But you've hit the nail on the head - Linux users don't want Linux to be a Windows knockoff. If all we wanted was Windows, it'd be a whole lot less effort to just use Windows. Linux users want to be able to control their computer. Windows, on the other hand, tries to shield the user from everything. Nice idea, until something doesn't work like expected, then things start going downhill FAST.
If users want Windows, to paraphrase (badly) Marie Antoinette, "let them use Windows." If they don't want to use their brains, then Linux just is not for them. _____
Like Windows needs a user to do that - it does just fine at screwing itself up, it doesn't need anyone's help with that... why do you think Windows has to be reinstalled regularly to keep it working? _____
Anyone who would refer to anything as "that [whatever] thing" isn't on my personal list of people who I need to be worried about. Unfortunately, those are the sort of people, generally, who don't want to think about the computer as more than a household appliance, like their microwave or refrigerator. If they don't know what it's all about (like the people who use Linux expecting it to be just like Windows), it's not right for them. They want to be isolated from anything technical.
If you want everything to be "sanitized for your protection", with barriers to tell you "oh no, you can't go THERE", just suck it up and stick with Windows. When you're ready to learn, and get your hands dirty, Linux and *BSD and OSes like them are ready and waiting. _____
I've also heard mumblings about nVidia having somehow illegally or otherwise wrongly getting ahold of 3Dfx intellectual property and basing their latest chips (in part) on that, and that being the reason they won't provide docs. I have no idea if there's any truth to it, but it's just one theory I've heard. _____
Probably because nVidia won't provide sufficient programming documentation (the people who claim they write their drivers without hardware docs). ATI has, afaik, started providing programming docs for at least SOME of their hardware to the XFree crew.
I'd suggest buying hardware from those who support the XFree programming team with programming information. Too bad 3Dfx went under. _____
Freetype has been incorporated into XFree86 as of 4.0, so all you have to do is load the "freetype" module, and use the 'ttmkfdir' tool (search Freshmeat) to make a fonts.scale file in the directory where your TTFs are. Then run mkfontdir in the directory, and add the directory to your font path.
You don't have to use an X font server anymore, though the X font server is included with XFree86. _____
That was my question. Of course, after the article Jamie posted recently, with his whole vegetarianism rant, I have a _slightly_ hard time taking him too seriously. Even if peacefire.org IS on the RBL list (which, yes, it IS, I checked) - what proof exactly do we have that they were actually being dropped via BGP? Everyone who's tried tracerouting via above.net, and posted about it, hasn't had a problem.
Jamie, one word - PUH-LEEZE. If you checked yourself, media3 is a major source of spam - why should we care if they're being RBL'd? And the guy you talked to at media3? How do you know he wasn't just telling you what any smart PR person would? It certainly looks that way to me. If they're serious about being against spam, though, it looks to me like they need to get to work ENFORCING that policy, instead of whining about how they're being abused! _____
As far as mailservers go, I HIGHLY recommend Postfix. It's modular, fast, and uses a far more readable configuration file syntax than Sendmail. You can still use your favorite local delivery agent (procmail, for me) also. I use it on the mailserver I run for my work, and it's excellent - I switched to it from Sendmail, and never looked back after dropping it into place. _____
I was going to ask the same question. I know the PowerPC is a fully-virtualizable design (one of the reasons Mac-on-Linux has come together so quickly, as compared to similar projects for Windows/x86), but I don't really know all the specifics of what makes it so. _____
Bitch, bitch, bitch. Is that ALL you can do, bitch and whine because YOU aren't getting what YOU want fast enough? I don't see you paying for Linus', Alan's, Don Becker's, H. Peter Anvin's, or any of the other major kernel contributors' time spent developing the Linux kernel. So, until you start paying them to do what they do, they don't owe you jack.
Be happy for what you do get - it's a gift, not an entitlement... _____
The USB-scanner driver in the kernel may recognize its device-class ID, but the Umax USB and parallel scanners use a totally different protocol than their SCSI scanners - so AFAIK, you still can't use their USB scanners with SANE, because no one's been able to reverse-engineer the protocol. _____
Macintosh? Nonono. Apple did their own Java runtime environment (MRJ, the MacOS Runtime for Java). The only platforms that Sun actually supported in the past (and the only ones they'll continue to put serious energy into and not swipe, er, borrow from unpaid, free developers) are Windows and Solaris. _____
Well, of course, most/.-ers aren't using AOL (I know I'm not), so it doesn't really affect most of us. Microsoft products, however, do affect some of us more directly, as some of us do have to deal with/support/etc. assorted Microsoft stuff. That's why most of us don't care. I know that I for one don't care that much - why should I? I don't have to deal with AOL. (Thank goodness...) _____
It said right in the article that the people from the US who the CoE was using as an information source desired for this treaty, whenever it reaches its "final" form, to be presented for ratification here in the US. I for one find that a rather disconcerting thought, the government having so many fingers in my choice of profession (and hobby). _____
1) Not a law? No, not yet. It's a treaty, but if things go as this article makes it sound they might, we damn sure will.
2) This would be an INTERNATIONAL treaty, with part of the intent being that it be ratified here.
3) This is the 19th revision of the treaty. With fairly sweeping statements about security analysis and intent and the like, it could cause problems for anyone who looks at issues of security. _____
They don't take expert opinion into account because that's the last thing they want. They want an easy, quick fix that will make all the bad people go away, instead of looking at the real problem. Expert opinion would complicate the situation - they actually know something, and they'd have to introduce logical thought into process, and where would that get us? _____
Did you read the part of the article that talked about people who had read the previous drafts and sent in their feedback? Well, it says they were ignored. Doesn't give me a whole lot of confidence in the group drafting this treaty, if the input they're given is thrown out. _____
Probably those would be excepted, because they're done either (a) by the maker, or (b) by a third party under explicit contract. Though with no one else to keep eyes on what's going on, I'm sure QA would be on a downhill slide before long. _____
Read that article again there, slick. That'd be a US _and_ European _treaty_. And Sweden is, if memory doesn't fail me, a participant in the EU, right? Well then, you know what that means... _____
Because with our ridiculously high population, we have more than our share of stupid people. I am an American, and yes, I think many Americans are stupid. Deal with it. _____
Or use xfsft (font quality is better). Of course, you'd only need to use one of those if you aren't running XFree 4 - TrueType font support has been rolled into the source. I've borrowed TT fonts from Windows and replaced some of the PCF and Type 1 fonts in my X installation, and it looks SO much nicer... _____
Slashdot Mirror
But you've hit the nail on the head - Linux users don't want Linux to be a Windows knockoff. If all we wanted was Windows, it'd be a whole lot less effort to just use Windows. Linux users want to be able to control their computer. Windows, on the other hand, tries to shield the user from everything. Nice idea, until something doesn't work like expected, then things start going downhill FAST.
If users want Windows, to paraphrase (badly) Marie Antoinette, "let them use Windows." If they don't want to use their brains, then Linux just is not for them.
_____
users will still manage to destroy their system.
Like Windows needs a user to do that - it does just fine at screwing itself up, it doesn't need anyone's help with that... why do you think Windows has to be reinstalled regularly to keep it working?
_____
Anyone who would refer to anything as "that [whatever] thing" isn't on my personal list of people who I need to be worried about. Unfortunately, those are the sort of people, generally, who don't want to think about the computer as more than a household appliance, like their microwave or refrigerator. If they don't know what it's all about (like the people who use Linux expecting it to be just like Windows), it's not right for them. They want to be isolated from anything technical.
If you want everything to be "sanitized for your protection", with barriers to tell you "oh no, you can't go THERE", just suck it up and stick with Windows. When you're ready to learn, and get your hands dirty, Linux and *BSD and OSes like them are ready and waiting.
_____
I've also heard mumblings about nVidia having somehow illegally or otherwise wrongly getting ahold of 3Dfx intellectual property and basing their latest chips (in part) on that, and that being the reason they won't provide docs. I have no idea if there's any truth to it, but it's just one theory I've heard.
_____
Probably because nVidia won't provide sufficient programming documentation (the people who claim they write their drivers without hardware docs). ATI has, afaik, started providing programming docs for at least SOME of their hardware to the XFree crew.
I'd suggest buying hardware from those who support the XFree programming team with programming information. Too bad 3Dfx went under.
_____
Freetype has been incorporated into XFree86 as of 4.0, so all you have to do is load the "freetype" module, and use the 'ttmkfdir' tool (search Freshmeat) to make a fonts.scale file in the directory where your TTFs are. Then run mkfontdir in the directory, and add the directory to your font path.
You don't have to use an X font server anymore, though the X font server is included with XFree86.
_____
That was my question. Of course, after the article Jamie posted recently, with his whole vegetarianism rant, I have a _slightly_ hard time taking him too seriously. Even if peacefire.org IS on the RBL list (which, yes, it IS, I checked) - what proof exactly do we have that they were actually being dropped via BGP? Everyone who's tried tracerouting via above.net, and posted about it, hasn't had a problem.
Jamie, one word - PUH-LEEZE. If you checked yourself, media3 is a major source of spam - why should we care if they're being RBL'd? And the guy you talked to at media3? How do you know he wasn't just telling you what any smart PR person would? It certainly looks that way to me. If they're serious about being against spam, though, it looks to me like they need to get to work ENFORCING that policy, instead of whining about how they're being abused!
_____
As far as mailservers go, I HIGHLY recommend Postfix. It's modular, fast, and uses a far more readable configuration file syntax than Sendmail. You can still use your favorite local delivery agent (procmail, for me) also. I use it on the mailserver I run for my work, and it's excellent - I switched to it from Sendmail, and never looked back after dropping it into place.
_____
I was going to ask the same question. I know the PowerPC is a fully-virtualizable design (one of the reasons Mac-on-Linux has come together so quickly, as compared to similar projects for Windows/x86), but I don't really know all the specifics of what makes it so.
_____
Bitch, bitch, bitch. Is that ALL you can do, bitch and whine because YOU aren't getting what YOU want fast enough? I don't see you paying for Linus', Alan's, Don Becker's, H. Peter Anvin's, or any of the other major kernel contributors' time spent developing the Linux kernel. So, until you start paying them to do what they do, they don't owe you jack.
Be happy for what you do get - it's a gift, not an entitlement...
_____
The USB-scanner driver in the kernel may recognize its device-class ID, but the Umax USB and parallel scanners use a totally different protocol than their SCSI scanners - so AFAIK, you still can't use their USB scanners with SANE, because no one's been able to reverse-engineer the protocol.
_____
Macintosh? Nonono. Apple did their own Java runtime environment (MRJ, the MacOS Runtime for Java). The only platforms that Sun actually supported in the past (and the only ones they'll continue to put serious energy into and not swipe, er, borrow from unpaid, free developers) are Windows and Solaris.
_____
Well, of course, most /.-ers aren't using AOL (I know I'm not), so it doesn't really affect most of us. Microsoft products, however, do affect some of us more directly, as some of us do have to deal with/support/etc. assorted Microsoft stuff. That's why most of us don't care. I know that I for one don't care that much - why should I? I don't have to deal with AOL. (Thank goodness...)
_____
It said right in the article that the people from the US who the CoE was using as an information source desired for this treaty, whenever it reaches its "final" form, to be presented for ratification here in the US. I for one find that a rather disconcerting thought, the government having so many fingers in my choice of profession (and hobby).
_____
It doesn't "emulate" anything. It's a Win16/Win32 API implementation with an LE/PE (Win32) and Win16 binary image loader. Big difference...
_____
That would be an ABI (application binary interface). That's what the 'wine' executable really is.
_____
Lets break this down, point by point:
1) Not a law? No, not yet. It's a treaty, but if things go as this article makes it sound they might, we damn sure will.
2) This would be an INTERNATIONAL treaty, with part of the intent being that it be ratified here.
3) This is the 19th revision of the treaty. With fairly sweeping statements about security analysis and intent and the like, it could cause problems for anyone who looks at issues of security.
_____
They don't take expert opinion into account because that's the last thing they want. They want an easy, quick fix that will make all the bad people go away, instead of looking at the real problem. Expert opinion would complicate the situation - they actually know something, and they'd have to introduce logical thought into process, and where would that get us?
_____
Did you read the part of the article that talked about people who had read the previous drafts and sent in their feedback? Well, it says they were ignored. Doesn't give me a whole lot of confidence in the group drafting this treaty, if the input they're given is thrown out.
_____
Probably those would be excepted, because they're done either (a) by the maker, or (b) by a third party under explicit contract. Though with no one else to keep eyes on what's going on, I'm sure QA would be on a downhill slide before long.
_____
Read that article again there, slick. That'd be a US _and_ European _treaty_. And Sweden is, if memory doesn't fail me, a participant in the EU, right? Well then, you know what that means...
_____
(can anyone tell me why I need to select "plain old text" to get html tags to work?!)
Because Malda doesn't listen. He's been told as much, but he swears up and down that it's right.
_____
Because with our ridiculously high population, we have more than our share of stupid people. I am an American, and yes, I think many Americans are stupid. Deal with it.
_____
It's called "voting with your dollars" - you don't like an ISP using MAPS, find one that doesn't.
_____
Or use xfsft (font quality is better). Of course, you'd only need to use one of those if you aren't running XFree 4 - TrueType font support has been rolled into the source. I've borrowed TT fonts from Windows and replaced some of the PCF and Type 1 fonts in my X installation, and it looks SO much nicer...
_____