Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Linus Says 2004 is the Year for Desktop Linux

Posted by michael on from the huddled-masses-yearning-to-breathe-free dept.

lca writes "Linuxworld Australia has an interview with Linus Torvalds about the current state of the Linux desktop and where it will go this year among other things. Also discussed are topics such as hardware support, the SCO issue, and whether or not he will be moving to Australia."

16 of 727 comments (clear)

  1. FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    FP FP FP from good old earhart 513 woot woot

    1. Re:FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      523 > 513!

    2. Re:FP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      So you shack up with any of the engineering girls on the upper floors yet?

  2. Frost Pist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Ooooh that hurts. This post brought to you by the "Ben Collins in an anal-retentive jerk" club.

  3. I am God! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I am the GOD!

    GNAA is gay!

    Linus = FAG!

    1. Re:I am God! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      And I've got weapons of math instruction!

      At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual later
      discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying
      to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a
      protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a calculator.

      At a morning press conference, Attorney general John Ashcroft
      said he believes the man is a member of the notorious
      al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with
      carrying weapons of math instruction.

      "Al-gebra is a fearsome cult,", Ashcroft said. "They desire
      average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off
      on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret
      code names like "x" and "y" and refer to themselves as
      "unknowns", but we have determined they belong to a common
      denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.

      "As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, there are 3
      sides to every triangle," Ashcroft declared.

      When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If
      God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction,
      He would have given us more fingers and toes.

      "I am gratified that our government has given us a sine that
      it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are
      willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard. Murky
      statisticians love to inflict plane on every sphere of
      influence," the President said, adding: "Under the
      circumferences, we must differentiate their root, make our
      point, and draw the line."

      President Bush warned, "These weapons of math instruction
      have the potential to decimal everything in their math on a
      scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a
      Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex."

      Attorney General Ashcroft said, "As our Great Leader would
      say, read my ellipse. Here is one principle he is uncertainty
      of: though they continue to multiply, their days are numbered
      as the hypotenuse tightens around their necks."

  4. Gentoo, Portage, Python by relrelrel · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    2004 will be a year when many corporations, especially those who will try to adapt Linux as a primary desktop platform, will recognize Gentoo for several reasons:

    Please, explain to me why.

    * Portage gives a corporate IT the most fine-grained dependency control protecting the consistency of installations within upgrades;

    I don't agree with this one. Corporations that "roll their own" packages have the same advantage. Movifying SRPMS can acheive the same effect.

    * Gentoo makes possible to compile everything from sources on a reference hardware, adapting by that to the last bit of any available performance optimization, and then distribute the compiled binares to compatible hardware cross the enterprise (using GRP for fresh installations and just shared /usr/portage/packages for already installed systems);

    Normally I would respond to this one saying that most people who use CFLAGS to optimize binaries actually hurt themselves, but corporations would have people that actually know how to use them best (i.e. -Os over -O3 or even -O2). However, I don't think that this is really an issue for corporations.

    * Gentoo (mostly thanks to Portage) represents really the next generation design of Linux distro;

    How so, specifically? There is something to be said for having a dedicated box to building binaries for the whole infrastructure, but the idea that Gentoo can do this and no other distro can is rather ignorant.

    Gentoo is a really cool distribution (no joke), but I fail to see any technical advantages it has over other distributions. It's real strengths are in how it brings a lot of advanced administration techniques down to the level of an intermediate-level user. Plus the forums are cool, and portage is really well maintained.

    Trust me on this one, though, there's no actual technical superiority over other distributions.

    By the way, can you do reverse dependency checking yet? Like uninstalling gtk, and having every app that builds against gtk also unistall? I'm not "knocking" it if it can't (this isn't too important to corporations anyways), I'm just curious.
    Sick of gentoo zealots throwing plugs in completely unrelated topics? Me too!

    --
    --- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
  5. Teh Goatse documents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    http://www.nic.cx/complaints/goatse.cx/goatse.cx11 .01.2004.pdf

    Rhonda, we will eat your SOUL!

  6. Re:Won't be moving back to Finland by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Why would he? Sure Finland is high-tech and all that, but...


    -USA is high-tech, too.
    -USA is not a socialist welfare state with 60% income tax.
    -In the USA you're actually treated like an adult. You're allowed to actually defend yourself and you've got true freedom of speech and thought.
    -In the USA winter doesn't last 8 months.
    -In the USA temperatures don't reach -40 (Fahrenheit or Celcius) in the winter.
    -USA doesn't have a 1000 mile border with the Russia.
    -And even if USA did have a 1000 mile border, they'd actually have a credible military to countery the threat. Not some sorry-ass conscript army with low morale and a few token Leopard tanks and F-18s.

    I should know. I'm Finnish.

  7. Re:people say a lot of stuff by 74nova · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    *assumes perhaps incorrectly that that wasnt a joke*
    you seriously think they didnt just get rid of or hide them in the 12+ years they had to do so?

    and for the on-topic part, mandrake 9.2 is getting darn close to useable for my mom. that is the measurement, my mother being able to use it. my wife can already use knoppix, so its getting close.

    --
    use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy
  8. Stupidity in action... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    Rhonda Clarke, say hello to "no more interweb"!!!

    a lead.

    Like somebody claiming to be from "Poon Saan" should be getting in a snit about anything.

  9. Let porn be your guide by newshooze · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I think showing Windows users the power of 'wget' is the only way to get them to switch. What other motivation is there?

    wget -r -l 10 -A mpg,jpg.gif,png http://www.myporn.com

  10. Rhonda Clarke shall pay for this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    (Mail)bomb her from the orbit - it's the only way to be sure.

  11. Re:people say a lot of stuff by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Sig: "All negative mods are now being metamodded as unfair. Think before you abuse."

    Good thing it takes more then one asshat to do anything with meta moderation

  12. Re:How to cope. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    It's funny how this got modded down almost instantly, but these types of posts on the bsd threads take days, if they're even modded down at all.

    Yum, slashdot bias.

  13. Re:Linux will fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    A.nd.......
    Windows is better, really?