I concur tha linux IS significantly faster. I use both linux and XP, and even up-to-date linux distributions such as Xandros 4.0 and RHL 4.1 perform very well with a 1.2 GHZ Pentim3 and 256MB of memory, while XP is a slug on such a box. Vista promises to nothing at all on this hardware.
As for the comments that the user interface on Linux is not based upon user experience - I find I am coming to prefer the Linux desktop (both Gnome and KDE), because I have much more control, especially the fonts. It is also nice to have multiple desktops, one for each of several different task-groupings, for instance one for internet-related activities, one for Word-processing related activities, one for Graphics, and so forth. This eliminates the ugly and confusing icon-clutter seen on most users MS desktops.
Thomas
There is a problem with Physics these days, in that theory seems to be prior to observation. I would be much more interested in this pretty-picture geometry of the universe if we did in fact see multiple similar observations of galaxies and other objects which were at 36 degrees offset from each other.
Witness the contrast with Biology. The structure of DNA was proposed based upon exhaustive analysis of actual molecular images, as well as the interatomic forces involved.
Thomas
Could the root of the problem be the English language? It has been my observation over the past years (since Regan and Thatcher - and including Clinton) that there does seem to be an international dimension to the tighthening of freedoms. Time for a Supra-national conspiracy theory?
Thomas
Hmm, What if I was to "reinterpret" a Copywritten edition using original notes I found at the library, and then reissued the resulting score as Public Domain. How much modification would I have to do to avoid legal trouble? It would be interesting in court...
This is an especially ironic idea, as supposedly the original sources are the same.
Thomas
This is a very interesting point - although we have advanced greately in material wealth, our liberties and powers have "not increased much in a long time".
As someone who is "wealthy", it is easy to see that the name of the game is control.
Significantly, the timely emergence of the concept of Intellectual Property appears to be aimed directly at the economics of control: who has access to what, when, and under what conditions. It is clearly mostly a system of control - which makes most all of us poor in what really matters - our freedoms, choices, and powers, all the while draining off increasing sums of money.
All is not dark, however...Along come some wild prophets, such as RMS, and they show us there is another way. Do not play the IP game - assert your natural and God-given freedom. The poor in spirt shall inherit the earth.
Thomas
I'm not sure why this is such a guilt trip, though it is tragic. Low-cost manufacturing contries produce massive volumes of merchandise with poor environmental controls. And many of us in the high-cost world have lost our jobs because of this.
Furthermore, I think it is somewhat appropriate that the junk returns to where it was produced (I would say the same of any North American or European state as well). It can be argued that the undereducated poor in the East and South do not understand what they are getting themselves into - but certainly the leaders of those countries do understand, even if they do not care.
So, in China the poor working class suffers from the "cut corners" manufacturing practices there, at the same time as we suffer job loss here. Who are the guilty ones?
The very wellspring of Free/Open Source Software is the enjoyment that the developers obtain from their effort. It is an arena where individual psychology takes priority over the economics of supply and demand. Of course business people have a problem understanding this - though why they spend so much time and effort practicing their putting is beyond me:-)
Thomas
First of all, I am curious as to what industry you work in..."every deployment I've seen, the staff has known nothing about the product when the deployment starts". This is certainly not my experience working with IT in the pharmaceutical industry. Too bad for you.
About installing and integrating linux - by far the easiest install and integration with the infrastructure I have ever done was with Xandros linux. (easier even than RedHat). Everyone knows that XP is a pain compared with NT, especially if you don't want automatic downloads from MS.
Thomas
RedHat "recent problems" are a fiction. RedHat is making more money than ever, and the stock is doing better than ever. The Oracle gambit simply echos the old saw: "imitation is the most sincere form of flattery", especially as the market finds that Oracle cannot match RedHat in quality of service. As for Novell - this seems to be an act of despiration on Novell's part, with the lizard now primed to loose out to the hat. Recalling the purchase of Sistina, we may see the day when RedHat buys Oracle!
With the support of Yellow Dog Linux, the PS3 could become a hacker's wet-dream. Think of all the fun playing with all of those specialized processing units. I can't wait!
Tom
Hmmm..."no logical reason" - I wonder then, what IS the reason that so many semi-absurd restrictions are being placed upon us? Is it simply incompetence, or something more strategic?
These actions promulgated by the US and UK governments scare me as much as the actual threat of terrorism. There seems to be something behind this harmony of government-sponsored restrictions we see thoughout Europe and the English-speaking world - but I am not convinced that that "something" is Islamic Terrorism.
The pervasive, ongoing absence of government encouragement of behavioral and intellectual freedom frightens me - Please, is there not a single Jeffersonian leader in the world?
Mr. Bungi,
I do not know why you defend this obvious hatchet-job published by Forbes. But the author of the article truely does not know (or care to know) what he is talking about.
"Richard M. Stallman is a 53-year-old anticorporate crusader"
This is not what RMS is about - he really does not give two hoots about corporations as such, much less "crusade" against them.
Here is where the author engages in misleading non-truth ("specious lies?)
"who has argued for 20 years that most software should be free of charge"
Assuming the author knows anything at all about RMS and the Free Software Foundation, he knows that this is not true.
Similarly:
"He and a band of anarchist acolytes long have waged war on the commercial software industry"
First, Stallman (unfortunately?) does not have acolytes - If there are such unthinking followers, I have not met them.
Second, and mentioned above "war on the commercial software industry" is a complete fabrication. RMS, as far as I can tell, has little interest in damaging the commercial software industry. Yes, he is an ideologue, but put the emphasis on ideals.
"dubbing tech giants "evil" and "enemies of freedom" because they rake in sales and enforce patents and copyrights--when he argues they should be giving it all away."
Again, utter nonsense. Yes, I wonder why the Forbes piece was written - I am asking - and I wonder why you defend this object of malice.
Slashdot Mirror
I concur tha linux IS significantly faster. I use both linux and XP, and even up-to-date linux distributions such as Xandros 4.0 and RHL 4.1 perform very well with a 1.2 GHZ Pentim3 and 256MB of memory, while XP is a slug on such a box. Vista promises to nothing at all on this hardware.
As for the comments that the user interface on Linux is not based upon user experience - I find I am coming to prefer the Linux desktop (both Gnome and KDE), because I have much more control, especially the fonts. It is also nice to have multiple desktops, one for each of several different task-groupings, for instance one for internet-related activities, one for Word-processing related activities, one for Graphics, and so forth. This eliminates the ugly and confusing icon-clutter seen on most users MS desktops.
Thomas
There is a problem with Physics these days, in that theory seems to be prior to observation. I would be much more interested in this pretty-picture geometry of the universe if we did in fact see multiple similar observations of galaxies and other objects which were at 36 degrees offset from each other.
Witness the contrast with Biology. The structure of DNA was proposed based upon exhaustive analysis of actual molecular images, as well as the interatomic forces involved.
Thomas
This is truely a big deal - censorship of public information about our environment, paid for by tax dollars.
I hereby pledge never to vote Republican again.
Thomas
Could the root of the problem be the English language? It has been my observation over the past years (since Regan and Thatcher - and including Clinton) that there does seem to be an international dimension to the tighthening of freedoms. Time for a Supra-national conspiracy theory?
Thomas
Hmm, What if I was to "reinterpret" a Copywritten edition using original notes I found at the library, and then reissued the resulting score as Public Domain. How much modification would I have to do to avoid legal trouble? It would be interesting in court...
This is an especially ironic idea, as supposedly the original sources are the same.
Thomas
This is a very interesting point - although we have advanced greately in material wealth, our liberties and powers have "not increased much in a long time". As someone who is "wealthy", it is easy to see that the name of the game is control.
Significantly, the timely emergence of the concept of Intellectual Property appears to be aimed directly at the economics of control: who has access to what, when, and under what conditions. It is clearly mostly a system of control - which makes most all of us poor in what really matters - our freedoms, choices, and powers, all the while draining off increasing sums of money.
All is not dark, however...Along come some wild prophets, such as RMS, and they show us there is another way. Do not play the IP game - assert your natural and God-given freedom. The poor in spirt shall inherit the earth. Thomas
I'm not sure why this is such a guilt trip, though it is tragic. Low-cost manufacturing contries produce massive volumes of merchandise with poor environmental controls. And many of us in the high-cost world have lost our jobs because of this.
Furthermore, I think it is somewhat appropriate that the junk returns to where it was produced (I would say the same of any North American or European state as well). It can be argued that the undereducated poor in the East and South do not understand what they are getting themselves into - but certainly the leaders of those countries do understand, even if they do not care.
So, in China the poor working class suffers from the "cut corners" manufacturing practices there, at the same time as we suffer job loss here. Who are the guilty ones?
The very wellspring of Free/Open Source Software is the enjoyment that the developers obtain from their effort. It is an arena where individual psychology takes priority over the economics of supply and demand. Of course business people have a problem understanding this - though why they spend so much time and effort practicing their putting is beyond me :-)
Thomas
First of all, I am curious as to what industry you work in..."every deployment I've seen, the staff has known nothing about the product when the deployment starts". This is certainly not my experience working with IT in the pharmaceutical industry. Too bad for you.
About installing and integrating linux - by far the easiest install and integration with the infrastructure I have ever done was with Xandros linux. (easier even than RedHat). Everyone knows that XP is a pain compared with NT, especially if you don't want automatic downloads from MS.
Thomas
RedHat "recent problems" are a fiction. RedHat is making more money than ever, and the stock is doing better than ever. The Oracle gambit simply echos the old saw: "imitation is the most sincere form of flattery", especially as the market finds that Oracle cannot match RedHat in quality of service. As for Novell - this seems to be an act of despiration on Novell's part, with the lizard now primed to loose out to the hat. Recalling the purchase of Sistina, we may see the day when RedHat buys Oracle!
With the support of Yellow Dog Linux, the PS3 could become a hacker's wet-dream. Think of all the fun playing with all of those specialized processing units. I can't wait! Tom
Hmmm..."no logical reason" - I wonder then, what IS the reason that so many semi-absurd restrictions are being placed upon us? Is it simply incompetence, or something more strategic?
These actions promulgated by the US and UK governments scare me as much as the actual threat of terrorism. There seems to be something behind this harmony of government-sponsored restrictions we see thoughout Europe and the English-speaking world - but I am not convinced that that "something" is Islamic Terrorism.
The pervasive, ongoing absence of government encouragement of behavioral and intellectual freedom frightens me - Please, is there not a single Jeffersonian leader in the world?
Thomas
Mr. Bungi, I do not know why you defend this obvious hatchet-job published by Forbes. But the author of the article truely does not know (or care to know) what he is talking about. "Richard M. Stallman is a 53-year-old anticorporate crusader" This is not what RMS is about - he really does not give two hoots about corporations as such, much less "crusade" against them. Here is where the author engages in misleading non-truth ("specious lies?) "who has argued for 20 years that most software should be free of charge" Assuming the author knows anything at all about RMS and the Free Software Foundation, he knows that this is not true. Similarly: "He and a band of anarchist acolytes long have waged war on the commercial software industry" First, Stallman (unfortunately?) does not have acolytes - If there are such unthinking followers, I have not met them. Second, and mentioned above "war on the commercial software industry" is a complete fabrication. RMS, as far as I can tell, has little interest in damaging the commercial software industry. Yes, he is an ideologue, but put the emphasis on ideals. "dubbing tech giants "evil" and "enemies of freedom" because they rake in sales and enforce patents and copyrights--when he argues they should be giving it all away." Again, utter nonsense. Yes, I wonder why the Forbes piece was written - I am asking - and I wonder why you defend this object of malice.