Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Tableturkey, Stromlo, Mandrake
The silver lining.dragonsister writes "Regarding the recent slashdot story on Mount Stromlo Observatory being hit by fire, it seems the damage is not nearly as extensive as it might have been. The Australian National University has posted details here. In particular, the office buildings were spared, meaning that the work of staff and students is safe, and the many years worth of data collected should still be usable. The main question remaining in my mind is whether or not there were backups of the data on the computers that were actually located in the telescope buildings themselves, as these contained information crucial to the interpretation of some of the data. The importance of off-site backups has just been demonstrated. Everybody backup now!"
And blakduk writes "We were able to enter the site and retrieve computing equipment that survived the fire. This enabled us to set up our servers and have all staff back on-line within 24 hours."
Other than that, how was the parade? Back in November, I posted an article about the DocuNote, an inexpensive tablet PC available with Linux. According to richardbondi , maybe "cheap" would be a better word. He writes:
"I bought one, it arrived today. It was clearly used, not new, and didn't work. If you tilted it, it hung. I gave up after a dozen reboots. Only purchasable from www.microsono.com, where all sales are final.The handwriting recognition software turned out to be trialware.
And although the stepupcomputing.com site says it works with Windows 2000, it came with a note that said now it has to be OEM installed.
One user's bad experience -- bad hardware, deceptive advertising re software."
Looks nice over two monitors, too. Znonymous Coward writes "Mandrake is trying to prove it's not dead yet. Yesterday[Note: the 19th, that is], they released Beta 2 of Mandrake 9.1. You can get the 2 ISO images from the usual mirrors." There's a (critical but mostly positive) review of this 2nd beta running at DistroWatch, too.
Once this starts it always gets messy. Per Hansson writes
"Yesterday we at Techspot posted a Interview with Nvidia plus high-resolution pictures of the Geforce FX.A few sites rightfully claimed that this material had been stolen from Nordichardware however this was not the case, we interviewed Nvidia at the same time and therefore our Interviews looks so similar."
Anton Nilsson, assistant editor in chief of Nordic Hardware writes, in contrast,
"... [I]t seems as if they have used my material as found here.I've spoken to the TechSpot staff and the person who reported the news item to you and it seems as if they overheard me doing my interview with nVidia at Comdex. Since they didn't want to bug nVidia with the same questions again they later on read the interview at my page and then posted it on theirs. Still that doesn't make up a fair excuse in my opinion."
You'll have to make up your own mind on this.
If you want the official site, the university has set one up here
It is possible that they won't rebuild many telescopes. While it is very sad that so much classic equipment was lost, and a huge blow for the local amateur community, Canberra's light haze has been getting in the way of astronomy at Stromlo for years. Most of Stromlo's research is done up at Siding Springs observatory, way north near Coonabarabran.
No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
The review of Mandrake 9.1 beta 1 went online a few days ago, and a few hours later MandrakeSoft was releasing beta 2. So here we go again! What's changed? What's fixed? What's added?
The first good news is that this beta 2 comes on two CDs, so there is a lot more stuff to be tested. I have also received some feedback on the review of beta 1 which had some shortcomings, and hopefully I can do better this time. Among other things I am going to provide some advice for those that want to try beta 2 on their own Linux box.
However, I would like to stick to some guidelines I have chosen for the first review: I am not going to compare this beta to any other distribution (RedHat or SuSE or Gentoo or Debian or whatever...), and I am going to concentrate on "the desktop experience". And by the way, this beta 2 includes KSnapshot, so I was able to add some more eye-candy. Enjoy!
[Screenshot 1: Mandrake 9.1 beta 2 includes KSnapshot.]
Installing beta 2
Installation of beta 2 is not too difficult if you already have an existing Linux installation and some means of burning your own CDs:
Prepare an empty partition on your hard disk (minimum of 2GB, preferably 4GB).
Download the two ISO images from the nearest mirror (a list of mirrors can be found here).
Check that the images are correctly downloaded by running the md5sum checksum program and comparing the checksums to those in the file md5sums.9.1beta2.asc which can also be found on the mirrors.
This beta 2 requires two blank 650MB CD-Rs or CD-RWs. I am using CD-RWs which are re-usable, since I don't want to keep wasting CD-Rs as I follow Mandrake's development cycle for 9.1. I noticed that Mandrake has switched from the 700MB CDs that they used in 9.0 and 9.1 beta 1 to 650MB CDs. That's a good thing, IMHO, because many users complained about not being able or having problems to burn 700MB CDs. MandrakeSoft is listening to its user community, apparently.
After burning the two CDs, there is just one more step before beginning the install: make a boot disk with your favorite bootloader (LILO or Grub - IMHO Grub is more flexible). Unfortunately beta 2, just like beta 1, overwrites your previous boot configuration. You have been warned...
Now insert CD1 in your CD-ROM drive, configure your BIOS to boot from the CD, and restart. If you are still with me at this point you should have the familiar Mandrake Boot screen on your monitor.
The Installation Program
The installation program has improved from beta 1 and looks (and works) better now, but there are still some bugs as I found them in the previous beta: the USB wheel mouse configuration problem is still there (keyboard blinks, mouse freezes and the computer has to be reset), there is no indication of what stage of the installation is going on, and individual package selection is disabled. Also clicking on the "Previous" button at any point during the installation does not work, and there is no choice of bootloader or even to disable LILO installation.
Other than that, XFdrake now generates a correct XFree86Config-4 file (I am still using my customized 9.0 XFree86 configuration file, though). Also information and links to various MandrakeSoft URLs are displayed on the screen during package installation, and the program asks for the second CD when it's finished installing the packages on the first CD.
I assume that with one or two more betas the MandrakeSoft development team should have the installation program relatively bug-free, but we are not there yet. This is entirely normal as we are still in the early beta stages of the development cycle.
[Screenshot 2: Mozilla 1.3a in all its beauty. Even though it is alpha-status, it works quite well in Mandrake 9.1 beta 2.]
New and still missing packages
After the installation (which took longer this time, about 18 minutes) and a reboot, I found that beta 2 had installed both KOffice 1.2.1 and OpenOffice 1.0.2, as well as many packages that were missing in beta 1. Grip is there, and so are most graphics and sound packages.
[Screenshot 3: Gimp2.jpg: GTK+ apps like Grip and Gimp work well with KDE 3.1.]
There is also a considerable change in the number of included packages in the "Networking" menu, among other things Galeon and Quanta Plus. And at this stage I got my first crash in this beta 2: opening Quanta Plus caused the machine to thrash for a moment and then I found myself at the KDM login again. Thanks to KWord's autosave I could immediately resume my work. It's good to see that this feature is enabled by default.
So what is still missing?
Strangely enough mcserv-4.5.55 is on CD2 but mc-4.5.55 (Midnight Commander) is nowhere to be found.
Most games are still missing, although Mandrake has included a few games and toy apps in this beta 2. KDE games are notably absent.
KDevelop isn't there. I would like to see both 2.1.4 and 3.0 alpha 3 included with 9.1.
Also the kernel 2.4.21.pre3 source package is missing. Now I can do without the games, but the kernel source is quite essential, specially for beta testing.
Lmsensors related packages are also missing, including the initscripts.
The choice of screensavers and backgrounds is still limited at this point.
OK, I can already hear some people saying: "But you can get all those missing packages in the Cooker directory on any of the Mandrake mirrors!" I know that, and it's not the point. Actually I could get all the sources from the author's websites and compile them myself if I really wanted to be on the "bleeding edge". The point is to check how complete this beta 2 is, and not how I can improve it by mixing packages from the beta 2 and the Cooker directories.
Some people will also say: "These are all available on KDE-Look.org!". Sure enough, and I can assure you that I regularly check KDE-Look.org. However, it would be nice if Mandrake could include a better choice of icons, sound themes, color themes, splash screens, screensavers and screen backgrounds than their present default ones, and combine all these aesthetic elements in a distinctive theme.
[Screenshot 4: Tabs are a nifty new feature in Konqueror in KDE 3.1.]
Miscellaneous and odd things
Fonts and font handling
Mandrake has included a few fonts with quite strange names in this beta 2 (I am not quite familiar with "Estrangelo Nisibin" or "East Syriac Adiabene"). And one can still see some problems with font hinting (the spacing between characters) in general. These issues can be fixed by surfing on the Web and downloading the appropriate packages.
[Screenshot 5: KWord (word processor) and KGhostView (a PS and PDF viewer) both make use of anti-aliased fonts.]
As noted previously, fonts are handled much better in these 9.1 beta x releases compared to 9.0 final (what a difference KGhostView with antialiased fonts makes!), but it would be nice if Mandrake could come up with a better default font setup before 9.1 final.
CD-RW drive detection
One thing I found was great with 9.0 is that it could properly detect and configure my kernel to use my CD-Read/Write ATA drive. Sure enough, 9.1 beta 1 and beta 2 can do the same, but unfortunately both insist on also configuring my CD-ROM drive with SCSI emulation (/dev/scd1), while at the same time the fstab file refers to its ATA designation (/dev/hdd). That's a small but annoying setup bug.
UDMA interface configuration
Mandrake 9.1 beta 2 correctly configured all my drives for UDMA operation. Perfect score on that one.
Cursor shadow
A semi-transparent cursor with shadow was enabled by default in 9.1 beta 1 and 2, but I find this feature slightly distracting.
KCalc still missing
This one is weird: why is the GNOME Calculator included, but KCalc still missing?
Conclusion
So, is this beta 2 a significant improvement in relation to beta 1? My answer is yes, without any doubt. This beta 2 is still not for Linux beginners, it still has a few annoying bugs (but no show-stoppers) and quirks, and some essential packages are still missing (where is my kernel source?). But if MandrakeSoft can keep up with this rate of development, by beta 3 or 4 they could start concentrating on the eye-candy and their final 9.1 release would then be terrific.
I am still reluctant to erase my Mandrake 9.0 configuration and switch over, but my fingers are getting twitchy...
9.1 beta 2 compared to beta 1 - pros and cons
Pros:
Comes on two 650MB CDs
Improved installation (no more real show-stopper bugs)
Many more packages included
Latest stable versions of KOffice (1.2.1) and OpenOffice (1.0.2) are very usable
Cons:
None compared to beta 1
Wishlist for beta 3:
CD3 with the packages that are still missing (don't forget that kernel source, please)
More fixes to the installation routine
Choice of Grub in the installation routine, and an option to keep the previous Grub configuration file
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) 2003 Andrew D. Balsa
Verbatim copying and distribution of this article is permitted in any medium, provided this copyright notice is preserved.
Many credit card companies also have "buyer protection" plans which supplement this (mandatory) coverage.
Don't give up yet!
-renard
I don't know about in the States, or whereever the user is posting from, but in NZ we have a Consumers Guarantee Act that states that consumers have a 7 day right of return for all products purchased that are (summerizing) not what they were advertised to be.
.edu address, maybe he could consult a professor of law at whatever university he attends?
So if you purchased a crystal vase from XYZ Widgets and they shipped you a photocopy of a picture of one, with a note saying all sales are final, or if they shipped a broken one with a note that all sales are final, or if they claimed it was a new one, and it was 2nd hand, you return it to them, with a note that says "all refunds are final, jerks" and report them to the commerce commission.
Now surely the US has to have something similar there, doesn't it?
(I am not a lawyer, but I'd like to play one on TV).
Since the user in question is posting from a
I use to have a funny sig, but slash cut it off, and I forgot what the punchline was.
If they don't provide a prompt refund, dispute the charge with your credit card company. Provide a copy of the letter, return receipt and any other correspondence. They will find in your favor and deduct from the merchant's bank account. (If the merchant doesn't have the funds, then the merchant's acquiring bank will be forced to pay.) According to VISA/Mastercard regulations, there is no such thing as "All sales final", especially with deceptive advertising.
Didn't pay with a credit card? D'oh! (ALWAYS use a credit card. It's your only protection.)
Speaking as an astronomy student (who has been on several observing runs), SOP at Kitt Peak is to collect all the data from each run over the course of several nights, store it on the computer that controls the CCD (a SparcStation 5 at the Bok 90", in case you were wondering) and then when the run is over, the data is 1) scp'ed back to our main system at the university, and 2) backed up on tape (actually, this is done nightly). Hence, if we had a fire at Kitt Peak or Mt. Lemmon or some other nearby observatory, all the data would be safe (replacing the CCDs would be really freaking expensive, though).
Astronomers know all too well the value of a good backup--besides, the computers at the observatory itself are too busy/slow to do data reduction, necessitating the existence of off-site copies.
Only purchasable from www.microsono.com, where all sales are final.
You can call the company and they will happily repair or replace the unit for you. Assuming the product does actually work, you might get one back.
Customer Support
1 (888) STEPUP4 (783-7874) U.S. Only
support@stepupcomputing.com
Define "years ago". As in Windows 3.1? Windows 95? Personally I use Windows 2000 and I've experienced just one or two irrecoverable crashes, mainly due to a) buggy Creative drivers, and; b) crappy Creative drivers.
Disgusting software errors never happen on Mac OS X or Linux in my experience
They do happen in Linux and BSD, as well as in Windows 2000 and XP, essentially because the people who write them (and write software for them) are not and will never be perfect. The OS can compensate only to a certain extent.
So this must be an alternate alternate universe you hang out in.
but if the hardware breaks, that can still cause problems
Yeah, no kidding. But if I was to take your post seriously I'd probably be suckered into thinking that Linux and OS X can recover gracefully from a catastrophic hardware error. I nearly fell for it!
"All sales final" *never* includes deception (esp. used v. new!). Talk to your credit card company first, the seller second, an attorney or small claims court third. (I should ask, is there any chance this was shipping damage? Talk to the shipping company.) Check with the BBB, file a complaint with the FTC and your AG, etc. Stress the implied warranties of fitness and merchantibility, etc., and ... good luck. By making a stink you may at the very least help out the next sucker, um, customer. In the future, well, you've learned the same way I have that dealing with reputable companies is worth a few extra $$$.
I don't understand the problem, though -- the microsono site shows the StepUp 1-year ltd. warranty. Refusal to honor that warranty of course gives you an excellent claim, and remember that some of the warranty's restrictive terms may not be vlaid in your state.
February to early March (at worst). Considering this is the top end part, I don't think the 4200's will drop all that much.
What's this Submit thingy do?
Houston looks at upgrading their systems.
If you read the OIG inspectors report into the deal you will see that USA Today got it wrong from the very start. The deal had nothing to do with upgrading existing systems. The plan was to 'bridge the digital divide' by somehow giving Houston residents free access to the hosted desktop applications via public libraries. The whole scheme was a boondoggle from the start.
The bit about 'upgrading the systems' was not actually mentioned in the RFP. That only came in later when it was asserted that the software would save the City $1.6 million. Unfortunately Piper gave absolutely no indication as to how the figure was arrived at. None of the departments that might make use of the software were actually consulted so it is not very likely that they will be using the system.
Microsoft threatens legal charges for rigged bidding.
Again the chronology is wrong. The questions started after Piper, the CIO who had set the deal up left for another job weeks after the contracxt went through. The complaints about the rigged bidding came from a Houston councilor, Bruce Tatro who thought the scheme looked like a boondoggle. The actual investigation was started by a complaint from Brenda Flores after a Houston Chronicle article.
The investigation was instigated by Tatro, not Microsoft. The only connection Microsoft had to the investigation was that the investigators interviewed the Microsoft salesman. Incidentaly the investigation found that the Microsoft sales person had been misled but found the charge of lying 'not sustained' as they claimed it could not be proved that the misleading was deliberate.
If you read the other vendors comments in the report you will find statements like 'why is the city spending $9.5 million to replace an existing exchange implementation with an untried product nobody has ever heard of'. The Microsoft salesperson pointed out that Yahoo and Hotmail provide hosted services for email and instant messaging for free.
Houston says, "You made up our minds for us," and went with Linux
The deal had nothing to do with Linux. The services are hosted on Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter edition. The deal was about using 'open source' as smoke to cover a scam that might well end up costing the city of Enron resident's $9.5 million. The politicians bought into the scam because they were conned into believing it would be 'a political win for your mayor' to quote correspondence between the conspirators.
Piper is currently facing fraud charges over the alleged theft of $294,000 from a previous employer.
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