The reason no one _can_ sue them is because (a) no one has (to my knowledge) been physically injured or killed (yet) due to bugs in Windows, and (b) Microsoft disclaims thee everliving fuck out of all their products in their EULA (This product is not guaranteed for any purpose, even the purpose it was intended for; no warranties, express or implied; we cannot be held legally liable for this product's failure to perform under any circumstances; if it breaks, you keep all the pieces; etc.), so unless it _really_ screws up, you can't do anything about it. (And of course, the fact that if you did try to use it in a mission-critical application of any kind, they'll point right at the EULA and say "Gee, we said not to do that, didn't we!?!?")
Maybe you don't care about Linux, but a fair number of people around here do. Being able to run Linux on a portable is important to me, for one (I'm running it on an iBook now, for example). If you submit a question to Slashdot, it seems like it'd make sense to expect a fair number of people to bring up the subject of Linux.
You use the kernel feature that lets you map keys on the keyboard as buttons 2 and 3. I have an iBook sitting next to me running Linux, and the F11 and F12 keys are mapped as the middle and right buttons (respectively). It works out fine.
Of course, Apple's iBooks and the G4 PowerBooks (and even the slightly aging but still good G3 PowerBooks) have integrated Fast Ethernet, so you don't have to worry about how you connect Ethernet to the notebook - plug into jack and go. Or you can use the integrated 802.11b in the iBooks and PowerBook G4s.
And they run Linux pretty nicely, too.
Re:Q for those running Linux on Mac laptops
on
Which Laptop To Buy?
·
· Score: 1
You can map 2 keys as mouse buttons 2 and 3. I'm running Linux right now on a FireWire iBook (not a square dual-USB), and I have F11 mapped as middle, and F12 mapped as right. Also, you can just plug in a USB mouse, and use it, if you must have three buttons. (Or a trackball or whatever pointing device you like.) But you don't have to.
I bought the old InfoMagic CD packs awhile back, and they cost maybe $20 or so apiece, and came with several distros (at the time, I used Slackware). I did that maybe 3 times, and since then, I've burned my own Debian CDs from images. Though, I haven't bought any version of Windows since Windows 95 came out.
I have bought several games from Loki tho (SoF, Quake3, EUS, Heavy Gear II), and a few for Windows (Alice, Quake 2, Messiah). I've also bought ApplixWare 4 (and the Applix 5 upgrade), so I guess I'm running about neck and neck, spending-wise. Maybe a bit more on Linux.:) _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
No..cda == 16 bit samples, 44.1 KHz sample rate, big-endian order, headerless..wav = 16 bit samples, 44.1 KHz sample rate, little-endian order, with header. No quality loss, since "standard" RIFF WAV format is uncompressed, so it's just a way to have a file format that players can get the format of easily without having to make bad assumptions.
Try register.gkg.net. They seem to have 1-4 covered. I don't know about #5, but they're quiock to get transfers done and changes made, and we've had no problems with them (they even got our billing corrected - we'd tried SO long to get our billing info corrected with NSI, and they kept rejecting it), and the domain fee is just $10/year. We've been exceedingly happy. _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
So that other admins have no way to determine who's in charge of the machine/domain in question, and if they're having a problem with it/them, they have no way to contact the admins. Lovely.
I'm sure we have some problem with electronic stalking, but hiding the information from everybody, even those with valid reasons for accessing it, just because of a few idiots, isn't going to help. _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Uh. NT 4.0 was not Chicago - Windows 95 was Chicago. (Look at the strings in many of the INFs in C:\windows\inf, and you'll see.) I do not recall the codename of NT 4, but it wasn't Chicago. _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
I'd even be happy to see Macintosh release MacOs for the PC.
I always laugh when I hear this mentioned. Apple is not a software company - they're a _hardware_ company that provides software that is germane to their platform, to make it complete. They don't want a MacOS (or now OS X - why would they port their old OS, with all the cruft and assembly?) port to another platform. That'd basically kill their hardware biz, which is their mainstay. _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
You can't really call Final Fantasy a "video game based" movie, since the storyline of this movie was created _for_ this movie - it doesn't really share anything with the Final Fantasy games other than some basic premises about general story arc. No common characters, locales, or anything else of the sort. _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
(Probably responding to a troll - call me a sucker if you must.)
Why go through the trouble to install linux so you can not watch dvd's and not burn cdr's, when you can leave Mac OS-X installed and not watch dvd's and not burn cdr's as is?
Um. With Linux on the G3 tower at work, I can do at least one of the two - not only can I burn CDs, but I've had it burning 3 at a time (IDE burner, SCSI burner and USB burner ALL AT ONCE!), unlike OS X, where you can't burn anything - oh, excuse me, you can burn audio tracks to CDs. Hooray. Let me call the media.
And I could play DVDs, if either (a) Xine was better optimized, or (b) the CPU was faster (it tries and almost works, but the frame rate just isn't high enough).
Also, if you'd read the article, you'd have noticed how inexpensively a second-gen iBook can be had - even in comparison to x86-based notebooks. Surprising considering it's Apple. _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
You mean, like the Crystal sound chip that most recent Apples use? Or the ATI video controller? Or the CMD IDE controller?
Apple's more recent boxes are using more and more stock components. Supporting Apples isn't as hard as it once was - it's a little trickier than x86, but not that much. _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
The airport slot is a standard PCMCIA slot *inside* the machine (I tested it, it recognized my flash card adaptor when I put it in there), and an antenna connector that fits the Lucent 802.11 cards.
Not quite. It _looks_ like a PC Card slot - but it's not. These same slots are in the Titanium G4, most of the G4 Tower systems, and late-model iMacs. They actually require special support (which Ben Herrenschmidt graciously developed!) and a (non-standard) 802.11 card which only Apple sells. _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Sadly, not yet. Some DV support may work, but CD burning with a Firewire drive doesn't work yet. Last I heard, the 1394 group still had more endianness issues to pound out in the SBP-2 driver.
Hope they get it working soon - unfortunately, their SF project page doesn't seem very lively (linux1394.sf.net). _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Let's see. Out of the box you get a pretty laptop that comes preloaded with OS X, which is an open source BSD variant down low,
Yeah, except for the patch that's needed to make the Darwin source even be useful (from what I understand - I believe I saw an article that mentioned this on K5). Besides, they're basically giving us source we already had access to (NetBSD, FreeBSD... hmm. both BSD licensed - already had those available to me), so what's so special about that?
with a lot of polished sophisticated commercial goodies up top like display PDF, the most seamless GUI/command-line config synchronization ever done on a Unix, and, well, the elegance that is the Mac UI.
That's not the "Classic" Mac UI anymore, and the reviews are still mixed on OS X's new UI look (aka Aqua).
And you can run any legacy Mac software at near full-speed simultaneously.
Wow, really? I can do that on Linux, too! (/me does [right-click]->Apps->Mac-on-Linux)...
ing us source we already had access to (NetBSD, FreeBSD... hmm. both BSD licensed - already had those available to me), so what's so special about that?
with a lot of polished sophisticated commercial goodies up top like display PDF, the most seamless GUI/command-line config synchronization ever done on a Unix, and, well, the elegance that is the Mac UI.
That's not the "Classic" Mac UI anymore, and the reviews are still mixed on OS X's new UI look (aka Aqua).
And you can run any legacy Mac software at near full-speed simultaneously.
Wow, really? I can do that on Linux, too! (/me does [right-click]->Apps->Mac-on-Linux)...
But then you load up Linux and drop the sound support,
which is being worked on...
the decent video playback,
Really? You must mean DVD playing, right? No? Shrug.
the easy CD burning
Other than being able to burn tracks through iTunes, exactly what CD burning would you be doing in OS X?
and video editing,
What if you aren't doing video editing anyway?
the Mac application support,
Really? I think not. Mac-on-Linux is getting better and better. It's very stable, and lets you run MacOS 9 apps easily, and you can share files and printers easily between the Linux and Mac sides.
the decent web browsers,
Like Mozilla? Konqueror? Even Netscape, if you must?
any hope of running a usable office suite any time this year or next (since you're not on an x86)..
So KOffice, OpenOffice and the developing Gnome apps don't qualify at all?
and the only UI that works well with the one-button trackpad you've got.
And we all know how impossible USB pointing devices are to get. Right? _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Come on, folks! OS X shipped with the machine he bought!
Yeah, so? Maybe he just wants to experiment with a variety of platforms. Or maybe he feels like I do about OS X - that yeah, it's OK for canned commercial software, but that its command line lacks in comparison to a regular *BSD or Linux, and he just likes Linux better? Or maybe it's something else entirely. What difference does it make? If people want it, they'll do it, and he's giving others pointers on how to do so. He's not making anyone do anything, though, so why are you screaming about it?
And it is so clearly superior to Linux
Matter of opinion. I still like Linux, even tho OS X is out (I've tried OS X, and I'm just a bit underwhelmed, really).
(in addition to being much easier to install)
So it's easier to install! So what? Some things that are worth doing, or just plain interesting to do, are HARD. Or at least, not drop-dead simple. So?
that installing Linux instead is just plain ridiculous.
Do you just not like Linux? If you like OS X, great, use it and be happy. Let the rest of us do as we choose to do. If that means running Linux instead of running OS X, what skin is that off your nose? Why are you taking it so personally? _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
There's only so much customization you can do in a commercial OS. Some of us happen to like our chosen window managers (I happen to like Window Maker, thanks). Also, the command line environment (where I spend much of my time on Linux) just seems clumsy on OS X still.
Yeah yeah, unifying perfect OS blah blah blah. I'll stick with Linux, and Mac-on-Linux (for running some very useful software on the MacOS side - like Lexmark's MarkVision for Mac, which we use pretty regularly at my work). If you want OS X, great, go for it. Maybe at some point, MoL will be able to run OS X in a window, and then we can have the best of all worlds. Until then, I'm happy.
Besides, in Linux I can burn CDs. And I can watch DVDs (or could, if not for the 350 MHz PPC - just a bit too slow for DVD watching yet, but maybe more PPC optimizations will be added to Xine - I hope). _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
How's the battery life on that Dell? From my (admittedly limited) experience with Linux on laptops, and laptops in general, Apple's laptops just seem to get much better pattery life than any Intel laptop out there. Probably because of the much lower power draw of the PowerPC CPUs. _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Yes, but most (if not all) of them now do not. Even the G4 server system we have at work (running OS 9 - blah) is IDE-based. Since about the PowerMac 5200 line (or maybe a little earlier) on, Apple's gone almost completely IDE in the storage department.
They helped develop the first (only?) modern desktop processor.
That's certainly debatable. And some people would debate it hotly. Ask Taligent (of which Apple, Motorola and IBM were all members) if the PowerPC has come anywhere close to living up to the initial intentions for it. (In case you don't remember - it didn't.)
The x86 processor line (and AMD spinoffs as well) STILL have 8088 codes in them!
Codes? Codes???? Yeah, it still understands old-ass 8086/8088 instructions - but then, the PowerPC can understand M68k instructions as well (how do you think Mac OS 8 ran on it?), so how does that prove anything? And even though the x86 chips still speak CISC instructions to the outside world, they are much more RISC-like at the core level, translating CISC opcodes into series of lower-level micro-ops.
Though the PowerPC's power draw is a whole lot lower than that of any current x86 design. _____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
But it irks me that they want to make it harder for me to choose Pico by urging distributors not to include it.
The only distro that is a REAL stickler on truly free vs. non-free licenses (Debian) already doesn't include a binary package for Pico and Pine, only a pristine source package that can be used to build it. (And I believe it's in non-free, besides.) All the others, even the ones that base on Debian (other than maybe Progeny) aren't that picky - they'll include just about anything in their distros. I don't think RMS stating his opinion is going to stop RedHat or Mandrake or SuSE from including Pine in their default install.
And how hard is it to FTP to ftp.cac.washington.edu, grab the source for yourself, do './build lnp', and copy the binaries into place?
Do you ever get upset when a Republicrat tells you not to vote for the Demopublican candidate because they want to take your freedom away?
Not really. That's their JOB, for godsake - they have to get votes to get elected, and secure or maintain their job. I don't necessarily like the way they do it, but they have a reason. As does RMS - whatever may be said about him - that he's a dirty old GNU hippie, or whatever else - he believes that software should be FREE. He believes in SOMETHING, which is more than can be said for 99% of the people out there.
I'm sorry that someone who believes in something can sway some people, but that's just kinda the way it goes, IMO.
As for them wanting to take away our freedom, well DUH. Isn't that what pretty much all politicians want?
or implications that users are so stupid they'll be "lulled" into losing their rights.
You think at least a few won't? And of course, what you see as being your "rights" regarding software (apparently the ability to use it) isn't what RMS thinks of as the rights you should have (the ability to examine the code, and modify it if you choose, and so on).
I still say, if you don't agree with RMS or the GNU ideal, no one's going to come to your home and force you to believe. You like Pine, and don't care about the license terms, that's great. Use it, be happy. _____
Um. Unless I missed the announcement, GNU and the FSF still don't make your decisions for you. No one's saying you can't _use_ Pine and Pico if you wish - they're just pointing out that the licensing terms for Pico and Pine don't qualify as "Free Software".
Why is it every time licensing issues get discussed, and GNU or anyone related to GNU states that a product doesn't meet their definition of "Free Software", we always get a few people who whine about GNU and the FSF trying to tell them what they can and can't use? _____
Slashdot Mirror
The reason no one _can_ sue them is because (a) no one has (to my knowledge) been physically injured or killed (yet) due to bugs in Windows, and (b) Microsoft disclaims thee everliving fuck out of all their products in their EULA (This product is not guaranteed for any purpose, even the purpose it was intended for; no warranties, express or implied; we cannot be held legally liable for this product's failure to perform under any circumstances; if it breaks, you keep all the pieces; etc.), so unless it _really_ screws up, you can't do anything about it. (And of course, the fact that if you did try to use it in a mission-critical application of any kind, they'll point right at the EULA and say "Gee, we said not to do that, didn't we!?!?")
Maybe you don't care about Linux, but a fair number of people around here do. Being able to run Linux on a portable is important to me, for one (I'm running it on an iBook now, for example). If you submit a question to Slashdot, it seems like it'd make sense to expect a fair number of people to bring up the subject of Linux.
You use the kernel feature that lets you map keys on the keyboard as buttons 2 and 3. I have an iBook sitting next to me running Linux, and the F11 and F12 keys are mapped as the middle and right buttons (respectively). It works out fine.
Of course, Apple's iBooks and the G4 PowerBooks (and even the slightly aging but still good G3 PowerBooks) have integrated Fast Ethernet, so you don't have to worry about how you connect Ethernet to the notebook - plug into jack and go. Or you can use the integrated 802.11b in the iBooks and PowerBook G4s.
And they run Linux pretty nicely, too.
You can map 2 keys as mouse buttons 2 and 3. I'm running Linux right now on a FireWire iBook (not a square dual-USB), and I have F11 mapped as middle, and F12 mapped as right. Also, you can just plug in a USB mouse, and use it, if you must have three buttons. (Or a trackball or whatever pointing device you like.) But you don't have to.
I bought the old InfoMagic CD packs awhile back, and they cost maybe $20 or so apiece, and came with several distros (at the time, I used Slackware). I did that maybe 3 times, and since then, I've burned my own Debian CDs from images. Though, I haven't bought any version of Windows since Windows 95 came out.
:)
I have bought several games from Loki tho (SoF, Quake3, EUS, Heavy Gear II), and a few for Windows (Alice, Quake 2, Messiah). I've also bought ApplixWare 4 (and the Applix 5 upgrade), so I guess I'm running about neck and neck, spending-wise. Maybe a bit more on Linux.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
No. .cda == 16 bit samples, 44.1 KHz sample rate, big-endian order, headerless. .wav = 16 bit samples, 44.1 KHz sample rate, little-endian order, with header. No quality loss, since "standard" RIFF WAV format is uncompressed, so it's just a way to have a file format that players can get the format of easily without having to make bad assumptions.
Try register.gkg.net. They seem to have 1-4 covered. I don't know about #5, but they're quiock to get transfers done and changes made, and we've had no problems with them (they even got our billing corrected - we'd tried SO long to get our billing info corrected with NSI, and they kept rejecting it), and the domain fee is just $10/year. We've been exceedingly happy.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
So that other admins have no way to determine who's in charge of the machine/domain in question, and if they're having a problem with it/them, they have no way to contact the admins. Lovely.
I'm sure we have some problem with electronic stalking, but hiding the information from everybody, even those with valid reasons for accessing it, just because of a few idiots, isn't going to help.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Uh. NT 4.0 was not Chicago - Windows 95 was Chicago. (Look at the strings in many of the INFs in C:\windows\inf, and you'll see.) I do not recall the codename of NT 4, but it wasn't Chicago.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
I'd even be happy to see Macintosh release MacOs for the PC.
I always laugh when I hear this mentioned. Apple is not a software company - they're a _hardware_ company that provides software that is germane to their platform, to make it complete. They don't want a MacOS (or now OS X - why would they port their old OS, with all the cruft and assembly?) port to another platform. That'd basically kill their hardware biz, which is their mainstay.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
You can't really call Final Fantasy a "video game based" movie, since the storyline of this movie was created _for_ this movie - it doesn't really share anything with the Final Fantasy games other than some basic premises about general story arc. No common characters, locales, or anything else of the sort.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
(Probably responding to a troll - call me a sucker if you must.)
Why go through the trouble to install linux so you can not watch dvd's and not burn cdr's, when you can leave Mac OS-X installed and not watch dvd's and not burn cdr's as is?
Um. With Linux on the G3 tower at work, I can do at least one of the two - not only can I burn CDs, but I've had it burning 3 at a time (IDE burner, SCSI burner and USB burner ALL AT ONCE!), unlike OS X, where you can't burn anything - oh, excuse me, you can burn audio tracks to CDs. Hooray. Let me call the media.
And I could play DVDs, if either (a) Xine was better optimized, or (b) the CPU was faster (it tries and almost works, but the frame rate just isn't high enough).
Also, if you'd read the article, you'd have noticed how inexpensively a second-gen iBook can be had - even in comparison to x86-based notebooks. Surprising considering it's Apple.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
It's called chroma-keying from a hardware buffer.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Yeah, except you can ONLY burn audio tracks - and ONLY from iTunes. What if that's not the only thing I want to burn? What then?
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
You mean, like the Crystal sound chip that most recent Apples use? Or the ATI video controller? Or the CMD IDE controller?
Apple's more recent boxes are using more and more stock components. Supporting Apples isn't as hard as it once was - it's a little trickier than x86, but not that much.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
The airport slot is a standard PCMCIA slot *inside* the machine (I tested it, it recognized my flash card adaptor when I put it in there), and an antenna connector that fits the Lucent 802.11 cards.
Not quite. It _looks_ like a PC Card slot - but it's not. These same slots are in the Titanium G4, most of the G4 Tower systems, and late-model iMacs. They actually require special support (which Ben Herrenschmidt graciously developed!) and a (non-standard) 802.11 card which only Apple sells.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Sadly, not yet. Some DV support may work, but CD burning with a Firewire drive doesn't work yet. Last I heard, the 1394 group still had more endianness issues to pound out in the SBP-2 driver.
Hope they get it working soon - unfortunately, their SF project page doesn't seem very lively (linux1394.sf.net).
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Let's see. Out of the box you get a pretty laptop that comes preloaded with OS X, which is an open source BSD variant down low,
Yeah, except for the patch that's needed to make the Darwin source even be useful (from what I understand - I believe I saw an article that mentioned this on K5). Besides, they're basically giving us source we already had access to (NetBSD, FreeBSD... hmm. both BSD licensed - already had those available to me), so what's so special about that?
with a lot of polished sophisticated commercial goodies up top like display PDF, the most seamless GUI/command-line config synchronization ever done on a Unix, and, well, the elegance that is the Mac UI.
That's not the "Classic" Mac UI anymore, and the reviews are still mixed on OS X's new UI look (aka Aqua).
And you can run any legacy Mac software at near full-speed simultaneously.
Wow, really? I can do that on Linux, too! (/me does [right-click]->Apps->Mac-on-Linux)...
ing us source we already had access to (NetBSD, FreeBSD... hmm. both BSD licensed - already had those available to me), so what's so special about that?
with a lot of polished sophisticated commercial goodies up top like display PDF, the most seamless GUI/command-line config synchronization ever done on a Unix, and, well, the elegance that is the Mac UI.
That's not the "Classic" Mac UI anymore, and the reviews are still mixed on OS X's new UI look (aka Aqua).
And you can run any legacy Mac software at near full-speed simultaneously.
Wow, really? I can do that on Linux, too! (/me does [right-click]->Apps->Mac-on-Linux)...
But then you load up Linux and drop the sound support,
which is being worked on...
the decent video playback,
Really? You must mean DVD playing, right? No? Shrug.
the easy CD burning
Other than being able to burn tracks through iTunes, exactly what CD burning would you be doing in OS X?
and video editing,
What if you aren't doing video editing anyway?
the Mac application support,
Really? I think not. Mac-on-Linux is getting better and better. It's very stable, and lets you run MacOS 9 apps easily, and you can share files and printers easily between the Linux and Mac sides.
the decent web browsers,
Like Mozilla? Konqueror? Even Netscape, if you must?
any hope of running a usable office suite any time this year or next (since you're not on an x86)..
So KOffice, OpenOffice and the developing Gnome apps don't qualify at all?
and the only UI that works well with the one-button trackpad you've got.
And we all know how impossible USB pointing devices are to get. Right?
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Come on, folks! OS X shipped with the machine he bought!
Yeah, so? Maybe he just wants to experiment with a variety of platforms. Or maybe he feels like I do about OS X - that yeah, it's OK for canned commercial software, but that its command line lacks in comparison to a regular *BSD or Linux, and he just likes Linux better? Or maybe it's something else entirely. What difference does it make? If people want it, they'll do it, and he's giving others pointers on how to do so. He's not making anyone do anything, though, so why are you screaming about it?
And it is so clearly superior to Linux
Matter of opinion. I still like Linux, even tho OS X is out (I've tried OS X, and I'm just a bit underwhelmed, really).
(in addition to being much easier to install)
So it's easier to install! So what? Some things that are worth doing, or just plain interesting to do, are HARD. Or at least, not drop-dead simple. So?
that installing Linux instead is just plain ridiculous.
Do you just not like Linux? If you like OS X, great, use it and be happy. Let the rest of us do as we choose to do. If that means running Linux instead of running OS X, what skin is that off your nose? Why are you taking it so personally?
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
There's only so much customization you can do in a commercial OS. Some of us happen to like our chosen window managers (I happen to like Window Maker, thanks). Also, the command line environment (where I spend much of my time on Linux) just seems clumsy on OS X still.
Yeah yeah, unifying perfect OS blah blah blah. I'll stick with Linux, and Mac-on-Linux (for running some very useful software on the MacOS side - like Lexmark's MarkVision for Mac, which we use pretty regularly at my work). If you want OS X, great, go for it. Maybe at some point, MoL will be able to run OS X in a window, and then we can have the best of all worlds. Until then, I'm happy.
Besides, in Linux I can burn CDs. And I can watch DVDs (or could, if not for the 350 MHz PPC - just a bit too slow for DVD watching yet, but maybe more PPC optimizations will be added to Xine - I hope).
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
How's the battery life on that Dell? From my (admittedly limited) experience with Linux on laptops, and laptops in general, Apple's laptops just seem to get much better pattery life than any Intel laptop out there. Probably because of the much lower power draw of the PowerPC CPUs.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Since day one, Macs have used SCSI.
Yes, but most (if not all) of them now do not. Even the G4 server system we have at work (running OS 9 - blah) is IDE-based. Since about the PowerMac 5200 line (or maybe a little earlier) on, Apple's gone almost completely IDE in the storage department.
They helped develop the first (only?) modern desktop processor.
That's certainly debatable. And some people would debate it hotly. Ask Taligent (of which Apple, Motorola and IBM were all members) if the PowerPC has come anywhere close to living up to the initial intentions for it. (In case you don't remember - it didn't.)
The x86 processor line (and AMD spinoffs as well) STILL have 8088 codes in them!
Codes? Codes???? Yeah, it still understands old-ass 8086/8088 instructions - but then, the PowerPC can understand M68k instructions as well (how do you think Mac OS 8 ran on it?), so how does that prove anything? And even though the x86 chips still speak CISC instructions to the outside world, they are much more RISC-like at the core level, translating CISC opcodes into series of lower-level micro-ops.
Though the PowerPC's power draw is a whole lot lower than that of any current x86 design.
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Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
But it irks me that they want to make it harder for me to choose Pico by urging distributors not to include it.
The only distro that is a REAL stickler on truly free vs. non-free licenses (Debian) already doesn't include a binary package for Pico and Pine, only a pristine source package that can be used to build it. (And I believe it's in non-free, besides.) All the others, even the ones that base on Debian (other than maybe Progeny) aren't that picky - they'll include just about anything in their distros. I don't think RMS stating his opinion is going to stop RedHat or Mandrake or SuSE from including Pine in their default install.
And how hard is it to FTP to ftp.cac.washington.edu, grab the source for yourself, do './build lnp', and copy the binaries into place?
Do you ever get upset when a Republicrat tells you not to vote for the Demopublican candidate because they want to take your freedom away?
Not really. That's their JOB, for godsake - they have to get votes to get elected, and secure or maintain their job. I don't necessarily like the way they do it, but they have a reason. As does RMS - whatever may be said about him - that he's a dirty old GNU hippie, or whatever else - he believes that software should be FREE. He believes in SOMETHING, which is more than can be said for 99% of the people out there.
I'm sorry that someone who believes in something can sway some people, but that's just kinda the way it goes, IMO.
As for them wanting to take away our freedom, well DUH. Isn't that what pretty much all politicians want?
or implications that users are so stupid they'll be "lulled" into losing their rights.
You think at least a few won't? And of course, what you see as being your "rights" regarding software (apparently the ability to use it) isn't what RMS thinks of as the rights you should have (the ability to examine the code, and modify it if you choose, and so on).
I still say, if you don't agree with RMS or the GNU ideal, no one's going to come to your home and force you to believe. You like Pine, and don't care about the license terms, that's great. Use it, be happy.
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Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Um. Unless I missed the announcement, GNU and the FSF still don't make your decisions for you. No one's saying you can't _use_ Pine and Pico if you wish - they're just pointing out that the licensing terms for Pico and Pine don't qualify as "Free Software".
Why is it every time licensing issues get discussed, and GNU or anyone related to GNU states that a product doesn't meet their definition of "Free Software", we always get a few people who whine about GNU and the FSF trying to tell them what they can and can't use?
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Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."