Hmm, when I read your post I thought I'd come here and suggest Subversion. Seems everyone else has done the same.
You really should use it. It's much easier to set up than you'd think, especially if you're on a Debian/Ubuntu box. If you use the file:/// syntax, you don't even need any kind of daemon or http server running; the client can do everything on its own. Say your thesis is currently sitting in ~/thesis, it's this easy to set up:
That's it, you're done. ~/thesis is now a working copy of your repository, the repository itself (which will hold all versions of your files) is contained in ~/thesisrepo, and your original folder is backed up as ~/thesisbackup.
To work on your thesis, go into ~/thesis and start writing as you've always done. When you want to save a snapshot of the current state of your thesis (i.e. commit your changes), open a bash terminal, go into ~/thesis and type svn ci -m "some message". That's it. Much easier than running a backup; you can just stick it in a daily (even hourly) cron job. To back up all versions of the thesis on removable media, tar up the ~/thesisrepo folder and put it somewhere safe.
There's a bit more to know about it; namely you need to tell subversion when you add, remove, move or rename files. A good source for that is the Subversion Book, specifically Chapter 2.
That wouldn't work. The system wouldn't work because it's just too complicated for end-users, but the reason the pricing wouldn't work is because craplet suppliers are not going to pay Dell to install them when users are being offered the opportunity to bypass them.
Unfortunately, if Linux becomes popular, what is probably going to happen is we'll simply see the same craplets pre-installed on Linux. At that point, your dual-boot pricing scheme would work, but people still won't want it.
The general population never even got enough of a whiff of vista to stop buying PCs with it on it. That's just not the case. Word of mouth goes a very long way in computers; people don't know what to buy, so they ask the local computer geek. He's the guy who will tell them to avoid Vista at all costs.
I know several laypeople who have purchased computers with Vista, and they go out of their way to tell people how bad it is. You could walk up to anyone on the street and ask them what they know about Vista, and I'd be willing to bet a significant fraction of them could tell you they've heard bad things about it.
It's called XP. If you think for one second that users who migrated from XP to vista and hated vista are more willing to go to an "unknown" OS versus going back to XP you are out of your mind. I completely agree. The fact that Dell is re-introducing XP confirms this. However, Ubuntu desktop computers are not likely to show up for many more months, and Windows has already stated that they're not allowing manufacturers to sell XP OEM in 2008.
People are certainly more willing to go back to XP, but pretty soon they won't have the choice.
There is enough stuff out there today for Joe to get his taste of Linux if he's interested. No, there isn't. How many people can install an operating system? It's not even a matter of making it easy for them; most people are just too afraid to try. A preloaded machine from a major manufacturer with full customer support gives them the comfort they need to go with it, and the stability and total lack of viruses or spyware is the selling point.
You can be sure that Canonical and Dell have been in talks about this for a very long time Do you really think Dell waited for Vista's release before figuring out it would be bad for business?
Vista had been in beta-testing for a year and a half. The negative press about Vista has been rolling in for YEARS. Dell knew full well it would be a disaster long before the release. So yes, they probably started talks with Canonical well over a year ago, and I stand by my statement that it was heavily influenced by Vista.
What I could end envisioning though, is a slew of botnets and bruteforcing ssh hosts because of things like this though. As opposed to the situation we have now?
The problem with Windows machines is that you don't just get Windows; you get Windows and a pile of craplets, which companies are paying Dell to supply to you. Windows can have a negative price tag on low-end computers because the cost is offset by all the garbage your computer comes filled with.
The reason Vista made this happen is because the general population hated Vista *so much* that they just stopped buying computers. That's very bad for Dell's business, which sent them looking for alternatives.
We definitely owe it to Microsoft. This is our chance to open up the desktop market; here's hoping we don't screw it up.
We've had a dozen front-page posts about Starcraft 2, and it doesn't even exist yet. Should we ignore articles about it just because it's not going to be open-source?
Soldat is important because it doesn't rely on cutting-edge graphics; it revitalizes the 2D sidescroller genre from the days of Duke Nukem, long thought to be dead due to 3D graphics. The fact that Soldat is popular should come as a reminder to game development studios that we care about gameplay and fun more than graphics.
Re:I guess Earth will be around for a little longe
on
The Solar Oxygen Crisis
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Actually, Earth might not be swallowed up when the sun turns into a red giant. The sun will expand to over 1 AU, but that will take several billion years; meanwhile Earth's orbit is slowly drifting outward. By the time the sun expands, Earth might be out at the distance of Jupiter or so.
Don't quote me on this. I don't have any real source; I just read it on How to destroy the Earth.
With numbers like these it amazes me that humans can make the slightest dent. That's why the whole global warming debate exists. Some scientists think we can't, simply because it's just too damn big.
Um - did you forget how the CO2 got there in the first place? You burned carbon with oxygen. Meaning if you remove the CO2, you also remove oxygen. As I said, this fact is irrelevant. The mass of the atmosphere is five million billion tons, which means there are more than a million billion tons of oxygen in the atmosphere. I don't know for sure, but I'd be willing to bet that aerobic life doesn't use anywhere near this amount of oxygen. Even if we eradicated plants and sunk all the CO2 we breathe instead of releasing the oxygen, we probably wouldn't have any appreciable impact on the oxygen content of the atmosphere for millions of years.
Your post doesn't make any sense. If we start stripping CO2 out of the atmosphere, it will not (immediately) affect the amount of oxygen. They are two entirely different molecules which interact differently with matter, and in this context the fact that CO2 actually contains oxygen nuclei is irrelevant.
In any case, the atmosphere is 20.946% oxygen and 0.038% carbon dioxide (by volume). Even if we strip all the carbon out, the overall amount of oxygen nuclei in the atmosphere will remain essentially unchanged.
Obviously removing ALL of the CO2 would be an insanely bad idea; not because we'd be removing oxygen from the atmosphere, but because all the plants would die.
Yes, but the paper companies only plant single species fast growing trees. Exactly, and that's what goes into paper. We're not cutting down the rain forests. Something like 80% of the pulp that goes into paper comes from tree farms. By recycling paper, you're ensuring that less trees get planted. If you want more trees, waste more paper.
It's not hard to understand. Say five of us are living in a closed environment (i.e. earth). All five of us want to eat potatoes. Okay, so we'll plant a five foot wide garden. What if ten of us want potatoes? We'll planet a ten foot wide garden. What if ten of us want to eat twice as many potatoes? We'll plant a twenty foot wide garden.
Now say five of us want to use paper. We'll plant five trees. What if ten of us want paper? We'll plant ten trees. What if we want twice as much paper, even if we're just throwing half away? We'll plant twenty trees. What if we recycle half that paper? Oh, now we don't need twenty trees anymore; we'll only plant ten.
I'm not saying recycling is bad, but the allegation that we're chopping down the rain forests is just plain wrong; it's sensationalism. We've been planting tree farms for over fifty years, and that's what we use today to make paper. That's why the amount of trees in North America has been steadily growing over the past hundred years. There are more trees today than there has ever been, and the simple reason is because we use a lot of paper.
Steps 5 through 10 are the user's choice and has nothing to do with the installation of Windows. Each one of those components is in the base install. You may not like them and may want to use something else, but they're there. GP was providing a list of steps required to get the equivalent functionality of a new Feisty installation out of a new Windows installation.
A default Feisty installation comes with full drivers for everything (printers, scanners, etc), a fully featured enterprise-level office suite, a powerful and secure internet browser, an organizer and email client, a decent image editor, a PDF reader, a photo manager, CD burning software, Video and DVD playback software (less codecs), a zip/rar/tar/7z/bz2 archive tool, a BitTorrent client, built-in interpreters for a variety languages including Python and Perl, no superfluous services to chew up your CPU cycles, and access to a colossal library of software where you can simultaneously install literally thousands of applications at the click of a button.
It would take hours, even days of painstaking labor and endless reboots to get a Windows box up to this level of utility. That's why tools like InstallPad exist, and they give you only a small teaser of what the Ubuntu software library is like.
The procedure's a bit different, but (assuming you stuck with the default KDE), then yes, it's essentially the same thing with Kubuntu; run K -> System -> Adept Manager, enable edgy-updates, update everything, then restart Adept Manager and a version upgrade will be offered.
First make sure your computer is fully up to date (with Edgy). Then follow these instructions:
1. Open System -> Administration -> Update Manager
2. A button on the top of the window will appear, informing you of the availability of the new release
3. Click Upgrade
4. Follow the on-screen instructions
That page also has a link on how to upgrade manually from a command-line, but it's not recommended.
Exactly. The only reason 90% of people use Automatix is to install codecs, but it's actually easier to install codecs directly than it is to install Automatix. Here's where you should go to install codecs:
Are you serious? Why? Are you worried that they'll eventually patch it enough that it will be unbreakable?
If hackers wait until AACS is as ubiquitous as CSS is today before announcing a crack, then AACS will be a success. It needs to be cracked as soon as possible and as often as possible to show that DRM doesn't work.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, when I read your post I thought I'd come here and suggest Subversion. Seems everyone else has done the same.
You really should use it. It's much easier to set up than you'd think, especially if you're on a Debian/Ubuntu box. If you use the file:/// syntax, you don't even need any kind of daemon or http server running; the client can do everything on its own. Say your thesis is currently sitting in ~/thesis, it's this easy to set up:
sudo apt-get install subversion
svnadmin create ~/thesisrepo
svn import ~/thesis file:///home/${USER}/thesisrepo -m "Initial import"
mv thesis thesisbackup
svn co file:///home/${USER}/thesisrepo thesis
That's it, you're done. ~/thesis is now a working copy of your repository, the repository itself (which will hold all versions of your files) is contained in ~/thesisrepo, and your original folder is backed up as ~/thesisbackup.
To work on your thesis, go into ~/thesis and start writing as you've always done. When you want to save a snapshot of the current state of your thesis (i.e. commit your changes), open a bash terminal, go into ~/thesis and type svn ci -m "some message". That's it. Much easier than running a backup; you can just stick it in a daily (even hourly) cron job. To back up all versions of the thesis on removable media, tar up the ~/thesisrepo folder and put it somewhere safe.
There's a bit more to know about it; namely you need to tell subversion when you add, remove, move or rename files. A good source for that is the Subversion Book, specifically Chapter 2.
That wouldn't work. The system wouldn't work because it's just too complicated for end-users, but the reason the pricing wouldn't work is because craplet suppliers are not going to pay Dell to install them when users are being offered the opportunity to bypass them.
Unfortunately, if Linux becomes popular, what is probably going to happen is we'll simply see the same craplets pre-installed on Linux. At that point, your dual-boot pricing scheme would work, but people still won't want it.
I know several laypeople who have purchased computers with Vista, and they go out of their way to tell people how bad it is. You could walk up to anyone on the street and ask them what they know about Vista, and I'd be willing to bet a significant fraction of them could tell you they've heard bad things about it.
It's called XP. If you think for one second that users who migrated from XP to vista and hated vista are more willing to go to an "unknown" OS versus going back to XP you are out of your mind. I completely agree. The fact that Dell is re-introducing XP confirms this. However, Ubuntu desktop computers are not likely to show up for many more months, and Windows has already stated that they're not allowing manufacturers to sell XP OEM in 2008.
People are certainly more willing to go back to XP, but pretty soon they won't have the choice.
There is enough stuff out there today for Joe to get his taste of Linux if he's interested. No, there isn't. How many people can install an operating system? It's not even a matter of making it easy for them; most people are just too afraid to try. A preloaded machine from a major manufacturer with full customer support gives them the comfort they need to go with it, and the stability and total lack of viruses or spyware is the selling point.
Vista had been in beta-testing for a year and a half. The negative press about Vista has been rolling in for YEARS. Dell knew full well it would be a disaster long before the release. So yes, they probably started talks with Canonical well over a year ago, and I stand by my statement that it was heavily influenced by Vista.
The problem with Windows machines is that you don't just get Windows; you get Windows and a pile of craplets, which companies are paying Dell to supply to you. Windows can have a negative price tag on low-end computers because the cost is offset by all the garbage your computer comes filled with.
The reason Vista made this happen is because the general population hated Vista *so much* that they just stopped buying computers. That's very bad for Dell's business, which sent them looking for alternatives.
We definitely owe it to Microsoft. This is our chance to open up the desktop market; here's hoping we don't screw it up.
Thanks, that was the whole point of my post. 2D games are not dead, but people like GGP think they are.
We've had a dozen front-page posts about Starcraft 2, and it doesn't even exist yet. Should we ignore articles about it just because it's not going to be open-source?
Soldat is important because it doesn't rely on cutting-edge graphics; it revitalizes the 2D sidescroller genre from the days of Duke Nukem, long thought to be dead due to 3D graphics. The fact that Soldat is popular should come as a reminder to game development studios that we care about gameplay and fun more than graphics.
Actually, Earth might not be swallowed up when the sun turns into a red giant. The sun will expand to over 1 AU, but that will take several billion years; meanwhile Earth's orbit is slowly drifting outward. By the time the sun expands, Earth might be out at the distance of Jupiter or so.
Don't quote me on this. I don't have any real source; I just read it on How to destroy the Earth.
Your post doesn't make any sense. If we start stripping CO2 out of the atmosphere, it will not (immediately) affect the amount of oxygen. They are two entirely different molecules which interact differently with matter, and in this context the fact that CO2 actually contains oxygen nuclei is irrelevant.
In any case, the atmosphere is 20.946% oxygen and 0.038% carbon dioxide (by volume). Even if we strip all the carbon out, the overall amount of oxygen nuclei in the atmosphere will remain essentially unchanged.
Obviously removing ALL of the CO2 would be an insanely bad idea; not because we'd be removing oxygen from the atmosphere, but because all the plants would die.
But if we use nuclear power, we need no CO2 emissions to power it.
*gasp* An environmental use for nuclear power??
It's not hard to understand. Say five of us are living in a closed environment (i.e. earth). All five of us want to eat potatoes. Okay, so we'll plant a five foot wide garden. What if ten of us want potatoes? We'll planet a ten foot wide garden. What if ten of us want to eat twice as many potatoes? We'll plant a twenty foot wide garden.
Now say five of us want to use paper. We'll plant five trees. What if ten of us want paper? We'll plant ten trees. What if we want twice as much paper, even if we're just throwing half away? We'll plant twenty trees. What if we recycle half that paper? Oh, now we don't need twenty trees anymore; we'll only plant ten.
I'm not saying recycling is bad, but the allegation that we're chopping down the rain forests is just plain wrong; it's sensationalism. We've been planting tree farms for over fifty years, and that's what we use today to make paper. That's why the amount of trees in North America has been steadily growing over the past hundred years. There are more trees today than there has ever been, and the simple reason is because we use a lot of paper.
A default Feisty installation comes with full drivers for everything (printers, scanners, etc), a fully featured enterprise-level office suite, a powerful and secure internet browser, an organizer and email client, a decent image editor, a PDF reader, a photo manager, CD burning software, Video and DVD playback software (less codecs), a zip/rar/tar/7z/bz2 archive tool, a BitTorrent client, built-in interpreters for a variety languages including Python and Perl, no superfluous services to chew up your CPU cycles, and access to a colossal library of software where you can simultaneously install literally thousands of applications at the click of a button.
It would take hours, even days of painstaking labor and endless reboots to get a Windows box up to this level of utility. That's why tools like InstallPad exist, and they give you only a small teaser of what the Ubuntu software library is like.
The procedure's a bit different, but (assuming you stuck with the default KDE), then yes, it's essentially the same thing with Kubuntu; run K -> System -> Adept Manager, enable edgy-updates, update everything, then restart Adept Manager and a version upgrade will be offered.
Oops, forgot w32codecs for Windows Media Audio/Video and Realplayer. Here's a deb for i386:
o decs/w32codecs_20061022-0.0_i386.deb
http://www.debian-multimedia.org/pool/main/w/w32c
Save to desktop, right-click install. It's built for Debian, but it works for Ubuntu just the same. It's what I use and it works great.
Here is the official guide from ubuntu.com: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/upgrading
First make sure your computer is fully up to date (with Edgy). Then follow these instructions:
1. Open System -> Administration -> Update Manager
2. A button on the top of the window will appear, informing you of the availability of the new release
3. Click Upgrade
4. Follow the on-screen instructions
That page also has a link on how to upgrade manually from a command-line, but it's not recommended.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedForma
Here's the important part:
Click Applications Add/Remove. In the top right, change the setting to "All available applications". Then select Other in the left panel and then select the Ubuntu restricted extras package. Click OK.
To play most DVDs you'll need the libdvdcss2 package. This package is available using Medibuntu. This is a third party package, and not supported by Canonical. Here's a direct link to libdvdcss2:
i386: http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/pool/feisty/fre
amd64: http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/pool/feisty/fre
Save it to your desktop, then right click and hit Install. That's all you need to do to get codecs for everything. Please, people, avoid Automatix.
The first thing I thought when I saw this was Starcraft 2. They've been dropping hints about it for a while now.
Anyone else think that part of the motivation behind this convention is to announce it?
Shh! Don't give them any ideas!
Are you serious? Why? Are you worried that they'll eventually patch it enough that it will be unbreakable?
If hackers wait until AACS is as ubiquitous as CSS is today before announcing a crack, then AACS will be a success. It needs to be cracked as soon as possible and as often as possible to show that DRM doesn't work.
Does that mean you could make a WoW hack in a protected process?