Slashdot Mirror
Linux Spreads its Wings
securitas writes "Businessweek's 'Linux Spreads its Wings' Special Report discusses the growing use of Linux in a wide range of products that include mobile phones, cars, telecom gear and consumer electronics; Linux in China; an analysis of the SCO litigation; a look at how Novell's Linux strategy may bring the struggling, former technology high-flyer back from the dead, as well as other articles and interviews related to the growth and spread of Linux as a viable platform for both enterprise and consumer technology."
It sounds too much like a maxi pad commercial. "New OS, with wings. For those heavier data flow days..."
That's it! I'm fed up with the popular media misunderstanding linux and the free software movement. It is quite obvious if you've had the time to do any research that penguins swim and don't fly.
Penguins can't fly, you insensitive clod.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
SCO's stock seems to be taking a beating this morning. Any ideas as to why?
linux is being felt in a major way in this realm, too.
it truly is a red weed situation.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Soon, i'll beable to put linux on my toaster.
-Pizentios
Does that make BSD a Death's Head Moth?
PH balanced for a wind0ze luser
You can't be too offended if you're posting AC. What, are you afraid the author is going to track you down? Or are you really the one behind the GNAA and goatse postings?
Because MS is not competing with an operating system, they are competing with a paradigm. MS may have a market cap of half a trillion dollars, but the US economy puts out 12 trillion per year alone. If push comes to shove, it won't matter how big MS is - they will get squished like a bug. I renember when IBM spent billions back in the 80's to push the PS/2 (not playstation) on the market place to try and squeese out the x86's already out there. It didn't matter how big they were either, they got hammered.
Just like it did for SCO and Corel!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Does this mean my laptop can Fly now?
You may be a feminist, but you also sound like a bigot. Why make a statement like that when you are so concerned with fairness ?
This is the same old TYPE of article we have been reading for the past three years. A status article.
I now LOATHE Slashdot everytime I see an article about Linux either 'spreading it wings' or an article with the gist 'linux is dying'.
These STATUS articles are unbearable.
If I want to know the Linux, Windows or OS X market share I will look it up!
This is a random rant so feel free to mod mod mod.
KARMA TAG! You're it.
You posted this crap in the last discussion, troll. Where does this article say anything about older women? You are about as dumb as the people who modded your crap Interesting.
Better programmers? Perhaps - but, at least in your case, lousy spellers.
"The bigger the lie, the more they believe." - Det. Bunk
Linux Spreads its Wings
Splat.
What I'm wondering is if the Linux coders feel like real schmoes right about now because lots and lots of companies and people are making fortunes off of their work, and all they get is maybe one line in a hidden readme file that nobody will read? I know this'll get modded down, but I'm really curious. I know that if I did some work, then it was taken and used by lots of people to make lots of money, and I didn't even get a "thanks", I know I'd be pretty pissed off. Of course, they knew this going in, so why exactly do OSS people do this? It makes no sense.
CLARICE
She had an insect deliberately inserted in her throat. That hasn't been made public yet. We don't know what is means.
DR. LECTER
Was it a butterfly?
CLARICE
...
(pause; staring at him)
A moth... How did you predict that?
DR. LECTER
The significance of the moth is change. Caterpillar into cocoon into beauty... Billy wants to change, too, Clarice. But there's the problem of his size, you see. Even if he were a woman, he'd have to be a big one...
The owls are not what they seem
The growth may be attributed to the ease of installing Linux from a CD-ROM based install script. I certainly have found it the easiest and fastest way to install a linux distro - and now with apt-get, installing applications onto Linux has been made easier as well.
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
Goddamn it - wtf is wrong with you people? Interesting and insightful? F-in bullsh***. The parent doesn't even give a single quote to justify it's assertion, which, by the way is completely false. There is not a single word in the linked article about 'older women being technically incompetent'
Why the hell would you use mod points to mod up some AC troll without reading the friggin article to actually verify that there is a single grain of truth in the post ??
This just makes me sick ...
Does that mean this is The Year Of Linux?
Operator, give me the number for 911!
As a feminist, and a grandmother, I am offended that this post considers older women as technically incompentant.
It runs on (almost) all hardware architectures and supports a huge open-source application library which can be recompiled for all hardware architectures.
Mindshare, application library and number of users will continue to increase in all computing, yes even on the desktop.
News at 11:
Most older women _are_ technically incompetant.
You, as a slashdot poster, are obviously not. Nor is my mother.
If you had to pseudocode the role of women in that generation, it would be something like:
do
cook
clean kitchen
breed
repeat until dead
There is nothing in there about gaining technical competency. Most older women are not technically competant because its never been a part of their lives.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
These new fangled computers have a spell-check option, you know.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Not wanting to be picky, but Programmers is the correct spelling of programmers... Well, it is in English, anyway ;-)
Oh I just love it how feminists don't practice what they preach. Equality they say, we're all equal, everyone (that includes women) should have the same treatment. I agree. I completely utterly agree and would gladly see to it that at least in my limited sphere this is a reality. The thing is, then they go on and ruin it. They take a step further. They insult us based on gender, they make broad generalizations, and they demand that woman are better, not equal, better. I don't agree with that, that's just as bad as all the things males have ever done. I don't believe in being effectively penalized for the sins of my fathers when generally I've tried not to repeat those sins.
>As a feminist, and a grandmother
Damn that was one successful operation!
Seriously. PLEASE stop. You're hurting me. I can take no more. Linux is the great lord and can cure cancer. It is the great overlord and is destined to rule the earth. I've said it. PLEASE just stop. It hurts us.
For when Windows leaves you with that "Not so fresh" feeling.
You think you have problems being a woman here? I sympathize. I, too, am a woman. But I am also transsexual, and still very much in love with my girlfriend, making me lesbian by default. It's funny how closed minded many of the people here show themselves to be when they encounter somebody like me. They just do not see that people like me are genuine, because all they see is Springer.
That's not even close to being funny, transphobe!
"all they see is Springer"
Is that the name you and your g/f use for the strap-on?
"My parents were strict, but they never pitted me against livestock" - Doug Stanhope
Long live the penguin.
The day a feminist grandmother reads /., READS THE ARTICLE, becomes offended, and posts about about it, all between 11:46 and 11:47 will be the same day I finish reading the internet.
Unlike you, and what seems to be the bulk of the male gender, women do not have a need to give names to their genitals, external, artificial or otherwise, as our identity is not contained there.
BTW, I'm pre-op, you insensitive clod!
Why is being a feminist and/or a grandmother important? Why bring it up? Why bring it up at every opportunity?
Ah. Because you are a nutjob.
Using Linux in embeded products is one of the strong points of Linux: no directly messing with the Kernel by the user (no compiling, no inserting modules, no figuring out what exact chipset your sound card is, etc.) This makes Linux easy to use by anyone. Of course being custom fit to the device by the manufacturer helps a lot.
However, I don't see any mention of any Desktop Linux breakthroughs. Why? As far as I can tell there are two general types of computer users: those who want the computer to set itself up as much as possible and those who want total control over their computer and don't mind learning more than they ever set out to know about their computer.
If a decent Desktop Linux Distro ever comes out that is loved by the first group I can see the second group griping about how much it takes control away from the user. But wouldn't taking control away from the user be the goal of such a distro?
But that's what I think. I could be wrong.
Losing faith in humanity one person at a time.
This came to my head instantly...
Don't get me wrong, I like the penguins... it's just funny... Oh well, there goes my karma....
Wouldn't that make you better at analyzing as opposed to programming?
I've seen some amazing female coders in my time, but I've seen some that are dumb as nails. I remember a female co-worker spending 2 hours trying to fix a problem, it took me about 30 seconds to point out the network cable was unplugged, and she was the network admin! LOL! There are exceptions to every rule!
Mod +5 Drunk
TEH WOMENS!!!`1 OMGOLOLOL
...and you just proved my point.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This link crashes my Firefox 0.8
Of course if it's like many things on the internet, the original poster is really a man pretending to be a woman.
"The bigger the lie, the more they believe." - Det. Bunk
Anyway, penguins DO have wings (not fins) and they fly through water (not air). We call it swimming since it takes place in the water, but from a physical viewpoint, the bird is flying.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
Works fine in opera.
Have you got flash installed correctly?
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
Regardless of which side is correct, both sets of rivals are preparing for a long race. "Much of the other proprietary stuff has dropped out, and it's a battle between Windows and Linux for the future," says Rob Enderle, an analyst at software and hardware research firm Enderle Group.
Why do people insist on quoting Enderle?
Don't they realise that he's a clueless jerk who's analysis is usually based on FUD?
Regardless of whether his quotes make sense, or appear to be fact-based, if you want credibility in your reports, don't quote Enderle!
I am I the only one who finds it odd that an OS with a flightless bird as its mascot is ``spreading its wings''?
--Andre
Corel tried to compete mano a mano with Microsoft. They tried to use the same business plan as MS. ie. They were trying to box with a boxer. They got their ass kicked.
I think that Novell has realized that their old business plan is broken. I think they will succeed.
Were I her, I'd be waiting and waiting for your "duh" moment to hit, then she can gleefully point out how you're dumb.
Seriously, I would tend to agree; there are dumb and smart females out there just as there're dumb and smart males out there. But you need a better example--we all have "duh" moments where we missed the obvious!
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
modded overrated?, you've got be kidding me, the question is serious!
because of the gpl, they have to release any changes they make to the source! so, where is the source code???
I think the big news at 11 will be the purchase of Business Week by MSNBC. It simply makes business sense.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
Where is my Linux toilet? This way I can set cron jobs for self cleaning and write a automation script for those who forget to flush. I only hope I don't get a kernel panic during a large dump.
Just to let you know, I didn't mock her in any way, I kept it to myself so I could post about it anonymously on /. afterwards.
I agree we all have "duh" moments, and some of us more then others, female, male, alien. Although I have yet to catch my dog having a "duh" moment - proof animals are intelligent!
Mod +5 Drunk
...I don't see anyone making fortunes out of Linux, at least not because they are using Linux per se. Delivering good value add-ons was always worth something, regardless of the underlying OS. I don't think you want to try to compare the earnings to the manhours of it either, for every dollar they make maybe .000000000002$ is a result of your code, distributed over the millions of lines of code.
In fact, most GPL coders see some payback because companies have to contribute their code back, if they distribute it. Your argument typically belongs in the BSD vs GPL flamewars, where the BSD people doesn't have the right to get anything back at all.
Look at it this way. Without OSS, commercial companies (as a whole) would be able to make more money, since they could sell you both the OS and the valueadd-ons. Now they only get money for the valueadd-ons (service, support, combined with hardware etc.) Yes, they make money. But they are losing money because of OSS.
Of course, down at the individual corporate level, someone is making money on OSS. So? Let's say I created a wonderful new hammer, that was free and everybody could get one. Since so many more is using a hammer, the nail company is making a fortune. So what? The hammer is still free.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
who phoned and asked Bay Star to invest in SCO, Bay Stars is reported as saying. So, the journalists reports that this isn't a 'smoking gun'. My question is, "What is the journalist smoking?"
Plausible deniability? He want us to believe that who ever it was at Microsoft who did phone Bay Star and ask them to fund SCO were never told by Balmer or Gates to do it? They just thought it was a whippy idea and took it upon themselves to make the call?
Ya. Right. Al Capone never bribed any cops, either.
My guess is that Bay Star was promised additional 'investments' or was reminded of how much financial clout Microsoft has, and how much could be directed against them if 'certain' people became displeased. Bay Star took the hint, or perhaps the bribe.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Ok so I'm a total linux newbie, know nothing about the command line/shell etc, but Xandros seems to give me what I want. It works, and it comes with the software I need, and will run some windows programes too. Anyway just my 2 cents
Yes, I do.
Well, I think so. Other sites with flash work ok.
Btw, I got the flashblock extension installed too.
(It replaces the flash with a button, you hit the button and it loads the flash.) I'll try w/o it again..
But the browser crashes even before it displays the page.
I just want to throw in my 2 cents and say that the Linux deals Novell has made in the past year are real head-slappers.
You know, "Dang! why didn't I think of that?"
For years, Novell has been looking at the Windows as an internet application server platform and for a while, they wanted Netware to compete. Finally, they found a way to make it happen - big time. They also bring to Linux all their years of experience with Netware, Groupwise and file and user security and directory services, so I even expect other projects like Samba and Filesystem ACLs will benefit too.
Dust off the red markers, boys, the 'N' is back in town.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Yes, it crashes w/o the flashblock extension too.
Getting PC with penguins? Flight challenged, swimming enhanced birds.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Would this be Grace Hopper's generation? While I think your comment is somewhat insightful, I think it's about 40 years off. By the way, I am wife, a mommy, and a Linux instructor, and I have great big jahoobies. ;)
Novell didn't need Linux to survive. The fact is that Novell could survive for 3 years on their cash reserves if they stopped selling products & services.
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
THIS. Seriously though... Linux is still a novelty, and for the forseeable future will continue to be.
The original post said "grandmother". Which, to my generation means probably pushing 50.
However, I am more that willing to concede that in less developed parts of the world (such as Arkansas) this could mean 28.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
Mateito wrote:
>
> Most older women _are_ technically incompetant.
>
> If you had to pseudocode the role of women in that generation, it would be something like:
>
> do
> cook
> clean kitchen
> breed
> repeat until dead
>
> There is nothing in there about gaining technical competency. Most older women are
> not technically competant because its never been a part of their lives.
>
What a reductionist thing to say. My mom is in that group, and she taught herself to be a book-keeper on paper, and the reapplied her skills on PCs when the first IBM PCs hit the store shelves in St. Paul, MN.
She uses a digital camera, she has a Mormon-scale computer-based family geneology project that makes my jaw drop, and she even knows my computer rants as soon as I open my mouth.
My mom's friends' kids are scattered across the country, and most of them use email to stay in touch with their moms (and their kids' grandmas!). It has clearly "become part of their lives" and they're *flocking* to technology!
Your posting history has enough things that make me think you're trying too hard to be funny here (and not trolling), but it's just kind of sad that you think so little of that large a class of people. Remember who those fly-by-night Y2K shops were said to be training to fix old COBOL code? Little old fillipino ladies and out of work telemarketers, or so it was reported: don't you think your mom is representative of a group that's a little smarter and more adaptable than that?
For shame! Go send her some flowers: even though you disclaimed such a broad stroke against her, you still smeared her whole generation.
I'm guessing it's modded insightful just because it says copyrights are bad.
This is completely off-topic. I know this and am willing to accept the moderation and hit on my karma. But Slashdot will not report it, in leiu of a bunch of positive fluff Linux pieces intended to counter that silly soundcard article. There is a clear agenda at play with regards to how flaws in Windows and flaws in Linux are reported. I'll let you decide for yourself. I'm not an anti-OSS troll (as a matter of fact I run FreeBSD on my laptop), I just depise blatant biased reporting and a bunch of people falling for it.
From IexBeta today:
Security researchers are warning of a buffer overflow security flaw in the Linux kernel that can be exploited to lead to privilege escalation attacks.
According to an advisory issued by iDEFENSE, the vulnerabilities affect Linux Kernel 2.6.x; Linux Kernel 2.5.x and Linux Kernel 2.4.x.
"Successful exploitation may allow arbitrary code execution with root or kernel level privileges," the company warned.
The company found that affected versions of Linux kernel performed no length checking on symbolic links stored on an ISO9660 file system, a problem that allows a malformed CD to perform an arbitrary length overflow in kernel memory.
"Symbolic links on ISO9660 file systems are supported by the 'Rock Ridge' extension to the standard format. The vulnerability can be triggered by performing a directory listing on a maliciously constructed ISO file system, or attempting to access a file via a malformed symlink on such a file system. Many distributions allow local users to mount CDs, which makes them potentially vulnerable to local elevation attacks," according to the security alert.
iDEFENSE Advisory
...seeing as how it's slashdot and it don't matter... I'll take a stab at it, and it's simple.
Everyone gets back a total project for free, classed under this morphing "linux" label. No single coder could possibly code an entire operating system and set of thousands of applications for themselves. But, by contributing what they can for free, knowing that lots of others feel the same way,and are doing the same thing, they all benefit. They know that when the big corporations use it, they pay people to make it even better and in more common useage, so again, we all get something from it. That's worth a LOT, whether it immediately translates into cash in the pocket, cash is by itself mostly useless, it's just a temporary medium of exchange to eventually GET YOU STUFF, it's THE STUFF you want, whether a good or a service. Linux is getting you stuff, either cyber world stuff or meat world stuff. Stuff that is getting better, cheaper, more features, does things never done before..ya know, neat stuff. The more people dig on this and understand it and chip in, the more STUFF everyone gets.
It's like road fuel taxes kinda sorta maybe, we all pay them so we can have common roads, we all get to use them. Some pay more, they use the roads more, but even the person who only contributes a small amount and drives little, still gets access to the roads, and it takes the big guys to actually build the roads, it would be a bear to go out and build your own road all the time. Instead, we take a lot of little stuffs, the road tax small monies, all given into the pool,it gets transferred to the big road distro makers and the road hardware guys, and they build the big entire package, the roads. Ya, they getpaid for that, and make some serious clams, but the alternative is every individual would have to build their own roads, or we would have toll roads all over,evry single inch of road (which would bel ike every single program and line of code being paid for into infinity, IP law taken to absurdity) which concept hardly anyone likes because they suck it. And that's why propietary stuff is steadily losing ground, and free/open source whatever is gaining so fast, toll roads every single inch of travel suck.
Basically, it's just a good idea to voluntaruly share, especially when it'suniversal. It works out better. FORCED "voluntary" doesn't work very well.
In the olden days, neighbors chipped in to build each others big barns, because it sucked to do it yourself, and no one then could afford to individually hire it out, way too expensive, so they bingoed to the fact if they all contributed, they all got barns, barns that worked well, and cost very little, and cut out the middle man usurers and skimmers in the bargain, always a good idea, IMO..
You sound like Slashdot did when I used to visit it in high school back in 1998. Linux was going to "squash M$" because they couldn't beat back a "paradigm."
Meanwhile, what's ignored is that paying for software gives financial incentive for programmers to spend all day ironing out that interface, making that sound card work, etc. and generally working on the non-fun areas in which Linux is sorely behind. It also lets them quit their dayjobs so they can focus all their time and energy on finishing the project beyond a 0.x version number. And it pays for a marketing department that knows how to choose a good name and get the project out to people so they can obtain it.
Having OSS volunteers doesn't magically mean it's suddenly better just because.
PH balanced for PHBs?
But wouldn't taking control away from the user be the goal of such a distro?
...."
;-)
Maybe, maybe not. I'm reminded of an observation I've read about the early days of unix. At the time (early 70's), it was common practice in the computer biz to have special-purpose install/config tools for every package, and their data was usually in a secret binary format. Every package had its own install/config tool, and if anything went wrong, you often couldn't fix it (because the config tool died while reading the files). One of the major technical advances of unix was that nearly everything was configured with files that could be edited with any editor. A major point was that the config data was also readable by humans. This made the system usable without long months or years of classes or apprenticeship. It also meant that, if the software shot itself in the foot, you could get in and fix the problem without a major reinstall.
If a linux distro takes care of all the configuration with a nice GUI, and puts all that data into plain-text files that can be read and edited, then control isn't taken away from the users. You just need to also tell them "To tell this app to reread its config files, type
For example, the netscape/mozilla browsers have always had a fancy GUI tool (the browser) to do all their configuration. But I've occasionally edited the bookmarks.html file and added or deleted things by hand, mostly to copy bookmarks from another machine. When I save the file, after a minute or three a little popup pops up telling me that "Bookmarks have changed on the disk" and do I want to reread them? I hit the obvious button, and the browser's bookmarks are changed. (It's easy; try it.
This is how it should be done. Novices can use the GUI; an expert can edit the configuration directly. So if you do it that way, you can be nice and friendly to the novices, while allowing the experts to do things their own way.
Another nice example is the apache web server. It comes pre-configured on a lot of distros. On this Mac, the web server was installed very nicely during initial setup. But you can also edit httpd.conf (and apache comes with full docs for this). Then you run "apachectl restart", and your changes are loaded into all the running httpd processes. It's very nice for both novices and expert webmasters.
I've written a lot of apps that do this sort of thing. It's not at all difficult to program. And it's not some sort of sophisticated, radical approach. It has been part of the unix design philosophy from the start.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
> What a reductionist thing to say. My mom is in
> that group.
Hey.. my Mum is also in that group, and she's got colour photography down pat.
I don't know where you are, but I'm guessing North or Coastal US, Western Europe or Australia.
For every liberated "grandmother", there are 10 more still living the traditional cook and clean role.
We haven't come as far as we'd like to think we have.
For anywhere between Denver, Colorado and Tierra del fuego, Chile, its a very different story. Italy is "the land that feminism forgot".
There is a lot of the world where Mum cooks, Dad works and if he even raises a hand to help, he's labelled weak.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
This Demotivator... Hehe.
> colour photography down pat.
I should expand on that. Colour digital photography. Photo editing. All computer based. Scanning. Colour matching.
Stuff that her grandkids can't do.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
Mateito replied; :7)
>
> Italy is "the land that feminism forgot".
>
Ha! Very true. Stories I could tell.
>
> I don't know where you are, but I'm guessing North or Coastal US, Western Europe or Australia.
>
Guilty as charged: I'm an American. But we like to think one of the side effects of our cultural hegemony is emancipation.
And you...British, second year of Uni, not a Geordia?
It should, and *you* should know that name before donning your tin-foil hat and making stuff up, when the MSFT/BS/RBC connection is staring at you in the face.
Linspire - strong enough for a man, but made for a woman. Controls odor all day!
Lindows Steals Copyrighted Art and Promotes Porn
It is a fallacy to believe because Linux is suitable for one application that it is suitable for any other application much less all other applications. The same goes for general purpose microprocessors that are being used more and more in special purpose electronics such as cellular phones, cars, and medical devices.
Is anyone else worried about being committed to an obvious fallacy?
Forbes is pretty hostile, if you remember the debacle over Daniel Lyons' poorly researched articles on SCO...
True, one might hope that they turn that around, but considering that they seem to get half of their news straight off the PR Newswire, and seem to have terrible research skills, I'm not all that hopeful.
-1 Flamebait?
What? You people don't understand sarcastic humor? And here I figured by referring to it as a "sammich" that the sarcasm would've been easy to spot...
Jeeze..
Religion is for people afraid of going to hell.
Sure, I've used UNIX/Linux and they have many good attributes. But stories like this are, well, kinda dumb. Does it really matter if the Linux *kernel* ends up in a phone or a cash register? Really, we're just talking about the kernel here, not a window manager, not a desktop, not applications. There are dozens of realtime OSes out there to choose from, and from a consumer's point of view it's irrelevant. (And most techies can't even name any operating systems designed for embedded use.)
still qualify as news?
So, did you GET the software in question? The software must be distributed, and with distribution there must be source or means to access the source (URL for example). If they are selling it, it is reasonable that the customers are getting the source but you don't.
It seems like you are also better at whining.
you could do ray traicing on the Amiga toaster back in the mid eighties...
If a decent Desktop Linux Distro ever comes out that is loved by the first group I can see the second group griping about how much it takes control away from the user.
I'm not sure the two are mutually exclusive. There have been several times where I WISHED something would just "work" without having to dork with dependencies, the odd compilation error, or somesuch. Even so, just because you have a layer that provides all the sugar coating, it's just that - sugar coating. As long as I as scrape as little or as much of it off as I want, I don't have a problem with a user-friendly desktop. That in my opinion, is the essence of a powerful OS.
I agree with you that having plain-text config files and user-friendly front-ends is a great way to go. However, some front-end configuration programs sometimes fall short of enough control over the config files. Also, sometimes when a config file is edited directly the user-friendly config program will get cranky.
Kppp is one front-end that I wish the developers spend a little more time on. It took a long time for me to track down that I needed pppd to get the "noauth" setting set and Kppp was not allowed to send "noauth" to pppd.
Then there are packages that don't come with a good user-friendly front-end. apt-get comes to mind. Sure I could apt-get install dselect or aptitude, but they are seprate packages.
Also there are some software packages that maybe a novice should not setup and run. Apache, if not configured correctly, can be a huge security hole.
In the end maybe we just need to politely slap some programmers on the back of the head and point out what they can do to improve their config tools. For the novice user maybe a setting in the package manager that keeps track of if the user likes having user-friendly config tools installed by default would be a good idea. I assume Desktop OSs Like Xandros and Lindows have worked out many of these problems.
I still don't know how well these distros handle the installation of new hardware though. I don't think installing a new video card that uses a different chipset is going to be a walk in the park for a novice just yet on any distro.
Losing faith in humanity one person at a time.
I was lost after the first clause ("FreeBSD allows forking pretty easially, Linux doesn't" - huh?), but was thinking maybe I missed something vital so I kept my mouth shut.
There is a certain truth to this. I can take a FreeBSD release, alter it and relicense it so that it can't be merged back into FreeBSD, allowing a permanent fork to occur. The GPL doesn't allow you to relicense the Linux codebase with the same freedom, so even when Linux kernel development forks, the forks can always be merged back into the 'main' tree at some future point.
Of course, I have no idea if that great-grandparent post actually meant that :-) It all seemed a bit close to being OT.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
A few years back, I witnessed an amazing sight. That's right, I saw penguins fly.
After attending a conference in San Diego, I snagged a Southwest Airlines flight home to Sacramento. The flight attendants, as usual, were perky and excited; but they also let me know as I boarded the plane that a surprise was in store.
(get your mind out of the gutter!)
After takeoff, the announcement came over the loudspeaker:
"We are very pleased to have some special passengers with us on Southwest today! Two penguins on their way from Sea World in San Diego to Marine World, Africa, USA in Vallejo have joined us. Their handlers have graciously allowed us to meet them."
And so it was, two penguins waddled down the center aisle of that 737. Flying. Across California.
No kidding.
MacOS, Windows, BeOS, GNOME, KDE: they're all just Xerox copies
congrats, i got my first a day or so ago.
I tend to agree. I'm a programmer and male - and I've come to think of programming as advanced house keeping.
A much better name for the distro formally
known as Lindows would have been
X-Lindows
Artificial intelligence is the study of how to make real computers act like the ones in the movies.
If people want to spend a few nights compiling from scratch Gnome 2.6 only to find out they did something wrong (in which case its time to restart the process) - also fine.
Linux is about choice - that is cool thing about it.
Linux Distros will cater for all types.
So possibly in order of ease-of-use I think it goes like this (Please correct/amend!):
Policy rule #2 says do not specially answer to AC's that can't understand a joke;
Policy rule #3 says do not, under any circumstances, answer to AC's that are uninformed *and* can't understand a joke.
Ah, what the hell.
Please, get your facts straight
Emphasis mine. QED.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048