Slashdot Mirror
Linux 3.11 Officially Named "Linux For Workgroups"
An anonymous reader writes "Linus Torvalds decided to change the code name for Linux 3.11 and even submitted an alternate Tux Logo. Heise reports: 'For this release, Linus Torvalds changed the code name from "Unicycling Gorilla" to "Linux for Workgroups" and modified the logo that some systems display when booting: it now depicts a Tux holding a flag with a symbol that is reminiscent of the logo of Windows for Workgroups 3.11, which was released in 1993.'"
As of Windows 7, Microsoft no longer uses the "flag" as a mark to identify Windows. But what claim would Microsoft still have against the use of the flag?
I can't wait to see Linux 95. The Linux market will explode when that comes out.
Good to see Linus still has a sense of humor.
I suppose shipping intentionally buggy IPX drivers with it might be taking the joke too far though.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
When I read the headline, I checked my calendar to make sure today wasn't April 1st........
Because it's funny?
And it really is. People have been cracking jokes for ages and it's nice to see it official. I like it when real projects are run by real people complete with sense of humour.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
From the h-online article: "Zswap, a component that tries to compress and store in RAM memory areas that would otherwise need to be swapped, has now left the staging branch." It surprises me that it took this long to implement swapping to a compressed RAM disk. Or were they waiting for patents related to Connectix RAM Doubler to expire?
Linux is catching up with windows. 20 more years to go! yay!
without reading TFA.
get off my lawn. ha
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
The term "Jumped The Shark" has jumped the shark as well.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
I could have sworn that some netbooks a few years back shipped with Linux 8. The netbook market was GNU/Linux's big chance to shine, but Xandros on Eee PC, Linpus on Aspire One, and Ubuntu Moblin Remix on Inspiron mini had to spoil it.
and how he has. Good show, old man!
I still think KDE 3.11 should have been emblazoned with custom splashes reading "for WorkKroups" or something by default. Version 3.11 has become something of a running gag in software circles.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Why ? Because Linus has a sense of humor. Remember it was Microsoft that gave Linus a lot of grief in years past. This is just Linus having a little fun at Microsoft's expense. Also, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was the first truly good consumer level version of Windows.
Also, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was the first truly good consumer level version of Windows.
I hope this does not mean that Linux is only 20 years behind Windows...
It is not. More people run Linux than ever, even if they don't really know it (think Android for example).
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
I suppose, if you don't consider any of the other Windows releases.
Now suddenly it's not funny anymore. Jokes are funny when they're subtle, like smart double entendres. Not so much when it's rubbed into your face.
its not windows envy it a joke. loosen up man
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
they're too stupid to realize it's not technically the exact logo from 3.11
It is the same, just flipped horizontally. Colors in the same order and everything.
There are some uncomfortable comparisons here -
Much like Windows 3.11 the GUI in GUN/Linux isn't a core part of the OS - but a graphics server with window managers on top and all the real work being done by the OS under the manager.
On that note - has anyone ported Progman.exe to X? Would running Wine as the Window manager and Progman as the program count?
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Is that the NRA distribution?
Also the second-last, counting XP.
( :trollface: )
Also, you just KNOW everyone was going to be calling it that anyway, so no point in not getting in on the fun.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I hope the experience will be better than MS Windows for Workgroups.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
For people unfamiliar with Linux, but familiar with Windows, this is exactly what they take out of this:
No, that's ridiculous. To most people outside the tech world Windows 3.11 for Workgroups is at most a very distant memory and probably something utterly unknown.
This is definitely a symptom of the Linux mindset: they don't care (or don't understand) that they need to keep it simple and explicit if they want to get out of the niche and reach the larger crowd of potential customers.
Keep what simple? It's a kernel. The only people who care about the kernel are distro maintainers, system administrators and hackers. Anyone else will at most see "Ununtu Various Vertibrates" or even less, "Android".
It's the reason development doesn't talk directly to customers
No one is a customer of the kernel development team.
And finally, I do not want to live in a world or community so ruled by corporate blandness that anything vaguely amusing is excised from life entirely. Thankfully the F/OSS community hasn't suffered from that.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
No sorry, we don't wish to appease humorless morons.
The first time it was used in a post on the web.
In capitalist Hollywood, shark jumps YOU!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If you used the Windows calculator[*], then the result of the calculation 3.11 - 3.1 would give zero, exactly. MS initially claimed it was just a display bug, but backed down later, and even fixed it after 10 years or so (Win 95). Even if you multiplied it by 1000 it still remained zero. With linux, the difference 3.11 - 3.1 is likely a tad larger.
[*] All Windows versions from Win 386 to WfWg 3.11, and possibly earlier but I did not check with Windows 1 or Windows 286. It even did this in WinOS2 (OS/2 versions 2.x, 3, and 4) and was touted as proof that WinOS2 used the same source code as Windows; it even had the same bugs.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
That is true, but the similarity doesn't go much further than that. If you look at the capabilities of the OS underneath, there is a major difference between Linux and DOS. (Even to this day some of the limitations inherited from DOS are still found in modern Windows versions. The last Windows user I came across wasn't able to open a command line window more than 80 characters wide.)
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
magic, we can install that Web thing in Linux now! I can dig this! does it allow me to use two modems to get 96K speed?
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
It is supposed to be Open Source, not Open Sores. Some of us are still scarred from the nightmare of WFW.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
It's actually Eric Raymond's own distro: http://geekz.co.uk/lovesraymond/archive/gun-linux
c++;
btw. Why was that a Troll ?
Why uncomfortable? Keeping the GUI out of the kernel is the right thing to do. It's one of the reasons Linux has a better reputation for security and stability than Windows.
I'd argue that Windows 98SE would fit in between somewhere. Otherwise I fully agree. :)
c++;
Windows 7 uses the Windows XP flag, not the different flag used for Windows 3.1 through Windows 2000. The XP flag has two curves in it and no dots; the Windows 3.1 flag has one curve in the flag and one curve in the dots.
Godwin's law anyone?
It's really unprofessional to pull something like this. A few admins will laugh at it, but for those of us in Serious Business (TM) it's not very funny.
I have to agree. If I suddenly came across that logo I might think that the machine is compromised by some script kiddies.
Also freaked out a bit when GROMACS (molecular dynamics package used by Folding@Home) started to display those random "Good ROcking Metal Altar for Chronical Sinners" messages every time it started the simulation.
It's now 'nuked the fridge'.
Only old farts (like me) have even heard of 'Happy Days'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
No. Windows actually seems to follow the Star Trek Movie approach and it has been quite uncanny. Every other MAJOR release has some merits.
Win 3.11 good
Win 95 bad
Win 98 good
Win me bad (yes, I know win 2000 pro is missing from this list but at the time it was expensive and most were burned with win me)
Win xp good
Win vista (the worst)
Win 7 good
Win 8 bad
Considering it's open source, it's not terribly difficult to verify the veracity of the article.
https://www.kernel.org/diff/diffview.cgi?file=%2Fpub%2Flinux%2Fkernel%2Fv3.x%2Ftesting%2Fpatch-3.11-rc1.xz;z=367
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
Anyone have a spare Disk 8? Mine is corrupted.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
If they had wanted to go all the way, they would have picked "Snowball". :p
Nah it's "butthurt" which itself may already be butthurt.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Because it's funny?
And it really is. People have been cracking jokes for ages and it's nice to see it official. I like it when real projects are run by real people complete with sense of humour.
Actually, I get concerned when projects/products come from people without humor. Because my experience is that the more "serious" they are, the lower the quality of what they deliver.
Even stodgy old IBM's best products seemed to come accompanied by technical docs written with geek quotes in them.
No one is a customer of the kernel development team.
And the line where you show that you utterly fail to get it.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
oh my god... I didn't even click onto the 3.11 thing.... of course!
But, all those rating my original post as a troll.. wtf, I was really asking why, I had a proper woosh moment. And even then, how the hell could the words "What? Why?" be construed as trolling.
While not strictly a developer, I am doing technical stuff (statistics, reporting, Business Intelligence). My customers are sometimes needing explanations and I simply can't make those explanations simple enough, because my behavior is defined by how much I understand and know in this area.
The gap between purely technical and layman language is what prompted the creation and large scale adoption of high level programming languages, for example. It's easier to (generally) work in C than ASM, and easier to (generally) work in WYSIWYG HTML editors (e.g. Dreamweaver) than in lathe HTML text filed directly.
I learned to value a "middleman" which can talk to both customers and developers and provide the link between them without pissing all off. Jokingly, I call them "human code interpreters". But I value them as such.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Typo. I meant Windows 8, whose logo is no longer a flag. And even Windows 7 doesn't use the Windows 3.1 flag seen in the article.
I too ended up installing plain Ubuntu (now Xubuntu) on my netbook. But you and I are outliers; I seem to remember that return rates were far higher for Linux PCs than for comparable Windows PCs.
TCP/IP didn't ship with Windows for Workgroups. It was a separate installation.
Let me know when Trumpet will release a network stack, so I can load up Netscape in all its glory.
Right, like people are going to know/care the kernel version their smartphone is using. Come on! I've been working and developing software for/on Linux for 15 years and I don't know the version of the kernel I'm running. Hell, I didn't even know kernel versions had names.
Right, I'm running 3.2
That worked out well the first time.
Not sure about your comment about Win2K, maybe you weren't working within an enterprise at that time but I remember it being much better than Win982E and WinXP. Win2K Server was very good also (apart of having a GUI on a server).
Actually, it was the last version of Windows I touched for more than 15 minutes before inserting a LiveCD/USB.
So...does this mean that this is the "year of the Linux desktop"? :-)
There are some uncomfortable comparisons here -
Much like Windows 3.11 the GUI in GUN/Linux isn't a core part of the OS - but a graphics server with window managers on top and all the real work being done by the OS under the manager.
So in NT-based versions of Windows, how much work (if any) would it take to have it boot up with a 25x80 console accepting cmd.exe-style (or PowerShell-style?) commands and no GUI? I.e., to what extent are there any OSes where the GUI is a "core part of the OS" in whatever sense is meant by that? (If you think you have such an OS, try logging in as ">console" first. :-))
As well as leaving 2000 out of that list for no reason whatsoever, you also left out 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 98SE, NT 3.1, NT 3.51, and NT 4.0. I used every single one on that list except for the completely useless garbage 95, 98, 98SE, Me, and 8. Yeah, I even used Vista. It deadlocked trying to update to SP1, so I was stuck on GA til the day I dropped it, but other than that it wasn't THAT bad.
I installed NT 3.1 the day it became available and give it a lot of credit for what in reality was a 1.0 version. It did have some crashes and bugs, every one of which was fixed in 3.51, which was rock solid, another install I did on day one. As well as 4.0, the last version that was not dumbed down a single iota to cater to dumbells.
The most reliable of the bunch? NT 3.51 without any question whatsoever. The best all-around? NT 4.0, 2000 in a perfect tie. XP was only very slightly behind and also gets a lot of points for simple longevity.
I disagree. Windows 8 is far worse than Vista.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
No it didn't. Windows 386 added 32 bit. For user mode. The DOS "kernel" was still straight 16 bit all the way in both, though there were some 32 bit drivers that superseded the DOS drivers that were still there, for some IO.
Parent was stating that from personal experience, not from fact.
Or, because they have a sense of humor. Something sorely lacking in most MS apologists.
That was my first thought, but I still laughed. Great sense of humor there.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Also, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was the first truly good consumer level version of Windows.
I do hope you're kidding.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Yes, Atari and BeOS: What do you guys have to say about this?
...*crickets chirping*
Hello? Anyone there?
sig: sauer
That is true, but the similarity doesn't go much further than that. If you look at the capabilities of the OS underneath, there is a major difference between Linux and DOS. (Even to this day some of the limitations inherited from DOS are still found in modern Windows versions. The last Windows user I came across wasn't able to open a command line window more than 80 characters wide.)
Yeah, opening the properties or using the MODE command is a terrible pain. By the way, Windows 3.1 in 386 mode didn't really put a fancy face on top of DOS. It is rather like a headcrab or something. It might rely on some of the services of the host, but it also modifies it beyond recognition. Virtual memory management and yes, some network services, lived almost solely in the Windows product, e.g. HIMEM.sys existed, but all the logic was in Windows.
The Jump the Shark episode of the X-Files in 2002 was when Jumping the Shark jumped the shark. That added millions of people who started making these joke badly, and the average quality of such comments has slowly fallen of ever since. The alternate date to pick wasn't much later, which is 2003 when John Hein's book had come out. I thought it was clear we were into the boring repeat phase a little before then.
As much as the joke doesn't really apply to Trek movies, it doesn't really apply to Windows versions either.
Far as I'm concerned, on the DOS side, anything before Win95 was worthless. Windows 95 was alright for what it was, and I avoided W98 like the plague because of its instability. ME never saw enough adoption for it to have actually meant anything; and it really wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. Windows XP garnered a lot of flack for not being anywhere near as good as Win2K, but it went on for years without Longhorn being released and a couple service packs made it decent enough. Vista also has a reputation it frankly doesn't deserve, and W7 is just a renamed Vista.
Have you heard of Windows Server Core? It's almost console mode, since it boots you to a command prompt window with available GUI for applications like Notepad. I guess they accepted the fact that all the commonly-available monitors are at least SVGA-compatible by now, and built it accordingly.
Windows 3.11 added networking (thus the "for Workgroups"). Network support was available for DOS, but the combination of the GUI, multitasking and networking on commodity hardware put MS leaps and bounds ahead of all their competition.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Desktop Windows? Impossible without re-writing some stuff. "Reboot with command line" just opens a command line window.
Server? I think it's possible since 2008 R2, but I'm not sure about how far the GUI-free mode goes.
I beta tested and used the released version of most of those. ME was waaaay worse than Vista from start to finish, in my experience... it was far less stable. Vista was unstable on a lot of hardware predating its release, but it didn't hard-crash nearly as often as ME did.
Next Stop? Linux NT! Hooray!
BTW. This thread is dominated by a bunch of humor challenged sour-pusses. They'd NEVER have survived at Berkeley Computer Labs if the idea of "funny" began and ended with recursion jokes.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Serious Business (TM) users are going to see the boot screen of their Linux distribution. The only people who see Tux at boot right now are ones who will appreciate the joke.
For a short period of time there was actually a portion of the Internet that used IPX/SPX (the Novell networking protocol). Never did get it to work, but my boss at the time claimed to be able to. WFW came with NetBEUI, IPX/SPX and one other (DECNet? Banyan Vines?) protocol. TCP/IP was a simple add-on, less than one floppy disk. Most offices that had less than 50 computers just used NetBEUI and were happy with it.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Yeah, everyone is just stunned how anyone could be stupid enough to bring atari and beos to the table in a discussion about operating systems.
It appears you do enjoy your total system crashes when something makes the gui go bananas though. Not enough of your sort around to be relevant though.
Already done, sorta. There is the "Server Core" mode for windows server where all config is through the command line. I've never seen one in the wild. It looks like the cmd.exe shell/interface actually runs in a window. However, most of the windows-shell is stripped out. Wikipedia has a discription and picture. To me, the picture looks like your desktop in safe-mode text mode only . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_server_2008#Server_Core.
I'm pretty sure AmigaOS 1.0 - 3.1 would fit bill. It boots to a graphical screen first, and then loads the CLI on top of that.
The previous name was "Unicycling Gorilla".
It's not like they were going for the business corporate naming scheme anyway.
why?
Because it's funny?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Because its funny?
I drank what? -- Socrates
Linux NT?
Linux 2015?
Linux XP?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Telling a joke that other people don't get is not a "behavior issue" if it does not impact those that don't get it negatively. No one gets hurt by giving Linux 3.11 the name Linux for Workgroups. It's not even an insult to MS. Humorless is when you don't want the joke told irrelevant of whether you get it or not.
I'm waiting on Linux ME...I hear it will be much better...
That was always my take on it.
Hi, I'm writing this from my Windows 7 install with VC# open in another window. I do a lot of work on windows, and am not a kernel developer. So now that we've got that out of the way. You're a humorless moron that has little understanding of how a system works, how development teams work, and most of all how business works. I'm rather insulted that you believe the kernel hackers or even anyone who does something with linux is under any responsibility to act like a retail store clerk and not "antagonize" their "customers". Please do slashdot's circling-the-drain self a favor and crawl back under the pile of business literature from whence you came.
I'm also insulted that you think the "linux community" is a single entity or some kind of hive mind. Further insulted by how you insist on calling projects "products", and nigh-infuriated that you think that the kernel is worse for not caring about market share. You don't care about linux bettering itself, nor do I care that you will pass me off as some asshole that fits your stereotype when I say this: You look like someone who has snapped after submitting one too many stupid bug reports and would like to ignore your lack of understanding and instead considering people's reactions a symptom of the "linux community".
Yeah, I even used Vista. It deadlocked trying to update to SP1, so I was stuck on GA til the day I dropped it, but other than that it wasn't THAT bad.
While we're on the topic, my college roommate murdered me and everybody else in the house, but other than that little incident, he wasn't THAT psychotic. (If you're wondering, I post to Slashdot via IPoM (IP over Medium)).
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
All true. It's the reason I, as a developer, refuse to get involved. Why on earth would I want to work with such people?
"The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
Recursion jokes never end.
Only infinite resursion jokes never end.
I think this was Linus' plan all along when he set the main linux version to 3 and made the second number grow faster.
ics
Are you even aware of what we're talking about here? Do you really think Windows got so popular because its kernel development was kept "simple and explicit"?
Let me put it easier for you: it's a nickname to a kernel version that is aimed at all those who have a little interest in the Linux kernel development. No "Linux customer" is ever going to see it. If Android was to fork kernel 3.11 for its next version and consequently sell a billion devices with it, only a tiny percentage of the buyers would be aware of what Linux even is, and even less would be aware of this tiny joke. And if even one of them would interpret it as "Linux finally reached the level Windows was, 20 years ago", he would need his brain checked, by a good one.
sounds like they're Trying Too Hard(tm).
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Sorta. It "boots" to running a startup script that executes a series of CLI commands (to mount various directories as aliases and to move some critical libraries to a RAM disk) before (usually) ending in a call to LoadWB, which prompts the system to load up the graphical workbench. When I had an Amiga I almost always left that step off my startup script because I did my work from, more often than not, the CLI, not the clumsy Workbench.
planet texture maps and more
Webservers and daemons aren't in the kernel either.
Not that anyone cares, but there was also a less common "Windows 3.1 for Workgroups" that bundled Microsoft's DOS network client, as well as a non "Workgroups" version of Windows 3.11. There was even a patch that updated the core Windows 3.1 files to the 3.11 versions. And on top of that, Windows 9x basically used the same protected-mode network stack as WFWG 3.11, just with a whole new UI so people thought it was completely different.
In a way, WFWG and Win9x was revolutionary at the time, as it meant people could easily share files and printers across a network without paying $$$$$$ for some big dedicated file server.
The previous name was "Unicycling Gorilla".
It's not like they were going for the business corporate naming scheme anyway.
No, they were naming them after Ballmer. Only he can't unicycle.
It definitely worked for me. Didn't say it was easy, or quick. But now I can refrain from snapping back when someone snaps at me. Among other things, of course :)
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Microsoft can control who speaks for Microsoft and give official support on their behalf, Apple can control who speaks for Apple and give official support on their behalf, but nobody can claim to speak for the whole Linux (or better yet, OSS) community nor is 99,99% of the support you get in any official capacity. Sure you can try to create walled off areas like Ubuntu's Absolute Beginners Section where moderators can use the ban hammer on douchebags but in general there's no telling what you'll run into. To use your analogy, it's more like a potluck dinner than a restaurant and in a large group there'll always be asshats. It doesn't help that just like you have community members that piss in the well you sure have users that piss in the well too, if you ever have to deal with any obnoxious, persistent, over-entitled twats you're likely to swear off offering support forever.
The other fundamental issue is that many of these people are essential to the software development, they just don't give a damn about your problems. Say what you will but if it comes down to a more-or-less savvy user or a key code contributor, most will side with the "not our problem, read the manual or code a patch yourself" attitude. A lot of projects have very poor separation between development and support and developers that don't want to be bothered by support, bad combination. And in the end you're not their boss so if you bring it up they might just take their ball and go home, start a competing fork or just make a giant mess of everything. Even so, some people still need to be evicted from projects - abuse of users is usually not grave enough though.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Yep. They should rename networkmanager to winsock too. :-)
You get to keep a little more privacy than with the NSA version
3.2 isn't out yet. You still don't know.
Jeez, I bet you have never delivered anything good.
May Peace Prevail On Earth
Well, let's say you try to sell a Linux-based distro to a large organization. They WILL ask a lot of questions, and one of them would very likely refer to how the kernel is named. Maybe they will find the joke funny. Maybe they won't. You can bet on the former, but if the latter happens, you risk losing large sums of money.
Yes, I know Linux is already used in many large corporations, but maybe the rather childish naming convention is one reason why it's not used by more companies.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
They pay your wage, albeit indirectly. Good enough for a reason?
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
if {parentPost == siride}
Return 0;
Recursion jokes never end.;
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Heh-heh. You might fit right into the same community you defend. Ever considered it? :)
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Anyone else will at most see "Ununtu Various Vertibrates" or even less, "Android".
Now I really hope they'll call 15.04 that!
May Peace Prevail On Earth
If you shut down (or it crashes) explorer.exe the GUI does stop functioning for the most part. You can though hit Win-R to get the run box. Then you type explorer.exe and it restarts. If Win-R fails, Alt-Crtl-Del then open the run box from the File menu. I have also seen explorer restart itself after a crash, so that may not even be needed. I have never seen a DOS prompt when explorer crashes.
GPU != GUI.
You are right, however you missed the point, which is:
"Considering someone else humorless for not getting your joke is relevant from a behavior perspective".
I don't know how to make it clearer than this.
Telling a specialized joke: Right.
Not all people getting it: Right.
Thinking less of the ones not getting it: Wrong.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Most large organizations these days have at least some familiarity with what Linux is, even if they don't make much use of it. If they ask what kernel you are using, you say 3.11 (as in three point eleven or three eleven). They're not going to ask "What is it's nickname?" They just want the version number.
Having a graphical system outside the OS is a desirable feature and not a drawback. It means that people that don't like Gnome3, Unity, CDE (yes, the old Sun thing) or twm are not forced to use any of those if they don't want to. The main thing we learnt years ago about a Common Desktop Environment is that nobody wanted one if they didn't have a stake in it themselves.
On Atari the operating system, known as TOS, was separate from the GUI, which was GEM. That meant that games could run without GEM even starting and that alternative GUIs known as "gemini" could run.
Linux developers are as closely associated to my wage as dairy farmers are, however I feel no compulsion to up-root and move to the countryside. I possibly could have been less brash in my reply, however I was agreeing with a portion of your post. I have considered working on open source projects before, but have found the majority of projects I'm interested in are dictacted by a small close-knit group of friends who really have no interest in the opinions or contributions of others (sure, if you can solve an issue THEY'RE having, you're welcome, but if you've got a usage issue which requires their collaboration then you can go hang). I'm sure you can imagine the much more colorful language used.
The two solutions to so many issues that are angrily presented are "if you're having that issue, then write a patch and recompile" or "if you want that functionality, then fork it and write it yourself". I can't count the number of times there's some obvious glaring bug with a package, but it works OK on the author's computer, and if you're not using his exact hardware configuration then you're "a fucking idiot and it's your fault". Sure, sometimes I *can* actually fix it - but what exactly is my motivation to do so? To help that jackass? To submit a patch so other people think that jackass is actually competent?
The community seems to be dominated by "little-Hitlers" who basically ruin the experience. A couple of projects I have actually contributed to have over the past 8-9 years magically had my attribution disappear although my code is still present. If the folks "in charge" don't clean up their act, there's good reason why so many of us will keep avoiding contributing anything meaningful.
"The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
Why not?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'd have thought so too but then I booted up an old laptop found at work and was reminded of how incredibly shitty it was and what drove me to use linux in the first place.
IPX was hard but the carrot of being able to play multiplayer doom drove some of us on to success :)
They don't; not in any meaningful way anyway. There's a $(NAME) tucked away in the Makefile, and that's what changed from "Unicycling Gorilla" (never heard of it) to "Linux for Workgroups" in commit ad81f0545e. As far as I can tell, this string is not even included in a built kernel. You certainly can't make uname(1) or /proc/sys/kernel/ emit this name.
Citation
rewriting history since 2109
How about if you take the pole out of your ass?
NetBEUI
Oh fuck. The horrors. Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
He likely tunneled IPX-over-IP. I have also seen the opposite in use to connect IPX networks to the internet. Novell called it TCP/IPX. These setups didn't last too long though, eventually Novell gave up and switched to IP.
I am six other people actually liked ME. *sighs* I can't believe I just admitted that on /. but it is true. There are seven of us. We're a cabal, or something... If you had the right hardware, the right install date, sacrificed the appropriate amount of black chickens, and burned the right number of candles (it also helps if Mars is in retrograde) it was an awesome OS for its day.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I don't seem him defending a "community." The closest he comes is when he actively attempts to dismantle the very concept of "community" that you seem to think exists.
Just sayin'.
Kid-proof tablet..
Except he didn't think less of the ones not getting it. He thought thought less of the guy that said it was a bad idea to tell it because not everyone would get it. You stated that it was a bad idea for the joke to be told at all. Thus, by your own standards, you are in the wrong.
Read again: he called one who didn't get the joke "humorless moron". No need to look any further.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Yup, what you're saying pretty much sums it up... unfortunately.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Fair enough. but just to keep on the safe side, seriousness (associated - wrongly sometimes - with professionalism) extends to product nicknames as well. And source code comments, while we're at it.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
How about decades of programming in various environments with blatant differences in quality based on work ethic. FYI there's a fuckton of information and research on this.
Brilliant!.
Your statement fits the bill perfectly: random off the top of your head examples cherry picked at random from unverifiable sources.
Well played sir! Well played.
And posting as AC to boot. Bonus points for style!
Well, if you want specific examples, one of the items I was specifically thinking of the time was the IBM VSAM program logic manual circa 198x. Or do you have to have the actual IBM SCXX publication order code before you'll be satisfied? Prime Computer did some very entertaining documentation as well - being based in Massachusetts, they liked to spike their docs with references to HP Lovecraft's New England and Miskatonic University. The Commodore Amiga group had a lot of run as well. I have an A1000 computer with the paw imprint of Jay Miner's dog embossed on the inside of the lid.
On the flip side, SCO (before they changed owners and starting suing Linux) was so grim I turned and walked away from it. Intuit is no fun at all. Oracle and HP have abominable search engines, but your call is VERY important to them. And I have to be paid pretty well to sit and feel my life leaching away waiting for them to serve all their other customers because the documentation was written in Mordor and is neither entertaining nor informative.
There are a number of horribly expensive and unfunny program products I've dealt with and discarded over the years. I purposely refrain from recalling their names because I don't want to summon the other unpleasant memories that would rise like bile along with their names.
As to who has the better work ethic, I don't give a damn. All I care about is what they do to my work experience. And my experience has been that the more the developers enjoyed their jobs, the more enjoyable - and productive - my job becomes.
Ummm...what? He's running an outdated kernel - came out a while ago.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
No, your long history as part of a Burson Marsteller sockpuppet team makes you an "MS apologist"
Serious Sandwich, aka Bonch, Sharklaser, Tech* etc is one of a number of sockpuppet accounts established and maintained by Burson Marsteller on behalf of Microsoft.
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/07/06/1525240/ubuntu-cant-trust-fsfs-secure-boot-solution
Horror? Small, simple protocol with low overhead and a tiny memory footprint, it was pretty much perfect for small networks where the staff had little to no network experience. One major restaurant POS system still uses it, because since it's not routable it's really hard to attack from the Internet.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Finally we can see that Linux Road Plan that Microsoft claims the open source world has never had.
* Linux 3.11 for Workgroups
* Linux 95
* Linux 98
* Linux 98 SE (one of the better kernels)
* Linux ME (Linus should be ashamed of this one)
* Linux 2000 (aka Linux 2K)
* Linux XP - which people will use for years to come)
* Linux Vista (like Linux ME only worse on a bigger scale)
* Linux 7 (the one they'll get right)
* Linux 8 Metro edition - the first one to run on ARM chips?
which takes us so far into the future that the road plan disappears.
Microsoft always knew that the open source world was derivative - just ripping off the commercial innovators.
I am anarch of all I survey.
Most of the people I knew pirated Win2K rather than used WinME.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Well it's a bit of a pain in the ass to type something like "mode 120,60" rather than just resize the window with the mouse, and applications you run are likely to only use 80 columns anyway.
I know about the "right click on title bar" thing, I would use it to set green on black text and the default size at 80x43 (and check the "quickedit" thing is enabled).
Another pain is you can't full screen a command prompt in Vista/7, that was useful to not be distracted, and to look at bigger letters in the familiar IBM text font. In linux, I often use a maximized terminal instead (with tabs if needed) ; there's no way to really maximize a terminal in Windows.
Incidentally, buggy and incomplete drivers make a linux desktop more unstable and buggy than a Windows desktop on the same machine (unless you only have Intel CPU/chipset/graphics and realtek sound/network, I guess).
For instance I've lived with crappy drivers for my Xonar DX sound card (haven't tried Ubuntu 13.04 / Mint 15 yet on that computer), which can give me little cracks sometimes, and the sound is always garbled in Wine (so I can't run that one Windows game that always worked on multiple wine versions since I first played it in 2007) and I have an intermittent sound bug in zsnes (so I don't play SNES games which used to be about the only other gaming venue for linux)
NT 3.51 was stable? Yeah, until you installed an update or a service pack, then it would blue screen. Or until you tried to move the machine, then it would blue screen. Or until you connected it to your Arcnet network, then it would blue screen. Or you ran heavy machinery around it, then it would blue screen. Or until you dusted off the case, then it would blue screen. Or until you tilted the monitor, then it would blue screen. Or if you plugged a shop light into an outlet on the same breaker, then it would blue screen. Or until you sneezed, then it would blue screen. Or if you were walking around the machine with hard sole shoes that made sounds when you walked, then it would blue screen. Or if a house fly got near the case, then it would blue screen.Or...
Yeah, like every other piece of Microsoft software at the time it was developed and tested in a clean room walled off from background radiation with 5 feet of lead-studded concrete, and with 5-nines cherry-picked hardware provided by the mfg. Why else do you think that all of a sudden ECC memory was a requirement for all servers regardless of whether it was a financial. Put it in a production environment? HAHAHA. No.
I don't think NT 3.51 was stable, but I do think memories tend to get rose-tinted over time.
The real path to male liberation
I think most of those misunderstandings are caused by two factors. Backward compatibility has lead to a fairly convoluted system, which is hard to understand. Microsoft's desire to hide the technical details and the remnants of earlier systems has lead to users having an incorrect impression of what is really going on behind the scenes. At some point Microsoft promised to deliver a Windows version, which was not built on top of DOS. When they couldn't truly live up to that promise, they instead tried to hide the existence of DOS underneath, they also crippled that DOS version by removing lots of the tools. If they hadn't done that, it could not only have been the best DOS version yet, but also the best of those Windows versions running on top of DOS.
I don't claim to know a lot about how Windows works. The last time I looked at any technical details around Windows was when it was called version 3.11. And the last time I touched Windows professionally, Windows XP was state of the art among Windows systems.
What I can tell is that people who use Windows daily have trouble with even such simple tasks as maximizing a window. They can't tell why the maximize button sometimes maximizes in one direction and other times in both directions. And nobody seem to know how to get complete control over it to the point where they can maximize in exactly the direction(s) they want.
I know enough about the history of Windows to realize that the different behaviour of terminal windows compared to other windows is due to its DOS legacy. Most Windows users don't even realize that and are just confused when the maximize button doesn't work as expected.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
So you mean the kernel that every single Debian Wheezy box happens to run by default doesn't exist? okay.
Admittedly, I never used TOS -- I owned an 800 and a 130XE, but moved to a 386 after that. Do I regret never having used an ST? Yeah, maybe -- in the same way I regret never having used OS/2. But, I'm sure I would have ended up with my current platform of PC+Linux either way.
sig: sauer
Bump
I rather miss Banyan Vines and Streettalk...... It actually made networking simple for the time.
I actually used very little NetBEUI though as there was quite heavy Novell usage in the environments I was in. Most of the other environments I was in used 3720 or 5250 emulation........
I remember the days of IPX over token ring running Doom with ops vs. dev - we kept it one of each on each team to even things up so us ops didn't stomp the devs... :)
Server Core is unfortunately pretty useless. Nearly everything of importance needs to be done using a remote server manager GUI, or MMC snap-ins on a desktop which, in my experience, are both slow and buggy. There's also not a snap-in for everything. For example: networking. Doing anything beyond setting the IP address for a network adapter (ie. disabling ipv6) has to all be done in the registry, and basic functionality like creating a PPTP connectoid is simply impossible.
There's many other basic server tasks you can't perform like installing exchange, even though 2010 can be entirely managed from powershell.
In short, Windows is entirely dependent on the GUI.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I thought old DVD players didn't accept anything but UDF 1.02, the DVD-Video file system, because they don't have USB ports.
It's too bad UDF never really caught on as the defacto USB hard drive, flash drive, SDHC etc file system. Unfortunately XP has shaky support
Fortunately XP is within a year of its expiration date. You could start using UDF on USB flash drives sometime in mid-April 2014, once all Windows XP machines connected to the Internet have been either retired, Linuxed, or 0wn3d.
The real problem is that too many 32-bit device drivers were incompatible with PAE, the way that x86 CPUs address memory above 4 GB. Microsoft could turn on PAE in Windows Server because drivers for server peripherals supported PAE. But in the case of desktop versions of Windows, it would have taken a restart to switch between using the extra memory past the PAE barrier and using whatever desktop peripherals happen to have PAE-incompatible drivers. I guess Microsoft decided that such a user experience would have tarnished the Windows brand, which had already developed a reputation for needing frequent restarts.
Either way the point is the AC above doesn't have a clue and his example was false.
So now the computing public can think that us Linux-ites are ~20 years behind, comparing modern-day Linux to a system released in 1993. Just what we need to encourage widespread adoption! /s
Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com)
I somehow doubt that RMS shares ESR's enthusiastic support of the Second Amendment. One would have to comb Stallman.org to see what he says.
The gap between purely technical and layman language is what prompted the creation and large scale adoption of high level programming languages
Do you actually believe that drivel?
Linux kernels are not known by their code name, they are known by version. No one asking a vender about Linux and Linux support is going to be asking such stupid questions like what are the code names. I don't know if you are trolling or just stupid, but you really need to pull that stick out.