I had the "luck" to admin some SCO servers in the past, and I can attest to OpenServer v4 and v5 being horrible pieces of crap to admin, but once they were up and running they chugged along without too much trouble. All in all, they were the only game in town for x86 *nix for a while, which basically led to their stagnation. I went from learning Unix on Sun hardware to Linux, and let me tell you, even Linux circa 1996 (redhat 3?) was way better than SCO at that time!
I don't know where you got some of your info, but the open source Skunkware CD was about the only thing that made SCO bearable, even if the packages were _waaay_ out of date.
Openserver didn't even come with networking OOTB until the 4.x version (I had to transfer files over a null-modem cable one time to save an old OS 3.x system since it had no networking installed -- took forever). It also didn't have a compiler installed by default, just a linker to relink the kernel after changing driver options. BTW, don't ever relink the kernel while users are logged on to the system! Openserver went *crazy* when I did that one time.
The modem thing sounds completely bogus, since I had single modems hanging off of each of the boxes for remote admin stuff (never tried an internal one, though).
You brought back horrible memories from the SCO days. There were even console programs *written for SCO* that didn't understand the 'scoansi' term type! AAHH!!!!
Watch out about their online service. I did my taxes with the turbotax online service last year. It went great, except for the fact that they no longer allow you to pull up a copy of last year's tax return! I need a copy for a form the IRS sent me, and now I have to pay a fee to the IRS to send me a copy of my own tax return! This year I did it professionally.
It is not usually the IT people (although in some companies it is). What usually happens is that once a company locks into a particular version of Windows and a particular version of Office, outside forces cause the IT department to gradually upgrade to newer versions.
Example: company A stablizes on Win98 clients, WinNT servers and Office98. After a while, the payroll department needs to 'upgrade' to win2k/xp clients because their new payroll system only runs on win2k. The purchasing office starts getting hassled by a couple of suppliers because the suppliers use a later version of Office, and the automated order forms that get emailed in are garbled by this later version. some members of the sales staff needs to upgrade to an even later version of Office because their clients have a similar problem with win98's Word docs. and so on and so on. The IT staff tries to fulfill these requests as best they can, but employees sometimes install personal software from home on their machines (not understanding/caring about licensing issues), and not the machines in the company are a hodgepodge of OS'es and Office versions.
So the IT department recommends a company-wide upgrade to WinXP clients/servers and the latest Office. Which drives their clients and suppliers using earlier versions to upgrade, and the vicious cycle continues. All to Microsoft's benefit.
Ours did too, but after a little googling I was able to turn off the macrovision that was causing most of the problem. We have one of those combo TV/VCR's. Now all we have to do is go into the "picture quality" menu on the TV when we first start playing a disk and the brightness and color 'magically' go back to normal.
The newer Apex's are really good. I have a 3201 that we got for Christmas for $60 at Sears. Plays everything but the kitchen sink, and I just found out today how to get to the setup menu for it so I turned off the Macrovision.
It would be nice if Dell would sell that part, though. I have a year old Inspiron 7500, exactly the same components as the current 8100 except for a slightly slower CPU and smaller hard drive, and I called up to ask about getting the GeForce2Go part. They wouldn't sell it to me! I looked at my friend's 8100 and the card is exactly the same. I thought about swapping his card to see if it would work, but I don't want to void either of our warranties if it fries something...
Napster could go away completely because of this. This is actually a really good thing, in my opinion, since other filesharing methods will be used instead of napster, and the RIAA will have dozens upon dozens of fires to fight, instead of just one. Good old divide and conquer.
I wonder how the millions of drool-n-click'ers will react when they can't get the latest backstreet boys song tomorrow. I sense an incredible backlash against the RIAA on the horizon....
(BTW, I don't actually use any of the "p2p" file sharing systems, I just like to see the RIAA shoot themselves in the foot)
Since this *is* a user-driven website, don't you think that it is in his best interest to get user feedback on any proposed changes to the ad system? This is the first time in my life that an ad-man has ever asked *me* what I want, instead of shoveling crap down my throat, hoping against hope that I will buy their stupid products.
I am actually excited about the 'click to never show this particular ad again' and the 'discussion forums for ad banners' ideas. The AdKarma doesn't seem like it will work, but he's just throwing out ideas here! Don't rake the guy over the coals because he had the audacity to ask the users of the sites that he serves ads for what *they* want.
AFAICT, Mr Gray is *not* asking us to do his job for him. He's inviting us to a discussion, and throwing out some ideas, and maybe his ideas will spark even better ones.
What are you talking about? Nowhere in the GPL are you forced to do anything you don't want to do. By using the software and/or modifying it, you agree to the terms of the deal. If you don't agree to these terms, find another program that has similar functionality or write your own damn software! You don't *have* to use any GPL'ed code at all! Use windows, use BSD, whatever.
The GPL can be summed up thus (legalspeak filtered out):
1. You can use this program however you want. Even sell a copy of it on a CD. You can't take credit for it, though. It still belongs to the author(s).
2. *If* you choose to use this program and modify it, share your modifications with everyone else.
3. Make sure that everyone you give/sell this program to has these same rights that I (the author(s) of this program) gave you.
4. Make sure that I (the author(s)), are credited for originally writing this software.
5. Make sure that when you give/sell a copy of this software to someone, you also attach this license so that they know what their rights are.
Are you under the impression that gnome does not start up 'a bunch of background processess'? I hate to break it to you, but running just the panel and the session manager starts up about a dozen processes!
Of course, I don't use either gnome or KDE as my 'desktop environment', although I use a few apps from each camp (konqi, kghostview, gnumeric, and everybuddy)
Try http://www.students.tut.fi/~tuomov/ion/ for a new idea in windowmanagers. I've been using it for a couple of months now, and it really boosts my productivity.
2.0.1 was a lot more stable for me, and 2.1beta2 has been almost rock solid. Of course, I really only use konqueror on a daily basis, so I wouldn't know about the rest.
The 'average mac buyer' will shell out $600 because they want their Photoshop effects to run a hell of a lot faster. For graphics pro's (I'm not one, alas) every second (millisecond, these days) counts.
I used to really want a Mac until I got into Unix, and with OSX, I actually find myself want a Mac again, just to play with!
They were going to purchase some of the reports, to see how kids were surfing through the US military sites. According to the article, the DOD thought the reports came from a valid market research study (i.e. they thought the kids knew that they were being studied). Once they found out where the reports really came from they backed out really fast....
I've got KDE 2.1 beta 2 rpms installed on my box, downloaded from kde.org. RC wants to remove them and install 'official' kde 1.xx rpms from the redhat 6.2 site. And it does not offer me any option to leave those packages alone for a while, and just upgrade the packages that I selected.
What it *should* do is allow me to leave the packages on the system, even if it thinks there are 'newer' or 'better' versions available. Debian allows you to "hold" packages at their current state (installed, not installed, whatever), and takes this hold value into account when calculating dependencies.
People have said it many times and will continue to say it...APT. APT is more than a program on debian (apt-get) that installs packages (.deb files) and handles dependencies. It is a library of functions that does exactly what you are talking about. It is designed to be portable, and only the misunderstanding by most people that it is tied to debian has held it back. Now that Connectiva has performed the (AFAIK) simple task of adding RPM support to the APT library, maybe we will see something happen with it. pkgtool for slack/BSD, SCO's (braindead) 'custom' package installer could all be added to APT.
Unfortunately, RedHat/Mandrake/Helix^H^H^H^H^HXimian/etc... and their "NIH" syndrome has caused each one to write continously *bad* implementations of tools that incorporate exactly the functionality that APT already has, rather than take APT as a "middle layer" library, tell it to use 'rpm', 'pkgtool', or 'dpkg' at the package level, and build a front-end to it that people will like.
This is the Unix philosophy, folks! Small programs/libraries that DO ONE THING *WELL*, chained together in such a way to perform complicated tasks, instead of big bloated monstrosities that do ten thousand things poorly (or ten thousand programs that do ten things poorly, as is the case with the package tools). rpm/pkgtool/dpkg are all perfect tools for installing and deinstalling packages. APT is the perfect tool for managing a large library of package sources and selecting/downloading and then installing (using the package tools native to the OS) packages based on dependencies. dselect/apt-get/gnome-apt and whatever front-ends the future holds need only be concerned with the actual user interface, not the intricacies of package management or installation.
BTW, to forestall any flames, I *have* used almost every installer/distro/updater/freenix out there at some point, and IMNSHO *all* of them have major flaws. Even debian, but the flaws I have troubles with are being solved rapidly, and it is shaping up to really stand head-and shoulders over everyone else.
How the hell does the money go to the artists??
If I am a small-time guy selling CD's out of my trunk, do I get a nice check every month from the government to recoup my losses from fair-use copying??
To answer your question, the US does it just like Germany, except the tax on "music" CDR's, Minidiscs, "music" DAT tapes, etc. goes to the big labels/distributors like Sony. Thus the rich guys keep getting richer....
For your information, most bands sign their rights over to the labels as part of their contract, and the label owns the copyright, *not* the band. Look at any CD you own, it says "(c)2000 Big Music Label", not "(c)2000 Your Favorite Band". This is one reason why bands start their own labels, so the label owns the copyright and they own the label. Then the label can approach the big guys (who are both label and distributor) for distribution power (i.e. getting the CD into Best Buy).
So the writer (which is usually the artist, except for no-talent shits like Britney and N-Sync) gets "songwriting credits" instead, not actual copyright ownership. They then get royalties for songwriting. The actual performers get whatever their contract says, whether it is an up-front total ($1 million per album for 5 albums, for example) or a percentage of record sales or both. Only a handful of bands have the clout to actually get a percentage. If they are also the writer, then they get songwriting royalties as well. This is one reason that artists usually make the lions share of their money touring, even if they are number one on the charts for months at a time.
It is all worked out to give the record industry the power and the money....
What he means is that when you buy a machine with windows preinstalled from approved vendors (Dell, Gateway) that have been certified "Digital Media Secured", you get a 'discount' (no media tax). When you buy a box of parts and build your machine, you pay an extra 'media tax'.
What happens when you are not even allowed to (re)install Windows or any other operating system because of the encryption and copy protections built into the hard drives and motherboard of your shiny new Dell machine? That's the Big Brother scenario the parent poster wanted to show an example of.
It's pretty hard to install onto a hard drive when the motherboard won't let you write to the drive without a Magic Decoder ring present....
Besides, I doubt I would ever download Slackware and install it, but that is a different debate....
That is a different case, the phrase "primus sucks" has been used by fans and encouraged by the band for many years. I doubt that the band would sue itself for having the primussucks.com domain.
Now, the band might not like it if the people who own primus.com decided to tell everyone how good the band is....;P
Actually, Dell's current laptops run great with linux. I have an Inspiron 7500 (awesome machine, BTW) that ran like a champ under RH 6.2 and now debian potato.
The only problem I had is that early versions of the potato install disk wouldn't get an IP address via DHCP from the RH 6.1 DHCP server at work, but it would from the linksys broadband router at my house.
Since the authors own the copyright, they are allowed to change it at any point.
Say I release version 1.0 of libFoo. I realize that more people would use libFoo if it were LGPL or BSDL. So I can "re-release" 1.0 and future versions under the LGPL or BSDL, and not release any more versions under GPL. Anyone who uses the existing GPL'ed version must either adhere to the terms of the GPL, or switch to the newer version.
Slashdot Mirror
I had the "luck" to admin some SCO servers in the past, and I can attest to OpenServer v4 and v5 being horrible pieces of crap to admin, but once they were up and running they chugged along without too much trouble. All in all, they were the only game in town for x86 *nix for a while, which basically led to their stagnation. I went from learning Unix on Sun hardware to Linux, and let me tell you, even Linux circa 1996 (redhat 3?) was way better than SCO at that time!
I don't know where you got some of your info, but the open source Skunkware CD was about the only thing that made SCO bearable, even if the packages were _waaay_ out of date.
Openserver didn't even come with networking OOTB until the 4.x version (I had to transfer files over a null-modem cable one time to save an old OS 3.x system since it had no networking installed -- took forever). It also didn't have a compiler installed by default, just a linker to relink the kernel after changing driver options. BTW, don't ever relink the kernel while users are logged on to the system! Openserver went *crazy* when I did that one time.
The modem thing sounds completely bogus, since I had single modems hanging off of each of the boxes for remote admin stuff (never tried an internal one, though).
You brought back horrible memories from the SCO days. There were even console programs *written for SCO* that didn't understand the 'scoansi' term type! AAHH!!!!
Watch out about their online service. I did my taxes with the turbotax online service last year. It went great, except for the fact that they no longer allow you to pull up a copy of last year's tax return! I need a copy for a form the IRS sent me, and now I have to pay a fee to the IRS to send me a copy of my own tax return! This year I did it professionally.
It is not usually the IT people (although in some companies it is). What usually happens is that once a company locks into a particular version of Windows and a particular version of Office, outside forces cause the IT department to gradually upgrade to newer versions.
Example: company A stablizes on Win98 clients, WinNT servers and Office98. After a while, the payroll department needs to 'upgrade' to win2k/xp clients because their new payroll system only runs on win2k. The purchasing office starts getting hassled by a couple of suppliers because the suppliers use a later version of Office, and the automated order forms that get emailed in are garbled by this later version. some members of the sales staff needs to upgrade to an even later version of Office because their clients have a similar problem with win98's Word docs. and so on and so on. The IT staff tries to fulfill these requests as best they can, but employees sometimes install personal software from home on their machines (not understanding/caring about licensing issues), and not the machines in the company are a hodgepodge of OS'es and Office versions.
So the IT department recommends a company-wide upgrade to WinXP clients/servers and the latest Office. Which drives their clients and suppliers using earlier versions to upgrade, and the vicious cycle continues. All to Microsoft's benefit.
there are instructions on the knoppix FAQ for doing just this. mkdosswap
Ours did too, but after a little googling I was able to turn off the macrovision that was causing most of the problem. We have one of those combo TV/VCR's. Now all we have to do is go into the "picture quality" menu on the TV when we first start playing a disk and the brightness and color 'magically' go back to normal.
The newer Apex's are really good. I have a 3201 that we got for Christmas for $60 at Sears. Plays everything but the kitchen sink, and I just found out today how to get to the setup menu for it so I turned off the Macrovision.
It would be nice if Dell would sell that part, though. I have a year old Inspiron 7500, exactly the same components as the current 8100 except for a slightly slower CPU and smaller hard drive, and I called up to ask about getting the GeForce2Go part. They wouldn't sell it to me! I looked at my friend's 8100 and the card is exactly the same. I thought about swapping his card to see if it would work, but I don't want to void either of our warranties if it fries something...
Napster could go away completely because of this. This is actually a really good thing, in my opinion, since other filesharing methods will be used instead of napster, and the RIAA will have dozens upon dozens of fires to fight, instead of just one. Good old divide and conquer.
I wonder how the millions of drool-n-click'ers will react when they can't get the latest backstreet boys song tomorrow. I sense an incredible backlash against the RIAA on the horizon....
(BTW, I don't actually use any of the "p2p" file sharing systems, I just like to see the RIAA shoot themselves in the foot)
IBM makes some damn fine drives...
Since this *is* a user-driven website, don't you think that it is in his best interest to get user feedback on any proposed changes to the ad system? This is the first time in my life that an ad-man has ever asked *me* what I want, instead of shoveling crap down my throat, hoping against hope that I will buy their stupid products.
I am actually excited about the 'click to never show this particular ad again' and the 'discussion forums for ad banners' ideas. The AdKarma doesn't seem like it will work, but he's just throwing out ideas here! Don't rake the guy over the coals because he had the audacity to ask the users of the sites that he serves ads for what *they* want.
AFAICT, Mr Gray is *not* asking us to do his job for him. He's inviting us to a discussion, and throwing out some ideas, and maybe his ideas will spark even better ones.
More power to ya' Kurt!
What are you talking about? Nowhere in the GPL are you forced to do anything you don't want to do. By using the software and/or modifying it, you agree to the terms of the deal. If you don't agree to these terms, find another program that has similar functionality or write your own damn software! You don't *have* to use any GPL'ed code at all! Use windows, use BSD, whatever.
The GPL can be summed up thus (legalspeak filtered out):
1. You can use this program however you want. Even sell a copy of it on a CD. You can't take credit for it, though. It still belongs to the author(s).
2. *If* you choose to use this program and modify it, share your modifications with everyone else.
3. Make sure that everyone you give/sell this program to has these same rights that I (the author(s) of this program) gave you.
4. Make sure that I (the author(s)), are credited for originally writing this software.
5. Make sure that when you give/sell a copy of this software to someone, you also attach this license so that they know what their rights are.
There. Plain and simple, right??
I'm sorry, I was't aware that all linux users use Mandrake!
Are you under the impression that gnome does not start up 'a bunch of background processess'? I hate to break it to you, but running just the panel and the session manager starts up about a dozen processes!
Of course, I don't use either gnome or KDE as my 'desktop environment', although I use a few apps from each camp (konqi, kghostview, gnumeric, and everybuddy)
Try http://www.students.tut.fi/~tuomov/ion/ for a new idea in windowmanagers. I've been using it for a couple of months now, and it really boosts my productivity.
2.0.1 was a lot more stable for me, and 2.1beta2 has been almost rock solid. Of course, I really only use konqueror on a daily basis, so I wouldn't know about the rest.
The 'average mac buyer' will shell out $600 because they want their Photoshop effects to run a hell of a lot faster. For graphics pro's (I'm not one, alas) every second (millisecond, these days) counts.
I used to really want a Mac until I got into Unix, and with OSX, I actually find myself want a Mac again, just to play with!
They were going to purchase some of the reports, to see how kids were surfing through the US military sites. According to the article, the DOD thought the reports came from a valid market research study (i.e. they thought the kids knew that they were being studied). Once they found out where the reports really came from they backed out really fast....
I've got KDE 2.1 beta 2 rpms installed on my box, downloaded from kde.org. RC wants to remove them and install 'official' kde 1.xx rpms from the redhat 6.2 site. And it does not offer me any option to leave those packages alone for a while, and just upgrade the packages that I selected.
What it *should* do is allow me to leave the packages on the system, even if it thinks there are 'newer' or 'better' versions available. Debian allows you to "hold" packages at their current state (installed, not installed, whatever), and takes this hold value into account when calculating dependencies.
Alas, pinball *used* to be a test of skill, until they took out the mechanical flippers and made them all electronic. There's no finesse anymore...
People have said it many times and will continue to say it...APT. APT is more than a program on debian (apt-get) that installs packages (.deb files) and handles dependencies. It is a library of functions that does exactly what you are talking about. It is designed to be portable, and only the misunderstanding by most people that it is tied to debian has held it back. Now that Connectiva has performed the (AFAIK) simple task of adding RPM support to the APT library, maybe we will see something happen with it. pkgtool for slack/BSD, SCO's (braindead) 'custom' package installer could all be added to APT.
Unfortunately, RedHat/Mandrake/Helix^H^H^H^H^HXimian/etc... and their "NIH" syndrome has caused each one to write continously *bad* implementations of tools that incorporate exactly the functionality that APT already has, rather than take APT as a "middle layer" library, tell it to use 'rpm', 'pkgtool', or 'dpkg' at the package level, and build a front-end to it that people will like.
This is the Unix philosophy, folks! Small programs/libraries that DO ONE THING *WELL*, chained together in such a way to perform complicated tasks, instead of big bloated monstrosities that do ten thousand things poorly (or ten thousand programs that do ten things poorly, as is the case with the package tools). rpm/pkgtool/dpkg are all perfect tools for installing and deinstalling packages. APT is the perfect tool for managing a large library of package sources and selecting/downloading and then installing (using the package tools native to the OS) packages based on dependencies. dselect/apt-get/gnome-apt and whatever front-ends the future holds need only be concerned with the actual user interface, not the intricacies of package management or installation.
BTW, to forestall any flames, I *have* used almost every installer/distro/updater/freenix out there at some point, and IMNSHO *all* of them have major flaws. Even debian, but the flaws I have troubles with are being solved rapidly, and it is shaping up to really stand head-and shoulders over everyone else.
How the hell does the money go to the artists??
If I am a small-time guy selling CD's out of my trunk, do I get a nice check every month from the government to recoup my losses from fair-use copying??
To answer your question, the US does it just like Germany, except the tax on "music" CDR's, Minidiscs, "music" DAT tapes, etc. goes to the big labels/distributors like Sony. Thus the rich guys keep getting richer....
For your information, most bands sign their rights over to the labels as part of their contract, and the label owns the copyright, *not* the band. Look at any CD you own, it says "(c)2000 Big Music Label", not "(c)2000 Your Favorite Band". This is one reason why bands start their own labels, so the label owns the copyright and they own the label. Then the label can approach the big guys (who are both label and distributor) for distribution power (i.e. getting the CD into Best Buy).
So the writer (which is usually the artist, except for no-talent shits like Britney and N-Sync) gets "songwriting credits" instead, not actual copyright ownership. They then get royalties for songwriting. The actual performers get whatever their contract says, whether it is an up-front total ($1 million per album for 5 albums, for example) or a percentage of record sales or both. Only a handful of bands have the clout to actually get a percentage. If they are also the writer, then they get songwriting royalties as well. This is one reason that artists usually make the lions share of their money touring, even if they are number one on the charts for months at a time.
It is all worked out to give the record industry the power and the money....
What he means is that when you buy a machine with windows preinstalled from approved vendors (Dell, Gateway) that have been certified "Digital Media Secured", you get a 'discount' (no media tax). When you buy a box of parts and build your machine, you pay an extra 'media tax'.
What happens when you are not even allowed to (re)install Windows or any other operating system because of the encryption and copy protections built into the hard drives and motherboard of your shiny new Dell machine? That's the Big Brother scenario the parent poster wanted to show an example of.
It's pretty hard to install onto a hard drive when the motherboard won't let you write to the drive without a Magic Decoder ring present....
Besides, I doubt I would ever download Slackware and install it, but that is a different debate....
That is a different case, the phrase "primus sucks" has been used by fans and encouraged by the band for many years. I doubt that the band would sue itself for having the primussucks.com domain.
;P
Now, the band might not like it if the people who own primus.com decided to tell everyone how good the band is....
Actually, Dell's current laptops run great with linux. I have an Inspiron 7500 (awesome machine, BTW) that ran like a champ under RH 6.2 and now debian potato.
The only problem I had is that early versions of the potato install disk wouldn't get an IP address via DHCP from the RH 6.1 DHCP server at work, but it would from the linksys broadband router at my house.
Since the authors own the copyright, they are allowed to change it at any point.
Say I release version 1.0 of libFoo. I realize that more people would use libFoo if it were LGPL or BSDL. So I can "re-release" 1.0 and future versions under the LGPL or BSDL, and not release any more versions under GPL. Anyone who uses the existing GPL'ed version must either adhere to the terms of the GPL, or switch to the newer version.
How about this? Or this? These shots are from raster's web page, and are actual screenshots. They aren't even from 0.17, but from 0.16+EFM.