Plowing through this thread, once again I see the ongoing and mind-bogglingly informed discussion about this aspect of computer science vs. that problem/challenge/preference of computer science.
You could argue I don't belong here because of my computer science illiteracy -- but I like Linux. It does me good.
If anybody RTFA (I didn't), all that really matters here is the touting of the latest version of the user-friendly distro Ubuntu. Now...I am not a technophile, i.e., qualified geek -- I'm just a writer. But I have been using Ubuntu exclusively for the past 4 years for the salient reason that it is simpler to use than Windows -- especially Vista. Simpler and certainly cheaper.
Yes, in the early days sometimes I had to consult forums on how to get the drivers to work just right. These days it's all plug and play for my hardware. The only extra step I need to take is activating proprietary codecs, etc. Which most advanced distros today make very easy to do (shame on me, I know). I get more applications that do what I need them to do without having to pay for them or their binding and wallet-sapping upgrades. And I have the pleasure and relief of being totally unencumbered by viruses, spyware, adware and bad vibes.
With Ubuntu, I don't *need* to totally understand Linux to use it. From experience, I have found it just works better for me than Windows. Period.
Just 2 cents from an appreciative but non-geek user...
>Like in "Do as I say (use open source), but not as I do (use closed source drivers)"?
No, like in "Use open source to the best of my ability, surmounting its restrictions to said ability with non-OSS fix-it stuff, if I hafta." Pragmatism over purism generally wins the day.
>> but the driver for my network card
>Get another card. Reward manufacturers supporting Open Source by supporting them.
Because they're growing on trees, aren't they? Here's another platitude for ya: Scarcity breeds cowardice. Sheesh...
>> Trying to get rid of it will only restrict Linux adoption.
>If you have to use closed source to just connect your Linux box to a network, then just fuck it and stay with Windows or buy a Mac. The whole point of GNU and Linux was to make a working _free_ system, not just to get you out of paying for a closed source one.
>If all "open source supporters" had your attitude, free software wouldnt have survived the 90s.
There is some viable argument that the whole point of GNU and Linux was not merely to make a working free system, but simply to do something else. Ars Gratia Artis, and all that. And Ipso Facto, while I'm at it...
Fact is all open source supporters come in strange clusters and myriad forms of attitude, which, like the fabled melting pot of the New World as mere noble propagandized humanitarianism, see it as a practical recourse to inevitable future tensions wrought by those of different languages/skin/religion/yo-yo ability. So, to invoke the wisdom of Woody the Yodlin' Cowboy, "Play nice."
The wife has memorized Empire Strikes Back and basically loves the heck out of all of it. I can take it or leave it. But upon reviewing the first trilogy, then comparing it to the second, I realized it's all quite silly. We bought into it the first time around because we were kids. Trying to look at the second lot with the same eyes ain't possible. That's mainly why it disappointed. The other big reason is ILM, THX, Skywalker sound, and all the other technical wizardry that came as a result of the success of the first lot, have spoiled movie-goers in general. Visual and sound effects are super amazing now, so it's easy for both film-makers and audience alike to keep pushing for and expect the bleeding edge in tech art sophistication. Consequently: Maker and viewer are gadget happy, so character and story have been deprioritized.
I just got a nice, new HP box with Vista pre-installed, tried it for a couple hours (knowing the likelihood of the ubiquitous new OS of being quickly usurped). I then installed Ubuntu 7.10 beta, which required even fewer tweaks than its predecessors for my doings. I'm not a developer, or web designer, or Audi mechanic, or anything other than your average consumer of Big Macs and Friends episodes. But I can say in absolute honesty it took me a hell of a lot longer to "intuitively" navigate Vista to do basic stuff than it has ever taken me to multi-task on Ubuntu.
Further, some months ago a workmate complained that his Dell laptop had to be reformatted, but he had no Windows emergency discs supplied with it. I loaned him what I had left along with a drivers CD, supposing he might get lucky with it. No dice -- turned out to be an exercise in migraine manufacturing and nothing else. Finally, I gave him a copy of PCLOS, which he installed in less time THAN a Friends episode, and he hasn't looked back since. In fact, the money he was planning for a new Mac he chose to put into a high-end digital camera instead.
Critical mass may never be reached, but I know at least one more dedicated Linux user. And his friends are pretty geeky...
I got a 512mb, but I think there is a 1GB version. I've never been happier with a player. I use it at the gym and walk/jog all the time. The sound is solid. It was only available as refurbished from a third-party retailer through Amazon, but it looks and works like new. It's probably a discontinued item.
It has FM tuner, equalizer, easy navigation. Best of luck!
*Nearly all my friends have one. I have one and I love it...*
I don't have one. I don't want one. I have a Samsung flash player, 'bout the size of a Nano. Cost me $40, runs on 1 AA battery (lasts 40 hours), and it natively plays.ogg, which is why I got it. It rocks.
Yes, I am out of step with the masses. Me and a million other Linux users. Feel free to laugh. But you may not be the last one to do so...
Amazing. 'bout a year ago I got a Compaq laptop. After six weeks the motherboard went belly up. So I took it back to the retailer (CompUSA), who cheerfully took care of it. I said, "Don't mess with the OS." (I had Ubuntu whatever version it was a year ago -- now running Edgy.) Guy said, "No problem." Two weeks later I get may laptop back, worked fine, and the OS and my settings were totally intact.
For the record, whatever brand I might buy, the LAST thing I'd do is go directly to the manufacturer. Retailer first, always. If they have trouble with the manufacturer's "rules," then you are only dealing with the retailer: It's their problem. Maybe they'll replace it with the same model, whatever. Their problem -- make them rectify the situation for you.
Yeah, but adding proprietary stuff to Ubuntu is quite simple. And with Feisty will be even easier, thanks to their new media thingy.
And I think it's time this community -- and any other -- stop believing in the out-of-the-box pipe dream. Vista needs drivers, Mac OSX needs X for OOo, etc. That's just scratching the tip of the iceberg. Fact is computers need TLC (maybe that should be the name of a new universal repository??).
I'm a 'buntu user, not fanatically so, however. People like Windows, people like Mac. The main reason I stick with Linux is price and security. I don't wear penguin bumper stickers on the back of my head when I go through shopping malls -- the people there have a very different sense of glamor.
"Make it sound like a bunch of children or something. I assure you, it's strictly business."
IANAL -- but I have worked with several through the years, particularly the corporate variety. Whether their true character is so or not, many lawyers feel a professional obligation to act as scraping, vindictive rats on behalf of their parent/client. They are best rewarded by said parent for this. The paradox: you might assume their company officers lead and encourage this MO, but the truth is they are often surprised (though secretly delighted) when the more aggressive, nitpicking, predator patience from the legal pack pays off.
It's never really clear who navigates a company, after it gains a certain shape and size. Lawyers think the parent wants X; parent thinks lawyers want X... (Y? I dunno...) In short, they *are* a bunch of children flicking sand about from their box in the play yard. It's just how things get done -- so, yes, it is strictly business.
Try not to ascribe too much higher thinking here. Intelligence, yes -- enlightenment, no.
I know: it all sounds like a lot of simple-minded lawyer bashing. Believe it or not, most I've worked with were cool humans. But with their suits on, Mr. Hyde had rein.
I am inclined to think that in *less* than the prescribed five years, Novell might be saying to MS from their deathbed, "You had me at hello."
Citing a reproacfully obvious analogy, empowered Bolshevickie generally seem to mow over fat and bloated Bourgeoisie. It's not about volume of use. Patience... The fat cats will mew and purr, then go to sleep beneath the willow tree of platitudes and overabundance. The lean and hungry will ch mod their attitude and share with like-minded fellows, spawning free thinkers -- always the minority, the gadflies.
It's just the application of historical observation, not a lecture.
Bolshevickie: People who give a shit (OSS community/Linux users)
Bourgeousie: People who don't give a shit (conspicuous consumers dully gazing out their Windows)
***To buy more time, WB asked for short extensions from the talent, and got them from everyone but CC. Consequently, she was out of contract, and a new contract would have to be arranged prior to the start of production. I'm not sure to what extent there was ongoing negotation to try to get her back under contract, but the long and short of it is, at the point where they absolutely had to know whether she was in or out, there was no contract, so she got written out of the story.***
Much of the chronicling AC collected on this issue is correct. But, further, on the above point... The tactics used to execute these extensions for the cast were a hair's breadth away from guerrilla warfare. At the eleventh hour (literally!) before the contract termination -- with all cast members ensconced in a hotel in England while on convention tour -- each was roused from their beds near the stroke of midnight and *strongly urged* to sign. CC was not to be found during this legal-eagle brute squad activity, and was therefore considered ineligible. Efforts on her part to rectify the situation after the fact were greeted with cold shoulders by both JMS and WB. The result seemed to have been their intention all along. Motivation has never been clear, except for the likelihood of just plain Machiavellian behavior.
She didn't plump up. I can personally vouch for that. What's never been released to the public, as far as I know, is a rather sickening contract dispute that took place. JMS is not the benevolent wizard some people might paint him as.
For all the name-dropping and achievement-grudging that's going on -- I mean seriously. Think of it like a movie adaptation of a true-to-life biography. Characters and events get compressed to make the story concise and interesting. If Time (or whoever) is going to publish yet another rhetorical list of heroes, take it with a pinch of salt (or lime, tequila, whatever...). At least SOMEONE from the OSS community made it! (Though how making any such innocuous list from a none-too-in-depth, populist rag is considered an honor is a touch baffling.) Take your tiny bite of shared glory and get back to your lives, citizens.
OK, I'm biting the scorchingly off-topic bait...
Point of fact: Mother Theresa died within a week or so, if memory serves, after the death of Princess Di, for whom the world gloriously mourned, as you observed. And for the few hundred million or so of us who genuinely care about matters spiritual, the ugly woman who took care of lepers in Calcutta was indeed mourned silently -- but widely.
Why? To find the answer to that, you'll need to look beyond your own nose... ; )
Dude...what are the chances of you elaborating on your pithy comment? I didn't think it was disney.com.
Yeah, I describe a childlike enthusiam for a cool technology. Isn't that what we do on Slashdot? Childlike or otherwise?
After reformatting my Windows box more times than you can shake a mouse at, due to security issues (I didn't know you needed it!), about two years ago I decided to check out Linux. A true n00b in Geekland. Still am. After going through dozens of distros, I finally landed on one that didn't make me want to put my fist through a wall. When Dapper came out, I was actually licking my chops. My wife just pointed and laughed -- she thought I had become a convert. To Linux, yes, but not to Geekdom. I take no pride in saying I am still ham-fisted at the command line. I'm a writer, not a hacker.
And I got all the books, the usual suspects, the O'Reilly tomes, et al. With all due respect, I really did not need to read what kind of shirts Richard Stallman wears and whether pigs have wings. I just wanted MP3 capability. So I skip to those pages, via the index.
Now that I actually know what a forum and a wiki are, I go there. Books are nice. I hope to publish many some day. But tapping into the friendly minds of Those Who Know has proven to me much more effective and efficient.
I'm sure it's a fine book. But n00bs who just want to know how to put tab A into slot B are better off asking legitimate, bona fide geeks. Who knows -- I might even be one some day.
And look at me now -- I read/.
Slashdot Mirror
Plowing through this thread, once again I see the ongoing and mind-bogglingly informed discussion about this aspect of computer science vs. that problem/challenge/preference of computer science.
You could argue I don't belong here because of my computer science illiteracy -- but I like Linux. It does me good.
If anybody RTFA (I didn't), all that really matters here is the touting of the latest version of the user-friendly distro Ubuntu. Now...I am not a technophile, i.e., qualified geek -- I'm just a writer. But I have been using Ubuntu exclusively for the past 4 years for the salient reason that it is simpler to use than Windows -- especially Vista. Simpler and certainly cheaper.
Yes, in the early days sometimes I had to consult forums on how to get the drivers to work just right. These days it's all plug and play for my hardware. The only extra step I need to take is activating proprietary codecs, etc. Which most advanced distros today make very easy to do (shame on me, I know). I get more applications that do what I need them to do without having to pay for them or their binding and wallet-sapping upgrades. And I have the pleasure and relief of being totally unencumbered by viruses, spyware, adware and bad vibes.
With Ubuntu, I don't *need* to totally understand Linux to use it. From experience, I have found it just works better for me than Windows. Period.
Just 2 cents from an appreciative but non-geek user...
>> I am an open source advocate
>Like in "Do as I say (use open source), but not as I do (use closed source drivers)"?
No, like in "Use open source to the best of my ability, surmounting its restrictions to said ability with non-OSS fix-it stuff, if I hafta." Pragmatism over purism generally wins the day.
>> but the driver for my network card
>Get another card. Reward manufacturers supporting Open Source by supporting them.
Because they're growing on trees, aren't they? Here's another platitude for ya: Scarcity breeds cowardice. Sheesh...
>> Trying to get rid of it will only restrict Linux adoption.
>If you have to use closed source to just connect your Linux box to a network, then just fuck it and stay with Windows or buy a Mac. The whole point of GNU and Linux was to make a working _free_ system, not just to get you out of paying for a closed source one.
>If all "open source supporters" had your attitude, free software wouldnt have survived the 90s.
There is some viable argument that the whole point of GNU and Linux was not merely to make a working free system, but simply to do something else. Ars Gratia Artis, and all that. And Ipso Facto, while I'm at it...
Fact is all open source supporters come in strange clusters and myriad forms of attitude, which, like the fabled melting pot of the New World as mere noble propagandized humanitarianism, see it as a practical recourse to inevitable future tensions wrought by those of different languages/skin/religion/yo-yo ability. So, to invoke the wisdom of Woody the Yodlin' Cowboy, "Play nice."
The wife has memorized Empire Strikes Back and basically loves the heck out of all of it. I can take it or leave it. But upon reviewing the first trilogy, then comparing it to the second, I realized it's all quite silly. We bought into it the first time around because we were kids. Trying to look at the second lot with the same eyes ain't possible. That's mainly why it disappointed. The other big reason is ILM, THX, Skywalker sound, and all the other technical wizardry that came as a result of the success of the first lot, have spoiled movie-goers in general. Visual and sound effects are super amazing now, so it's easy for both film-makers and audience alike to keep pushing for and expect the bleeding edge in tech art sophistication. Consequently: Maker and viewer are gadget happy, so character and story have been deprioritized.
Which sucks. It's everyone's fault.
I just got a nice, new HP box with Vista pre-installed, tried it for a couple hours (knowing the likelihood of the ubiquitous new OS of being quickly usurped). I then installed Ubuntu 7.10 beta, which required even fewer tweaks than its predecessors for my doings. I'm not a developer, or web designer, or Audi mechanic, or anything other than your average consumer of Big Macs and Friends episodes. But I can say in absolute honesty it took me a hell of a lot longer to "intuitively" navigate Vista to do basic stuff than it has ever taken me to multi-task on Ubuntu.
Further, some months ago a workmate complained that his Dell laptop had to be reformatted, but he had no Windows emergency discs supplied with it. I loaned him what I had left along with a drivers CD, supposing he might get lucky with it. No dice -- turned out to be an exercise in migraine manufacturing and nothing else. Finally, I gave him a copy of PCLOS, which he installed in less time THAN a Friends episode, and he hasn't looked back since. In fact, the money he was planning for a new Mac he chose to put into a high-end digital camera instead.
Critical mass may never be reached, but I know at least one more dedicated Linux user. And his friends are pretty geeky...
Samsung YP-MT6i o-Player/dp/B0007M610O/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-6259151-50 72101?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1186018368&sr=8-1
I got it through Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-YP-MT6X-Digital-Aud
I got a 512mb, but I think there is a 1GB version. I've never been happier with a player. I use it at the gym and walk/jog all the time. The sound is solid. It was only available as refurbished from a third-party retailer through Amazon, but it looks and works like new. It's probably a discontinued item.
It has FM tuner, equalizer, easy navigation. Best of luck!
*Nearly all my friends have one. I have one and I love it...*
.ogg, which is why I got it. It rocks.
I don't have one. I don't want one. I have a Samsung flash player, 'bout the size of a Nano. Cost me $40, runs on 1 AA battery (lasts 40 hours), and it natively plays
Yes, I am out of step with the masses. Me and a million other Linux users. Feel free to laugh. But you may not be the last one to do so...
Hi ho...
Amazing. 'bout a year ago I got a Compaq laptop. After six weeks the motherboard went belly up. So I took it back to the retailer (CompUSA), who cheerfully took care of it. I said, "Don't mess with the OS." (I had Ubuntu whatever version it was a year ago -- now running Edgy.) Guy said, "No problem." Two weeks later I get may laptop back, worked fine, and the OS and my settings were totally intact.
For the record, whatever brand I might buy, the LAST thing I'd do is go directly to the manufacturer. Retailer first, always. If they have trouble with the manufacturer's "rules," then you are only dealing with the retailer: It's their problem. Maybe they'll replace it with the same model, whatever. Their problem -- make them rectify the situation for you.
Laptop's been fine ever since.
Yeah, but adding proprietary stuff to Ubuntu is quite simple. And with Feisty will be even easier, thanks to their new media thingy.
And I think it's time this community -- and any other -- stop believing in the out-of-the-box pipe dream. Vista needs drivers, Mac OSX needs X for OOo, etc. That's just scratching the tip of the iceberg. Fact is computers need TLC (maybe that should be the name of a new universal repository??).
I'm a 'buntu user, not fanatically so, however. People like Windows, people like Mac. The main reason I stick with Linux is price and security. I don't wear penguin bumper stickers on the back of my head when I go through shopping malls -- the people there have a very different sense of glamor.
"Make it sound like a bunch of children or something. I assure you, it's strictly business."
IANAL -- but I have worked with several through the years, particularly the corporate variety. Whether their true character is so or not, many lawyers feel a professional obligation to act as scraping, vindictive rats on behalf of their parent/client. They are best rewarded by said parent for this. The paradox: you might assume their company officers lead and encourage this MO, but the truth is they are often surprised (though secretly delighted) when the more aggressive, nitpicking, predator patience from the legal pack pays off.
It's never really clear who navigates a company, after it gains a certain shape and size. Lawyers think the parent wants X; parent thinks lawyers want X... (Y? I dunno...) In short, they *are* a bunch of children flicking sand about from their box in the play yard. It's just how things get done -- so, yes, it is strictly business.
Try not to ascribe too much higher thinking here. Intelligence, yes -- enlightenment, no.
I know: it all sounds like a lot of simple-minded lawyer bashing. Believe it or not, most I've worked with were cool humans. But with their suits on, Mr. Hyde had rein.
I am inclined to think that in *less* than the prescribed five years, Novell might be saying to MS from their deathbed, "You had me at hello."
No trouble for Linux.
Citing a reproacfully obvious analogy, empowered Bolshevickie generally seem to mow over fat and bloated Bourgeoisie. It's not about volume of use. Patience... The fat cats will mew and purr, then go to sleep beneath the willow tree of platitudes and overabundance. The lean and hungry will
ch mod their attitude and share with like-minded fellows, spawning free thinkers -- always the minority, the gadflies.
It's just the application of historical observation, not a lecture.
Bolshevickie: People who give a shit (OSS community/Linux users)
Bourgeousie: People who don't give a shit (conspicuous consumers dully gazing out their Windows)
***To buy more time, WB asked for short extensions from the talent, and got them from everyone but CC. Consequently, she was out of contract, and a new contract would have to be arranged prior to the start of production. I'm not sure to what extent there was ongoing negotation to try to get her back under contract, but the long and short of it is, at the point where they absolutely had to know whether she was in or out, there was no contract, so she got written out of the story.***
Much of the chronicling AC collected on this issue is correct. But, further, on the above point...
The tactics used to execute these extensions for the cast were a hair's breadth away from guerrilla warfare. At the eleventh hour (literally!) before the contract termination -- with all cast members ensconced in a hotel in England while on convention tour -- each was roused from their beds near the stroke of midnight and *strongly urged* to sign. CC was not to be found during this legal-eagle brute squad activity, and was therefore considered ineligible. Efforts on her part to rectify the situation after the fact were greeted with cold shoulders by both JMS and WB. The result seemed to have been their intention all along. Motivation has never been clear, except for the likelihood of just plain Machiavellian behavior.
She didn't plump up. I can personally vouch for that. What's never been released to the public, as far as I know, is a rather sickening contract dispute that took place. JMS is not the benevolent wizard some people might paint him as.
For all the name-dropping and achievement-grudging that's going on -- I mean seriously. Think of it like a movie adaptation of a true-to-life biography. Characters and events get compressed to make the story concise and interesting. If Time (or whoever) is going to publish yet another rhetorical list of heroes, take it with a pinch of salt (or lime, tequila, whatever...). At least SOMEONE from the OSS community made it! (Though how making any such innocuous list from a none-too-in-depth, populist rag is considered an honor is a touch baffling.) Take your tiny bite of shared glory and get back to your lives, citizens.
OK, I'm biting the scorchingly off-topic bait... Point of fact: Mother Theresa died within a week or so, if memory serves, after the death of Princess Di, for whom the world gloriously mourned, as you observed. And for the few hundred million or so of us who genuinely care about matters spiritual, the ugly woman who took care of lepers in Calcutta was indeed mourned silently -- but widely. Why? To find the answer to that, you'll need to look beyond your own nose... ; )
Excellent tip -- thanks a lot, I'll check it out.
Cool, thanks.
Dude...what are the chances of you elaborating on your pithy comment? I didn't think it was disney.com. Yeah, I describe a childlike enthusiam for a cool technology. Isn't that what we do on Slashdot? Childlike or otherwise?
After reformatting my Windows box more times than you can shake a mouse at, due to security issues (I didn't know you needed it!), about two years ago I decided to check out Linux. A true n00b in Geekland. Still am. After going through dozens of distros, I finally landed on one that didn't make me want to put my fist through a wall. When Dapper came out, I was actually licking my chops. My wife just pointed and laughed -- she thought I had become a convert. To Linux, yes, but not to Geekdom. I take no pride in saying I am still ham-fisted at the command line. I'm a writer, not a hacker. And I got all the books, the usual suspects, the O'Reilly tomes, et al. With all due respect, I really did not need to read what kind of shirts Richard Stallman wears and whether pigs have wings. I just wanted MP3 capability. So I skip to those pages, via the index. Now that I actually know what a forum and a wiki are, I go there. Books are nice. I hope to publish many some day. But tapping into the friendly minds of Those Who Know has proven to me much more effective and efficient. I'm sure it's a fine book. But n00bs who just want to know how to put tab A into slot B are better off asking legitimate, bona fide geeks. Who knows -- I might even be one some day. And look at me now -- I read /.