audience was never like that you said. But still, there are many FUDs around Linux (oops, GNU/Linux), which RMS didn't care to clarify. He was theoretically and politically correct, but failed to excite common user. They need more assurance, that GNU will serve all their needs, and they'll get support. Whereas, in Gate's talk, it was much more exciting for users to know they can get some freebies from M$.
But, that's it. No body jumped ship as far as I have seen.
Bill is getting more importance here because our politicians are interested in free beer.
Kousik
"We are a poor country. We cannot develop operating systems and platforms on our own."
Well that's reassuring. For a moment I thought India was the country that was providing a significant lowering of jobs in the US for programmers due to outsourcing to "Team India" programmers who work for considerably reduced pay in comparison. Thank goodness I work in OS programming and "Platforms".
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
I don't have to worry about TSRs...Linux runs fine on it.
/proc/cpu" than by looking at the CMOS. (I don't think Murphy himself could screw up what few BIOS settings are available.)
Linux supports all the onboard stuff. And if you'd rather use your new SoundBlaster Audigy instead of the AC97 onboard audio, don't load the module for AC97. Or do load it, but use it as a secondary device.
However, it is sad when you learn much more about your machine with "cat
What's this Submit thingy do?
My "old" Celeron 366s on an Abit BP-6 have NO problem running X and generating more than 1000 frames per second when running glxgears through my Voodoo4 4500.
It's true that the Via C3 is not a modern processor design but it is PLENTY adequate for running Linux.
As for the target market for these machines, well who knows
My question is this
utter rubbish
I suspect that if you divided all computer users into students and non-students, you'd find that a greater percentage of students play 3D games than non-students. :)
What's this Submit thingy do?
Chill, man, it's just a joke. Well, half a joke. The point was, they *do* have the talent to generate applications and platforms. Just as half-jokingly, and/or half seriously, I hope that doing so in their own country, for themselves, works better than trying to write it our code for us. Nothing xenophobic or stereotypical about that, I just happen to be familiar with several projects where the code was outsourced to India, and for whatever reason (language barrier, cultural barrier, whatever) the code was a mess, the projects were a disaster.
Hell, look at the Simputer we've read so much about here on Slashdot -- there's even a review on it one article back on the front page here. An entire platform -- one that is getting rave reviews -- One that is inexpensive and innovative -- And one that -- get this -- was created in India! They can do it, and if they knew what's best, they wouldn't let Mr. Gates try to steer them away from that course of action.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
My question is this ... does ANYone have any idea how many Linux boxes Wal-Mart.com is selling and what kind of customers they are selling them to?
Well, I have no idea how many they're selling, but I do know I'm a customer who's thinking of buying one.
Application: router/VPN server for a small wireless network.
Reasons: It's cheap, and it's *good enough*. This is what many don't understand. A lot of people now sneer at a Via C3 800Mhz... but think about it... for many applications that's MORE than adequate. As is the 128 MB of SDRAM and the 10GB HD. It has almost everything I need built in. All I'd have to add is one NIC (it already has one on-board). The proc can run in heatsink-only designs, so I should n't have to worry too much about leaving it in a closet somewhere. If the fan dies, the box will probably just keep chugging as if nothing happened.
All I have to do when I get the box: Install another NIC. Wipe the hard drive, load slack. Configure firewall/routing rules. Set up VPN server. Set up anything else I may want, such as Apache, DNS, etc.
Keep in mind there will only be a few users at a time on the box. Plenty of power left over. Seems like a good deal to me.
"We are a poor country. We cannot develop operating systems and platforms on our own," Kulkarni said.
It sounds to me like RMS spent too much time explaining the virtues of the Open Source development model and not enough time explaining that virtually all of the Free Software that India will ever need is already written! Next time, RMS, brag about all the cool stuff they can have free right now and then explain how it came into existance!
But then again, if they want to remain a 3rd world toilet by stuffing their monies into US corporate coffers, that's up to them.. can't say we didn't try to help.
Here's a Slashback they just didn't think was important enough to post. Gee, you'd think a major follow-up to a person Katz posted an entire story on would make the cut...
Remember Jose Bove, the anti-globalist French terrorist Jon Katz offered up fulsome praise to a few July 4ths ago? Well, France's highest court just ordered him to "serve 14 months in prison for destroying two fields of genetically modified crops." Yep, Katz picks his "heroes" with the same insight and forethought he brings to his "writing"...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
It's not hard to find out where the Newton went.
Didn't MicroSoft just release their Tablet PC?
They had to steal the idea from somewhere.
Guess RMS didn't do his homework. MS actually got in trouble in India years ago for hiring so many Indian programmersand shipping them off to the states. India told MS their programmers are a natural resource and MS can't drain any more. So MS has built a large development facility in India. So RMS is asking India's developers to work for free, Gates is giving them paychecks.
Good job! We've recovered the loot, and placed the henchmen behind bars. Now, it's time to go after Carmen Sandiego, Gumshoe!
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
You see, it was like this. RMS came to our (non-descript, but *very* highly funded) university a couple of months back, evangelising on copyright misuse. The lecture theater was full to the brim of course and the audience, mostly consisting of CS grads, were quite taken by his rather impressive beard and his persistent plucking of his nose. Not to debase his talent or vision, but he has some very interesting stage-habits.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks back when Steve Ballmer made a stopover at our university. The theater, this time the largest available, was again filled to the brim. The university President shared the dais with him and we all had to register for the talk with our name and university IC No. The official reason for the registration is that seats are limited, which, in any case, was a sort of valid reason; seats were booked within two days of the announcement. Needless to say, everyone (that is, from all faculties) turned up to watch him speak.
I wasn't down at Mr. Ballmer's talk, but friends tell me that it had very little to do with the stated topic "Innovation and Entreprenuership" and more to do with X-Boxes and Tablet PC's. Ballmer's shiny scalp was, I believe, impressive, but apparently the audience found the X-Boxes and Tablet PC's more interesting.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if someone told me that Bill Gates made a better impression on India than RMS.
More than mere navel gazing.
Think about it. This is WalMart telling Joe Sixpack that Linux is the way to go. In their words "Desktop/LX is an exciting new Linux-based operating system (OS) that offers a user-friendly, powerful and open alternative to Microsoft Windows." Hundreds of thousands of kids are going to be doing their homework on those boxes.
Cost of computer: $2500
Operating System: $40 retail
Broadband Internet: $50/mo
Owning Graphical Browsers at Connect 4 using a Text Browser: Priceless
only 10 gigs?? how much of this IRIS software and digital photography will fit on it?
if people who sport mullets can get, use and be happy with it, then yes. Of course I want nothing to do with firebirds or mullets, so I'll switch to BSD.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As dubious as the origional poster's claim is... he still has a somewhat valid point. It is possible to make older systems functional under linux that simply would not be at all useful under the latest windows. Of course - Linux "cheats" - it doesn't NEED a GUI to operate.
I've given up on old 386 hardware, but I do have a 486 DX2-66 still running the latest Debian release (Unstable - currently with a Linux kernel 2.4.19). Its a very useful little machine for what I need it for. And the software is current - unlike the suggested DOS 6.22. Granted - this box could possibly handle Win95... but then, that is long past its EOL and is no longer developed. Unlike Linux.
Which brings up an interesting point. Its long been pointed out that Linux' GUI environment has had a bit of a disadvantage... XFree86. Granted, its a tradeoff. There are some advantages. But there has always been that hit on speed from a system like X Windows.
But I wonder if its beginning to not matter anymore.
As I traverse between my Linux and Windows workstations, I've always noted the performance hit for Linux. I'm a sucker for eye candy, so a great deal of that suffering is self-inflicted. But as my desktop hardware has become more powerful, and as the various cycle-sucking eye candy GUI components for Linux are improved, that difference is less and less noticeable.
The GUI is not the only benefactor here. Emulators such as VMWare and "compatability layers" like WINE/Transgaming/Crossover also enjoy the available spare cycles. Even when there is not a native port for the desired software package, running it under Linux is more often a valid option.
Sure, Microsoft has a well-deserved reputation for raising the minimal requirements for a desktop. And the mantra for Linux and its supporters has always been efficency. But in the end, it may be that Moore's Law is becoming more a friend to Linux than Microsoft.
Effecient design and constant improvement should continue to be a part of Linux development. And native applications are better than emulated environments. But it is less likely to be noticed when, for one reason or another, one is forced to rely more available cycles than the perfect ideal.
It should cause some gnashing of teeth in both the Windows and Linux camps. But the irony is that "good enough" has often been atributed to Microsoft's products. With more power in the avarage desktop, Linux may suddenly find itself the new "good enough".
Because it's integrated into the OS, meaning that parts of it have already started before you run it. Comparing its speed to the speed of a browser that isn't integrated is comparing apples with oranges.
Sounds like you're confused. You're talking about startup speed, as in the time required to open a new instance. We're talking about actual running speed, as in the time required to render a given web page. IE is faster than other browsers.
Given the state of Mozilla/Phoenix nowadays, that's debatable.
No, it isn't. Mozilla is still as slow, bloated, and bug-ridden as it was in the pre-1.0 days. In fact, I've just about come to the conclusion that the 1.0 release was just a big joke. They took a random nightly build and slapped the 1.0 label on it and sent out a press release.
I write in my journal
IE won because it came with the OS. It's that simple.
No, it isn't. Back before IE 4.0, Netscape was a far more popular browser, despite the fact that IE came bundled with whichever Windows version was shipping at that time. (I forget.)
As IE got better and better, Netscape got worse and worse, and then stopped altogether. Whereas people had been downloading Netscape in ever-increasing numbers, they simply stopped when IE became a better alternative.
IE won because Microsoft kept making it better, while Netscape kept making their browser worse.
None of the rest of the stuff in your comment means anything because you prefaced it with, "I feel I have to badmouth them at every opportunity just to even the scales." I appreciate you throwing in that little remark, so I wouldn't waste any time reading the rest of your comment.
I write in my journal
My impression when I was in India was that English is seen as a language of prestige and there is an association of English with being well educated. It's used as a lingua franca and so I don't think the use of English with computers is *perceived* as a problem, far the opposite. Computer bookshops in Connaught Place, Delhi, are stuffed with locally licenced copies of O'Reilly books in English.
Can any slashdot readers from India comment? I'd be interested to hear their opinion on the whole matter...
I can't remember if English is an official language for business but it seems close to it. I've been to some pretty small places in India and there always seems to be a fair smattering of English. I think education is better valued there than in my home country, UK. I couldn't see you going to a small town in the UK and being confident the local ticket collectors on the train station will able to speak to you in a second or third language....
MMX is integer SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data). These Cyrix/VIA processors have 3DNow! which is Floating Point SIMD in addition to MMX so they are more than powerful enough for playing digital video. I'd say that for a low-cost machine, they are pretty darn good value for money. BTW the 3DNow! outperforms the legacy Floating Point by a significant margin. In some cases by 300%. And no, I didn't pull that number out of my butt: libSIMD
Stick Men
Disregarding that sentence from India's IT Minister, the fact is that India IS a poor country and in poor country the thing people think about most, much in common with rich countries in recession, is jobs and money. India defintely has the resources to develop their own OS (Linux) and sell it to the masses(Simputer PDA). The thing is that most people in India who work in IT do it for $$$(or Rupees) and most of them percieve MS software development as being more lucrative than Linux. And so they develop software for MS since the market for commercial Linux software is only beginning to take off (give us a Navision competitor on Linux!). If and when large commercial projects are done on Linux, the picture will change rapidly in India. And RMS going over to India probably does Linux more harm than good, since he hasn't yet noticed that people have to eat.
How proud are you that Linux sits proudly in Wal-mart next to quality merchandise such as Stanley tools, Apex electronics, Road Gear car stereos and President's Choice cola?
Seriously, this is embarrassing shit -- that the only big commercial outlet for an OS "better than Windows" is people who don't know any better and think they're getting a bargain.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Walmart is the beginning of the end of American Middle Class.
Bull*. The Meijer chain in Michigan and Ohio has been around (in that region at least) a lot longer than Wal-Mart. Until Wal-Mart started adding some food, Meijer was even more of the giant superstore where you could buy everything, usually for less than smaller stores, than Wal-Mart is. Actually, they still have Wal-Mart beat on selection (a real, complete, grocery store in addition to a full department store all in one building) though Wal-Mart beats them a little on price.
Anyway, they've been around for many decades. We still have a middle class around here. Everything is fine. Get a grip.
I think it's the weird friend we all had who played 16 bit Nintendo games using his index and middle finger on the buttons (instead of his thumb like normal people).
Wich would also explain why the girlfriend is most impressed with his finger :P
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
WalMart has become the largest retailer on the planet by having the lowest prices, even if they have to sell crap. For a lot of people crap is "good enough," and WalMart knows that many people will sacrifice quality if the price is right. WalMart doesn't get into a market unless they can undercut their competition, and in the computer market it is very difficult to undercut Dell, unless, of course, you don't include the price of Windows.
As for this being a bad business move, I can't see how that could possibly be the case. WalMart isn't selling these at their stores (so they have no inventory problems), and they have outsourced both the construction and the support to Microtel (so they aren't likely to lose money there). So even if these machines don't sell WalMart has wasted little more than some space on their web site.
As for a potential market, I personally have been looking at purchasing a WalMart Linux PC. I could really use a good source of cheap disposable X terminal machines with Linux compatible hardware, currently I use low end Pentiums, so these PCs ought to be more than good enough. It is also important to note is that WalMart doesn't care if their customers pirate Windows. Dell and HP have to care, but WalMart doesn't care what Microsoft says. That's why WalMart also sells OS-less PCs on their web site.
In short, WalMart has very little to lose, and for those consumers that need a low end machine for casual use WalMart's prices can't be beat.
There is a huge difference between Walmart and Microsoft. Walmart got big through the virtue of efficiency and scale. Microsoft got big through dirty tricks, dishonesty, fraud, and lock-in. No customer is ever locked-in to Walmart, and all a business has to do to compete against Walmart is .. well .. compete. If you can't compete on price, then compete by not selling the same bland commodities that Walmart sells.
Example: I buy cat food at Walmart, because my cat hasn't expressed a preference (as far as I can tell) for one can of cat food over another. Friskies cans == commodity. But I wouldn't buy music CDs there, because .. well, they don't really have much, and they never will. Non-pop music CDs != commodity. If you sell something of real value, then Walmart is not a threat to you.
When I see some "middle class" mom'n'pop complaining about Walmart, I just see slackers whining that their easy ride has come to an end. Why were you charging me 50 cents for a can of Friskies, hmm?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Too bad Wal-Mart doesn't have a PC or two in their stores that could access their website.
That's a good idea, if they're going to have products that are available only online. Better yet, they could even accept cash payments at the register for an online order, for those without credit cards. They could either have a kiosk or simply a computer at the customer service counter where the CSR could place the order.
Why don't you write to their corporate offices and suggest it? Maybe they'll recognize a good idea when they see it...
Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
"Gates, in a brief chat with reporters here, asserted that Microsoft Windows had saved more money for its users than open-source systems."
Ok so I have product A am trying to break into a market so I only have 1 user, someone else has product B which has 100 users. Now my product offers 10 bucks a saving per user, product B offers 1 buck a saving per user.
So clearly product A makes better savings, however if we go to absolute figures total savings for all users, my product save 10 bucks there one saved 100 bucks, so yes there total saving can be higher!
James
The statement that India is a poor country that can't afford to develop its own operating systems is laughable, especially given the timing of that speech and the Simputer deployment at the same time; the Simputer folks have done some really interesting user interface work for dealing with multiple languages and varying literacy levels.
If a Finnish grad student can afford to develop an operating system, surely somebody in India can afford to do so as well, though the government may be far too disorganized and bureaucratic to do it well. But beyond that, India's had a long tradition of training university students in Unix operating systems, and with a few hundred million educated English-speaking Indians, many of whom know Unix, the assertion that India can't afford to develop its own software when it can have it for free is an insult to one of the country's big and growing industries. (It's been about 8 years since I've worked directly with Indian software companies, but at the time they knew SunOS / Solaris just as well as I did, and Sun's done a lot of development over in India since then.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
My bank and investment site work just fine on Mozilla in Linux.
And if her bank isn't supported, well, Grandma probably doesn't need or even WANT online banking.
And frankly, anyone who designs a website that only works in IE should be [insert the most cruel torture immaginable here].
We cam't afford to use free software have to pay thousands for defective software.
... ahem.. do Microsoft a favor.. and combat software priacy when Microsoft won't.
How did India get the idea that Linux isn't free and worse that Windows was?
I've always knew software piracy hurts free software and here's a good example. mayhap Microsoft is just letting software piracy slide in a nation that couldn't afford it in order to prevent Linux from gainning any footholds.
For this reason mayhap it's time for the free software forces to
I don't actually exist.
I've ranted about this before. De jure standards have marginal relevance at best. If your web page is designed for public consumption, like a company or personal web site or some such, the correct thing to do is design it so that it renders correctly in IE. If that page fails to render correctly in Mozilla, so what? With IE holding something like 95% of the browser market, the odds that a random visitor to your site is going to be running IE 5 or 6 are overwhelming. It makes little sense, then, to design your site to conform to de jure standards while rendering incorrectly for 95% of all visitors.
This is, ultimately, why Mozilla is irrelevant. It's bloated, slow, enormous to download, amateurish, and ugly, but it would be possible to overcome all of those thing given sufficient time and effort. The problem, the last nail in the coffin if you will, is that Mozilla fails to render many web sites that IE renders perfectly. I'm sure the problem lies with the Mozilla DOM implementation, but the details aren't important. What's important is that it just doesn't work.
When Mozilla is as fast as IE for Windows, when it has a native UI, and most importantly when it has 100% compatibility with IE 5 and 6, then and only then will it become a reasonable alternative. Until then, it'll never achieve any sort of widespread adoption because it will have nothing at all to offer over the de facto standard.
I write in my journal