Adopt a KDE Geek

sultanoslack writes "In an effort to bring together KDE hackers that are students, unemployed or by other means lacking in hardware and capital with users in that have spare goodies, Adopt-a-Geek has been launched. More details are available on how to help out. Been wondering what you can do to help out? Here's your chance!"

Comments

Do I get a framed picture of my geek?

[Harald Paulsen]

Do I get some pictures I can put in my wallet, and a certificate telling me where he lives, where he goes to school etc. Then I could flash his picture whenever people tell me how they have adopted some poor kid in the 3rd world.

Aaaaw, look at that.. not-so-cute geek!

Re:Do I get a framed picture of my geek?

[pizza_milkshake]

yeah, i think i'd skip the picture... ;)

Re:Do I get a framed picture of my geek?

[Pilferer]

Do I get some pictures I can put in my wallet, and a certificate telling me where he lives, where he goes to school etc.

Him? What about Her? Are there any female KDE Geeks to adopt? I'd like a 16 year old asian girl, please!

*cough*

A little more information

[Anonymous Coward]

From the Relevant Page:

KDE developers put their computers through a lot of work. Building KDE on my modern desktop (1.4 GHz Athlon, 512 MB RAM) takes 6-8 hours. Many developers are working on systems which cannot fully build KDE in under 24 hours, and many KDE developers do so several times a week. Profiling and debugging tools for optimizing code are very processor and memory intensive. Hardware often is a bottleneck to KDE developers' productivity.

So keep this in mind before you ask why they're requesting this. Thanks :).

Re:A little more information

[Chris Canfield]

KDE developers put their computers through a lot of work. Building KDE on my modern desktop (1.4 GHz Athlon, 512 MB RAM) takes 6-8 hours. Many developers are working on systems which cannot fully build KDE in under 24 hours, and many KDE developers do so several times a week. Profiling and debugging tools for optimizing code are very processor and memory intensive. Hardware often is a bottleneck to KDE developers' productivity.

Thinking back to the useless hours being wasted trying to crack the X-Box encryption, how much of this compiling could be distributed? Obviously it wouldn't accelerate live debugging or optimizing tools, but what if there were networks of computers who people volunteered to standby and remotely download, build, and upload code, and a linker on the initiating machine to reassemble globals, etc?

I know nothing about distributed compiling, which probably means that either A: I should go back to college (very likely) or B: compiling doesn't break down nicely into chunks.

If it is possible, a network of volunteer Open Source compilers would probably build in a significantly faster time than many of the aformentioned older systems can, assuming no major bandwidth bottlenecks, and would probably find a rather large home of OSS and Free Software supporters who don't have the time to code as much as they would like to. Such a structure would probably support the compiling of any large linux project, such as X, or Gnome, or... err... Well, Kde, X or Gnome. Any of these projects would be worthwile.

Someone with more experience, please stand up! If it were possible, many people would become that much more involved, and the community would prosper. Could you imagine teams of people competing to help out the KDE developers as much as they do the seti@home project?

Re:A little more information

[oliverthered]

? you may have to relink I suppose or are the core API's/interfaces getting changed on an ad-hoc bases?

I can compile core.c and is turns into core.o
I can compile fish.c that depends on core.h compiles to fish.o
I link fish.o that depends on core.o

If I change core.h (an API change) then I must recompile fish.c
If I chnage core.c then I only need to relink fish.o against core.o

If i use dynamic libraries then I don't need to relink atall.

Changes to core.h should be in the form of, 'Right lads, were changing the API, get you design and documentation heads on'

My geek...

[LucidityZero]

My geek can program in C/C++, Java, Perl AND LISP.

And he's captain of the chess club!

I'm so proud of my adopted geek! :D

And the developers' old hardware goes where?

[Snover]

I would certainly consider giving it a good home here. I'm not discriminate. You can give me an 8086 and I'll be happy. All that copper will be good to keep away the evil mind-controlling radio waves.

All very good i'm sure

[Suchetha]

But if you *really* want to help out.. why not get in touch with some of the organisations that rebuild old computers to ship them to developing countries (with Linux as the running OS)..

i belive techsoup.org has a list of organisations near you

Suchetha

TV Commericals

[johnraphone]

How long till we see the commericals? I know thier coming.... For only a stick of memory a day, you too can help a KDE geek!

I am active kde hacker who needs some equipment

[Billly Gates]

I did a full "hello World" application using kdevelop with 2 full buttons for "print" and "Exit".

I feel I need to upgrade to a better system to expand my programming knowledge and help society and Kde in general. I am in desperate need of newer hardware and software since my low end athlon +1800MP with a half a gig of ram just doesn't cut it. A sun workstation 2000 with 2 gigs of ram as well as the Enterpise edition of Forte for java, Borland Jbuilder Enterprise Edition, as well as the full version of Kylix is what will really help me for my quest to help man kind. To help me write great software for you a nice scalable server to help beta test my high end client/server apps would also rock.

PS, I also wouldn't need oops I mean mind a dual XEON 3ghz with the Enterprise edition of Visual Studio.NET and Adobe Photoshop to port some of my great free software to Windows that I am sure I oops I mean none of you can live without. But I can live with just the 2 sun's.

Thanks guys I appreciate your help in this since I can't afford any of these nice toys oops I mean tools. Will you please adopt me.

Re:Is that kind of like "Hire a Hermit?"

[Suchetha]

a (rich) couple in britain actually put an ad to hire a hermit in november.. one of the articles about it is here

Suchetha

Know how to ask...

[e8johan]

If you know how to ask you can quite easily get ahold of most hardware (except HDDs) from technology companies. As long as you can live with 1-2 years old hardware and some DIY to set things up, you can get most for free.

Possible alternative donation options

[Nemus]

For those of us without spare hardware lying around, here are some (possibly) acceptible alternatives:

A Case of Bawls - $29.99
Caffeniated Soap - $6.99-$14.99
Caffeine Candy Sampler, v3.0 - $19.99

And various other assorted goods and sundries.

Now, some people make think this is a joke post, but its not. Even if its not hardware, I think anyone who uses KDE should feel compelled to donate something. As someone who does a lot of Volunteer work for local charities, it always feels good when someone recognizes all the hard work you've put into a job. And since alot of these guys can't really spend alot of money on luxury items, I say give em something to make a geek's day a lil brighter.

We need this!

[falonaj]

The idea might seems quite funny to at first glance, but it actually makes sense.

I am involved in KDE (maintainership of one of the web sites), and I know of cases where lack of hardware has indeed prevented people from working on very interesting projects. It is not only about the speed of compilation, it is also about disc space. This is especially true for projects dealing with Gnome interoperability, as this sometimes requires to compile _two_ huge desktops from source.

Of course, lack of hardware will not stop things forever - other geeks or some distribution will step in eventually - but it has slowed down interoperability effords.

Re:Better place sto donate

[MikeFM]

Donate to the opensource programmers today and children of tomorrow won't have to throw their educational dollars away on constant computer upgrades and expensive commercial programs. I've been an out-of-work programmer and it's great to spend some of that free time giving back to the community but it's hard when you can't pay rent let alone buy the hardware you need to test so and so feature against. Now that I'm working I'm certainly not rich but I try to give a little here and there towards projects I like.

Adversity

[realnowhereman]

During my formative years as a geek I (as I'm sure many of you did) had to make do with whatever was available. Although being pampered and showered with cool gear would have been nice, my lack of up-to-the-minute equipment did not damage me - in fact, I would go as far as saying that my abilities to fix equipment in the middle of a field come directly from those early days and put me and my skills in demand today.

The reason the requirements for Windows keep increasing and increasing, every release requiring the most modern hardware is because the developers all have modern hardware and don't see it as a problem to make full use of it. (Games are even more of a culprit here, but that's a little more forgiveable)

Whatever hardware the developers have is what the hardware requirements will be in the end; if that is a gameboy and a piece of string then so much the better for the project.

Re:Better place sto donate

[Proc6]

Dear Troll,

I hate when some bleeding heart socialist steps in and says money could be better spent "on the needy" in cases like this. Almost everyone reading slashdot has some kind of discretionary income. For some it's $5 a month, for other's its $500 a day. Either way, part of enjoying life is spending what you have (cash, time, knowledge) you things you enjoy. Are there other people out there who "need" things. Yes. Does that mean we should give every spare dollar to them? No.

Unless you live in a grass hut you made with your own 2 hands, dress in recycled fig leaves, give back to the land more than you consume, and produce more food personally than you consume, shut the hell up. If someone wants to spend money on the development of open source software, they should have that right without being accosted by some hippocrite. Now take the PC you used to post on Slashdot offline, sell it on Ebay, and give the money to the "needy".

Love, Proc6

Adopt a Geek

[MissMoneypenny]

mmmmmm I already did that; he's 26-years old and also known as 'boyfriend'. I must say, they don't cost much these geeks and they do come with extra features - though I don't know if that also goes for a KDE geek ;-)
-
MissMp