If I learn KDE at home but my work has GNOME or the library has brandX desktop, that is annoying.
I have two computers at my station with a switch box. One runs KDE, the other runs Gnome. No big sweat off of my back
GNOME Vs KDE is really only important for the seriously geeky. Most people just want to start up their web browser, email, IM, MP3 player snd office suite. After that, pretty much anything else is bonus.
If you did it right, most people would barely even notice if you changet the entire distro on them -- they'd just presume you changed the startup graphics (and the people who know enough to know better would also probably just take it in stride).
The real difference between KDE and GNOME is for the programmer -- and they get to choose which paradigm they program in -- a bonus. As a user, I use GAIM on KDE and KOffice under gnome etc. As long as you have the necessary libraries, it doesn't usually matter too much.
I'd set 'nodma'. I've run into a good number of boxes that snark up on the boot without that option -- that includes more than a few laptops. You lose a bit of speed talking to the HD but at least it talks.
Knoppix also has a bug for setting the timezone. It chooses the timezone based on the keyboard you pick. For the US keyboard it's EST. If you're not in the proper timezone, you pretty much have to rewrite the/etc/init.d/knoppix-autoconfig file.
There are two fixes: One is to hardcode the proper TZ into the knoppix-autoconfig file. The other is to fix the bug for setting the timezone.. at that point you can set the timezone in the isolinux.cfg file without having to recompress the whole KNOPPIX filesystem.
My TZ patch is here. Once you install it, you can use 'tz=America/Vancouver' (etc.) on the boot line, or change the isolinux.cfg file and write a new CD (far easier in my mind).
I would think twice before doing. Seriously, how many people, whether family or friends, wouldn't think of you as a fanatic or total nerd if you went around giving Linux as a christmas gift.
It's not his gift. It's part of the card. I'm presuming that the actual gift wil be in the attached box.
My answer is: people have gotten too damned used to the Microsoft Model. Monopolies are neither normal nor a good thing, but if we get used to it, it starts to seem normal. Competition is good, wars are not. Unfortunately, Gates never got that message..
I remember looking at doing something vaguely similar with a Radio Shack Color Computer back in 1983. but using a 3" color TV and a motorcycle battery. The whole thing would have fit in something the size of a briefcase, weighed a few pounds and had about as much computing power as a high-end watch.
It's obviously not a 1-1 match, but the government's reaction to the the unexpected shock and disaster was to lock down the society, limit our rights, track us more closely, etc.
The HL-2 world goes far beyond that, but generally in the same direction.
Science fiction and fantasy is the genre of 'what if':
What if flights to mars were commonplace and economic?
What if I could read people's minds?
What if a despotic government took over the world?
What would life be like if hyperlight travel were a reality?
1984 was science fiction back in 1948. The idea of government being able to track just about your every move was quite over the top, but now we have 25cent RFID tags that can track our path thru the city incuding what we buy, and a note about how laser printers put their serial number on every image you print.
The biggest problem for some science fiction writers these days is that technology has pretty much caught up with SF. Personal communicators, private spaceflight (barely), handheld supercomputing
and even carbon-fiber nanotubes are getting close to mono(molecular)filimant wire.
About the two biggest SF standards left to come true are alien life and faster-than-light travel.
I didn't say that the HL-2 world is precely where bush will be taking us, but there's a general pattern vaguely in that direction. I'm not even going to claim that the people at valve intended analogy. I'm just saying that there's a vague similarity. I'm also including the similarity of the disconnect between the two events. Althugh the final situation has a vague association with tthe original state, you dan't draw a straight line between the two.
They feel comfortable with Windows because that's what they learned on in college/high school.
The way I put it is: "When all you know is shit, garbage tastes like heaven".
Most people have only known Windows, and they think that that's the way that computers are supposed to work. I've thrown Linux at just about every roommate that I've had, and they've generally been very happy with it -- one of them turned into a downright Linux crusader (much to my surprise).
For most of the people that I offer Linux to, their only real question is "will I still be able to do the things important for me". If the answer to that question is yes, then they're pretty happy to move over from the 'dark side' of computing.
So was this whole evil-government-controlled-cities thing in the first game as well?
If you think of HL-1 as the 9/11 of the HL world, HL-2 would be the (almost) worst-case post-bush era. It's plausable but not a given.
HL-1 start inside of a government-controlled top-secret complex and you never really leave it by the end of the game. HL2 shows you the outside world some time after HL1 ends, so there's a bit of a disconnect.
There really isn't that much of a market for people who like to dick around with 10000 different ways to close a window, each with it's own myriad of quirks and bugs.
No, there isn't -- and that's why most people don't. Most people will learn one window manager and stick with it. If I'm using KDE, the fact that Gnome is also loaded onto my box is entierely immaterial -- unless my friend who likes Gnome comes to visit, at which point he's free to use his favorite desktop.
The 'do exactly as I say and nobody will get hurt' attitude is why many people hate microsoft. Sometimes (OK: Often) what works for MS's business plan doesn't turn my crank.. The ability to do it my way rather than your way is what makes Linux such a good choice for so many people. We're not at the mercy of somebody elses business plans and/or persnal quirks.
I doubt that open-sourcing Solaris will hurt SUN's business... It could definitely help stop some of their bleeding off to Linux. On the other hand, they have a long way to go to catch up with Linux in terms of developer mindshare and hardware support.
That having been said, Sun has some relly nice hardware at the high end of the scale. I don't expect that to change in the near future.
Sun is just roadkill on Linux's crusade to take out Microsoft.
You don't need to surrender. You just need to make sure that the people that you are occupying feel like they are being respected and protected. At that point they have very little reason to risk their lives to try and kill you.
he fact is, historically only TWO strategies have succeeded in ending terrorism: Genocide (Titus) and Surrender (Augustine).
It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees
I could add to that pretty much the entire US Declaration of Independence. The point is that what makes people into insurgents/ Resistance fighters/ Freedom Fighters / Terrorists is a sense that the occupying force has made life so unberable that risking death (or even a suicide attack) is preferrable to living under the thumb.
The best way to cause such armies to disband is to convince the people that the occupying force is there to the advantage of the people. Things like building up the country, enforcing the law (or any reasonable and predictable law), and giving the people a general feeling that they are respected.
The British did not get the only areas where people were happy to see Saddam go, but they held onto and built on what goodwill there was when they arrived. The US, on the other hand, acted like overwhelming force was enough to hold the land. They squandered the goodwill tht they had and are now dealing with overtly hostile populations -- even in places like the Kurdish North which originally worked with US Special forces at the start of the war.
Acting like a bully doesn't give you respect it gains you fear. When people fear you, they will bow down as you pass but then shoot you in the back. It's what happened in the American Revolution and it's what's happening now in the Iraqi (counter-)revolution.
Bluntly put: Too freaking bad.
When people respect you, they may disagree with you to your face, but ehey'll watch your back when you need it. That's what Canada and France did with the US when it went into Iraq -- public disagreement because the governments honestly felt it was a very bad idea. I have respect for the American people, but (much like many Americans) very little respect for Bush and his policies. I honestly hoope that Canada does not go into Iraq because it would do very little good for te world, The Iraqi people, the US or for Canada as things stand. It would cost Canada it's respect in the world (esp. in the middle east), Canadian Lives, the ability of Canada to interceed effectively when the opportunity presents itself, and gain very little other than give Bush some fleeting comfort.
That's not to say that Canada should never go into Iraq, but rather that we should wait until it will do enough good to be worth the Canadian deaths that would almost inevitably result given the royal cock-up that Bush and his team have now generated in that country and the whole region.
There is absolutely nothing in the bible that says that God's days were 24 hours long. There's absolutely no reason why a god with an infinite lifetime doesn't have days of what most humans would consider infinite length. Giving god 8-hour shifts (so to speak) is not taking the bible literally. It's adding something that is not there.
This isn't an argument for taking the bible 'literally' just pointing out that those who claim to take it literally aren't really doing that.
About the only advantage of cyber-hunting is that you don't have to get your feet dirty. Might as well just go to a rendering plant and pay to kill a cow.
The whole town of 350k (size of Wichita KS, 49th largest city in US), urban warfare, one week.
Well, yeah, except that it's estimated that only 50k of those people actually remained in the city.
In other words, you've now got 300,000 refugees -- many of whom now have now had their homes destroyed or badly damaged and thus now have nothing to go home to. I'd call this a fertile breeding ground for new insurgents.
Nice way to make friends and influence people. There is no long--term win for the US in this. It'll play OK for the press back home, but that's about it.
As for warning people to leave, a large civilian population would have simply made life a lot harder on US troops. Finding out you've just blown up 5 kindergarten-aged kids does nasty things to the morale of most soldiers and provides ample fodder for recruiting (what's left of) the massacred family as suicide bombers.
The US doesn't have the option of going the genocide route, so they have to take some measures to safeguard the civilians -- even if it means letting some insurgents out.
Canada never done any genocide, nor had they surrendered to anybody.
You obviously don't know the history of Canada's treatment of our natives. Census records for some native nations indicated extermination rates in the range of 99%. Hitler never even came close.
In one case, an entire Native village in what is now Vancouver (kitsilano) was put onto a barge with the promise that they'd be taken where all those white folk wouldn't bother them again. The barge was towed out to sea and they were never heard from again.
There was one government-run 'residential school' for native chilren that had a death rate of about 30% -- about as good as some nazi concentration camps. Sending your kids to these schools was not optional.
I don't want to take away from your comments about being peacefull resulting in less Terrorism -- For Canada's dealings outside of it's borders, this is accurate. On the other hand, although the government is now taking (some) action to make up for past sins, we definitely have some skeletons in our closet.
Some Canadians have been taken hostage in Iraq, I believe that most (if not all) of them have been released. Knock on wood.
I considered that, but you have to quote the "<". I figured it'd mess up anybody who tried to do a cut and past. Besides, the "quote" form indicates something that's owned by me as opposed to system-wide. I figure that's appropriate.
The US has essentially created the terrorism problem by mistreatment (or just plain neglect) of the civilian poplation in favour of the war on insurgents.
The British seem to have understood this which seems to be why they've seen so little action in areas that they control. Somebody pointed out that US forces got a relatively warm reception in Fallujah, but after enough homes and people got bombed, the mood started to turn ugly.
If you treat someone like enemy for long enough, they'll get the hint.
Happily he can't use Nukes in Iraq -- especially now that it's occupied.
and the absense of WMDs is proven.
As bad as the invasionn turned out, using Nukes would be orders of magnitudes worse.. and there's no way 'round that.
I didn't completely discount the possibility before the invasion, though.
One reason why I think Bush doesn't understand the idea of turning the enemy is that he's ex air-farce. In the air force, turning the enemy isn't an option. Either you destroy them, or you don't. Direct contact is left to the ground forces.
A war is won when the enemy gives in (or decides that you're right).
A turned enemy is far more valuable than a dead one.
The war in Iraq will never be won because Bush is focused on kiling the enemy -- and not too worried about killing innocents. Every dead civilian is probably going to create 2-5 enemy insurgents (former friends and family of the dead)... The more people you kill the more enemies you end up with.
Unless he's willing to just Nuke the country then this is is gonna continue ad-infinitum.
The interesting thing is that all of those messages probably gave the baath party the idea of going home (with their weapons) and waiting until the US had moved in -- thus leading, in part, to the current dilemma.
Thanks.. I was thinking about that, but I'm not a chemist, so I would have had to go hunting for that info..
If someone has mod points, please mod parent +1 Informative.
Re:saved by CD burning under knoppix
on
Knoppix Hacks
·
· Score: 1
The intent here is to do the recovery without having to pull out a screwdriver (and change hardware around). Sometimes (eg: when you're dealing with a laptop), it's not a very viable choice.
.
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I have two computers at my station with a switch box. One runs KDE, the other runs Gnome. No big sweat off of my back
GNOME Vs KDE is really only important for the seriously geeky. Most people just want to start up their web browser, email, IM, MP3 player snd office suite. After that, pretty much anything else is bonus.
If you did it right, most people would barely even notice if you changet the entire distro on them -- they'd just presume you changed the startup graphics (and the people who know enough to know better would also probably just take it in stride).
The real difference between KDE and GNOME is for the programmer -- and they get to choose which paradigm they program in -- a bonus. As a user, I use GAIM on KDE and KOffice under gnome etc. As long as you have the necessary libraries, it doesn't usually matter too much.
Knoppix also has a bug for setting the timezone. It chooses the timezone based on the keyboard you pick. For the US keyboard it's EST. If you're not in the proper timezone, you pretty much have to rewrite the /etc/init.d/knoppix-autoconfig file.
There are two fixes: One is to hardcode the proper TZ into the knoppix-autoconfig file. The other is to fix the bug for setting the timezone.. at that point you can set the timezone in the isolinux.cfg file without having to recompress the whole KNOPPIX filesystem.
My TZ patch is here. Once you install it, you can use 'tz=America/Vancouver' (etc.) on the boot line, or change the isolinux.cfg file and write a new CD (far easier in my mind).
It's not his gift. It's part of the card. I'm presuming that the actual gift wil be in the attached box.
My answer is: people have gotten too damned used to the Microsoft Model. Monopolies are neither normal nor a good thing, but if we get used to it, it starts to seem normal. Competition is good, wars are not. Unfortunately, Gates never got that message..
Needless to say I prefer the newer technology.
Science fiction and fantasy is the genre of 'what if':
- What if flights to mars were commonplace and economic?
1984 was science fiction back in 1948. The idea of government being able to track just about your every move was quite over the top, but now we have 25cent RFID tags that can track our path thru the city incuding what we buy, and a note about how laser printers put their serial number on every image you print.What if I could read people's minds?
What if a despotic government took over the world?
What would life be like if hyperlight travel were a reality?
The biggest problem for some science fiction writers these days is that technology has pretty much caught up with SF. Personal communicators, private spaceflight (barely), handheld supercomputing and even carbon-fiber nanotubes are getting close to mono(molecular)filimant wire.
About the two biggest SF standards left to come true are alien life and faster-than-light travel.
I didn't say that the HL-2 world is precely where bush will be taking us, but there's a general pattern vaguely in that direction. I'm not even going to claim that the people at valve intended analogy. I'm just saying that there's a vague similarity. I'm also including the similarity of the disconnect between the two events. Althugh the final situation has a vague association with tthe original state, you dan't draw a straight line between the two.
The way I put it is: "When all you know is shit, garbage tastes like heaven".
Most people have only known Windows, and they think that that's the way that computers are supposed to work. I've thrown Linux at just about every roommate that I've had, and they've generally been very happy with it -- one of them turned into a downright Linux crusader (much to my surprise).
For most of the people that I offer Linux to, their only real question is "will I still be able to do the things important for me". If the answer to that question is yes, then they're pretty happy to move over from the 'dark side' of computing.
If you think of HL-1 as the 9/11 of the HL world, HL-2 would be the (almost) worst-case post-bush era. It's plausable but not a given.
HL-1 start inside of a government-controlled top-secret complex and you never really leave it by the end of the game. HL2 shows you the outside world some time after HL1 ends, so there's a bit of a disconnect.
No, there isn't -- and that's why most people don't. Most people will learn one window manager and stick with it. If I'm using KDE, the fact that Gnome is also loaded onto my box is entierely immaterial -- unless my friend who likes Gnome comes to visit, at which point he's free to use his favorite desktop.
The 'do exactly as I say and nobody will get hurt' attitude is why many people hate microsoft. Sometimes (OK: Often) what works for MS's business plan doesn't turn my crank.. The ability to do it my way rather than your way is what makes Linux such a good choice for so many people. We're not at the mercy of somebody elses business plans and/or persnal quirks.
That having been said, Sun has some relly nice hardware at the high end of the scale. I don't expect that to change in the near future.
Sun is just roadkill on Linux's crusade to take out Microsoft.
You don't need to surrender. You just need to make sure that the people that you are occupying feel like they are being respected and protected. At that point they have very little reason to risk their lives to try and kill you.
The best way to cause such armies to disband is to convince the people that the occupying force is there to the advantage of the people. Things like building up the country, enforcing the law (or any reasonable and predictable law), and giving the people a general feeling that they are respected.
The British did not get the only areas where people were happy to see Saddam go, but they held onto and built on what goodwill there was when they arrived. The US, on the other hand, acted like overwhelming force was enough to hold the land. They squandered the goodwill tht they had and are now dealing with overtly hostile populations -- even in places like the Kurdish North which originally worked with US Special forces at the start of the war.
Acting like a bully doesn't give you respect it gains you fear. When people fear you, they will bow down as you pass but then shoot you in the back. It's what happened in the American Revolution and it's what's happening now in the Iraqi (counter-)revolution. Bluntly put: Too freaking bad.
When people respect you, they may disagree with you to your face, but ehey'll watch your back when you need it. That's what Canada and France did with the US when it went into Iraq -- public disagreement because the governments honestly felt it was a very bad idea. I have respect for the American people, but (much like many Americans) very little respect for Bush and his policies. I honestly hoope that Canada does not go into Iraq because it would do very little good for te world, The Iraqi people, the US or for Canada as things stand. It would cost Canada it's respect in the world (esp. in the middle east), Canadian Lives, the ability of Canada to interceed effectively when the opportunity presents itself, and gain very little other than give Bush some fleeting comfort.
That's not to say that Canada should never go into Iraq, but rather that we should wait until it will do enough good to be worth the Canadian deaths that would almost inevitably result given the royal cock-up that Bush and his team have now generated in that country and the whole region.
This isn't an argument for taking the bible 'literally' just pointing out that those who claim to take it literally aren't really doing that.
Not much more to say there...
- Your prey is a renewable resource
- It's actually a Fair fight.
- It's cheaper
- Far less moral dilema
- You can chat with them too.
About the only advantage of cyber-hunting is that you don't have to get your feet dirty. Might as well just go to a rendering plant and pay to kill a cow.Well, yeah, except that it's estimated that only 50k of those people actually remained in the city.
In other words, you've now got 300,000 refugees -- many of whom now have now had their homes destroyed or badly damaged and thus now have nothing to go home to. I'd call this a fertile breeding ground for new insurgents. Nice way to make friends and influence people. There is no long--term win for the US in this. It'll play OK for the press back home, but that's about it.
As for warning people to leave, a large civilian population would have simply made life a lot harder on US troops. Finding out you've just blown up 5 kindergarten-aged kids does nasty things to the morale of most soldiers and provides ample fodder for recruiting (what's left of) the massacred family as suicide bombers.
The US doesn't have the option of going the genocide route, so they have to take some measures to safeguard the civilians -- even if it means letting some insurgents out.
You obviously don't know the history of Canada's treatment of our natives. Census records for some native nations indicated extermination rates in the range of 99%. Hitler never even came close.
In one case, an entire Native village in what is now Vancouver (kitsilano) was put onto a barge with the promise that they'd be taken where all those white folk wouldn't bother them again. The barge was towed out to sea and they were never heard from again.
There was one government-run 'residential school' for native chilren that had a death rate of about 30% -- about as good as some nazi concentration camps. Sending your kids to these schools was not optional.
I don't want to take away from your comments about being peacefull resulting in less Terrorism -- For Canada's dealings outside of it's borders, this is accurate. On the other hand, although the government is now taking (some) action to make up for past sins, we definitely have some skeletons in our closet.
Some Canadians have been taken hostage in Iraq, I believe that most (if not all) of them have been released. Knock on wood.
I considered that, but you have to quote the "<". I figured it'd mess up anybody who tried to do a cut and past. Besides, the "quote" form indicates something that's owned by me as opposed to system-wide. I figure that's appropriate.
The British seem to have understood this which seems to be why they've seen so little action in areas that they control. Somebody pointed out that US forces got a relatively warm reception in Fallujah, but after enough homes and people got bombed, the mood started to turn ugly.
If you treat someone like enemy for long enough, they'll get the hint.
As bad as the invasionn turned out, using Nukes would be orders of magnitudes worse.. and there's no way 'round that.
I didn't completely discount the possibility before the invasion, though.
One reason why I think Bush doesn't understand the idea of turning the enemy is that he's ex air-farce. In the air force, turning the enemy isn't an option. Either you destroy them, or you don't. Direct contact is left to the ground forces.
A turned enemy is far more valuable than a dead one.
The war in Iraq will never be won because Bush is focused on kiling the enemy -- and not too worried about killing innocents. Every dead civilian is probably going to create 2-5 enemy insurgents (former friends and family of the dead)... The more people you kill the more enemies you end up with.
Unless he's willing to just Nuke the country then this is is gonna continue ad-infinitum.
The interesting thing is that all of those messages probably gave the baath party the idea of going home (with their weapons) and waiting until the US had moved in -- thus leading, in part, to the current dilemma.
When Hell thaws -- this requires, of course, that it freezes over first.
Thanks. You've just given me my new signature. My previous one was election based.
Thanks.. I was thinking about that, but I'm not a chemist, so I would have had to go hunting for that info..
If someone has mod points, please mod parent +1 Informative.
The intent here is to do the recovery without having to pull out a screwdriver (and change hardware around). Sometimes (eg: when you're dealing with a laptop), it's not a very viable choice. .