No. But I'll go along with "Pasting more features on a project willy-nilly makes it less secure."
My comment about the smart people was just to point out that Microsoft, as a company, isn't stupid. They are in a security mess now, not because they are stupid, but because pasting features on projects worked for years.
As a Chief Architect, Bill Gates ought to be making strategic decisions about technology, and his design sense will matter little.
Steve Jobs, as CEO, does have input into the design process, but it is not fair to credit him with all of Apple's design successes. Apple as a company values design, and hires many designers; I guess it's fair to credit Steve Jobs with helping to create a company that values design.
But Steve Jobs can be a little too obsessed with aesthetics. He actually fought against putting a hard disk in a Macintosh computer, because he felt that it was more important that a Mac be silent than that it have a hard drive. He insisted that the NeXT "cube" computer be exactly 12"x12"x12", a size that had no functional significance.
A lot of games rely on being admin (The Sims. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (!??!!!?!)).
This is part of what I was thinking when I said "it has proven to be impossible to retrofit Windows to make it as secure as it should have been all along."
Because of the complete lack of security on early Windows versions, application writers developed some bad habits. I believe that the reason these games require admin access is simply that they insist on storing files in system directories; the game itself has no actual need for admin.
Now Microsoft has to choose between fixing the security or having all the apps keep running. I'm sure they are trying to get applications rewritten so they can run as a normal user. I'll bet that Microsoft will require apps to run as a normal user before it will give a "Designed for Longhorn" seal of approval.
The article says that IE is exploited so often because it is so popular. If Mozilla were as popular as IE, would it be just as often exploited?
It would not.
There are several reasons, but the biggest one is that Microsoft added some major features without ever considering the security implications. IE can install software on your system; this means you can use IE to implement Windows Update, which is kind of cool, but it also means that an exploit can use IE to put worms and viruses on your system. Firefox and the other web browsers do not have special permission from the OS to install things. In short, Microsoft spent a great deal of time and effort to tangle IE into the system, and that means that compromising IE compromises the system.
Microsoft was well served, for years, by a focus on features. Word 2.0 could be Word 1.0 plus a hundred new features; no need to redesign, just paste the features on top. As long as the applications ran on unconnected computers, this wasn't particularly a problem. Then as networking became more important, they still got away with it because a corporate intranet is still a pretty tame environment.
But now Microsoft software is out in the wild and wooly Internet and it isn't pretty. Features that were harmless or even useful in a private corporate intranet became big problems: apps that auto-execute scripts; the "Windows popup" service; remote execution; file sharing; dozens to hundreds of features, little and big, that were pasted on without any worrying about security.
Microsoft employs tens of thousands of smart people. They will improve their software, eventually. They need to start designing security in, and they need to give their developers and testers time to get the security really right, rather than trying to patch all the holes after release.
P.S. I think that another reason the free software is usually better designed falls out from the fact that free software is usually the work of small teams. Microsoft can write big specs and then have large teams go to work on them; if the teams aren't careful, their work can be a tangled mess. The free software projects tend to have clean, modular interfaces; this is partly because so often different pieces are coded up by people who don't even know each other. Also, the free software community values good design and good code, while Microsoft values features developed and shipped on time. (Good design and good code help the features to work and to ship on time, but for Microsoft the shipping is what is important.)
It makes no sense to choose the option of continually hacking at a program until it works as opposed to properly designing it from the start.
There is something to this, I guess. But that's the real trick, isn't it? The problem is that real life isn't like programming class in college.
In class you get an assignment like "write a program that sorts text lines using the quicksort algorithm." This simple statment is a pretty solid specification; it tells you everything you need to know about how to solve the problem. How many features does this project have? As described, exactly one. You might get fancy and add a case-insensitive flag; that's another feature.
In real life, you get a general description of a project, but the project implies dozens to hundreds of features. Your users may not even know exactly what they want. "Make something like the old system, but easier to use." You might spend a great deal of time designing some elaborate system, and then when the users actually see it they might send you back to the drawing board.
So the best approach is generally to try stuff. You might make a demo system that shows how your design will work, and try that out without writing any code. But you might also code up a minimal system that solves some useful subset of the problem, and test that on the users.
Another shining feature of the "useful subset" approach to a project is that if something suddenly changes, and instead of having another month on the project you suddenly have two days, you can ship what you have and it's better than nothing. As I read in an old programming textbook, 80% of the problem solved now is better than 100% of the problem solved six months from now.
Note that even if you are starting with a subset and evolving it towards a finished version, you still need to pay attention to the design of your program. For example, if you can design a clean interface between a "front end" (user interface) and a "back end" (the engine that does the work), then if the users demand a complete overhaul of the UI, it won't take nearly as long as if you had coded up a tangled mess.
One only has to compare the security woes of Microsoft or Linux with the rock-solid experience of OpenBSD for an example.
I'm not sure this is the best example you could have chosen. Linux and *BSD build on the UNIX tradition, and UNIX has had decades of incremental improvements. Some bored students in a computer lab figure out a way to crash the system; oops, fix that. After a few years of that, you hammer out the worst bugs.
But UNIX did start with a decent design, much more secure than the Windows design. Windows was designed for single users who always have admin privileges over the entire computer; it has proven to be impossible to retrofit Windows to make it as secure as it should have been all along. The Microsoft guys would have done well to have studied UNIX a bit more, and implemented some of the security features (even if the initial implementation were little more than a stub). As Henry Spencer said, "Those who do not understand UNIX are compelled to reinvent it. Poorly."
If i remember correctly apple actually recommends ipod users to drain the battery till the device "die" once every few months.
As manifest37 noted in this comment, Apple has a page with advice for managing your batteries. Here's the appropriate quote:
For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it's important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month. If you use your iPod infrequently (gasp), you might want to add a reminder to your calendar program.
So if you use your iPod all the time anyway, you don't need to do anything special.
I have been doing software RAID for years now, and I'm pleased with it. Even my K6-III/450 does a decent job with two 30 GB drives in a RAID 1; rebuilds take less than 40 minutes.
With a very inexpensive server built from an EPIA-M motherboard (VIA C3 processor, 1 GHz) I have a RAID 5 with three 120 GB drives. It rebuilds in about half an hour.
My latest server, also an EPIA-M with a 1 GHz C3, has a pair of Western Digital 40 GB hard drives in a RAID 1 mirror. I haven't had to do a full rebuild yet, but based on what it's been doing as I have been setting it up, I'd estimate a full rebuild as being under 20 minutes.
I have never had any trouble with my software RAID; it just works.
I already described how to set up a lean Debian system. But I would like suggestions on what would be the best system to run on a desktop computer with old hardware.
Here is what I think I know about this. A while ago I tried several systems on a Pentium 233 with 64MB of RAM.
GNOME -- if you can install enough memory (I recommend at least 256 MB) then this is actually a reasonable way to go, even on an older computer. But if you have a computer with limited RAM and no convenient way to upgrade it, stay away. (Maybe if you like GNOME 1.x, and can find it somewhere... no, I don't think so.)
Xfce -- getting better. Smaller, faster than GNOME. But when I tried it, it was still slower than I wanted.
IceWM -- actually, pretty nice! But IceWM itself is a window manager, and you need more than just that. So I suggest combining IceWM with ROX. I used ROX filer a few years ago, and I loved the speed. The whole ROX system looks pretty slick, and it's fast!
ROX is complicated enough to install (only old packages for Debian; they want to you use a new system called ZeroInstall now) that I didn't do a full-on install test of it. But if I had an actual need to run a desktop system on old hardware, I'd definitely use ROX plus IceWM.
But if you know something even better, please add a comment about it!
First, get a Debian installer. Install a Debian base system.
When the installer offers you the chance to install additional software, say no.
When the install is finished, you will have a minimal system, with a kernel and the most needed utilities. Most importantly, you will have Debian's APT tools (apt-get, etc.) with which to get more software.
Login as root, and run this command:
apt-get install aptitude
This will install a tool called aptitude, which is a friendly character-based (ncurses) package manager. You can search through packages, drill down through the hierarchy, see what depends on what, etc. aptitude is way, way better than dselect!
With Debian, you can install just enough stuff to run. For example, using apt-get or aptitude, you can ask for Gnumeric (the GNU spreadsheet for GNOME) and the system will install just enough of GNOME for Gnumeric to run. (Libraries and such.) If you manually install something like Xfce or IceWM, you can then run GNOME applications without a full-blown GNOME environment. The same goes for KDE.
With Debian, it is possible to recompile all your packages for your computer, but the tools to do it aren't as convenient as the tools in Gentoo. But it is convenient to compile your own kernel, and that's most of the battle right there.
If you want to set up a server, and know exactly what is installed and running on the server, Debian is ideal.
But this seems to mostly be a labor of love for a small group of developers... in other words, it's not progressing quickly.
At the moment you can make a RULE install of Red Hat Linux 8 or 9. What's cool is that they made an installer that can run in 12 MB of RAM!
They said they are working on Fedora Core 2, but I don't know when they will be done.
I am a Debian fan so I found the Red Hat-ness of RULE a bit uncomfortable. But if you like Red Hat then by all means check this out.
steveha
Re:I'd be happy to get a debian based distro to wo
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I suggest you run Memtest86 and see if you have any errors in your system RAM. I just spent a bunch of time trying to install Ubuntu on a new computer, and finally ran Memtest86 and discovered that my brand-new RAM had an error.
You can run Memtest86 from the Ubuntu "live CD". Or you can download a special Memtest86 CD image from the Memtest86 site:
Re:Debian can be thought of as 3 parts...
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Whoops! I said:
you can install Ubuntu Linux, and Ubuntu has packaged 0.10
That's not correct. Ubuntu currently has 0.9.3, same as Debian Unstable. Sorry about the error.
I still recommend Ubuntu; it's slick.
steveha
Re:Debian can be thought of as 3 parts...
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The only thing that confuses me at current is why my Firefox is only avaiable up to version 0.9.3, even in 'testing'...
The latest version is in Debian Experimental. It is possible to install it. I don't know what is holding it up from releasing into Unstable, but there are two things I can think of: Debian takes great care to do the right thing with cross-platform and international versions, and Debian takes great care with the packaging. If 0.10 made changes that affected the localisation, or if 0.10 made changes that affected the Firefox plugins, that could cause problems that would keep the package in Experimental. (Debian actually packages the plugins for Firefox! If Firefox breaks the plugin spec, and old plugins won't work, Debian won't update Firefox until they get new versions of all the plugins; when you do finally get an update to Firefox, all your plugins will automatically update, which is nice.)
There is some black magic you can invoke to get Experimental packages; it is explained here. (That page is about GNOME 2.8, which is in Experimental right now, but the same trick would work for Firefox.) Or you could go here and download the package, and use "dpkg -i" to manually install just that package.
Note that if you just use x86 or PowerPC, you can install Ubuntu Linux, and Ubuntu has packaged 0.10 so you will get it. It also has GNOME 2.8, Evolution 2.0, and just generally cutting-edge software. Ubuntu is planning a 6-month upgrade cycle, so they should be on top of new software as it comes out. Ubuntu is built on top of Debian, so all the basic Debian goodness is there. I'm using Ubuntu and I love it.
it was only the beta that ran as root and they quickly fixed that
Definitely not true. I wrote a review of Lindows 4.0, and it definitely installed with the user running as root. At one point it prompted you for an "optional system password"... that's the root password. That's right, it was perfectly content to default to no password on root.
It was possible to set up user accounts, but the system would be slightly broken (one example here). I wrote an article about that too.
Now that Lindows is Linspire and they have come out with a new version, did they change that? I haven't tested anything newer than 4.0, but it looks like the user still runs as root.
At my home, on my network, we have several computers and several printers. We can change the print quality, and turn duplexing on and off for our DeskJet 970C.
Most of our applications are GNOME applications, and the GNOME native print dialogs let you choose most of the settings you want.
For applications that don't have GNOME print dialogs, such as FireFox, we use gtklp for printing. This collects the print job in a file and then pops up a nice dialog interface that lets you select options.
I'm sorry, but I cannot agree that Jobs is "right".
He not only killed the Newton, he refused to allow third-party Newton fans to buy the Newton and keep it going. At the time I thought that was because he was planning to introduce an Apple-branded PDA, but clearly he had no such plans. So the Newton wouldn't really compete with anything he had to sell; so his refusal to sell it must have been for another reason.
I have seen many people claim that he killed the Newton because it was never "his" project in any way (started up after he was kicked out). From what I know of him, this is plausible.
He may say now that phones will kill PDAs, but I really doubt that is what he was thinking at the time he killed the Newton.
Apple just cut off the Newton, stone cold, and I feel that was a betrayal of all the loyal Newton and eMate customers. Refusing to sell the Newton technology was a second betrayal.
Rabid OS/2 fans like to say that Microsoft betrayed them. But Microsoft handed off OS/2 to IBM, so it's not exactly like OS/2 was kicked out into the cold. Apple had the chance to hand off Newton and Jobs chose otherwise.
This is changing. Ubuntu Linux is based on Debian GNU/Linux; Debian has over 10,000 packages but Ubuntu has only about 1,000. Ubuntu comes with a sensible loadout of software by default: one email client, one web browser, etc. It's still Debian so you can still swap things out if you like, but for people who just want a system that works, they won't have to choose from seven web browsers.
Bruce Perens's User Linux project likewise is choosing one of each category for default.
By the way, Debian is set up such that it's easy to get a lean system just the way you want it. Install the Debian base system, and don't add any optional packages. Use "apt-get install aptitude" to get the "aptitude" tool, a convenient way to browse and choose packages. Now go through and pick the things you actually want, such as the Firefox web browser, and a minimal system with your choices will be installed. It's easy and fun.
In short, anyone who has already switched to a *NIX desktop (GNOME, KDE, Xfce, whatever) is unlikely to be tempted by an x86 OSX.
Actually, I have to agree with the folks who said this is overstating the case a bit. Some people, given the chance, would switch; several of them replied to my original post.
There would be a wave of people who like OSX, but not enough to buy Mac hardware, who would buy OSX for x86. Anytime you make something easier to do, more people will do it. But Apple makes money on their hardware, and they simply won't port OSX to x86, so it's academic.
I wouldn't switch, because I'm perfectly happy with GNOME running on a Linux kernel.
OSX is really pretty. But GNOME is pretty enough for me. I love the clean, tidy look, and the antialiased fonts. And I have chosen a desktop theme that I like.
OSX is really stable. So is GNOME.
If you want to try out GNOME, the best way is to install Ubuntu Linux on a spare computer. (It doesn't have to be a brand-new computer, but the older and funkier the computer is, the greater the chance of a problem.)
The easiest way to try out GNOME is to get a Gnoppix CD. You boot from this CD and it will run GNOME on a Linux kernel, without touching your hard disk in any way. So you don't risk your data. And by the way, this makes a great disaster recovery tool, even if you are a Windows user and you aren't ready to switch yet.
I'll bet there is someone writing a "KDE works for me" posting right now too. KDE is also a good environment, although I personally prefer GNOME. To try out KDE, you could get a Knoppix CD. This works the same way as Gnoppix (and in fact Gnoppix was derived from Knoppix, not the other way around).
In short, anyone who has already switched to a *NIX desktop (GNOME, KDE, Xfce, whatever) is unlikely to be tempted by an x86 OSX.
steveha
Backup computer for dynamically unstable aircraft?
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Modern fighter aircraft are dynamically unstable, and cannot be flown with simple mechanical controls; you need a flight computer and a "fly-by-wire" system.
So, in theory, an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) could make a fighter airplane crash by knocking out the computer that keeps it stable in the air.
The F-16 is one of these dynamically unstable aircraft. I thought I had read, years ago, that the F-16 has a fluidic backup computer that is smart enough to keep it flying if the main computer goes down. However, I have been Googling, trying to find a web page to back up this memory, and I haven't found anything. Maybe my memory is wrong.
Whether it has already been done or not, this seems like something the military would be interested in.
I'm wondering whether the "Data Soup" concept will be adopted by any major free, open source software (FOSS) system.
The Newton, the Canon Cat, the shareware word processor Yeah Write, all had some kind of system where the user didn't need to worry about files. (I don't really know enough about the Newton data soup to comment on how similar or dissimilar these all were to it.)
The only project along these lines that I know of is Gnome Storage.
PalmOne just abandoned the Universal Connector. This is mind-bogglingly stupid.
Every time they change their connector, they kill all the accessories that work with that connector. I don't know why any third-party companies would ever make accessories for PalmOne PDA ever again.
If I bought a T5, I wouldn't be able to use my folding keyboard with it, my modem, or my rechargeable battery pack. I guess I could buy new ones, but no thank you, since the ones I have work so well.
I suppose they are doing this because the new connector costs them less money. The Universal Connector has both USB and a serial port, and a whole bunch of little pins. If I were in a good mood, I might say that a manufacturing company does need to keep an eye on their cost of goods.
But Palm has changed their connector so many times now! The third-party accessory makers were unhappy when Palm adopted it, but Palm promised this was the last connector change, honest. Last for three years, I guess.
And what kind of crack are they smoking... stereo out through the connector? Oh, I guess they weren't trying to keep an eye on costs after all. An iPod has stereo out through the connector, and that's valuable because you can have hours of music on one. A Palm PDA can play music, and that's valuable because you have it with you wherever you go, and you don't need to carry both a PDA and a music player. But how valuable is it to have a PDA that can play a couple of hours of music while it is in its cradle? How hard is it to plug speakers into the stereo headphones jack, anyway?
Palm has forgotten the mantra of the original developers that made the Palm III such a success -- keep it small. The Tungsten T is just barely carryable
Huh?
The Tungsten T is much, much smaller than a Palm III. It's thinner too.
Slashdot Mirror
The basic defense against libel is: if it's a true statement, it's not libel.
;-)
Since spammers are evil, you should be in the clear...
Note: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, and please play nice with the other kids.
steveha
No. But I'll go along with "Pasting more features on a project willy-nilly makes it less secure."
My comment about the smart people was just to point out that Microsoft, as a company, isn't stupid. They are in a security mess now, not because they are stupid, but because pasting features on projects worked for years.
steveha
As a Chief Architect, Bill Gates ought to be making strategic decisions about technology, and his design sense will matter little.
Steve Jobs, as CEO, does have input into the design process, but it is not fair to credit him with all of Apple's design successes. Apple as a company values design, and hires many designers; I guess it's fair to credit Steve Jobs with helping to create a company that values design.
But Steve Jobs can be a little too obsessed with aesthetics. He actually fought against putting a hard disk in a Macintosh computer, because he felt that it was more important that a Mac be silent than that it have a hard drive. He insisted that the NeXT "cube" computer be exactly 12"x12"x12", a size that had no functional significance.
steveha
A lot of games rely on being admin (The Sims. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (!??!!!?!)).
This is part of what I was thinking when I said "it has proven to be impossible to retrofit Windows to make it as secure as it should have been all along."
Because of the complete lack of security on early Windows versions, application writers developed some bad habits. I believe that the reason these games require admin access is simply that they insist on storing files in system directories; the game itself has no actual need for admin.
Now Microsoft has to choose between fixing the security or having all the apps keep running. I'm sure they are trying to get applications rewritten so they can run as a normal user. I'll bet that Microsoft will require apps to run as a normal user before it will give a "Designed for Longhorn" seal of approval.
steveha
The article says that IE is exploited so often because it is so popular. If Mozilla were as popular as IE, would it be just as often exploited?
It would not.
There are several reasons, but the biggest one is that Microsoft added some major features without ever considering the security implications. IE can install software on your system; this means you can use IE to implement Windows Update, which is kind of cool, but it also means that an exploit can use IE to put worms and viruses on your system. Firefox and the other web browsers do not have special permission from the OS to install things. In short, Microsoft spent a great deal of time and effort to tangle IE into the system, and that means that compromising IE compromises the system.
Microsoft was well served, for years, by a focus on features. Word 2.0 could be Word 1.0 plus a hundred new features; no need to redesign, just paste the features on top. As long as the applications ran on unconnected computers, this wasn't particularly a problem. Then as networking became more important, they still got away with it because a corporate intranet is still a pretty tame environment.
But now Microsoft software is out in the wild and wooly Internet and it isn't pretty. Features that were harmless or even useful in a private corporate intranet became big problems: apps that auto-execute scripts; the "Windows popup" service; remote execution; file sharing; dozens to hundreds of features, little and big, that were pasted on without any worrying about security.
Microsoft employs tens of thousands of smart people. They will improve their software, eventually. They need to start designing security in, and they need to give their developers and testers time to get the security really right, rather than trying to patch all the holes after release.
P.S. I think that another reason the free software is usually better designed falls out from the fact that free software is usually the work of small teams. Microsoft can write big specs and then have large teams go to work on them; if the teams aren't careful, their work can be a tangled mess. The free software projects tend to have clean, modular interfaces; this is partly because so often different pieces are coded up by people who don't even know each other. Also, the free software community values good design and good code, while Microsoft values features developed and shipped on time. (Good design and good code help the features to work and to ship on time, but for Microsoft the shipping is what is important.)
steveha
It makes no sense to choose the option of continually hacking at a program until it works as opposed to properly designing it from the start.
There is something to this, I guess. But that's the real trick, isn't it? The problem is that real life isn't like programming class in college.
In class you get an assignment like "write a program that sorts text lines using the quicksort algorithm." This simple statment is a pretty solid specification; it tells you everything you need to know about how to solve the problem. How many features does this project have? As described, exactly one. You might get fancy and add a case-insensitive flag; that's another feature.
In real life, you get a general description of a project, but the project implies dozens to hundreds of features. Your users may not even know exactly what they want. "Make something like the old system, but easier to use." You might spend a great deal of time designing some elaborate system, and then when the users actually see it they might send you back to the drawing board.
So the best approach is generally to try stuff. You might make a demo system that shows how your design will work, and try that out without writing any code. But you might also code up a minimal system that solves some useful subset of the problem, and test that on the users.
Another shining feature of the "useful subset" approach to a project is that if something suddenly changes, and instead of having another month on the project you suddenly have two days, you can ship what you have and it's better than nothing. As I read in an old programming textbook, 80% of the problem solved now is better than 100% of the problem solved six months from now.
Note that even if you are starting with a subset and evolving it towards a finished version, you still need to pay attention to the design of your program. For example, if you can design a clean interface between a "front end" (user interface) and a "back end" (the engine that does the work), then if the users demand a complete overhaul of the UI, it won't take nearly as long as if you had coded up a tangled mess.
One only has to compare the security woes of Microsoft or Linux with the rock-solid experience of OpenBSD for an example.
I'm not sure this is the best example you could have chosen. Linux and *BSD build on the UNIX tradition, and UNIX has had decades of incremental improvements. Some bored students in a computer lab figure out a way to crash the system; oops, fix that. After a few years of that, you hammer out the worst bugs.
But UNIX did start with a decent design, much more secure than the Windows design. Windows was designed for single users who always have admin privileges over the entire computer; it has proven to be impossible to retrofit Windows to make it as secure as it should have been all along. The Microsoft guys would have done well to have studied UNIX a bit more, and implemented some of the security features (even if the initial implementation were little more than a stub). As Henry Spencer said, "Those who do not understand UNIX are compelled to reinvent it. Poorly."
steveha
As manifest37 noted in this comment, Apple has a page with advice for managing your batteries. Here's the appropriate quote:
So if you use your iPod all the time anyway, you don't need to do anything special.
steveha
I have been doing software RAID for years now, and I'm pleased with it. Even my K6-III/450 does a decent job with two 30 GB drives in a RAID 1; rebuilds take less than 40 minutes.
With a very inexpensive server built from an EPIA-M motherboard (VIA C3 processor, 1 GHz) I have a RAID 5 with three 120 GB drives. It rebuilds in about half an hour.
My latest server, also an EPIA-M with a 1 GHz C3, has a pair of Western Digital 40 GB hard drives in a RAID 1 mirror. I haven't had to do a full rebuild yet, but based on what it's been doing as I have been setting it up, I'd estimate a full rebuild as being under 20 minutes.
I have never had any trouble with my software RAID; it just works.
steveha
Here is what I think I know about this. A while ago I tried several systems on a Pentium 233 with 64MB of RAM.
GNOME -- if you can install enough memory (I recommend at least 256 MB) then this is actually a reasonable way to go, even on an older computer. But if you have a computer with limited RAM and no convenient way to upgrade it, stay away. (Maybe if you like GNOME 1.x, and can find it somewhere... no, I don't think so.)
Xfce -- getting better. Smaller, faster than GNOME. But when I tried it, it was still slower than I wanted.
IceWM -- actually, pretty nice! But IceWM itself is a window manager, and you need more than just that. So I suggest combining IceWM with ROX.
I used ROX filer a few years ago, and I loved the speed. The whole ROX system looks pretty slick, and it's fast!
ROX is complicated enough to install (only old packages for Debian; they want to you use a new system called ZeroInstall now) that I didn't do a full-on install test of it. But if I had an actual need to run a desktop system on old hardware, I'd definitely use ROX plus IceWM.
But if you know something even better, please add a comment about it!
steveha
First, get a Debian installer. Install a Debian base system.
When the installer offers you the chance to install additional software, say no.
When the install is finished, you will have a minimal system, with a kernel and the most needed utilities. Most importantly, you will have Debian's APT tools (apt-get, etc.) with which to get more software.
Login as root, and run this command:
apt-get install aptitude
This will install a tool called aptitude, which is a friendly character-based (ncurses) package manager. You can search through packages, drill down through the hierarchy, see what depends on what, etc. aptitude is way, way better than dselect!
With Debian, you can install just enough stuff to run. For example, using apt-get or aptitude, you can ask for Gnumeric (the GNU spreadsheet for GNOME) and the system will install just enough of GNOME for Gnumeric to run. (Libraries and such.) If you manually install something like Xfce or IceWM, you can then run GNOME applications without a full-blown GNOME environment. The same goes for KDE.
With Debian, it is possible to recompile all your packages for your computer, but the tools to do it aren't as convenient as the tools in Gentoo. But it is convenient to compile your own kernel, and that's most of the battle right there.
If you want to set up a server, and know exactly what is installed and running on the server, Debian is ideal.
steveha
There is also the RULE project: Run Up-to-date Linux Everywhere.
http://www.rule-project.org/
But this seems to mostly be a labor of love for a small group of developers... in other words, it's not progressing quickly.
At the moment you can make a RULE install of Red Hat Linux 8 or 9. What's cool is that they made an installer that can run in 12 MB of RAM!
They said they are working on Fedora Core 2, but I don't know when they will be done.
I am a Debian fan so I found the Red Hat-ness of RULE a bit uncomfortable. But if you like Red Hat then by all means check this out.
steveha
I suggest you run Memtest86 and see if you have any errors in your system RAM. I just spent a bunch of time trying to install Ubuntu on a new computer, and finally ran Memtest86 and discovered that my brand-new RAM had an error.
You can run Memtest86 from the Ubuntu "live CD". Or you can download a special Memtest86 CD image from the Memtest86 site:
http://www.memtest86.com/
steveha
Whoops! I said:
you can install Ubuntu Linux, and Ubuntu has packaged 0.10
That's not correct. Ubuntu currently has 0.9.3, same as Debian Unstable. Sorry about the error.
I still recommend Ubuntu; it's slick.
steveha
The only thing that confuses me at current is why my Firefox is only avaiable up to version 0.9.3, even in 'testing'...
The latest version is in Debian Experimental. It is possible to install it. I don't know what is holding it up from releasing into Unstable, but there are two things I can think of: Debian takes great care to do the right thing with cross-platform and international versions, and Debian takes great care with the packaging. If 0.10 made changes that affected the localisation, or if 0.10 made changes that affected the Firefox plugins, that could cause problems that would keep the package in Experimental. (Debian actually packages the plugins for Firefox! If Firefox breaks the plugin spec, and old plugins won't work, Debian won't update Firefox until they get new versions of all the plugins; when you do finally get an update to Firefox, all your plugins will automatically update, which is nice.)
There is some black magic you can invoke to get Experimental packages; it is explained here. (That page is about GNOME 2.8, which is in Experimental right now, but the same trick would work for Firefox.) Or you could go here and download the package, and use "dpkg -i" to manually install just that package.
Note that if you just use x86 or PowerPC, you can install Ubuntu Linux, and Ubuntu has packaged 0.10 so you will get it. It also has GNOME 2.8, Evolution 2.0, and just generally cutting-edge software. Ubuntu is planning a 6-month upgrade cycle, so they should be on top of new software as it comes out. Ubuntu is built on top of Debian, so all the basic Debian goodness is there. I'm using Ubuntu and I love it.
steveha
it was only the beta that ran as root and they quickly fixed that
Definitely not true. I wrote a review of Lindows 4.0, and it definitely installed with the user running as root. At one point it prompted you for an "optional system password"... that's the root password. That's right, it was perfectly content to default to no password on root.
It was possible to set up user accounts, but the system would be slightly broken (one example here). I wrote an article about that too.
Now that Lindows is Linspire and they have come out with a new version, did they change that? I haven't tested anything newer than 4.0, but it looks like the user still runs as root.
steveha
Who came up with these names?
hip-e node
hip-e hangout
nodeboard
playme
reachme
gagme.
steveha
At my home, on my network, we have several computers and several printers. We can change the print quality, and turn duplexing on and off for our DeskJet 970C.
Most of our applications are GNOME applications, and the GNOME native print dialogs let you choose most of the settings you want.
For applications that don't have GNOME print dialogs, such as FireFox, we use gtklp for printing. This collects the print job in a file and then pops up a nice dialog interface that lets you select options.
steveha
I'm sorry, but I cannot agree that Jobs is "right".
He not only killed the Newton, he refused to allow third-party Newton fans to buy the Newton and keep it going. At the time I thought that was because he was planning to introduce an Apple-branded PDA, but clearly he had no such plans. So the Newton wouldn't really compete with anything he had to sell; so his refusal to sell it must have been for another reason.
I have seen many people claim that he killed the Newton because it was never "his" project in any way (started up after he was kicked out). From what I know of him, this is plausible.
He may say now that phones will kill PDAs, but I really doubt that is what he was thinking at the time he killed the Newton.
Apple just cut off the Newton, stone cold, and I feel that was a betrayal of all the loyal Newton and eMate customers. Refusing to sell the Newton technology was a second betrayal.
Rabid OS/2 fans like to say that Microsoft betrayed them. But Microsoft handed off OS/2 to IBM, so it's not exactly like OS/2 was kicked out into the cold. Apple had the chance to hand off Newton and Jobs chose otherwise.
steveha
Default installs are crammed so full of cruft
This is changing. Ubuntu Linux is based on Debian GNU/Linux; Debian has over 10,000 packages but Ubuntu has only about 1,000. Ubuntu comes with a sensible loadout of software by default: one email client, one web browser, etc. It's still Debian so you can still swap things out if you like, but for people who just want a system that works, they won't have to choose from seven web browsers.
Bruce Perens's User Linux project likewise is choosing one of each category for default.
By the way, Debian is set up such that it's easy to get a lean system just the way you want it. Install the Debian base system, and don't add any optional packages. Use "apt-get install aptitude" to get the "aptitude" tool, a convenient way to browse and choose packages. Now go through and pick the things you actually want, such as the Firefox web browser, and a minimal system with your choices will be installed. It's easy and fun.
steveha
In short, anyone who has already switched to a *NIX desktop (GNOME, KDE, Xfce, whatever) is unlikely to be tempted by an x86 OSX.
Actually, I have to agree with the folks who said this is overstating the case a bit. Some people, given the chance, would switch; several of them replied to my original post.
There would be a wave of people who like OSX, but not enough to buy Mac hardware, who would buy OSX for x86. Anytime you make something easier to do, more people will do it. But Apple makes money on their hardware, and they simply won't port OSX to x86, so it's academic.
steveha
I wouldn't switch, because I'm perfectly happy with GNOME running on a Linux kernel.
OSX is really pretty. But GNOME is pretty enough for me. I love the clean, tidy look, and the antialiased fonts. And I have chosen a desktop theme that I like.
OSX is really stable. So is GNOME.
If you want to try out GNOME, the best way is to install Ubuntu Linux on a spare computer. (It doesn't have to be a brand-new computer, but the older and funkier the computer is, the greater the chance of a problem.)
The easiest way to try out GNOME is to get a Gnoppix CD. You boot from this CD and it will run GNOME on a Linux kernel, without touching your hard disk in any way. So you don't risk your data. And by the way, this makes a great disaster recovery tool, even if you are a Windows user and you aren't ready to switch yet.
I'll bet there is someone writing a "KDE works for me" posting right now too. KDE is also a good environment, although I personally prefer GNOME. To try out KDE, you could get a Knoppix CD. This works the same way as Gnoppix (and in fact Gnoppix was derived from Knoppix, not the other way around).
In short, anyone who has already switched to a *NIX desktop (GNOME, KDE, Xfce, whatever) is unlikely to be tempted by an x86 OSX.
steveha
Modern fighter aircraft are dynamically unstable, and cannot be flown with simple mechanical controls; you need a flight computer and a "fly-by-wire" system.
So, in theory, an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) could make a fighter airplane crash by knocking out the computer that keeps it stable in the air.
The F-16 is one of these dynamically unstable aircraft. I thought I had read, years ago, that the F-16 has a fluidic backup computer that is smart enough to keep it flying if the main computer goes down. However, I have been Googling, trying to find a web page to back up this memory, and I haven't found anything. Maybe my memory is wrong.
Whether it has already been done or not, this seems like something the military would be interested in.
steveha
I'm wondering whether the "Data Soup" concept will be adopted by any major free, open source software (FOSS) system.
The Newton, the Canon Cat, the shareware word processor Yeah Write, all had some kind of system where the user didn't need to worry about files. (I don't really know enough about the Newton data soup to comment on how similar or dissimilar these all were to it.)
The only project along these lines that I know of is Gnome Storage.
steveha
PalmOne just abandoned the Universal Connector. This is mind-bogglingly stupid.
Every time they change their connector, they kill all the accessories that work with that connector. I don't know why any third-party companies would ever make accessories for PalmOne PDA ever again.
If I bought a T5, I wouldn't be able to use my folding keyboard with it, my modem, or my rechargeable battery pack. I guess I could buy new ones, but no thank you, since the ones I have work so well.
I suppose they are doing this because the new connector costs them less money. The Universal Connector has both USB and a serial port, and a whole bunch of little pins. If I were in a good mood, I might say that a manufacturing company does need to keep an eye on their cost of goods.
But Palm has changed their connector so many times now! The third-party accessory makers were unhappy when Palm adopted it, but Palm promised this was the last connector change, honest. Last for three years, I guess.
And what kind of crack are they smoking... stereo out through the connector? Oh, I guess they weren't trying to keep an eye on costs after all. An iPod has stereo out through the connector, and that's valuable because you can have hours of music on one. A Palm PDA can play music, and that's valuable because you have it with you wherever you go, and you don't need to carry both a PDA and a music player. But how valuable is it to have a PDA that can play a couple of hours of music while it is in its cradle? How hard is it to plug speakers into the stereo headphones jack, anyway?
steveha
Palm has forgotten the mantra of the original developers that made the Palm III such a success -- keep it small. The Tungsten T is just barely carryable
Huh?
The Tungsten T is much, much smaller than a Palm III. It's thinner too.
steveha