Slashdot Mirror
Doing the Quickee Boogie
First up is a pretty cool Slashdot bit:
drwii sent us a link to Scanned in
Proof
that Slashdot is actually in the Feb print edition of PC Magazine.
Spiffy.
An anonymous reader sent us a
wired article explaining Wired. Wired the deal with MP4s.
`PEZ sent
us a couple of links to more information about the 'Yepp'
MP3 player- The samsung
announcement
and the Yepp Web Page
will quench your thirst for knowledge.
svetz wrote
in to say that Gnome 0.99.3
is on.
desertAngel was the first
to squeel that 2.2.0pre7 is out.
Alron Dameon-ArkMoon wrote
in to say that LinuxBox.com is providing free hosting for
Open Source developers.
schvin wrote in
to plug portico.org, a new
*Nix tips and tricks page.
saturated wrote
in to say that apparently
Linux Now! is back on line after a
little absence.
Michael Howard sent us a
must see penguin image.
ToiletDuk sent us
a great pyromaniac web site- fireballs with bic lighters?
Don't burn yourself.
soren.harward wrote
in to tell us that
stomped.com
has Quake III Arena movies
if you're curious what your future will look like.
cynbe sent us a link
to an amusing piece called
The
Last Dinosaur and the Tarpits of Doom: How Linux
Smashed Windows. It's funny. I think.
Look at the difference between http://linuxnow.com and http://www.linuxnow.com Must be a config typo...I hope.
Results of an Altavista search performed now:
Windows: 11,506,850
Java: 5,341,254
Macintosh: 3,276,886
Linux: 2,003,229
Solaris: 800206
FreeBSD: 317350
HP/UX: 100996
You should read this after reading "The Last Dinosaur." The article is good, but the statistics are pathetic.
Lets all flame those bastards who made the mp4 format (they include contact e-mails on their web page), and send polite mail (ideally, snail-mail) to Public Enemy, thanking them for standing up to the record companies, and explaining the privacy threats of MP4s (not to mention raw bastardship of the company for getting a bogus trademark on "MP4").
"Slashdot.org is so anti-estamblishement that the last time we mentioned it...."
Geez maybe we should start calling Rob malda - Abbie Hoffman....
Whats Slashdot, the up with people of the NET?
Oh, my connection isn't real? Seems to work fine to me...
I bow before my G0d, Soren.
unless they are microsoft.
example: java
.exe files from your buddy down the hall
seem like they might be risky whereas
.exe files from BigCorporationMusic.com
are less risky, perhaps.
winfiles.com and redhat.com seem to work ok
distribbing binary files, why couldnt it work?
the rich own all good land in cyberspace.
the poor must get out of the way
and let the rich rule over them because
after all, the rich know best. they are rich
because they are smart, and they deserve
better land in cyberspace. and they will
manage it better than the unwashed masses who
dont even know what a router is.
god i wish i was born 500 years in the future.
Among the techie crowd, they'll lose out to the "good" sites. But non-techie lusers *need* these kinds of sites, I'm afraid. If it doesn't look corporate they're scared shitless. And yes, I know, this doesn't say good things about the typical luser. OH well.
Java is not an operating system.
Long live MP3-4-free!!! I can't wait to see all the kracks for this "secure digital music." Music is all about live performance anyway. Thats how musicians like myself will earn a living in the future.
The problem with extrapolating exponential trends is that exponential growth only occurs until a niche has been almost filled; then it levels off rapidly. (Think: bacteria in a petri dish.) So the most accurate way to forecast the growth of an exponential trend is to identify its niche, or niches.
One of Linux' niches is the server realm, where I have no doubt it will soon dominate. Anyone competent enough to be administering a server of any importance can also recognize the high quality of Linux, and is probably clueful enough to recognize the advantages of truly open software. In addition, such a sysadmin will most likely know UNIX to begin with. Thus, in this niche, Linux can spread as fast as sysadmins can install it, learn about the idiosyncrasies of Linux, and educate fellow administrators about the differences between Linux and other Unices.
Linux has another niche: student programmers. Such programmers desire a high-quality development environment, but can't afford proprietary Unix workstations. Again, here the competence level is high, the motivation is high, and Linux can spread as fast as the users can install it. Linux already dominates this niche.
There are other groups of highly competent computer users for whom Linux is appropriate; they are already - or soon will be - all using Linux, thanks to the infrastructure built by the student programmers and increasing numbers of professional developers proficient in Linux.
The desktop-using masses, however, are essentially computer-illiterate; in this niche, computer knowledge is spread by word of mouth. Because virtually none of these users know anything about Linux, there is no computer lore for them to draw upon. I believe that in this niche, the largest of all, Linux is much closer to the beginning of its growth curve than your article suggests.
-- Jeremy
People who consider themselves "techies" but don't contribute / develop anything are just wastes of bandwidth.
>And if a user tries to unwrap the song from the file -- to play it in another format, for instance -- Stonefield said the contents will degrade to an undesirable level.
My ass... This one is EASY to get around. Sorry, once more, all together now.. THERE IS NO ABSOLUTE PROTECTION! Within literally hours after the PE MP4 was released, it was converted to MP3, with NO noticable difference in quality. I mean, seriously....
distributing binaries are bad.. datafiles (ie *.mp3) are better and more secure.
Wouldn't it be really easy to fake a mp4 executable binary (ie make it large enough), and then stick some trojen virus in it instead? Simply distribute this fake mp4 binary file off your website or whatever, and then when ppl download and run it, wham! their computer's hard drive is wiped out.
--
Quixotic
Does the Q3 movie need a player non-available in Linux? I don't want to download a huge file and get a bad surprise...
I've finally reached a point where I can do almost everything I _need_ with Linux and/or Open Source programs. I figured I could open my horizons when I outgrow my dual-PII box...say a nice Alpha or G4 based machine - but if new industry standards like MP4 start requiring Intel/Win32 to work, then I'll always be a slave to "the man"
At least offer me a Java option...
GMO had better have some other products if they plan on staying in business. That "MP4" copyright won't be worth the paper it's printed on when real MP4 comes to town.
Look at the directory holding the The Last Dinosaur... [and no, the Squad Squad can't nail me for that one :-)] piece. The guy's done some other provocative stuff (no guarantee for defensibility), but FWIW I liked Human Stupidity. It makes far too much sense...
I still think I'm going to get a Rio. The Rio
@ least comes w/ a base of 32MB and with a 32MB
card, you can store a good CD or so on there...
The Yepp looks kind of cool, but I didn't like
how they kept saying "Plays Encrypted MP3s", as
some sort of fob to the RIAA or something.
I wonder who Samsung is in bed w/ and why THEY
didn't get sued.....
Windows will return hits on X windows, Solaris Open Windows, Window Repair, heck, even E has references to the word "windows".....
Java returns coffee as well as the language...
............
I'm sure we can strip the executable code out of them once a player is designed.. but what's worse is that it is *NOT* mpeg layer 4, it is some fuckwit company calling it 'mp4' to cache in on layer-3 audio mania. It's silly and misleading.
I say let 'em go for it... who cares? How hard would it really be to
a) strip the data
and
b) convert this shit to a player?
I agree with the concept of the critique above.
For exponential growth to be possible, there must be an exploitable niche. And exponential growth is only possible within that niche.
Student programmers' preferences for OS will not make one whit of difference on corporate desktops *until* corporate desktops (for whatever reason) are an exploitable niche for Linux. Right now, they aren't. If you look at Linux side-by-side with Windows, Windows looks a lot better according to the metrics that count (ease of use, minimal training required because everyone already knows Windows). Microsoft will have to "slip", or Linux will have to discover a new way to exploit this niche, before rapid growth is possible.
So get the sources and compile them already and set your environment variables and be done with it. I can't believe people pitch such a fit over having to type
./configure
make
make install
Packages are great for the first time user and for
getting a machine up and on it's feet, but they
engender laziness and dependancy. They disempower,
which is precisely the opposite of what Linux is
supposed to do.
~ It's now or never...~ ;)
Buwhahahahaha! I'm getting all my buddies with 300Bps connections to hit your FTP site.
The "Last Dinosaur..." article is interesting, but there's a dangerous assumption early on: That there will always be unmodified growth following the early curve. To extrapolate the early growth in any unlimited future is bogus.
The classic demonstration in the flaws of unlimited extrapolation is the Elvis Analysis: In 1977, there were three Elvis impersonators. Last year, there were 28,000 Elvis impersonators. If you extrapolate this into the future, in the year 2015, every third person on the planet will be an Elvis impersonator.
The danger in any extrapolation is that as you "near" saturation, the growth curve must fall off, ultimately turning into an asymptotic approach to 100% (of whatever the environment is, anyway). There will always be some machine running Windows, thus Linux saturation will never reach 100%. The difference in any given extrapoation is that the definition of "near" will vary depending on the circumstances. "Near" could be as low as 40-50 percent - when X reaches 50% saturation, growth starts to slow.
I suspect that (a) We have to consider the server market separate from the desktop market; (b) When Linux reaches some significant fraction of units in each market (25%?), Microsoft will begin an all-out blitz which will affect growth in Linux's market share. In any case, this means that the idea of the continued exponential growth of Linux into the PC market is a short-term view -- the circumstances will not support it for much longer.
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Microsoft | "Windows 3.1" | (Microsoft & Windows) | Win95 | Win98 | "Windows NT" | WinNT | "Win NT" | w2k | "Windows 2000" | Windows2000
3,332,724
java & !(indonesia | island)
1,794,448
linux | GNU
744,700
(Apple & (computer | Macintosh | Mac | Gershwin | Rhapsody)) | MacOS | "Yellow Box" | iMac
590,037
Solaris | SunOS | "Sun Microsystems"
483,895
freebsd | netbsd | openbsd
117,799
"hp/ux"
101,940
--
--
=8^
this shows how much web usage is going on about
the different OSs. im sure there alot more web
traffic per capita about linux than the MacOS for
example, partly just because linux and the
majority of the software we use are developed over
the net.
Oh sure, sure. First a perky hump from PC Magazine.
Tomorrow, a guest spot on Regis and Kathie Lee.
Please, please, oh creators of Slashdot, promise me you'll never wind up doing mall appearances with Fred Imus pushing jars of salsa.
Although the idea of "Rob's Hot Sauce" does intrigue me. GPL'd party mix?
"This online community of techies and gearheads posts interesting articles about programming and then discusses them at length."
:)
Boy that does sound exciting.
That article looks like hell too. They lifted all the graphics from the actual web-pages, so there are these pixelated blobs all over their nice glossy pages. And they used the TCWWW in the link! Will the horrors never cease?
Hey all, Soren here. If you're using anything slower than a 128K ISDN GET OFF MY FTP SITE. Let this Quake III movie get spread around a little, and then move in. My T1 is at 98.7% and everything's going slow. Do the people with real connections a favor and let them get it first so they can mirror it.
woah!! my favorite features:
:)
:)
the mirror. I hope it dont bounce weapon shots as well, casue if it were placed in the right area, I'd be shootin myself
that q3 powerup thingie - the guy looked freakin cool...the animated skin idea frightens me.
transparency and fog - that lil window looked freakin rad, as did walkin through the fog
teleports - q1 style teleports. woohoo!
this just looks like q2 mappers/skinners/mod developers are gonna have a ball playin with it
and about the guy above me - the stomped.com was runnin fine for me: abt 90k/s in the dorms here...
I am in that man's debt for starting the Citadel BBS craze in Seattle. If it weren't for the availability of source code, I'd have been stuck hacking on "wack-ass proprietary shit"(TM).
--
--
I noticed
It's getting about time to leave everywhere
Help stamp out and destroy redundancy, repetition and redundancy!
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
...uhuh...
dylan_-
--
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
Remember that piece of FUD that appeard months ago (which apparently was spreaded by the RIAA) about MP3 containing viruses?
Well, it seems that MP4 can *only* be used as a single EXE file. Connect the dots by yourself...
I read the article, and just for a laugh reproduced the AltaVista searches mentioned. Here the the numbers:
Article Today (1/13/99) % Diff
Windows 2,530,775 11,506,413 455
Linux 502,053 2,003,198 399
Solaris 251,513 800,206 318
HP/UX 105,833 99,610 6% less
FreeBSD 81,781 317,334 388
MacOS 70,851 219,970 310
UnixWare 23,386 49,320 210
Ultrix 15,133 34,040 225
Digital Unix --- 13,380 -
OpenBSD 11,892 26,400 222
Interesting, but I bet Windows gets LOTS of non-Microsoft related hits.
Cheers
Eric
Two can play at the version game, either sue GMO for taking the mp4 name, or just name mpeg4 MP5, that's total bs... OR just still call mpeg4 mp4, GMO's version WILL die due to virus issues as noted above. Also, that's stupid to have a player embedded in each file, the most retarded thing I've ever heard of... ok so it's not the most retarded, but still pretty retarded nonetheless.
okok, so it's not much but,
THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH STUPID TITLES!
US$0.02++
MP4 is there just as a distribution media for advertisements.
.EXE? So you can't just put it in a car mp3 player and not listen to the ads.
Do you know why it's in
I wonder how long before someone makes an mp4 player that plays without anyone actually running the executable. Even if that is illegal, there is very little they can do about public domain code that is not attributed to anyone...
I've been able to run the mp4 player under Wine...
those quake3 mpg's have been slashdotted down to 8k/sec!
grrrrrrrr!
--Dave
Fear - Uncertainty - Doubt.
Method perfected by IBM in its heyday, now happily "embraced and extended" by Microsoft.
To attempt to steer customers away from competitors by badmouthing the competing product, planting seeds of doubt, inventing rumors, etc.
See The Jargon File, a.k.a. New Hacker's Dictionary, for more info.
Now *this* is why the Internet is so much fun! ;-)
I don't know if I agree with the analysis (a number of people here have already pointed out serious flaws), but it was still a fun article, and I think should be taken in that light. There is no doubt Linux is growing, but there are still plenty of unknowns out there. I've a gut feeling that the Y2K problem is going to put more pressure on people to switch to open standards and software (easier to validate). NT is going to continue to slip. More people are going to just get so fed up with MS's inability to deliver that they will start to consider alternatives. Unix was never seen as an alternative OS for "the masses" like Linux (and even FreeBSD) is. It's time for a change.
Funny thing is, even if the DoJ suit fails, I think it's provided a "window" of opportunity, getting people to think if they really want to sell their soul (and their data center) to a company like that.
These next few years are going to be interesting... ;-)
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Funny you should mention Macintosh, a company distingushed in its early days for embracing the educational market. I, too, felt that this strategy portended great market gains, when all of those Mac-using pre-teens went on into the workplace. No dice, though. We will see.
The 2.2.0pre7 announcement was in the article right before this one.
Just READ slashdot before posting to it. That's all i'm asking.
If 90% of everything isn't crap, your standards are too high.
Well, you see, his point is that there are 3 ways for analysts to extrapolate the growth curve, and 1 way for math to do it. The point being analysts go with what they believe, and then cloak it in facts, while math tends to be way more objective. I don't know if I agree with his conclusions about linux growth, but then again, I haven't seen a sampling that can be used for a good model.
A few important points he has forgotten to mention / overlooked.
a) Just as there were waves of propriatary that flowed into open standards, the wave does flow back and forth. Look at the propriatary *nix around (Sun, Digital, SGI).
b) Just as "in the begining there was one" AT&T Unix was cast out from the Tower of Babel and made to speak many languages unknown to eachother. (If he can do Dinosuars, I can do Old Testament.) When will the great fork occur in Linux? It will come one day, it's just a when.
c) And by his logic Linux will one day be surplanted by something else, *shrug*, but that's no big thing. (And will take at least 15 years by his numbers)
d) A big question is: Does Linux want to be the biggest? I know most reactions will be "hell yah!", but that leads to the question why?
e) And here's the scariest extrapolation from his logic. Just as the dinosaurs died out and mammals eventually took over, now it is assumed that the dinosuars actually became today's birds. Will windows make a similiar sideways leap in evolution, giving up size for flight? (I hope it doesn't peck out my eyes)
Any and all views voiced here are mine right now, they might be different tomorrow, but I don't think so.
USA-Democracy is 270 million YESes and NOes a day, not one every four years.
They got sued by Sun, and are now required to fix Java, or stop shipping it.
- Dan
"VAX/VMS is actually still available if you ask for it, albeit mutated now to OpenVMS and more or less claiming to be Unix"
Rather less than more. If I had a large-budget project where reliability and stability were paramount, I'd choose VMS over any Unix flavour.
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
News articles? What percentage of hits include news articles? Last I checked, Micro$oft is all over the news. Linux is only recently gaining in this area.
afniv
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
"We could be happy if the air was as pure as the beer"
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Richard von Weizs
Unfortunately, Windows could mean the type of windows that are used to look outside your office, or - gasp! - X-Windows.
I checked the first 30 listings from a search for 'windows':
On the first page, we have 8 MS-Windows related links, and "Windows on Italy - Regions: Toscana", and "Vehicle Routing Problems with Time Windows". The second page gives us 'John Elefante - Windows', another "Vehicle Routing Problems with Time Windows'. The third page gives us 'X-Windows (TK Widgets)'.
So we have about 5/30 (1/6) instances of "Windows" that are completely irrelevent to Microsoft. If this percentage applied for the whole list, we would have 9,550,685 references to Windows.
With Linux at 2,003,229, it only has to double twice relative to Microsoft to have the same number of references. If you consider that most of the references to Windows are in the context of "XXX presents YYY for Windows, the ultimate tic-tac-toe game for the platform", while most of the Linux links are technical in nature, I suspect that Linux is already far superior to Windows in terms of available technical resources and help on the web.
In this context, I'd say Linux' performance in the word count derby is greater than might be expected, and Microsoft Windows' is less. As the Linux market share increases, I feel we can only see improvement.
D
You're right, the platforms used to view the AltaVista search engine would be a better measure of popularity.
But he did in fact do an AltaVista search, which is - to the extent that it is an accurate reflection of the number of pages discussing each OS - a valid measure of the quantity of available resources on the system.
D
Official packages will be available RSN. I would much rather them be solid and bug-free than quick out of the gate.
/etc/apt/sources.list
If you just can't wait, you can get unofficial gnome debs from http://master.debian.org/~crow/gnome
If you use apt, just add:
deb http://master.debian.org/~crow/gnome /
to the top of your
http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/sotry/17303 .html
About the fifth or sixth paragraph down...
"The RIAA has the support of heavy hitters AOL, AT&T, IBM, Lucent, Microsoft, Matsushita, RealNetworks, Sony, and Toshiba."
Hmm, could someone explain to me what AOL has to do with MP3/MP4?
I also think that the RIAA is completely wrong in thinking that the mp3 arena is full of piracy and that the artists don't receieve any compensation for their music. There's no telling how many times I've caught myself downloading some "illegal" mp3s of some band I never would have heard otherwise and then going out and buying the CD(s) at a local store or from CDNOW.com! And I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this.
windows & (registry | ini) : 57413
linux & (script | scripts) : 56768
-- NoWonder of WonderWorks/OmegaProject
Quake 3 should rock, if this vid is anything to go by...
/. isn't 100% development based...!?!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but
I've been frequenting this establishment for around 9 months now, and it seems to be "News for Nerds"...not "News for Developer Nerds"...?
I am not happy when companies make software that creates another fileformat like mp4. Atleast M$ Word 8 files can be transulated into HTML files, or someother format. This exe cannot be transulate UNDER LINUX to another format (as of yet). I wish I had info on the file format for mp4 (and it is supposedly not mpeg-4), and also enough of the right info on mp3 to create some kind of file conversion utility under Linux.
I tried running it under wine and I couldn't get it to work. and I am using the latest version of wine.
I am very disappointed in these companies today that create platform dependant content for the web when any idiot knows that the web is made up of many diferent platforms from Mac to Linux to Windows, and who knows what else.
I for one will boycott mp4 format (as it does me no good on my Linux machine).
I think any company that puts mp4 on its web site shoudl be listed on 'http://www.websitesthatsuck.com'
imho!
Only 'flamers' flame!
Nice article, was a good read. I have to be a bit wary of the stats, but even if they are incorrect, it still gives some nice historical background.
Force Recon Half-Life TC: Check it out
mcox.com - Useful Information re: IT, Running, Fitness, Finance, or Ann Arbor!
I loved the The Last Dinosaur and the Tarpits of Doom article. I have been happily spreading FUD against M$ here at my place of employment. I work as a support tech for a "leading" retail PC manufacturer. I hate my job. Two more weeks and it is over. Anyway, I am sort of known as the LINUX GEEK around here, but am not an advanced user YET. I have to support winblows and all of its problems. Did I mention I hate this job ?? Oh yeah .. I figure toget a job at a small ISP somewhere so I can devote more time to becoming the GURU/GEEK that I desire to be ... I was planning on becoming MCSE, but I woke up from that nightmare and want to become an *NIX admin somewhere ...
Cobratek
>:=
DONT TREAD ON ME MOÎΩN ÎABÃ
Meept is testing his new super user account. Meept is also listening to the new south park single "suck my balls". Meept can't wait for the chicken farm followup involving roosters and cocks.
MEEPT!!
yepp seems to have more features than the Rio, especially with the little optional extra that allows for MP3 creation directly from audio equipment without the need for a PC. But the Rio has more playback time (1 hour) compared to 40mins for the yepp Series D
I was merely a mouse click away from ordering a Rio this morning......
What to do, what to do.
Brought to you by the author of such childrens' classics as "Some Kittens can Fly!" and "All Dogs go to Hell."
use a program (maybe alien does this) and convert rpms to .deb :)
or bug debian and want a rpm->deb converter from them.
-disq
-disq
I don't understand how they can have rpm for sparc already.. but no freaking deb packages...
I don't want to spend the 14 hours it takes to get all the shit that gnome depends on and compile it.. if they just got the deb packages.. sheet.. i donno
-- four