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VM Enables 'Write-Once, Run Anywhere' Linux Apps
An anonymous reader writes "A startup will soon launch 'a kind of holy software grail,' according to an article at LinuxDevices. The dual-licensed technology is claimed to enable more or less normal Linux applications to run — without requiring recompilation — under Windows, Mac, or Linux, with a look and feel native to each. 'As with Java, Lina users will first install a VM specific to their platform, after which they can run binaries compiled not for their particular OS, but for the VM, which aims to hide OS-specific characteristics from the application. Lina comprises a platform-specific application that virtualizes the host PC's x86 processor... A lightly modified Linux kernel (2.6.19, for now) runs on top of the VM. Under the Linux kernel is a filesystem with standard Linux libraries modified to map resources such as library, filesystem, and system calls to analogous resources on the host platform.' Further details, including an entertaining video or two are at OpenLina.com"
I hope this lives up to its hype (and promise). I may have to finally break down and get an Macintel (much to the chagrin of my PPC army).
Namely, games. I see nothing on their FAQ or Features pages about 3D support. Without that, games-- and several subclasses of applications (CAD programs, simulations, scientific visualisation programs, etc.) will fall flat on their face.
This is a noble effort, though, but what about the 3D?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
I can't even get applications to run under different versions of Linux without recompilation, given the differences betweeen glibc and gcc over recent years.
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats
Interestingly enough, the word 'groundbreaking' was not used even once in the summary or the article. News doesn't have to be groundbreaking. It could be a very simple old idea used in an ingenious way to be a very useful tool for the masses. Like this, they aren't hiding that they're kind of copying what Java does. But, you know, if it was such an easy engineering task, why haven't you done it? I'm very interested in where this goes.
My work here is dung.
Is this going to hurt Linux adoption? Since most (consumer grade) PCs ship with Windows installed, won't people just bolt this on on top of Windows rather than try a new OS?
What Linux-only games do you want to run on other platforms ??
This is to port linux apps to other platforms. It sure applies to 3D linux apps as well. Of course, it won't be useful to port Windows 3D FPS games to Linux, but that is not a topic here.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
A: For performance reasons, we've written LINA in C and C++.
Why not just write the VM in Java, then it'll be truly portable, right? Right..?
"download: install: run".
That's what we do! It isn't 1979 anymore and having to compile source code isn't something the average user should ever be expected to do....
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
>"It's been said on numerous occasions that the big things that are holding Linux back are Adobe [for
>graphics software] and Intuit [for its personal finance software] because they write to Windows, and
>people can't give up those two pieces of software. As soon as companies like that, or companies that
>want to compete with them, start writing to LINA, things are going to change fast."
And how is the likelihood of big software houses starting to write to LINA bigger than big software houses staring writing to Mac or native Linux?
If you can get my mom to understand that sentence, I will pay you $500.
"Dear user: Insert the CD. Type make all; make install. Press return and go for coffee."
Like this, they aren't hiding that they're kind of copying what Java does.
Except, this doesn't just copy Java - You could more accurately say it copies Bochs (though I don't claim it as an actual ripoff, just conceptually). Rather than giving the programmer a "toy" VM with special hooks for multimedia functionality as Java does, this sounds more like it gives the use a "real" emulated machine to work with, letting the programmer use whatever tools they already feel comfortable with rather than forcing a remarkably "C++ but not"-like language on the developer.
Additionally, while Java will always require the use of an emulated JVM (yeah, Sun's plan to have JVM coprocessors in every machine really panned out, eh?), targetting an idealized x86 Linux machine means this could finally address one of my peeves about calling it a "VM" - It could actually run under virtualization rather than emulation.
I thought the compilers recompiled the software, not the average user. Besides, I know this grandmother ... her mobile server runs Gentoo ....
Linux 3D applications generally use OpenGL. Windows / graphics drivers for Windows support OpenGPL. Therefore, this should be trivial (provided a decent X server / DRI "implementation" is provided)
It's like http://www.colinux.org/, but multi-platform. It really does not feel like revolutionary stuff...
CoLinux lacks only a good and painless frontend, and transparent support for X which would create new Windows instead of a X Server client containing Windows. The MacOS port does not feel like big stuff.
The only point of this VM would be performance.
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
"Dear user: Insert the CD. Type make all; make install. Press return and go for coffee."
It should be
"Dear user: Insert the CD. Click 'Install'. Click 'OK' and go for coffee."
See the difference from a user's point of view?
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Second, what about dependencies, how does she know to read the README file or anything else to figure out what she needs to build this source. You don't exactly include all the source of all the libraries you coded with, do you? Rarely have I seen a project coded from scratch with no dependencies.
See, the issue here isn't that she can't be instructed like a monkey to hit a button. The problem here is that if something goes wrong, she's out of luck. I mean, as it is, the concept of double clicking what you downloaded to install it was a tough one to drive home. And even now I worry about her willfully installing viruses or malware on the home computer. Because she just doesn't understand the concept so well. When you ask someone to build from the source, you're pushing them quickly into something they don't understand and it's just going to result in a bad experience. The ease of use for software is actually more important to most people than its efficiency or anything else. Why do you think Java is so popular?
I'm betting you'd care if all of those people you suggest 'stuff it' weren't able to do all the things you rely a typical workforce to do when they are suddenly all unable to use a computer.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
So it's like UML on Windows using Qt/Windows and Gtk directly? And it runs as a layer on top of Win32??
I'm not sure that this effort is really worth it if you've to recompile. With Qt4/KDE4 more or less all of KDE will operate on Windows. Most major open source applications are already functioning in Windows.
No matter what this thing does, it's still an extra layer between the win32 subsystem and the applications.
Now someone can buy an Apple Mac, with an Intel Processor, and a Microsoft Windows OS, and run all their favorite Linux programs, without feeling all that peer pressure to choose a side.
->...you have to compile specifically for it, so it doesn't run legacy linux applications.l
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS6279947776.htm
"In Lina's case, the VM is essentially a Linux environment that supports standard C/C++ applications, or even perl and python, if their respective interpreters are installed. CTO Nile Geisinger explained, "You have to compile binaries specifically for Lina, but it's fairly trivial, no different than compiling binaries for SuSE or Red Hat."
-> how is this better than cygwin/mingw???
Even worse:
"Open source developers will be able to use Lina for free, while commercial developers will pay an as-yet undecided licensing fee, the idea goes."
->so, better recompile for free for the three systems.
->wine is the other way round, but at least it doesn't need you to recompile or require you to pay to use it.
->no comments:
"Geisinger hinted that Lina's library set is fairly extensive, after four years of development by a team that has ranged from two to five developers. "There's a lot of code there," he said.
However, a few biggies are missing. GTK+ support is in the works, but not finished yet. There's no support initially for USB peripherals and possibly for other hardware interfaces. And, there's no slick installer to put non-Linux users at ease."
->compare with the resources put e.g. behind java or even cygwin
Your post has it all - vitriol, arrogance, swearing, sweeping judgements, black and white thinking. I would suggest a casual glance over this before using your keyboard in anger next time.
Well, recompiling an application doesn't port it to a different OS.
The work needed to abstract the fact that you are running on Windows or MacOS instead of Linux is highly repetitive, and therefore a good target for factoring out into some common -- thing.
The most accepted way for this is to develop a framework with WxWidgets. But what if you don't like the framework? What if you need a different framework? What if your language is not supported by the framework? Integrating a VM to the underlying OS is an alternative.
Another thing that I think is useful in this approach is potentially dealing with coupling of unrelated applications via common library dependencies. If one application requires a later version of a library than another is compatible with, you can't run them both easily on the same machine. Anybody who used non-Ubuntu repositories on Ubuntu has run into this.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
These kids should focus on making applications work on the desktop first. Hoping their C container will run multi-threaded multi-node applications in the enterprise is a whole 'nother ball of shit. But they don't know that yet. Java can barely keep up, and they've been at it for a decade. Contemplate delusions of grandeur after you get this to run something useful on the desktop. My advice. you'll just get your ass sued off otherwise.
And I've had just about enough of you toilet users. If you can't plumb a toilet then you don't deserve to use it. Non plumbers should respect their "does a bear sh*t in the woods" heritage. You'll probably find a tree in the yard. Enjoy.
From their FAQ:
'A: LINA is dual licensed. For non-commercial users, LINA is available under the GNU General Public License, Version 2.
If you wish to use it commercially, please contact us to find out more about the LINA commercial license.'
Erm I'm sorry?! You can't stop someone using a GPL licensed program for commercial use.
Do they mean to say that if you want to sell it or do none-free changes then they will sell
you a non-GPL license?
Insert CD.
Phone relative because the CD does nothing.
Find Install and click it.
Cancel the dialog and click the other install.
Phone relative again and ask them why its going to take 3 hours.
Make coffee.
Return to computer and switch it off (thinking they were switching it on because the screen was blank)
Ring relative and ask why its not worked.
liqbase
So it looks like right now it mostly supports Qt with some gtk stuff coming along. Anyone else find that odd? Today you can compile your Qt apps on Linux, Mac and Windows and get native look and feel. Why would I want to wrap that with a vmmachine? Just yesterday I ran across an app written in Qt for HDR imaging that is written with Qt and is for the mac, linux and windows.
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
Imagine a world where everyone wrote software for virtual machines - the problem occurs when people write software for different virtual machines. Eg: if Pidgin was written in Java, Firefox in Mono and GNOME in Python, to run my ordinary desktop I would suffer the overhead of 2VMs and an interpreter.
Besides, its not hard to write cross-platform C++ code.
Can you guarantee me that the source code will compile and operate on what ever the target system is? The point of the VM is that it virtualizes the system that it is running on. It's up to the VM on the host OS to do that guarantee. Once that is done, then all that needs to be done is target the application build to run on the VM, not one of dozens of different OSs or hardware platforms. Sure "Hello World" or your basic application may run fine when you just "make; make install" it, but for something much more complex, relaying on specific hardware or OS features, it may not work as intended.
I don't understand how it deals with dependencies, especially for GUI applications for that "native L&F." I could understand statically compiled binaries, but it obviously must use some shared objects on the OS because in the introduction video, Windows still required Cygwin.
I don't doubt that this will be useful, but there's just too much hype surrounding it right now, and I can't tell the difference between the truth and the embellishments.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Oh boy, how unoriginal.
'a kind of holy software grail,' to enable more or less normal Linux applications -- without requiring recompilation -- under Windows, Mac, or Linux, with a look and feel native to each.
Just what i have been waiting for...
Please :)
Are PC games crucial in every situation? I think it's naive to believe that there can't be a success for a technology just because it means it doesn't apply for demanding 3D games. I'm sure they can live without PC gamers and focus on the multi-billion dollar companies who want their applications to work seamless no matter the operating system.
"People are stupid. Persons are smart" -- Agent K, MiB.
Even more to the point of TFA is that the cost of fixing bugs that arise as a result of porting is not something that a business should be expected to pay anymore either. (Open source is different, some random guy will port it to OS/2 and BeOS because that's what does it for them.)
But what I don't get is how is this better than running VMware or any of the other virtualization technologies out there? The ability to run linux in a window under windows has been around for ever. Is it their ability to localize the apps gui? That's not really special either.
I don't get it. Why has venture capital given these people money when the market already has a number of reputable and well established players?
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
would it really be that much of a step for ./configure && made && make install to be compiled into a nice little gui so that gradma can just double click the CD and have it compile (automatically installing any dependencies), install, and then run?
There is no reason why compiling from source should be any more difficult than installing, it's just that no one's gotten around to making a simple graphical compiler.
Although people might complain about why it takes 48 hours to install OpenOffice.org
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
When you get as far as trying it, you'll find out that making the source compile on another operating system is 80% of the work in porting.
The issue is running an OpenGL game in a virtual machine. Unless that machine is quite intelligent about it, the graphics are going to go very slowly.
If the VM *is* clever, then you may start seeing Linux-native games using DirectX.
You could improve performance somewhat (a factor of three instead of a factor of ten, maybe) by making a client/server model in which VM applications act as OpenGL clients connecting to a native OpenGL server. You might be able to use memory mapping to improve the speed a bit more.
Most apps under windows can run on 98, NT, 2000, 2003, XP and Vista!
Why, yes! I AM new here.
This time, for sure!
Sorry, that claim has been bullshit for decades.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
According to the LINA whitepaper, LINA encourages migration to Linux, because commerical OS users will be introduced to countless Linux applications.
I just wonder - if LINA became incredibly popular - would Windows and Mac users really feel compelled to change to Linux? I mean if you could run the vast majority of Linux programs, but still have a few favourite programs that are not supported in Linux (and assuming these don't even run using Wine) then it might be more attractive to keep using LINA and never touch Linux in itself.
Just think of all those people who started using Linux only to have amarok.
VM enables "write-once, run anywhere" Linux apps?
Ultimately, Lina has some pretty lofty goals.
Hi.
1. This sounds like what Java tried to do.
2. Startup!?!?! Watch your pocketbooks!
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
If you compile different versions, or if a machine automatically translates for you, that doesn't mean you don't have to test on different platforms. If you expect to have a robust product that runs on linux, windows, and mac, you have to test it on all 3. I think people are confused that this will somehow eliminate that step, so you'd save yourself some time. If it's all one source base, then you'll have tons of stuff like this:
-if running mac, then do this fix, if running windows then do some other fix, if running linux then do some third fix
so either your code gets very large and unweildly, or you have 3 different versions and let them branch a bit. Either has advantages and drawbacks, but neither is what VM promises in theory.
Remember: "in theory, there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice, there is."
stuff |
JNode (Java New Operating System Design Effort) is an operating system
coded in 99% Java and for the bare metal stuff 1% of it is assembler.
It's VM and the jit too are coded in java.
So yes 95% of JNode is portable but of course if you want to get it to
run on another platform you would at a minimum have to look at the
low level assembly stuff and of course the jit compiler.
Check it out at http://www.jnode.org/
What makes this any better than Qt or WxWindows? Especially for desktop applications, there's not much use for a full Linux environment.
install.sh
----------
#!
make && make install
What was your point, again ? Oh yes, there is no "Click 'OK' " step, do you care ?
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
5% of a market of hundreds of billions of dollars is meaningful, whether you think so or not.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Yes, well done lads, you've realised that the technique of locking developers into your API is crucial to keeping development from occurring on other platforms. And that one way of doing this is to invite your competitors as "second class citizens" - whether that's providing a .NET, an IE, a MainWin, COM, or any other number of technologies that were briefly ported to Unix so that when they were finally pulled, there'd be no choice but to move to NT.
It's no surprise that Linux is chasing the guy holding the Windows flag - playing catchup with Windows and commercial Unix has been its aim from day one, and that's why it's so good: it doesn't have to innovate, so the effort goes on producing clean, solid, efficient implementations of well-known ideas. What is interesting is to see Linux players now playing catchup when it comes to business methods.
You'd need to ship a compiler for every platform with every CD release. That, and some _damn_ clever script inside the autorun to figure out where it is and what it can expect.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
The new thing about it is that is integrates the application with the host OS. Virtualization usually does not do this.
True enough. But it's just like porn-sites and the defence industry and velcro, if you get my drift: 3D games have a tendency to produce offspring in 3D rotating multiple desktops and those quivering windows when you move them. And _that_, my friend, a user can never do without.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
And come back to:And that's assuming the user knew enough to open a terminal and navigated to the appropriate directory, which you left out. Let's say after they got that error they look at INSTALL and discover your instructions forgot to include 'configure', and now they get:Let's say they go ahead and disable spell-checking, even though it would be a useful feature. They type 'make install' again, like the instructions said, and get:Maybe they're not quite frustrated enough to give up just yet, and they do a google search and discover that you forgot to tell them to run as root. Hurrah! It installed! They type the application name and getWhoops, still root. Maybe they realize this (smart user!), exit, and try running again as themselves. Oh, damn, the application installed in
DLL hell is a Microsoft only problem. There is no reason why you can't have more than one libc apart from a lack of disk space - it works by version numbers to avoid loading the wrong library. Your ten year old binaries will still run in most cases as long as you have the other libraries somewhere on your library path. Some distros have the old libraries neatly packaged as "lib*-compat" so you don't have to find them yourself to get an old binary to run.
In practice, for approximately 99% of free software users (and for approximately 99.99% of non-technical free software users), it's usually quicker to install a binary package than to build a package from source. We should not be encouraging Joe Sixpack or Grandma to compile packages from source, generally speaking.
Female Prison Rape in NY
They aren't crucial in every situation, however in this one they are. Gamers are much more likely to be the relatively geeky types who have relatively geeky jobs doing relatively geeky things and making relatively geeky decisions for large masses of people. Many of those relatively geeky people with relatively geeky jobs making relatively geeky decisions for large masses of people use Windows because their games work in it, so they spend their time using/learning/tweaking/promoting Windows. However, if said relatively geeky people with relatively geeky jobs making relatively geeky decisions for large masses of people were linux users (which will happen if/when the games start rolling in) then they will spend their time using/learning/tweaking/promoting linux. The problem with LINA is it provides no incentive for development to further areas where linux itself needs to advance, all it does is promote development to areas that are traditionally linux strongpoints while at the same time removing incentive for Windows/Mac/Operating System Whatever to use linux while at the same time essentially placing a penalty on linux because using linux means that for the most part you won't be able to run programs from Windows/Mac/Operating System Whatever in a reliable fashion without some performance penalty.
While this is nice, personally Id rather see SVS or Softgrid get extensions to support non windows OS's. That way you still have your 'enterprise' management tools.
What business wants to adopt something that doesnt have management tools these days? I know i dont want to make more work for myself.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is exactly why linux users get a bad wrap... wake up, seriously, if everyone was a tech guru you wouldn't have a job...
I can understand the hack value, but why, for the love of God, would i want to run binary Linux apps on Windows? Didn't they have anything better to waste four years on?
There are some binary Windows apps, which could make life easier (albeit somewhat unethical in FSF terms) for Linux users, such as MS Office and IE6, and AFAIK that's what WINE is for (although i've never had the dire need to actually try it). But vice versa??
All the FOSS Linux apps that are source portable - OpenOffice, Perl, Mozilla, SVN, Audacity etc. - already found their success on the Windows platform. Is someone weird enough to make an application which is binary-only *and* Linux-only?
Or am i missing something?
I run plenty of binary packages at work and it would be wonderful if the "just ran"(tm).
"Most apps under windows can run on 98, NT, 2000, 2003, XP and Vista!" - by durin (72931) on Sunday May 27, @08:49AM (#19291319)
v ermakesgooglehappy.html
3 89.jpg
.reg file inserts, vs. many other competitors noted on its downloads page!
True on that account, & here is a specific example:
APK Registry Cleaning Engine 2002++ SR-7:
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/389/foowhate
SCREENSHOT:
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/screenshots/
(I wrote it back in 1997, finished it in 2002, & she runs perfectly across Win9x/NT/2000/XP/Server 2003/VISTA, & I have not had to do a "complete rewrite" for any particular Win32 OS version since then, even for VISTA recently!)
APK
P.S.=> Multithreaded design & the ABSOLUTELY SAFEST registry cleaning program there is (mainly because I filter out the ability to remove ActiveX/OLEServer Class Identifiers are valid candidates for removal by users in the publicly shipping model (my personal model DOES allow for it, but I am familiar with how CLSID's work is why, so I allow myself this 'personal luxury' & diff. personal model), which other registry cleaners DO allow, & this causes problems because of other apps' having dependencies on them), bar-none!
I know: "BOLD CLAIM", right?
NOT REALLY - I had it tested by MANY users on all Win32 platforms noted above (native OS platforms, not emulated, but iirc, it even ran under Linux's WINE) using their OWN registry data unaltered by test-rigging
(Rigjobs for tests like that I just mentioned, are ones such as Juoni Vuorio tried to pull while 'testing' his registry cleaner vs. mine & those of others, pretty lame trick imo for him to try to pull - he must think people are stupid or something, & they would not realize that, lol)...
Enjoy it if you try it, it IS the best of its kind & an example of which you speak of... apk
Oh cool. So Linux/Unix users are going to blindly run make all; make install for any software?
And people look down at Windows users for blindly installing/running anything.
On a related note: just wait till perl/ruby/python malware starts getting popular. No need to compile, even easier than make all; make install.
Let's see how the AV vendors cope with scripts that look innocuous at first sight, but once in a while do websearches and download malicious code (or grep your email for spam containing malicious code) and then run eval on it.
And it should be fairly easy to make these cross platform.
I'm not sure I want to use a piece of software with a fat bunny as its mascot.
If MS had half a brain they would buy this company immediately! This could work like wine in reverse! MS could say to the suits, "you don't have to migrate away from our wind-turd OS, you can buy this emulator!" The suits are too stupid to realize that they would be missing the most important advantage of Free Software, namely freedom, but the suits would like not having to convert their powerpoint presentations to open office!" This is horrible news!
I'll say it very simply.
Do not force end-users to the command line.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
It will end up with a smaller market share than Java with all the same problems. Debugging will be hell and the application on all platforms will suck because it does not co-exist well with the rest of the system. At least with java there were significant security benefits and a large enough base to make simple graphical tools useful. Extensions to java such as SWT also went quite a way in creating a good native UI widget set, but it still sucks.
I'm sorry, but the number of times I've seen the "Write Once, Run Anywhere" claim made for new "paradigms" is fairly scary. There are limitiations to all of these approaches. In this case, running software in complete OS emulation mode denies access to hardware features that have not been successfully ported to the virtual environment, enforces limits of the particular underlying VM hosting operating system in fascinating ways, and absolutely punishes the performance of any disk-accessing operations.
There are uses for virtualized environments, but they're hardly a new approach to code portability.
I daresay we've improved on that since, with perl as one obvious example.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
see you just fucked your whole argument right there.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Multithreaded design & the ABSOLUTELY SAFEST registry cleaning program there is (mainly because I filter out the ability to remove ActiveX/OLEServer Class Identifiers are valid candidates for removal by users in the publicly shipping model (my personal model DOES allow for it, but I am familiar with how CLSID's work is why, so I allow myself this 'personal luxury' & diff. personal model), which other registry cleaners DO allow, & this causes problems because of other apps' having dependencies on them), bar-none!
Is your code as bad as your English?
./configure does a heck of a lot of figuring out as it is. The main thing you would need to add is a way to find some temp compiling space.
If they make this thing slick and seamless, i'll be impressed. the technology is nothing special (something most OSS people sadly miss the point of ) it's the overall usefulness that's important.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
You can also use wxPython (http://www.wxpython.org), which seems to start a lot faster than LINA (look how many times the LINA app bounces in the dock before it starts), actually *comes with* Mac OS X Tiger, uses native OS controls whenever possible and as of 2.8.3 has a library called SizedControls which automatically applies OS HIG-compliant sizing and borders to your windows and controls on Windows, GTK/GNOME, and Mac (disclaimer: I'm the author of said library). Plus, unlike Qt and LINA, wxPython/wxWidgets is free for commercial development as well as open source.
:-)
So I've been using this 'holy grail' for years, but maybe the VM slowdown and commercial licensing will appeal to some people.
Why not?
It's a far cleaner solution than patching for different optimizations (mmx, sse etc) at runtime. I never understood the attitude that users shouldn't compile software, some people seem to have a pathological aversion to it. It also pisses me of that certain linux distros split off headers into separate packages.
The result of these attitudes are that when a user does need to build software, it's a far more complex procedure than it need be. If users choose to (or need to) compile, let's make it easy for them!
He's just really good at putting in-line comments in his code-- er... sentences.
I didn't realize Dr. Bronner wrote software too.
Make Slashdot readable! See journal.
It shows the level of expertise which system is designed to be used with.
Windows:DoubleClick SetupPorgamX.exe and you get to the setup wizard.After it the programs installs automatically.
LInux:several command lines plus you need to know what the options do.And you have to wait for it to compile.Plus it needs to have the correct dependencies.Plus it might have the requirement of manually locating/changing source headers,file paths and other parameters without which it will not work.
Is linux ready for desktop yet?
This mentality bothers me. While the command line is intimidating at first, and end-users should never have to learn how to navigate the command line, if I'm giving instructions, I would much rather have someone using a command line.
For example, a few months back, my girlfriend wanted me to put Linux on her computer. She was saving up for a Mac, and her anti-virus had expired on Windows. She needed a web browser, office suite (She used OpenOffice on windows to begin with), and an instant messenger. I had her install Kubuntu, answering a few questions when she had them. Once it was installed, I pulled up a terminal to start installing some programs and codecs with apt. She was deathly afraid of learning the terminal, so I started stepping her through the installation with Adept Installer. The instructions for installing Flash went something like this:
- Click the "K"
- Click add/remove programs
- Type your password
- Check the box next to "unsupported"
- Check the box next to "Proprietary software"
- See where it says "KDE"? Click the down arrow and select "Any Suite"
- Type "flash" in the search box
- It's not in multimedia? Try "Others" I guess.
- Check the box next to "Macromedia Flash Plugin"
- Click "Apply Changes"
- When it's done, click "quit"
Alternatively, I could have told her:
- Click the 'K'
- Hover your mouse over 'System'
- Click 'Terminal Program (Konsole)'
- Can you remember that? Next time I may just say "Open a Terminal"
- Type "sudo aptitude install flashplugin-nonfree"
- Type your password
I explained to her that I didn't expect her to learn how to use the command line on her own, but it's a lot easier for me to tell her a command when I'm giving instructions. She hasn't used the terminal once on her own, and she's enjoyed perusing the programs available through Adept Installer, but she knows if I have to give her an instruction, it will be a lot easier to use the command line.
I realize it's initially intimidating for users to have to open a terminal, and I'd like to see graphical interfaces for everything a normal user would need to do, but I also wish we could get the average user to where they realized the set of instructions is a lot shorter when someone gives you a command than when they have to explain dozens of clicks.
Frozen Bubble 2 (yes, seriously!)
Want to hear the voice of GOD? cat
Did they port UML to Windows? Are they using coLinux.
Why start at the kernel level? Why not start at the application level,
like line.sf.net did?
I've installed MythTV Frontend in a VMWare virtual machine that I run on my Windows XP laptop. It connects to my Linux mythbackend and runs great. I can run full screen and you would never know it was running in a vm. This capability may not make much sense moving from one Linux distro to another and it certainly isn't groundbreaking, but when you want to cross OS's, its great.
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
That's what I was thinking too, that the sharp line between choosing an OS would be blurred by all of them have common applications. Which is why my parent post was titled "the war is over", but apparently someone doesn't want the war to end. (modded troll) But in this case, who can tell which of the 4 groups the fanboy is defending, or attacking? LOL
Now I'm no novice, but when I run in to these problems, how can I expect someone's mom to have to deal with that BS?
Seriously, it isn't a horrible idea to distribute software with their dependant libraries.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
If Java's GPL then why do we need another Java?
Telling people how to fix problems fosters dependency on you. Showing them how to do it, in a manner that doesn't take years of command-line dorkdom to understand, is probably far more helpful.
:)
Though in this particular case, if your girlfriend's about to get a Mac anyway, maybe it doesn't matter so much. I'd be more worried about getting dumped once she realizes she doesn't need you to fix her computer anymore.
Make Slashdot readable! See journal.
The users don't have to compile silly.
With something like Qt, its "write once, compile three times". Distribute binaries for Linux, OS X, Windows. All with a native look and feel, using native compilers and libraries.
Its not clear how this thing works with the GUI. Is it a new toolkit? Is it a hack of the Gtk toolkit? (I thought it was funny how the demo talks about the "native Gtk looknfeel from within what looks like KDE).
"Is your code as bad as your English?" - by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 27, @11:29AM
Well, tell you what, lol: Try it yourself, & find out - pretty simple!
(Taking "the high road" here, & your comment is not going to goad me into an argument - not worth my time, as today I am going to enjoy the holiday weekend, & watch my alma mater play for the NCAA Division II Lacrosse title semi-finals (of which I was also a team member of that squad decades ago))
APK
P.S.=> Plus, I have to admit: I am really sorry about it if you can't read my writing (for whatever reasons, be it a fault of my own, or perhaps you have some ADD or dyslexic condition on your end)!
I didn't have my coffee @ the time I wrote it first of all/so you know, so I MAY be @ fault there!
(& secondly (to be blunt about it)? This isn't my "last will & testament" hehe, so I figure it does NOT have to be "perfectly correct" in my writings here, it is only a forums board.)
I (perhaps incorrectly) assumed that folks here are intelligent enough to gain the meaning of words & sentences in the context in which they are used is all... not TOO difficult! apk
The purpose of the run command under the Start menu is for help desk support. Assuming your talking to someone who can hear you and can spell (not always the case) its often easier to give instructions for a command line.
For multiplatform GUI applications you really need a framework. WxWindows if you want a crap framework, or Qt if you want a good one. So since you need one anyways, I don't see the benefit of Lina's method.
In the demo it shows them running a LAMP application (some email thing). This makes sense. Its similar to using VMWare to distribute applications occupied by complete operating systems that otherwise would be hard to configure.
It uses Qt? Where does it say that?
I couldn't figure out how the GUI toolkit thing worked exactly, it didn't say in the FAQ.
Erm. If your application isn't written in Java?
I think that there is some degree of middle ground. But from what I remember about redhat, the package system just sucked. I don't know if it is still the case, but at that time, I couldn't get it to download the large number of dependencies or find an obvious list of dependencies to download on my own.
If done properly though, the binary packages should automatically download the dependencies and install them. Preferably with just relevant warnings when things are likely to go wonky. A long standing issue with open source in general and Linux in particular is that there isn't any way inherent in the system to ensure that the libraries, any of them, are going to play well with each other. As they are generally independent projects that don't follow the same timetable or release schedule.
A program should ideally only include the libraries that are specific to it. Meaning no weird versions of standard libraries and no multi duplicate versions of the standard libraries either. Windows I am looking at you.
One of my biggest complaints has been that if I want to use 1 program with the kdelibs and 20 with qt, I am stuck with both libraries on my computer. Rather than being able to just recompile the kde program to use qt I now have to spend quite a bit of time and lose disk space for an additional clunky set of libraries. If this project can do away with that sort of thing in a manner which can be applied forcibly by a knowledgeable end user, that would be the holy grail of not cramming my computer with junk endeavors.
WTF is that?
"Am I the only one who was disappointed not to see a single "ONE! ALL-ONE!" punctuating the above?" - by Tickletaint (1088359) on Sunday May 27, @11:04AM (#19292043)
First of all: Please, slashdot "grammar & spelling Nazi's" - Give us a break, won't you?
I mean, guys - It's a forums board, not one's "last will & testament" or other legal documentation, nor is it a posting for grading purposes in academia.
(This is the 2nd time this happened here today, & it is pitiful you guys are reduced to such trivial nitpicking to be blunt about it)...
APK
P.S.=> E.G./I.E.-> If you cannot determine the meaning of what is written (due to dyslexia or over-dependence on spelling & grammar checking softwares on your end), it is YOU with the problem... oh also?
I now would like to see proof of your PhD in English, ok?? You know - the one you most likely do not have...
See, fellas, because until you do provide myself &/or others proof of some documented ability to judge the writings of others (pitiful & weak)? Who are you to judge my writings @ all if you possess no PhD in the English language?? apk
LINRA is no recursive acronym
How can they expect to bar commercial *use* of Lina when it's a GPL'd software product--unless their software must be embedded in the end executables?
Meanwhile, the video describing Lina is terrible. It shows (in a ridiculously puny window) two people installing an Apache-backed *WEB APPLICATION* onto two apparently different systems: a Linux machine and a Mac machine. What's the point of that when a PHP-backed application will do just as well and is nearly as simple use? (And what needed Lina? Apache? The web app itself? Both? Beats the hell out of me.)
There's no word on actual performance of Lina binary applications either, and while they claim additional "security," the reality is that complexity does NOT breed security, and Lina is yet another layer which must be maintained, secured, configured, and reconfigured.
Java already provides all or nearly all of this, and targetting development at Lina would be a massive re-tooling. It would also appear that the LINA PDF is internally inconsistent on the matter of whether legacy *binaries* or just legacy *apps* would run under a Lina host. I'll guess that everything must be recompiled specifically for Lina for it to work properly.
Quite frankly, once Java's GPL'd code is ported to the missing OSes it needs to be ported to, there will be no barrier to Java adoption anymore. Plus, commercial devs can still create independently-licensed Java applications without worrying about Lina demanding their cut for commercial development under Lina.
Hopefully now she won't spend the $$$ on the Mac.
She has a good OS setup now. All she needs is some white glue and glitter, and nobody will be able to tell the difference.
"on an x96_64 RHEL 4 box "
Red Hat has a port to the 80196??? I wasn't even aware there was a new 64-bit version of that processor.
Like the world needs ANOTHER Puzzle Bobble clone...
I'd like to see more applications without even the "install" part. Or, at least, make the install nothing more than expanding the application archive in any directory I want.
> "Dear user: Insert the CD. Type make all; make install. Press return and go for coffee."
Hmmm - You havn't met my Mom have you?
Insert the CD...OK - that's reasonable - she knows where the eject button is - she knows to take out any CD that's already in there - she knows how to close the CD door.
Type something. Well, you didn't say anything about logging in, opening a shell window, being in the correct directory, or that the period in 'make install.' was not supposed to be typed in - and those are only the things that I can imagine that my mom wouldn't be able to do. The number of things that she could misunderstand or misinterpret are far beyond what I can imagine.
www.sjbaker.org
If I read the article right, this is basically VMware (or Bochs) with a different name. How is that going to change the world again ? Don't most distributions already offer binary packages in the first place ? Just because I run Gentoo doesn't mean my mother has to.
For all I care, it'd be nice if we could cull the hundreds of vanity distros and repatriate all those developers onto Ubuntu, Red Hat, Gentoo, Debian and maybe Slackware (if they even care). Heck we could probably merge all the binary distros into a single one with "profiles", because typically a binary that runs on one standard distro, will run just as well on another distro running on the same architecture (as long as its dependencies are met). In a pinch, I can build something on my Gentoo, copy it over to my pain-in-the-ass CentOS box and run it. x86 is x86 no matter what crap you load onto it, it still runs x86 code.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
"... its dual-licensed Lina virtual Linux machine will run more or less normal Linux applications ..."
Well, what is it? Is it more, or is it less?
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
I might be worth noting that with the first method you just gave her a crash course in installing her own software in the future. Maybe the extra step or two was worth it?
You made your girlfriend dependent on you to install a FLASH player??
Ask why there is no graphical install for the flash player. The answer probably has something to do with having no modern, standard GUI available in "Linux" to implement such a thing. Not only that, but there is no standard way to handle executable binaries and scripts from the GUI, so vendors like Adobe would have no idea how to provide concise yet accurate directions that would work across different desktops and distros. This is even more true for package files: double-or-maybe-single click on them and what will happen is... who knows?
Want to distribute your application on CD? Well, forget it... CDs and DVDs get mounted in umpteen different places these days depending on the distro; most of those places are considered LSB-compliant, but a normal user or even techie would be very confused trying to access the path to a CD from the shell.
To a typical user, using "Linux" is like trying to carry around luggage with handles that change size/position every time you grab for one.
To: Slashdot Editors
Re: Dupes
I know we bitch about dupes, but can we get a dupe of this article when they actually RELEASE this please?
Thanks!
True, but a lot of times once the 'heavy lifting' has been done for one source package, most of the work to get many other packages to compile has been accomplished.
./configure' is how I usually type it.
And there's this step that was missed in above sequence: 'sh
next time,
- install sshd
- open firewall
- free account from dyndns.org (or bookmark whatismyip.com)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
koules
Are PC games crucial in every situation? I think it's naive to believe that there can't be a success for a technology just because it means it doesn't apply for demanding 3D games.
The irony is that until Microsoft came out with Direct-X and got everybody to code to it, Windows was what you exited out of to play PC games. Windows sold very well to a market where there was no games support of any signficance. (Me, I liked, and still like 'Castle of the Winds' which is a PC game where all the monsters are Windows Icon resources)
I don't know how well the GUI is integrated, but if it avoids using an X server on systems with alternative graphics support, such as Windows and Mac OS X, that would also be an important advantage.
Given, I'm running a PPC machine, but from my experience with open source on Linux and Mac OS X... because something always, ALWAYS, goes wrong the first time you do "configure" or "make?" Always.
Either it's missing some libraries (my experience with GD), or it requires SUDO permissions but the instructions didn't say it required SUDO permissions, or the path its writing to is wrong, or it has a Good Ol American compilation error... something always goes wrong.
If you want to write a GUI to cope with every single possible error in the 'configure' and 'make' process, more power to you. But I doubt it's possible for any computer program to handle every case in an automatic fashion.
Comment of the year
If it's running under an emulation layer on a Wintel PC then I think a precompiled binary might be possible. ...and if it isn't, they're doing it wrong.
No sig today...
That is the norm for Mac OS X applications.
My cat sat on the mouse and mangled the subject line... ^
No sig today...
Lemme tell you a small story here.
When MS released Windows 3 was when it started to become known in Brasil. At the time, there was a TV show called "Confissões de Adolecente" (no need to translate, since the name is not relevant). At the time, there was an episode where the main character was bitching an complaining about having to use a mouse and click on stuff. After all, if he wanted something, all he had to do before was to type the command. Now, he had to search for the icon, click on it, than click on something else etc.
So, to translate your comment into something that really means something (and is actually true), what you mean is:
"Do not force end-users to do something different"
Here is Brazil we have a saying for cases like this, which roughly translates as: "If you change the color of the grass, the mule will starve to death"
morcego
thanks
Ok, I'll bite. (that "modern" part is a nice bait, ain't it?)
How about using Java for the installer ? Or maybe QT/GTK ? How about newt ?
Yeah, I know it is too much to expect anyone to learn to use Xt or Motif. Ok, Motif is
not always avaliable, but show me a GUI linux install that doesn't support Xt ?
And if all you are doing is writing an installer, using Xt is pretty easy.
morcego
Hey, I'm trying to compile Firefox on a RedHat 3.3, and I'm having problems.
Geez. Try RHEL 5. It has been released, you know ?
morcego
Thanks for the reply.
I don't fully understand the minefield I walk here at Slashdot, but my point was fairly clear. If all the "sides" currently fighting wanted to get along better, then LINA could be a small step in that direction. Unless of course, getting along with others isn't their goal, and instead they really just want to destroy all "others".
As for "evangelizing" Apple & Mac stuff, I've never owned anything from Apple. This doesn't really imply I hate them either, but it does imply something about the type of hyper-sensistive person that would judge me so harshly, and then moderate accordingly.
If you need to know the location of a CD, just right click on the icon and select properties. Click on the "Volume" tab and there it is under "Mount Point".
Same with USB devices, network mounts, etc. In Gnome applications, the user has a nice entry on the left that has the name of the volume. The user doesn't have the know what the mount point is. This is something I was really impressed with when I switched to Gnome from KDE.
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
User: OK, I inserted the CD. Nothing happens. Now what?
Support: The instructions said "Type make all; make install"
User: Instructions?
Support: Just type make all; make install
User: OK, I typed makeall. Nothing happened.
Support: Did you type make space all?
User: OK, I typed "make all" Nothing happened.
Support: What's on your screen?
User: There are those little pictures, a picture of a green field with a pretty blue sky, and it says "Windows ME"
Support: Is there a command window?
User: What's that?
Support: It's what you should be typing into...
User: I don't type into the keyboard? Do I have to buy something else? This stuff should just work, right?
Support: Wha, whaa.... I... Wha?
User: Oh, forget it!
Believe it or not, this isn't as difficult as it's made out to be. The biggest barrier would be convincing your mother that she should know, rather than having her simply say "This is too complicated!" at the first hint that she might actually have to learn something.
But seriously, if you give me a half hour or so with your mother, I will be able to get her to understand it, so $500 is a pretty generous offer. And I could use the money now. Want to send me her email address or something?
I don't think it's particularly ingenious, either.
Except Java does it better. I don't even like Java, but I have to admit, it does it better.
Because it's an ugly, ugly hack -- I'd much rather do something useful, like, say, improve one of the real "compile-once, run anywhere" platforms, or improve package management to where such things aren't needed. We're already mostly there anyway -- no matter what the physical architecture, I can generally easily find a GUI package manager for my distro. If I choose the same distro on all platforms, it'll even look similar. And if I'm on something other than Linux, I simply download the binary for my OS. Even if I'm completely clueless, I can simply browse to the program's website, and it can auto-detect my OS and suggest a version to download -- Firefox does this, for example.
Bonus: It now really does run anywhere, not just "any x86 processor". Yes, I realize you can do emulation as well as virtualization, but that's just retarded -- why would I want to lose at least 50% of the speed because your mother is too lazy to download the right version for her platform? With actual binaries, I can get true 64-bit clean versions, on x86_64 or ppc_64, or even ARM binaries... Can you imagine trying to run Linux inside an x86 emulator on a PocketPC? No wonder so many cell phones use Java instead.
Also? Because it's already been done. Depending on the implementation, it's either called "user-mode Linux" (I am not sure if this runs on OSes other than Linux, but I imagine it'd run on OS X) or Qemu.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't bother criticizing them, but I think what they're doing is actually harmful. I would much rather have something written in Java, or cross-platform with QT or wxwindows, than something that's x86 Linux only because someone told them x86 Linux was "compile-once, run anywhere".
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Then you use a different framework. There are at least three or four out there.
A lot of people complain about cross-platform frameworks not feeling native, especially on OS X. In fact, that's the main argument against them. But I fail to see how forcing it to simply be a Linux application and then virtualizing it anywhere improves the situation.
Well, if the one that requires the earlier version isn't updated quickly enough, and if there's only one of it, then... well, it's not particularly easy, but it's not particularly hard, either. Simply install multiple copies of the library. If the package manager doesn't support it, then manually install one of them in a place outside of the normal library paths, and use things like LD_PRELOAD to force the troublesome app to use your library.
In fact, commercial games have used this approach on Linux for ages.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Great. So why are you writing a cross-platform app that relies on specific hardware or OS features?
Also, it seems much simpler and more elegant to take whatever features you need and abstract them away in a cross-platform library (like QT) rather than virtualization/emulation.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
'DLL hell' was a problem on old versions of Windows. Since 2001, when Windows XP was released, Windows has included a mechanism for allowing multiple versions of the same library to be installed. It's called WinSxS, and to me it looks massively over-engineered in comparison to simple version numbers and symbolic links, as used on Unix, but it's there nevertheless.
Doesn't mono do this already? What do we need 50 VM's out there. I think this situation is getting ridiculous.
"Chuck Norris is the code that made Neo the one." --Me
I will use this product and/or service because I like the bunny.
That is all.
To me it looked like the summary said "without requiring recompilation".
Still... this is slashdot so you can't expect people to read more then the first sentence.
No sig today...
Not everyone plays the version churn game, especially enterprise users. There's a reason RHEL4 has support until 2012 (hell, 2.1 doesn't fall out of support until 2009).
It's called Gecko. Most of Firefox is written in either cross-platform C++, or XUL/JavaScript, which makes it probably the only browser to itself be an AJAX application. (And Mozilla did the same thing long before AJAX was even a word.)
Also, there aren't many virtual machines out there. I agree, we don't need this one -- x86 is just a retarded target for this sort of virtualization -- but even if we count Java, Mono, Parrot, Python, Erlang, and XUL, that's still not a lot of RAM by today's standards. You'd lose more by having to use different GUI toolkits in your C++ app -- one uses wxwindows, one uses GTK+, one uses QT, one uses TK, maybe one even uses Motif or straight OpenGL. And that's just the GUI -- there are all kinds of cross-platform C++ libraries, some (I'd argue) with more overhead than a VM.
Given the choice between running a bunch of GUI toolkits running recompiled C++ code, and a bunch of VMs running on the same GUI toolkit, I'd much prefer the latter.
Also, VMs can theoretically perform better than C, so I'm only counting RAM usage required by different VMs as "overhead".
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I'm talking about _windows_ as well, dude.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
While VMware's Mac support is still beta, the Linux and Windows versions have been out and available for several full version numbers. Admittedly multiple CPU and 3D accelerated video in the Guest OS need some work. DirectX 8.1 is in beta support. While the VMware Workstation product is expensive, VMware Server and Player are available as free full product downloads with no time expiration.
Otherwise stock RHEL? Would be curious to see the exact errors (and maybe the output of "rpm -qa --qf '%{name}-%{version}.%{arch}\n'").
/usr/src/redhat/SOURCES and updating Version, Revision and %changelog in the spec file.
I version-revved Ruby as well (to fix an issue with gems), but I took the somewhat simpler route of backporting from RHEL5. After installing the SRPM the only modification needed to the spec file is changing libX11-devel to xorg-x11-devel in the BuildRequires line. After that, all it takes is an "rpmbuild -ba ruby.spec" and you have shiny new packages.
(I'm a big fan of RPM even if you're building from source. Keeps everything nicely managed by the packaging system and makes repeatable builds a lot easier. Even manually version revving without a backport is usually just a matter of dropping a new tarball in
Actually, there are plenty of reasons RHEL4 has support until 2012, but Ruby is not one of them.
Currently, aprox. 95% of my servers are RHEL4, 4% are RHEL5 and 1% are something else. I don't plan on upgrading my RHEL4 servers just for the kick of it. But if I want to run Ruby, I'll do it on a RHEL5 machine. If I want to use PHP5, I'll use RHEL5. I won't try to make it work on RHEL4 (and it does, by the way). If you are running an enterprise Linux distribution, you simply don't fuck with it (pardon my french). If you want to compile all by yourself, you should be using Gentoo, LFS or some other distro like that.
Got the picture here ? It is not about "version churn game". It is about using the correct tool for the correct job. Or fulfilling the requirements. Or whatever you want to call it.
morcego
Am I "net-blind" or is there no where to download this thing? Google around for "Download Lina" produces hits on some MP3s and some hits on the Lina logo. If there is a download version of this project I can't find it.
On the matter of the product itself:
From the videos on the website it sounds like Lina is a new type of VM for C/C++ code similar to the JVM. If that is the case I can easily contain my excitement and hope these guys have a good marketing department. The technology is not 10x better and as such will have a long road to success.
If you can write to Lina and distribute Lina "binaries" or native binaries (that is "exe" on windows) I don't think you'll see much resistance to Lina as a product. You may not see much fervor over it either though.
If you can recompile a Linux project and distribute either "Lina binaries" or native binaries for a program then I think we have gold here. I'll be very excited and it means that Linux could morph into a kind of super Java style API for all Operating Systems... a sort of meta System V.
If all Lina does is provide a VM to write to, (which is what I suspect), then Lina's success is going to be a matter of marketing. But not traditional big marketing... it will succeed on a combination of smart technologist marketing and viral marketing. If Lina has that it might carve out a niche for itself.
The question is, true believer, can Lina make your heart flutter like Linux, Ruby, Python, or PHP did? If it doesn't learn to make your heart go pitter-patter then I it will have to find a way to cut deals to make you want to learn to dance with Lina. Maybe folks at dLoo can cut a few deals that move a critical mass of developers over to the Lina side of the force.
I don't know if I like Lina or not, I haven't even met her. With a hook like this on Slashdot today would have been the perfect time for me to meet Lina and maybe have dinner. As it stands, I'm a desirable geek and get lots of young new technologies interested in my time and attention. I've got Beryl that I'm hanging out with right now, some python code from Numenta that keeps calling me back and looks mighty nifty, I've got new FX-y tech I'm going to spend some time with too... And, that's just this weekend. I may not notice Lina again. I'm sure she's a nice girl with great personality but... the other tech I can meet and talk to right now and Lina didn't even give me a month and day to get back to her on.
[signature]
You're right but it made me think why and how is it so different from so many of the other similar technologies and why haven't we achieved it so far. My answer was it isn't in the interest of certain parties for there to be that level of portability so they labour to keep it (write once run any ported environment) broken.
A friend sent me a link to a tool called something like Sandboxy earlier that offers (on Windows) an isolated way to run all your applications with one idea being running your browser there so that you are ultimately protected from the wipe out caused by hostile attacks.
That, Mono, .net, java, Wine, virtualisation, and the endless list goes on all seem so numerous and offering things in that direction.
Who says the user needs to open a command prompt to run install.sh?
Insert CD, when the CD gets automounted, and a window appears with the content of the CD, double click on "install.sh".
Except when you stumble upon something that doesn't work so easily, and casual users are told to change some text in some config files and type things that they don't know what the meaning is in the console.
Let's face it, Linux systems at least have a problem with people who are used to installing things on Windows, otherwise there wouldn't be all the fuss.
It does ring familiar, although I think your point isn't really against distributing source, it's about poor (or no) installers. I've seen some pretty nifty command based installers that asked you a question or two, compiled and install (including putting shortcut in the "start"-like Gnome/KDE menus). Can they fail? I am sure they can, but then again so can (and does) Windows installers...
Incidently, from the video this product does require the "binaries" to be installed too, and at least at this moment it's done on the command prompt.
Actually, most Windows apps take advantage of autoplay, which means it really is "put the CD in, push the big flashing button that pops up, click next a whole lot because none of that text could be important, wait".
To my knowledge, Linux doesn't have autoplay. While I agree that autoplay is awful, it does make things easier for endusers.
I don't know if OSX has autoplay or not, but in any case with OSX it tends to be "put disc in, double-click the disc icon that just showed up". I haven't seen any equivalent for Linux - you usually have to find the install program or similar. God help you if you have a package manager - then you have to search for what you want to install!
People's brains freeze up when confronted with a computer. They'd much rather just put a shiny disc in and let the magic computer do its work. Seriously, you could sell "Linux application install discs" which are just a pack of CDs where each one has "aptitude install gimp", maybe a hudnred bytes each, and people would buy them.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
...so it's reasonably to expect that they take more training to use effectively.
User: OK, I just got into my car. Nothing happens. Now what?
Support: When you took driver training, you were told to press the gas pedal.
User: Gas pedal?
Support: Just press the little pedal to your right.
User: OK, I pressed it. Nothing happened.
Support: Did you start the car?
User: OK, I started the car and pressed the gas pedal with my foot. Nothing happened.
Support: What do you see in front of you?
User: There is a dial with a bunch of numbers from 0 to 140, and a red circle around the letter P.
Support: Did you put the car in gear?
User: What's that?
Support: Do you even have a driver's license?
User: License? Isn't that only for software? A car should just work, right?
Support: Wha, whaa.... I... Wha?
User: Oh, forget it!
http://outcampaign.org/
I don't know which "Linux APIs" they standardize on in their product, but there are very few "Linux APIs" I would be interested in standardizing on as an application developer.
...unlike, perhaps, basing a new product on their technology.
Perhaps this has value for companies wishing to port legacy GNU/Linux products to Windows and OS X with less effort than is required to target Cygwin + OS X native, but then how many companies are there in that situation who are willing to accept the risk of targetting a brand new VM platform from an unknown vendor, and do not already have the inhouse expertise to maintain Cygwin and OS X ports?
And why not Java? That's the question they need to sell any intelligent prospective customers on. If you care about performance to the extent that you don't want to target Java (VM) in the first place, why would you want to target this VM virtualizing the entire Linux kernel, a VM that doesn't have the benefit of years of tuning and performance enhancing technologies from some of the brightest engineers in the industry (Java)? And once again, a VM from an unknown player that is not proven in production?
My suspicion is that this is just a bunch of people looking to be bought out, or at least hired, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do,
Most people that have used RB speak well of it.
"Why are people afraid of recompiling? It is pretty painless if the source is packaged well."
Like in Squeak for example.
Yup, I go a step further and log in via SSH since it is even easier to just do it myself. BTW, I do the same with the Windoze machines I maintain. They all have Windoze Remote Desktop *and* Cygwin with OpenSSH installed. It saves me countless hours.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
WINE runs Windows software on Linux.
LINA runs Linux software on Windows.
I guess originally they would have called it LINE, but then changed the last letter to A to avoid being just like WINE?
Part of the reason why people develop for Windows are that the development tools are easier to work with than Linux and other operating systems, like Visual Studio, Delphi, etc. Now you have to use Linux development tools, I am guessing C and C++, and Linux libraries to make code to run on this LINA virtual machine based on Linux APIs and the Linux Kernel? The best thing you have in Linux next to Visual Studio is the Mono project, but the IDE needs a bit more work, and the Winforms translation library needs more work as well.
I would like to try it out sometime and see what languages it supports for developing under LINA, when one does not have a Linux box to write the software on. I wonder if it supports the Python language and allows installing other languages on it, so we aren't limited to just C and C++ development.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
On windows this program requires Cygwin. So yes you can run all these apps natively, as long as you first install a extraction layer. And hey I wonder if I can get Cygwin working under wine so then I can go through two extraction layers. Wait, maybe I can then install colinux in wine that pumps x output through cygwin, then I can install wine, and then get cygwin running, then I can install cygwin...
Just write a fucking app in good c/c++ and staticly link libraries not on windows. Compile it and wohoo, a binary for windows. The only thing the least bit interesting is the gtk/qt to native api layer. That should be the library they provide developers with for ease of compiling to different OS's.
LINY is not you!
You are reading a sig. Cancel or allow?
I would like to see autroun available in all operating systems.
However, it should be the neutered version XP displays for flash drives.
The supplier of the software can add a new item to a short menu of available options, thought no software is automatically run.
Asking users to browse the file system and know to run programs is a little too much, but giving them a choice of "Install XYZ to computer" with a familiar software icon is a nice simple way of handling things.
liqbase
I got your mom to scream and cough up cum. But it is not the same since I paid her $5.
OMG: Ironic captcha alert: ORGIES!!!
no joke - yes your mom IS a slut
The first step in solving a problem is defining it. But I'm not sure if I should be optimistic that Slashdotters like yourself have such insightful understanding, or pessimistic at the sheer scope of the situation. Perhaps a bit of both will have to do. :-|
Considering I've never ever installed a program from a cd under Linux dont you think autoplay would be useless? :P
I think package management is far superior to cds. For one you cant lose your package management and spend half a day looking for it.
1) I use Kubuntu myself. I still avoid Adept like the frigging plague. Get Synaptic; I don't care that it requires the GTK libraries, it's just better.
2) When walking someone through it, that's one thing. But what about when they want to do it themselves? Giving them instructions in a way they can't easily handle and do themselves the next time is not a good plan.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Your a windows thinker. You obviously have no idea how or *why* Linux does it that way.
I dont know about you but to install openoffice I prefer typing (or use a GUI) emerge openoffice rather than going to openoffice.org, downloading the installer and hitting next 10 times.
For one I dont have to be physically present and I also dont need to pay attention to it. Plus clicking next 10 times gets old really fast.
Why the hell would you want to distribute a Linux app on a cd?
Thats one of the more stupider suggestions I've ever heard.
Oh dont worry. It still sucks. ;)
How is any of this doing anything at all that Java using the SWT api's does not already do?
Most people, I suspect, want plastic discs to install software off. It's far easier conceptually to deal with. Linux really doesn't handle that case well.
Personally, I agree - I vastly prefer package management or online downloading. I suspect there will be some user re-training needed to get most people to understand that, however.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Reminds me of the trillion distros of Linux out there... Ridiculous, you said it.
I would much rather have someone using a command line
And therein lies the problem. You would rather have them using a command line. They don't want to. When you have a GUI, you always have prompts and a safety net. You can say, "Click on the button that says 'Change Setting.'" They have an automatic double check because there is something that matches, exactly, what they're being told to do. They have limited choices because they're working from a menu or from components and when one matches what they're told to do, they have some kind of confirmation they're pressing the right button. When you say, "Now type this," then you can hit any number of snags and they know it. You can tell them what to do and they can use a single quote instead of a double one or hear the word wrong or mistype it and, from their point of view, they don't know what's going to happen if they make a mistake.
You are much wiser than most developers I've seen post here who want to blame the uses for not knowing everything they know and you've got a good point. You and I can often move much more quickly with a console, but for users, the mere thought of having to type commands is frightening. They're looking at a blank screen with no feedback until they hit and then it could be too late.
You've realized, though, that it isn't about what you or I want, but what the user can handle or take care of on their own. That's the problem: It's our job to give them what they can handle. That is rarely a console. With my clients, before I got my software up to the point I wanted it, I had them install RealVNC on their computer and used a tunneling program I wrote in Java so it would go through their firewalls, then had them add me, and I configured RealVNC so it would only run when they wanted to run it and so it had a strong password. (And before anyone starts screaming, I'm simplifying and leaving out discussions with their bosses and IT departments about safety.) When they had problems, I just had them run RealVNC and add me, then I could fix, in less than 5 minutes, what could take 45 minutes or more if I were telling them what to do. When I finally got my own program to where I wanted it to be, that wasn't an issue anymore since I had enough failsafes they didn't need that kind of help anymore.
You just lost my mom at the word "type".
/. probably can't possibly get their job done with a command line, but that's not the point....
I've said it before, I'll say it again: mainstream users don't want to use the command line, *ever*. They don't even want to know it exists. If you rely on it for getting something done, you've failed for mainstream users.
Granted, everyone reading this on
Ah, you've used Windows, I see. Installing things is much easier on pretty much every other platform (including macosx, most of the linux-based platforms, and most of the BSDs).
What are you talking about? One of the big problems in the Windows world right now is that applications are so easy to install, that the user often has to run special software just to keep applications them from installing all by themselves!
You know, I bet less than 1% of people here could tell me what the path to a CD drive is under Windows XP.... Hint: It has nothing to do with the drive letter. There isn't actually a C: or D: drive, they are abstracted mount points. The real path is part of the object tree, but you never see it in practice because EVERYTHING is abstracted.
My point is that it is not important what the mount point is in Linux, as long as the system provides an access point visible to the user, and it does. Windows does the exact same thing.
If you want to compile all by yourself, you should be using Gentoo, LFS or some other distro like that.
Or I might want to configure my software to my own requirements, instead of using the One Size Fits All RPM that RedHat provide but isn't any use to me.
Please mod parent down to "D'oh!"
How on earth could I have missed that? I can't even blame that on lack of coffee or sleep. I have no excuse.
Wanna know how to keep her and earn brownie points? Buy her the Mac.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
I gotta admit, the other day I burned a later build of Matrox X-Tools onto a CD. Had an autorun in it, etc.
Stuck the CD in the drive, the autoran ran their installer.
Held the mouse of the Install Matrox X-Tools - got "Matrox X-Tools can not be found"...
Apparently their stupid ass installer is so hardcoded the CD has to be named something specific - but even burning another CD with the right volume name didn't help. Even moving the installer into the directory WITH the Matrox X-Tools, it couldn't find its own directory.
In other words, if you don't have one of their CD's, you can't install it.
So why do they let you download it?
Utterly stupid shit.
And don't get me started on how we have installed and uninstalled Adobe Premiere 1.5 and the Matrox X-Tools a dozen times now and STILL can't this utter crap to work properly. After a fresh install of Windows and the downloading of the necessary critical security updates, Adobe Premiere will not load. If you manage to achieve that (we did on one machine), Matrox will tell you Adobe Premiere is not installed - even when it is. If you manage to get Matrox installed, Adobe hangs loading the Matrox drivers. If you manage to get past that, so that both Adobe and Matrox runs, Matrox can't find its own goddamn card...
I mean, if it wasn't for the alleged "features" this crap has, both companies would have been out of business years ago. They're both ridiculously poor software companies.
The software industry is TRULY a pathetically badly run industry. You can't even call it an "industry" - it's a joke shop.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Obviously these are 2 different approaches, but anyone care to give som pros and cons of the cygwin approach and this new approach? they both require recompilation so im wondering what the benefit is?
is there no "cygmac" or equivalent?
You've obviously never compiled all of KDE from source before.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.
Free beer is never free as in speech. Free speech is always free as in beer.
That reminds me of my Kubuntu experience. Every time I want to upgrade, there is always something that doesn't work. This is true for flash and mplayer. I'm honestly surprised that both aren't installed automatically. How else do they expect us to use YouTube?
I find it so surprising that I can use an application in 1 version of a distribution, but a new version of another distribution seems to have no knowledge of its existance.
Even surfing to forums don't produce any meaningful information. They always seem to have some foreign language like this.
"All you have to do is check for adsfklhjasdfljk.lib in your library path, or make a sym link for it. Be wary of hard links with different names that must be deleted. Also bear in mind that you must have 2 versions glib/glibc to execute compilation but not run. If you don't then adept misinterprets, and uninstalls both. Good luck!"
"Okay, I tried it. Now I can't get past grub."
"Okay. Try reinstalling Kubuntu. At least you don't have vendor lock-in. Good luck!"
It's not like I'm a newbie. I've been using Linux since RH 6.0. At this stage in the game, it should be totally automatic for a basic workstation, while allowing a user to partition a disk, if he chooses. Everything else should be installed automatically, and then configured after installation.
I live in Canada. I don't want to spend my entire life telling you that I want a US keyboard layout, and English as my langauge of choice.
Mod parent up.
testing out my trending skills
"I didn't realize Dr. Bronner wrote software too." - by Tickletaint (1088359) on Sunday May 27, @10:57AM (#19291989)
c id=19292419
Well, I don't know who Dr. Bronner is, nor do I care to inquire on it... however, I believe I already replied to YOU, specifically, here (in this thread):
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=236367&
Read it, drink it in, & digest it.
APK
P.S.=> LeMoyne 6, Mercyhurst 5:
http://lemoynedolphins.com/sports/mlax/index
They're once more, the National Champs again in Division II - My old alma mater (& former team I played for years ago in college)!
So, that all said & aside? Well, each of your "spelling/grammar check Nazi" tactics won't get me down to YOUR level, today, lol... no way, too good of a mood to argue with the lamest of the lame (who think that posting on forums has to be of "legal correspondence grammatical & spelling accuracy" type par, lol)!
A good way to end my holiday weekend on - nothing can spoil that, least of all your pettiness... apk
It's English for "Amiga". You can stop shaking now.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Source builds can be automated with shell scripts, though it doesn't address all the issues - the user still needs to know to open a terminal and navigate to the proper mount poiunt, dependency issues don't go away, super-user privileges are still necessary for system-wide installation. And what does it really buy you? I mean aside from excesively long install times and added complexity.
I'm generally of the opinion that source-level build and install scripts are best optimized for packagers and distributers. A typical end user really has no need or no desire to touch source code.
Write Once, Run Anywhere will never happen for two reasons.
First, there are different utilities and features available to each operating system. Every developer that ignores these features and utilities in order to write a program once for all systems will be at a disadvantage relative to the person that writes a native app. In other words, the native app will run better than the generic app.
Second, people gain access to a flexible choice of operating systems, but the developers get locked into a proprietary language/framework. Again, limited choices means that for some (many?) problem domains, a different language/framework will be a better choice, and by denying themselves that choice, the developer loses a competetive advantage to another developer.
And that's ignoring the issue of just getting it to work as advertised... Java hasn't even gotten there, 15 years later. I'm sure a small subset of problems will work just great with Lina... but I don't think it will do any better than Java in the long run.
Raven
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
So you're upset by someone's lighthearted jibe at your use of english when your entire post was nothing more than an advert for your dreadful and largely pointless windows only app, not to mention a great deal of self-praise. We really don't care about your registry cleaner or how well coded you believe it to be, you're off topic, my friend.
That reminds me of my Kubuntu experience. Every time I want to upgrade, there is always something that doesn't work. This is true for flash and mplayer. I'm honestly surprised that both aren't installed automatically. How else do they expect us to use YouTube?
Unforutnately there are sticky legal issues revolving redistribution. A useful build of mplayer (i.e. including mp3 and dvd support) is probably illegal, at least technically, due to patent issues.
I find it so surprising that I can use an application in 1 version of a distribution, but a new version of another distribution seems to have no knowledge of its existance.
Heh, the track record of consistency in the desktop is pretty piss poor. Both major camps have had far to much flux in terms of both binary interface and methodology. It's gotten better, and hopefully the success of some of the freedesktop.org will keep things on track.
It's not like I'm a newbie. I've been using Linux since RH 6.0. At this stage in the game, it should be totally automatic for a basic workstation, while allowing a user to partition a disk, if he chooses. Everything else should be installed automatically, and then configured after installation.
Thankfully seems to be a trend in that direction. Red Hat and Fedora, at least, have moved a fair amound of configuration into the Setup Agent that gets run on first boot. And I was just reading a discussion on the OpenSUSE forums earlier today talking about simplifying the install process.
We've definitely come a long way since Red Hat 6 (started with Slackware 95 myself; been doing Red Hat since 4.2) but there's plenty of room for improvement.
Upgrading a single package from upstream is far less disruptive than doing a full platform upgrade.
If you want to compile all by yourself, you should be using Gentoo, LFS or some other distro like that.
No thanks, I stick to using a stable platform and packaging any additional or upgraded packages I need.
Got the picture here ? It is not about "version churn game". It is about using the correct tool for the correct job. Or fulfilling the requirements. Or whatever you want to call it.
I'm not about to upgrade a couple hundred servers because I need to run newer versions of a handful of packages. It's really not a big deal to spin a few RPMs and set up a repository.
Well, I'm not so sure I buy that whole round plastic thing :) But I think your intentions are good.
I see plenty of people go online and click that little icon that says 'you must install this and ten other spyware executables, for which you cannot sue or, and you'll get spam, click ok to to play OUR version of solitaire which has prettier seashells on the cards.' Or you know, snood, which expires, and forces my mom and sister (not computer types) to learn how to uninstall it, and download a new copy every time it does. I think what people really want is a more clever use of smiley faces, now if you labeled your Plastic Discs with pretty colored smiley faces, with even more cleverly painted tongues hanging out of their squiggly mouths, you'd be able to have them run it on whatever operating system you like. They'd just learn it for the smileys. (Used to work for second graders too, way back when they'd get a scratch n sniff smiley sticker for passing what we used to call Spelling Tests. That's of course before they were illegal in the US - no I'm not even kidding about that.)
Speak for yourself.
Ok, lemme try to rephrase it.
You are not just "spinning a few RPMS". You are breaking the whole point of the distro.
You see, the so called enterprise distributions (RHEL and others) are stable because of the whole distribution. Because not only each package was tested, but because they were tested as a whole.
Ok, so there is no big deal to install a new, unrelated package. I'm all for that. You can install mplayer or upgrade Mutt all you want, and you will not be breaking the distribution stability. But when you mess with things like samba, apache, php, python or ruby, you ARE messing up with the distro stability, thus negating the whole point of using an enterprise grade linux distro. And if you are really using RHEL, and not CentOS/Scientific/etc, you are even throwing away your money.
I don't mean to offend you, but by your first comment, you are not someone who understands all the minor details of the distribution (how the library versions are interlinked, the different API/ABI versions in use etc etc). Really, don't get offended. You are in the same boat that 99.99% of the other RHEL/CentOS users, myself included, so you really can't do it safely.
Get my point now ?
Of course, those are your servers, and you can do with them what you like. Just don't complain if they start giving you trouble later. Specially, don't go bothering the developers. I see enough of that (oh, but I changed only one minor package!) nonsense on
the CentOS lists as it is.
morcego
Yes, I know what AJAX stands for. However, the majority of it is something called DHTML (Dynamic HTML), which was simply JavaScript + the HTML DOM.
In fact, most of "AJAX" today is simply DHTML tricks that people were using years ago, but somewhere along the way, JavaScript became something to drive popup ads, and people started thinking you needed Flash to make a dynamic-looking website.
Even the 'X' in AJAX is optional -- plenty of people use JSON instead of XML for their AJAX apps. And the 'A' part? Firefox is certainly threaded, and among other things, it will download a new version of itself in the background (on Windows, at least) and prompt you when it's ready to be installed.
So, I would have called it DHTML, but AJAX is catchier, and it's what people know now. (Besides, it's not really HTML, it's XUL...)
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Logic. That's what bothers end-users. To them, computers are something that should just work. They don't care how, they never will, and no, they don't even think it would be 'neat' to know a little more. They like being dependant on someone else to fix it for them, just like I am when I want someone to do my taxes.
I am saying this after 10+ years of end-user, and even tier two, and internal tech support - meaning I only talk to other oh so aptly titled 'techs.' I'm a coder at heart so I love learning everything I can, but these MIS types come in two varieties: those who care why the things they say fix things, and those who care what time it is, and how close they are to going home for their next six-pack and Letterman night. I'd say that the second type is the more common lately, which is why they are so easily offshored to someone with no more english speaking skills than the telephone you call them on. Anyway I'm getting off in a tangent. Users will not learn a command prompt even though it would vastly improve their lives. They've seen enough hacker movies to know that they just don't like black screens with white text and funny looking squiggle characters in the prompt. They think that typing "make install" amounts to hacking, and they really don't want to get caught in Sandra Bullock's version of 'the Net,' so they'd like to stick to 'real' applications that come in a box with 'real' shrink wrap and pretty jewel cases on the CD's or DVDs, or downloaded from officially expensive websites, with nice splash screens that tell them in uncertain terms how far alon g their install is.
It's a fact -- that's the way they like it. I'd imagine the same can be said of folks who drive a car like it's a kitchen appliance. "Oil change? What? My car runs just fine, and the oil light isn't even on right now."
Speak for yourself.
Hold on... is it the sticker that's illegal... or the spelling test?
Hi.
Thanks for clarifying on the patent & legal issues. I think that it must have been said a million times. It's been so long that I forgot about it.
testing out my trending skills
, (to make things easier and for 'sharing' code), were obscure pointers to areas of memory.
that required a rocket scientist to figure out what the hell was going on. Wow! We had 'functions' - we could
share code a lot easier!
that required a rocket scientist to figure out what the hell was going on. Wow! We had 'objects' that virtualized
concepts. But why do we suddenly have 'fat' programs.
out what the hell was going on. We had objects that virtualized everything. 'fat' programs? - forget fat these
were obese.
figure out what the hell was going on. Forget trying to virtualize program space - heck let's virtualize the whole
damn O/S! What's a fat program without a fat O/S?!
So, what's next after O/S virtualization? We've tried in the past to objectify and virtualize program space
and to a large extent doesn't work as we either keep changing userland requirements or our methodologies force
us to change.
Don't get me wrong - love virtualization for all the right reasons. But, all we have at the end of the day
is faster and faster machines that sit there chewing up greenhouse gases, (Bring back the old days of the
TRS80!).
-- main(s){printf(s="main(s){printf(s=%c%s%c,34,s,34
I did that the day I set her up with Linux. My purpose in the story above was to demonstrate that the command line is the best way to give someone instructions. My girlfriend was afraid she was going to have to learn her way around the terminal, and I was trying to demonstrate that it wasn't entirely necessary, but it made many jobs much quicker so she shouldn't be afraid of it if I give her some instructions. I haven't really had to do much for her since then. When she got a bluetooth mouse I set it up over SSH, and when she needed to set up her printer, I did so using VNC (Kubuntu's printer GUI is a breeze).
I agree, which is part of the reason I showed her how to use the installer application. However there are many tasks that only need to be done during the initial setup. Even if she had to reinstall occasionally, I doubt she'd remember the instructions I gave her considering the infrequency with which they'd be used. So if she's not likely to remember the instructions anyway, I'm going to give her the easier set of instructions. For anything she's likely to encounter with any regularity, I show her what to do. If it's something that happens rarely, I'll tell her what to do, or do it myself.
How do you know which of those GUI toolkits will be available (aside from Xt, which is liable to blindness or at least great confusion with its jarringly primitive features)?
And if the intent is to use a GUI for compiling, how are you going to ensure that the dev sourcecode will be available for those toolkits even if the binaries are present?
If Xt is universal, then why don't we see a make system that uses it?
Autopackage doesn't truly work because it cannot ensure that vital components will be present at install time. And since the subject was compile-during-install, I'll also add that autopackage doesn't address the availability of source code for external components referenced by the application.
Only a well-defined platform (kernel-to-desktop) can address this problem. If the FOSS community says that aint gonna happen" then a FOSS OS will not flourish on the desktop as a PC.
I predict limited acceptance on managed thin-clients and little more.
As for using CDs, no one should have to open a properties window, then cut-and-paste just to start their "simple" make; make install process.
Yeah - up2date has Ruby 1.8.1, but rubygems and ruby-dbi and the ilk don't seem to compile well for 1.8.1... Seems in the Ruby world, the best guarantee for compatibility to build latest and greatest.
Funny thing is, on an older RHEL 4 box it'd build just fine, this is an updated RHEL4 box where Ruby wouldn't build.
You should see the shitty response I got from the Ruby dev team: "Seems like you have a library issue, sorry, no one here will help you". That was from Matz himself.
I'm a Linux fanboi, but shit like that really sucks to have to deal with...
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
For the same reason people will code stuff with obscure APIs that will require you to install a lib just for one program: cause it is easier (for the coder) that way.
Even on Windows: how many times did you have to install specific libs ? VBRUN anyone ?
And since it is easier, most coders these days don't even bother to learn Xt. Yes, there is no reason to develop a whole system based on Xt alone. But an installer ? C'mon.
morcego
Humm, this doesn't seem like a screwup on the linux part, but on the Ruby dev team part.
Not only they didn't test for compatibility, but they also states that no one is interested on helping you.
If you were to blame OSS, I could understand. But Linux ?
I'm pretty sure the people at RedHat tested the new libraries not only with the version of ruby they ship, but also with all the "certified" software.
morcego
Yes, the eternal kneejerk response.
I primarily use a Mac.
The FOSS systems engineering (if you can call it engineering) crowd does not 'get' personal computing. Many FOSS app projects like OOo and Mozilla get it (and their growing popularity shows it), but not what people refer to as "Linux". The closest I've seen to a distro that did get it would be GoboLinux (although Progeny, R.I.P., did in its own way).
The best the Linux people can manage on the desktop is a mildly appealing thin-client offering. But all the other stuff pushed as PC-ready and user-friendly is in reality ill-equipped to offer a stable environment to end-users and application developers.
Linux is unstable in how it interfaces with end-users and application developers.
There is no way that VBRUN is an obscure library. And anyway, VS offers options to circumvent that step (if the coder is serious about a simple install).
This is not so in "Linux" because the coder often does not even know what packaging system or repositories are being used.
In the context of having the end-user compile-to-install, dependency hell becomes worse than it ever was with binary RPMs.
Humm, "end-user" and "compile-to-install" should not be put together. I agree with that.
.sh installers around that don't rely on
About all the rest, there are some nice
the package manager. Also, you always have the option to distribute statically linked binaries. Or to provide an intelligent install script that locates libraries, detects the distribution etc. Something like GNUconfigure does for building.
There are plenty of options. The point is that most developers don't know or care about them.
People have been installing flash and skype on Linux for some time now, without much hassle. And those are just 2 simple examples. The way Codeweavers distributes Crossover is also very nice.
morcego
This really sounds like they're trying to fill a problem that doesn't exist. If you need apps that satisfy the lowest common denominator, then you build a web app and suck up the time for web development. If you need a highly performant and responsive app, then you write a platform-specific forms app.
Running the whole thing through a VM just wrecks performance and still requires massive testing, plus you lose all of the OS-specific features b/c you had to code for an OS-agnostic VM. Even if it works, it's still wrong :(.
A user should never have to compile from source. In the past I rolled my own distro, but after getting tired of dealing with many issues I went back to Red Hat (shortly after FC1 was released). Then I got fed up with still having to compile too many things, I moved to Ubuntu. No more compiling. No more dependency issues.
Same thing on OS X, Fink just had too many issues. That's why I just dual boot my PowerBook with Ubuntu. A non programmer would be completely lost at compile issues, and that's certain to happen unless the app shipped with it's own compiler and every single dependency.
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
So, let me start with my bias: I work for a tiny company that makes a programming language with interpreted environment (we're working on the compiler now) that runs on Windows, MacOS X, Linux, and Solaris, and I think AIX. (Those are the ones we've actually tried it on, it may run on others.) Our language and development environment facilitates rapid development of web applications. (And anything else you like, but web applications is applicable to this discussion.) Using our language you can write fully AJAX enabled applications (which work on IE, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, and Safari, and maybe others) in a Model View Controller pattern without knowing anything about Javascript, with no system dependencies, and in my opinion you can do it much faster with our tools (and be able to run it on all those OS's and browsers) than using traditional languages and APIs (and be able to run it on one OS and/or browser). Once you've written the app, our software will even serve it out (one line of code instantiates and integrates a web server!) so it can be used from various browsers running on various platforms.
Now, knowing as I do that this is all possible - which I'm sure of because I use it every day - it's my opinion that writing software specifically to any API which is tied down to any particular OS or browser is a waste of time. Why spend your time writing software for, say, Linux, knowing that it will just have to be rewritten (or at least altered) to run on Windows and Macos and Solaris etc, when you could write it once in some cross-platform language and be able to run it everywhere and use it everywhere, like Java promised we'd be able to do once upon a time? That promise of cross-platform, cross-browser, write-once run-everywhere computing is not an impossible fantasy, it's something that's here today if you look hard enough, and those of us who develop programming languages and tools for a living should be focusing on it in our work.
So, my point is that "thinking linux first" is indeed a bad thing: if a business person has to decide on what computing platform to use for their software solution and you make them think about linux, they'll just get annoyed because they don't want to have to think about what technology to use and why, they just want to see it happen, and use whatever they're familiar with. They want to think about their business first, and technology as little as they can get away with. The way to get businesses to adopt linux is not to make them think about it, it's to make it so easy they don't have to, and cheap while you're at it. Businesses care about two things, three if they're smart:
1) How to make money
2) How to spend less money
3) How they're going to make even more money in the future
If you can show them that linux will make them money that other OS's can't, they'll go for it. But, there's little that Linux can do that some other OS can't, so that's a poor argument.
You can argue that linux will save money because it's free, and that's good, because businesses like not to spend money, but it's also worrying because businesses like to have someone standing behind the product. Sure, there are companies that provide support and we as geeks all know that, but that's beside the point. Where you can really win is to say that using some particular system will enable the business to be doing the kind of business they want much earlier/faster than other technologies. For example, I watched my boss show a client how they could do something with our programming language in about five lines of code that a competing vendor had told them would take a year and cost over a billion dollars, so our client became *very* interested in using my employer's language a lot more, because it would save them a lot of time and money. So, if you want Linux to get wider acceptance, figure out how using it makes common business tasks go faster and easier than using competing products, and advertise that. So far, as a computing professional my experience with linux is that i
The first step to solving that is to stop promoting Gnome as a desktop replacement, because it is in fact the closest you can come to a thin client, it lacks MAJOR parts of a functional desktop system. As it stands now the majority of problems people have in Linux because of lack of control and configuration are directly caused by Gnome. KDE for all its faults is much more usable and fairly consistent, and is in fact capable of performing as a standalone desktop, it merely needs some finishing touches and organization. Yes that discussion ends as a flame war but its 100% true, Gnome is not capable of being a finished desktop without major help, like the Yast system in SuSE.
The second major problem is the fact that we have 2 package formats for one job. Choice works well in other areas, but this is one area where there needs to be one single system, otherwise you have to start packaging libraries and making executable installers. Both package formats do the job well but developers need to choose one. The only other way to solve this is to invent a new one.
>Besides, its not hard to write cross-platform C++ code.
Yes... yes it is... Please don't suggest such things without actually doing them.
from their article this sounds like another cygwin... only they've added virtualization (so like cygwin but slower).
The main feature seems to be that GTK and QT will be mapped at runtime to win32 APIS... which is... ah... an interesting choice since GTK and QT already run on windows.
This doesn't sound like something that will have mass market appeal... although some companies that want an easy way to port existing unix tools to windows (if they are converting to windows) may take advantage of this.
I have no conception of how the authors imagine this will spur linux adoption. If this works right, the user wouldn't be aware they were running a linux environment. If it doesn't work right (like cygwin) users will be annoyed that they are using some big clunky vm that doesn't integrate with their os.
If you can't visualise an equivalent single click installer equivalent to the install.sh in the GP Post then you have no imagination.
There's no reason why compilation can't be hidden behind a GUI installer.
Of course, binary packages install faster, and don't require all the dev packages to be installed, but if you're expecting to have to support a wide variety of platforms, then source is much easier from a packaging point of view. So much easier that you really don't care whether or not it bothers the end user. (besides, there's nothing stopping you having binary packages for your primary platform, and source for the rest)
But to also emphasise another poster's point - do not force end-users to use a mouse either. Just because end user X likes to use a mouse, doesn't mean end user Y does - why should Y suffer for X's preferences?
Besides, these days pretty much every operating system has some sort of package manager (even Windows, such as it is), and the environment itself is responsible for deciding what methods can be used to install a package. The software publisher just concerns themselves with the package itself.
Advanced users are users too!
I specificly do not run linux becuase it does not have game support. I ran it from 99 to 2003 and got sick of dual booting just to play something and having 2 partitions.
MAKE GAMES WORK AND BRING ME BACK TO THE LIGHT!
Well, it is the strongest nail in the MS coffin...
On Windows, they get told to change some text in the registry and type things they don't understand into cmd.exe. Where's the difference?
Are we really stuck in the loop of thinking that interpreters are as good as the real thing? We had BASIC in the 1970's then we had Pascal with its P-Code in the 1980's then we had exactly the same thing only it's called Java and a JVM in the 1990's. We are stuck in a rut - none of this is new just the structure (and name) of the language changed.
The difference is I've never heard of anyone been told to do so in Windows.
He did not appear upset. He merely stated that Spelling and Grammar Nazi's are not on topic either. I tend to agree that that type here or elsewhere online are a waste of life and especially on forums boards online like this one. If you cannot contribute useful technical information here, then the spelling and grammar checking fools are nothing more than unskilled pointless idiots who have nothing more pertinent to offer here at slashdot than their critique of others writings. Anyone can write here and most people understand it simply within the context in which the words are used. No, it is a solid bet that the morons who critique others english here could not write a program to save their own lives and this is the best those dolts have to offer.
"So you're upset by someone's lighthearted jibe at your use of english when your entire post was nothing more than an advert for your dreadful and largely pointless windows only app" - by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 27, @10:44PM (#19296839)
2 91319
/. ON YOUR PART.
I never get upset, and calling others actual work in this field 'dreadful' as you have only makes my point that you are not very intelligent if this is the best you have to offer here in reply.
LOL, I don't get upset, especially not at those who are nothing but spelling & grammar check "nazi's" online in forums! I don't mainly because they are very easy to get the better of, especially when asked to produce their PhD in English.
Your reaction shows it.
The fact is, I have YET to see one "spelling & grammar checking nazi" on a forums board produce such a degree in fact illustrating they have any right to critique others writings.
Hilarious, as postings on forums is not legal correspondence, nor anyone's "last will & testament". No need for spelling & grammar check nazi's.
(After all - If you cannot deduce the meaning of words in sentences via the context in which they are used, it's not I with the problem, but those who are having difficulty with them).
"you're off topic, my friend." - by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 27, @10:44PM (#19296839)
And, spelling & grammar checking IS ON TOPIC? Beg to differ: Above all else - I was merely responding to the poster's (durin) initial point here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=236367&cid=19
Completely ON TOPIC in reply to he, with a concrete working example of what he was stating.
(I.E.-> Windows already has this & many apps run unmodded across Win32 OS builds, even across varied builds of the Win32 OS family (including the 9x series, which differs quite radically from the NT-based series (NT/2000/XP/2003/VISTA), which also has fairly large diff.'s, especially between NT & 2000/XP/Server 2003/VISTA).
"not to mention a great deal of self-praise. - by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 27, @10:44PM (#19296839)
It's based on actual tests noted in its help screen interface and documentation inside the package, which were done by users and their OWN systems + registries unaltered by any test rigging dataset unlike others who have done such tests with similar programs (JV RegCleaner is the prime example of this in fact).
It is nothing but the truth, not self praise.
Just facts, the undeniable item, much as a PhD in English would be for "spelling & grammar checking nazi's" online in forums, lol.
"We really don't care about your registry cleaner or how well coded you believe it to be, " - by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 27, @10:44PM (#19296839)
First of all - You mean YOU don't care: Pretty pompous and arrogant of yourself I have to say, with you speaking for EVERYONE @
(Typical behavior from the unskilled in this field - left to do grammar & spelling checking on a FORUMS board, lol, and speaking for everyone!)
Secondly - I don't believe anything but what tests users themselves performed with their normal registries data on their own systems totally unaltered & thus a fair/honest test, and their results.
(Those same results showed my program trimming off more invalid/registry bloating entries than any other program of its kind out there (good for speed, as well as security (in that it does not let other see things you may NOT want to be seen or traced in your systems in files you may have used @ some point for whatever reasons))).
APK
Point is, it is a waste of time, you and all the other people around want to spend their time in a better way than wasting it on looking at useless (3D) animations when copying files on their pc or watching a powerpoint presentation.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
autorun: http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man1/autorun.1.ht ml/
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
"I watched my boss show a client how they could do something with our programming language in about five lines of code that a competing vendor had told them would take a year and cost over a billion dollars, so our client became *very* interested in using my employer's language a lot more, because it would save them a lot of time and money." And what would that be? Calling a dll with 5 lines of code that contains hundreds of thousands of lines of code doesn't really count...
Telling people how to fix problems fosters dependency on you. Showing them how to do it, in a manner that doesn't take years of command-line dorkdom to understand, is probably far more helpful.
Give a man a match, and you keep him warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and you keep him warm for the rest of his life.An important point was made versus your offtopic grammar check: Question - Do you have a phd in English?
c id=19291319
No?? I didn't think so.
(Yes, just another pseudo-authority @ slashdot who assumes he is an authority on the writing of others - provide us proof of your phd in english status, and we might just give you some time in listening to your bullshit which is way off topic).
You and your kind online are hugely amusing, & especially here on a technical forums in that you are quite amusing considering this is not legal correspondence or some academic paper to be graded on first of all and secondly, as others have stated, if you cannot deduce the meaning of words within the context in which they are used, it is truly yourself and other grammar/spellcheck types with the problem.
(Aren't you intelligent enough to gain the meaning of what was stated, as it was written?)
Also, as far as the poster you are critiquing, he was on topic replying to durin here as he pointed out:
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=236367&
(& the poster you are giving a hard time to stayed on topic far more than yourself by offering a concrete example of an application that is the best and safest of its kind that runs across most all win32 Operating Systems models no less unaltered since its conception).
Can't YOU read? Apparently not, though you are 'the great critic of others' writing with no phd in english' lol, as it is yourself as a grammar/spellcheck fool, who is blatantly off topic.
Hint - this post thread is not about english you moron, but instead, computer sciences.
(Thus, his reply was far more on topic than your idiotic critique of his or others' writing)
Salient point - This is a topic about computers, not english grammar, and he responded completely on topic providing an example of what durin noted.
What programs of that nature have you done better since you call others work in this field dreadful? You are clearly the one who is off topic, not he. I state that as others have here because the poster did reply to durin's points with an example of what durin stated is possible on Windows 32 bit operating systems. Durin's post is the parent of his post, thus, he was completely on topic (unlike a grammar checker fool with no phd in english in yourself). Understand this: This forums section is not about english language, it is about computer science. Additionally, I personally cannot see what you complained about (because I understood his points and examples, perfectly).
"Asking users to browse the file system and know to run programs is a little too much"
:P )
It is if you treat them like morons. I know the extent of user stupidity, I've experienced it from many people at my company, but even the most clueless can open 'My Computer' and double click on the CD icon (or open it and go to setup).
Autorun worked fine for me in Ubuntu to play DVDs (though I think I may have set it up myself in a config file
which is totally what she said
This seems like a more mass market application of rPath's idea of building custom VMWare images for specific applications (although the VM sounds like it will be less distinct from the host OS, hopefully this will give performance increase). It is a pretty clever idea, and essentially flips these kind of ideas https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SeamlessWindowsIntegration on their head.
actually mandriva does this. under its rpm gui, when you go to install anything it will show you the needed dependants and if they need to be installed it will tell you to "put in disc 2". put in the disc and you dont even click anything, it finds it on the disc. my wife who is not computer literate at ALL enjoys linux now. i myself preffer the CLI it just seems easier and i can accomplish more than clicking on little pictures.
Nope, Ubuntu does that by default.
I think the GP was talking about installing software intentionally ;p
For unintended installs, Windows is clearly the preferred platform.
Looks like the Linux Binary Compatibility layner of FreeBSD.
bash$
That's the thing, though. Write-once-and-run-anywhere works pretty well for backend programs, where all that matters is correctness and performance (and with a well-designed framework, architecture's impact on the latter can be minimized). For user interface, however, it needs to operate in the context of the OS on which it is running. Interface metaphors, expected behavior, and available functionality always differ in small but important ways, and failure to take that into account will result in a mediocre program that feels crummy and wrong. The interface needs to be localized to each OS in order to not suck.
I don't really see how any Windows user can maintain being interested in the "why" of fixing a problem. There's just too many situations where the answer is "reboot might fix it", or something I more recently encountered:
"It's not letting me remotely login to the pc over there."
"Oh, go login manually, right click my computer, properties, select the remote tab, disable remote login, apply, enable remote login, ok, then log out."
"Why does that work?"
"How the hell should I know? That's just the sort of thing you do in Windows."
I don't see what your parent's post has to do with grammar or spelling.
You bring up some crucial points.
Gnome, as I understand it, was conceived to "get rid of KDE". I.E. they weren't founded with a positive consumer focus. And I think that initial negative instinct bleeds through into their work and politics.
KDE, IMO needs to make their Konqueror defaults much simpler (and let the advanced users switch-on the other features because they are the ones capable of doing that). Also turn off by default the easy resizing/repositioning of the panel bar and its items. Very easy changes, but oh-so crucial to have those defaults to let novices make themselves feel at home.
Unfortunately, KDE/Qt could theoretically become hijacked by hostile corporate interests and make the commercial-use end of the equation unworkable.
If I could choose the direction of the desktop from 1998- onward, I'd focus attention and resources on the GNUstep stuff and standardize "LSB Desktop 1.0" on that.
Alas...
Another major problem (in addition to the package formats issue you mention) is that there is no default development environment, much less one where novices can start building GUI, event-driven apps and generally start cutting their teeth early on the platform. "Linux" would have many compelling apps if it presented a compelling/predictable platform for writing apps large and small; Coders will write apps for the platform they are passionate about and comfortable with, and installed userbase does not affect that incentive as extensively as many people claim. It is the apps that sell the platform/computers.
I think Apple's appdirs is a great way to install/manage apps. But they only work because there is a defined OS platform where coders know that A,B,C libraries WILL be included in the system, whereas libraries X,Y,Z probably won't (so an app that uses X, Y or Z needs to include those libraries within the appdir). Apple's role is to keep the Mac platform appealing to devs by carefully choosing which kind of libraries to include or exclude in the core OS. (In the Linux world, all libraries are pretty much lumped into one repository, and stuff gets included/excluded as if apps and obscure libraries and core functions were all equally valuable/disposable).
"Unfortunately, KDE/Qt could theoretically become hijacked by hostile corporate interests and make the commercial-use end of the equation unworkable."
There is an agreement in place with trolltech (with a foundation or such entity), such that if anything ever happens, Qt will always be available for use under the GPL license.
At one time there was no such guarantee which is why gnome was started, but had Qt been GPL the entire time, dare I say gnome would not exist. Gnome was started purely out of concern that freedom would not be preserved in the future with KDE dependant on Qt, and that concern is no longer a problem. If gnome worked very well none of this would matter but as it stands now KDE has significant advantages, mostly because of the config panels and applications they have developed as well as their insistence that things be configurable. Gnome on the other hand moves more and more toward being a thin client.
Sure it does; if vendor A tells you that the work you need done will cost you a billion dollars and take a year for them to implement, and vendor B does it in front of you in 5 minutes using a product you already bought for $1000, which vendor are you doing to call first next time you need a solution?
We didn't, however, call a dll, we don't use dll's.
I suspect most people can't handle software installation at all so software should just install, and uninstall, as needed. Package management is the way to make this happen but the desktop environment needs to take proper advantage of it. It should be as seamless as a website loading the Javascript it needs to make the functionality happen. That is a major reason why users like things such as web-based email - nothing has to be installed.
Would you have used Slashdot if you had to initially buy a 'Slash application', install it from cd, fight with some stupid anti-piracy scheme, and reboot three times? Probably not - and non-geeks are even less likely to get that right even if they are willing to work so hard to make it happen.
If someone tries to load an Excel file, or chooses an icon for a spreadsheet app, that app, if not already installed, should install with all dependencies, and run without the user needing to think about it. All they really need to see is a 'Please wait a few moments while this application loads for the first time..' box with no choices, aka decisions to make, other than to cancel the operation or wait. Programs that haven't been used recently should auto-uninstall along with unneeded dependecies to save space, improve security, and keep things simple for the user.
I think a Java-like VM is a rather stupid concept but that something closer to VMWare could be integrated into the desktop environment so that rather than applications we have virtual machines, running whatever the required OS is, that themselves run the needed application or, more often, a collection of applets that work together towards a common task. Each VM would protect the host OS and other VMs by being it's own sandbox but should allow, protected and seamless, sharing of files, clipboard, and similar resources. I'd nix whatever built-in desktop environment each guest OS had for an environment that would be seamless across different guests. For the most part each of my VM-applications would probably run Linux but it'd be handy if Windows, Mac OS, etc could be ran to handle apps that require that specific OS such as games and some commercial apps. I'd intergrate the VM host controls into the desktop environment so that it was all seamless to the user. Each VM would run like an application does now - selected from an app menu with tabs for all open VMs open at the top of the screen. Right now, controls for VMs, like package management, is not well intergrated into the desktop environment. To many programmers still think in outdated concepts such as applications rather than in mashing functionality into one well intergrated, easy to use, interface.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I think I had to change the default cuz it was trying to load an app that wasn't working in Kubuntu.. something like that.. can't even remember the name of the app that I was using for DVDs now either :p It maybe had an autoplay function built into the app itself..
which is totally what she said
Well ok, maybe not 'illegal' spelling tests but it's 'strongly discouraged' because it's not a standardized test and it makes to students feel bad if they suck at it... All of this I'm told by one of my more dramatic 'teacher-type' friends, so I don't know how true it is, nor to what extent it would be enforced, but they seemed to be pretty upset about it. *shrug*
Speak for yourself.
I whole agree with you on the command-line part, but I must add that using ssh over tcp/ip is far easier than using girlfriend of voice connection. The girlfriend over voice thingy has it's uses, but installing applications is not one of them.
If you were to blame OSS, I could understand. But Linux ?
No, I'm blaming OSS in general, that this is likely more commonplace than we realize.
Linux is generally a bit better - this just really pissed me off with the Ruby-dev team - it seemed to be a compatibility issue. I'll file a bug report, but for certain I'll have to try to figure it out myself...
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
without prejudice,
... target will copy a file from source file to the target destination with acknowledgment to overwrite the file if it already exists. `rm' source ... target will re-move (delete) the title of a file in favor of its records to be displaced or deleted by the growth of another file record (the data that was attached to that file name can be recovered, but only if it can be discerned accuratly from other data that also may have been isolated for deletion). `ls' or `ls' *pat*tern* will list the titles or names of records or can also list them in preference of an Order to pattern that can vary with the placement of an asterisk (*). `cd' directory will change the immediate scope of the command prompt to the directory reference.
/home directory in similar appearance to /bin, and why is the "fine-grained" discernment between those intentions an obfuscated file permission and file ownership that could be flipped without cause of log and record?
M. Gregory Thomas(tm), Network Redundancy Administrator;
Mundt Administration of Network Redundancy:
I suppose it was once fassionable that a man was taught to be a processor and compiler, then he taught a machine to be a processor and compiler by means of mechanicaly-inclined sprockettes; now, because the man of today has been entertained to use a machine before learning behind that Type Writer we now have an electro-mechanical computer to return the favor of teaching the fair man how to manipulate whole files for the sake of the recorded data enveloped within. It's all a large filing cabinette, with portfolios stuffed full of proprietary data to certain programs and their application of legislated and natural discussions to communication or tranception in a trans-national and trans-continental congress to state their cause to preserve their reality as given them in like-Turing protocol.
The difficulty occurring at the command prompt is basic file-management skills not being amicably presented and discernable to the person. A simple little prompt that says "Welcome to the command prompt! Complete a command by `entering' it with the carriage `return' key. The first command you should know, and return to when you need assistance, is `help'."
I have not yet seen a Linux distribution open a `konsole' or `xterm' with any of that prefixed presentation prefatory to a $ or # prompt. Neither have I seen any integration of certain dynamic widgets to change environment variables in a concise way while the application has seized context of its session; perhaps because not all of the terminals behind a Bash or Korn shell within an `xterm' or `konsole' were designed to interact with any of it.
Let's keep our focus pointed on file management utilities and how they have been named to a shorthand-- `cp' source
That's copy and delete; every Clerk of the Court knows those basic principles, and that is only at the command prompt. Who ever said a command prompt should be in a GUI? `xterm' and `konsole' should be looked upon as the foul and black-sheep of the GUI, because a GUI isn't supposed to be central on the foundation layer of a host but is the mediator between applications and preferably a database protocol independent of the crufty Unix/LFS and Microsoft formats of the filesystem. Imagine a GUI that doesn't manipulate its data as would on the "file system" as we know it, but must always look to a relational database unlike the format of the underlying host. What kind of fool would have a executable Code stored in the same way as would Data? Why is the
without prejudice
M. Gregory Thomas(tm), Network Redundancy Administrator;
Mundt Administration of Network Redundancy:
A shell in a GUI is not the purpose of a GUI; the GUI is nothing more than the presentation and manipulation of data through these interfaced graphical clients that can manipulate one-another.
And I would say, direct your client to run INSTALL.SHELL of which that file would contain the instructions;
without prejudice
Tickletaint the moron has nothing better to do than offer his version of "spelling and grammar checking expertise" haha, and he has no phd in english. Where was it when he is asked to produce proof of it, after all? His spellcheck/grammarcheck is unneeded, and certainly not asked for. This is not someone's last will & testament as was stated - this is just a forums board!
If you or anyone as a reader cannot determine the meaning of someone's words within the context in which they are used, it is they with the problem.
What a pack of stupid little pricks exists at slashdot and elsewhere online, if the best they have to offer is spelling and grammar checking.
I also wonder how many of these alleged 'experts in english' possess a phd in English? None, I strongly wager. They are just lamo assholes.
But is your program selling in a market worth hundreds of billions - or is it selling in a market worth hundreds of thousands?
How much has Sun spent on Star Office and OpenOffice.org?
Have the kind of money it takes to compete in that arena? If the answer is no, then it doesn't matter how big the pot of gold lies at rainbow's end. You'll never see a dime of it.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The problem with all of these instructions is that more than like 1 or 2 clicks was necessary to 'install' the software. Also, at every step Linux typically gives the user lots of options. Options make people unhappy! Windows excels at making people unhappy by giving them too many options, and Mac too to some extent. When do we get to the point where computers are transparent, so we don't have to click and type and pursue little wild-goose chases of Googling and clicking after hopping widgets? When we get to that point, we have usable computers. And to the extent that you can bring people closer to the point as a programmer, you can make money or make people happy. - Connelly
See http://digitalmars.com/d
and http://dgcc.sf.net/
jni is how you can make non cross platform code using java.
I just built Linux From Scratch, and had very few issues with the compilation process (given, it was all spelled out)
I have also built a few packages from source for Ubuntu, to add patches, without much hassle. (although the dependencies are resolved automatically)
I will admit, however, that these cases the dependencies are solved automatically. But would it be too difficult to have automatic resolving of dependencies with distributions of source?
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
Why bother?
Any decent system has standards in place defining exactly what libraries are available and what minimum functionality they have. Any decent system has a nice easy API you can use to query where your program should store its temporary per-machine files, its settings files, its roaming files, etc.
For systems like that, you don't need source code because compiled software works just fine. The only reason Linux users think source is so great is because their system is a hodge-podge of different technologies, none of which follow any sort of standards whatsoever.
Comment of the year
You can install mplayer or upgrade Mutt all you want, and you will not be breaking the distribution stability. But when you mess with things like samba, apache, php, python or ruby, you ARE messing up with the distro stability, thus negating the whole point of using an enterprise grade linux distro. And if you are really using RHEL, and not CentOS/Scientific/etc, you are even throwing away your money.
Are you seriously suggesting that there is no value to backported patches, zero day security updates, regression testing, ISV validation and so forth if you run a custom version of Ruby? Do you really think it's better to introduce a second completely different platform to support a single PHP 5 application? I'd hate to work with you in an enterprise environment.
There are, certainly, some packages which one should take incredible care in updating - core system libraries, launguage interpreters that essential scripts and tools rely on (bash, python, perl mostly). Optional daemons though? Languages not a single bundled application relies on?
Even given the case of replacing or augmenting a package with dependencies, there better be a damn good reason it can't be installed parallel to the bundled version before I'll accept introducing a new platform.
I don't mean to offend you, but by your first comment, you are not someone who understands all the minor details of the distribution (how the library versions are interlinked, the different API/ABI versions in use etc etc). Really, don't get offended. You are in the same boat that 99.99% of the other RHEL/CentOS users, myself included, so you really can't do it safely.
I've been doing it safely for years. In my current position I've built thousands of packages from hundreds of packages. Some custom software, some custom builds, some backports, some just additions to our base distributions.
Of course, those are your servers, and you can do with them what you like. Just don't complain if they start giving you trouble later. Specially, don't go bothering the developers. I see enough of that (oh, but I changed only one minor package!) nonsense on
the CentOS lists as it is.
I don't bother with the lists. Far quicker to fix things in house.
But building from source if you don't know what you're doing pretty much eradicates the benefit of installing from source. It still also leaves the question of how to handle missing dependencies, what to do in the case of conflicts, how to handle distribution differences, and so forth.
Hmm.. I've done a few 1.8.5 spins on 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5 without any serious hitches. I'd have to see the exact errors before I could opine on the cause. Annoying they're not more helpful on the lists.
Not in the context of this discussion. The discussion is about the need of this new "universal" binary format. Having a proper installer that compiles to the current platform makes "universal" binaries unnecessary. That's really the only point this discussion was trying to make.
Also, this solution doesn't deal with dependencies. But neither really does any other stand alone installer (wether it's source or binaries). Everything's got dependencies (even applications distributed on MS-Windows platform). The only way around that is that not depend on oddball things (stick to standard libs, in as much as there is such a thing) or distribute them with your code (or have your installer download it for the user like I've seen MS programs do, etc).
My point was that you need to deal with the same issues regardless of whether you're installing from source or from binaries. Even avoiding "oddball" dependencies, version dependencies will still bite you in the ass. Part of the problem is that Linux desktops have historically had abysmal interface stability. Even where the ABI has remained consistent there have been infrastructure changes, like how menus are handled and what components comprise the desktop.
Moving to source based distribution doesn't solve any of these problems and ends up introducing the problem that, due to site changes, you're going to end up with an endless number of different builds. No vendor wants to support that. It's madness.