platform agnostic, no ifs. ands, buts, or excuses.
If the BBC CTO can't figure out how to do what millions of webmasters have figured out (I mean, if he'd just gone with Flash, that's everything including Macs and Linux boxes) he needs to be replaced by somebody competent. At least competent enough to figure out how to make a deal with YouTube.
Of course, perhaps the technical arguments for XP-only were made by MS in GBP, Euros, or unmarked US $100 bills.
Straight loratidine isn't a problem. It's the version with ephedrine (Claritin D) which is one of the precursors for meth that's behind the counter. Whether or not regular Claritin would have worked for the guy or not is something I have no idea about. The regular product works just fine for me, and there's a bottle of the generic in my bedroom right now.
but the state of affairs you describe is the one where the terrorists in fact have won.
At that point, we have a government "terrorist sponsors" can deal with amicably without concerns as to whether the people will vote out of office legislators who voted for something like the deal to have an Arab government managing our ports.
Hypothetically speaking, let's say there was a company that had just dropped about $6B on a descendant of the NT kernel that's going nowhere in particular, realized that the path to a stable OS is based on a *nix of some sort, and is emotionally attached to proprietary IP. And would like a proprietary *nix with virtualization capability to make it possible to run their legacy OSs in emulation. (it's my understanding that the original Win4Lin IP that Win4lin 9.x was based on was originally from SCO)
Turning SCO Unix into a modern, viable OS certainly would cost less then $6 billion.
at the factory over a Linux host, and let people who want to install Windows or whatever put it on the machine from inside the VMware Server wizard... or preinstall it for people who don't already have an installable XP copy. They can preinstall and set up SAMBA at the same time to make it easy to access Linux files from the Windows VM.
Dual boot means to me "the next app I need will require a reboot". (the dual boot corollary to Murphy's Law) This ended my first experiment with Linux after the second week, my first full-time use of a Linux desktop was with FC2 and Win4Lin 9.x .
With virtualization, the stability of the Windows guest is basically the stability of the host doing the heavy lifting. Which is how I have a reliable and stable Windows 98SE running my Eudora mail client. If VMware Server can stabilize 98SE, it can almost certainly stabilize Vista. The other advantage is a shared clipboard, so I can cut/paste from e-mail into any Linux app running. With SAMBA running, I can keep my Eudora mailboxes and all the rest of the data I generate in the Linux filesystem, meaning when I run recollindex, ALL the user data files on the computer get indexed, and I can use either Windows or Linux apps on all of my data. (even at the same time, if one is careful)
If Dell does this, they'll probably have a lot less customer service issues with the Windows part of the box and customers who can run just about any Windows or Linux application on data.
the kernel I got was compiled with gcc 4.1 and the gcc version that's current and pushed out via automated upgrade is 4.2? Remember, the team responsible for distributing updated Debian-packaged kernels is also the one who decide what compiler goes into the current distro upgrade. I think this problem is going to be common to any driver that has to be compiled into the kernel, I'm merely glad that for me, nvidia is the only problem.
More to the point, the nvidia.deb Debian repackage is also supposed to be up to date with the current kernel for the same reasons.
In general, for the great majority of applications used by ordinary users, Linux is actually there. If all I did was websurfing and OpenOffice and I had a video card for which support is compiled into the kernel, I'd probably need to use the command line every few weeks.
It's when one steps outside the safe zone that one gets hammered. I've got a UPS (ever try using network ups tools?) , I run a drive mirror, and I've got what Linux considers a slightly non-standard video card. I run Windows 98SE via VMware Server. (works better than it ever did on it's own box... ever seen a reliable and stable Windows 98? I've got one.) Note that how-tos that a newbie can follow are now available for each of those configurations. They exist because I wrote them for publication.
But this is a vast improvement on where Linux was 3 years ago. . . I wrote a 2 part "how to use multimedia" article back then (probably about 6000 words). I couldn't sell such a thing now because "use debconf" or "use automatix" can't be inflated into 1000 words. I wrote a how to on running a Palm PDA with Linux. "Install jpilot and plug in your PDA" can't be inflated into 1000 words, either. The only automatic upgrades I get nervous about are the ones where there's a new kernel version.
I don't recommend that people new to Linux run it full time as their only workstation unless there's an available Linux guru to help out in case of trouble.
OTOH, I'd tell anyone thinking of Vista who won't take the "Run away, run away" advice I'd first give to find a Windows expert, too... and investigate hardware compatibility first.
The only OS I know of that's trouble-free enough that I'd say "go out and use it and don't worry" is OSX. Though how long that'll last given the way Apple is being run these days is problematic.
actually, I'm running stable / testing. I avoid unstable for the exact reason you cite, by the time a package gets to testing, these problems are supposed to be worked out. And they usually are.
vendors of video display cards? Yes, that would be nvidia and ATI. So it's reasonable to expect support. Yes, I know the legal / technical / political issues involved, it's hardly possible to write for money about Linux without being aware of them. Would "the masses" know to research whether or not a video chipset is supported? More to the point, I verified that there was Linux support for nvidia before buying the motherboard.
Debian packagers do supply packages for nvidia and rebuilt as debs... as you might have noticed from my post that said the usual method for upgrading nvidia is # aptitude install nvidia.
The problem here is that the nvidia packages weren't fully maintained up to current version and there were problems with them besides that. All a Debian end user is responsible for is to check to see if Debian maintains driver packages compatible with the product one is considering buying. An end user isn't supposed to have to cope with situations where the compiler that's current with a distro (gcc 4.2) that one uses to build a nvidia binary (as I said, the Debian nvidia wasn't ready) is not the same as the one the kernel was built in (gcc 4.1). One of the points behind automated upgrades is to prevent that situation from happening.
If the driver packages exist in Debian repositories, that's "supported" as far as a Debian user is concerned. It's the developer/packager problem to make sure that they work on the chipsets they are claimed to work with.
Part of the Debian learning curve is finding out that non-free and contrib sections of the repositories have to be added to sources.list so one can get access to proprietary drivers. I think they deal with this better in Ubuntu.
Installing a Linux distro on compatible hardware is fairly easy.
Keeping it running gets interesting.
I am not a Linux guru, but I've been writing how-to articles on Linux for the last 3 years.
I have a fairly standard sort of setup, a Biostar GeForce 6100 AM2 integrated motherboard with Nvidia chipset and Athlon 64x2/4200 and 2G DDR2.
The normal procedure for installing a new nvidia video driver is:
# aptitude remove nvidia
# aptitude install nvidia[version compatible with kernel version]
Easy enough.
I had to do extensive research to find workarounds that would permit me to install the nvidia driver on the last three kernel upgrades
Last time around, I found out that the new kernel upgrade was compiled on a different gcc version than the version of gcc which had been pushed out via automatic update about a month before.
Before that, I found out based on a web search on the error message that the kernel developers decided to make a kernel call relating to paravirtualization unavailable to non-GPL proprietary drivers, some digging found me a patched kernel with the fix.
Would you like to talk a MCSE or your grandmother through what I just described?
I don't take the assertion that "Linux is ready for the masses" seriously yet and neither should anyone else. This delusion is bad for the Linux community as a whole, as it reduces the pressure on developers to fix the remaining problems.
Getting there? Certainly. I'd be far more surprised than not if Linux is to the point where a member of the general public can use it without having a Linux guru available to provide hands-on help by this time next year. But that time is not now. Do you want 20 or 30 million people running into trouble they can't handle, reformatting their boxes for XP, and telling their friends that Linux is shit? I certainly don't.
While Debian should have a more complete sources.list (they can always comment out the ones that might be risky for n00bs), once one adds one to the list, it works stably, reliably, and predictably.
However, having to add the PGP key is a PITA, that part of the process should be automated. (i.e. once there's a new sources.list entry, apt should find and install the key from the PGP server network without user intervention)
I am a Debian user who gets my tzdata updates whenever they came out. I don't have to touch the command line to get the time right because my system isn't misconfigured, unlike the original complainer.
Easy to hide and/or snailmail in addition to a backup mirror.
Downside: I'm up to 17 DVDs in a backup set... I wish the industry would settle on a single standard so we can get cheap high-density DVD burners and media.
But even 17 DVDs is an easy to mail package and largely immune to any hazard other than non-delivery.
in the mid-1970s, and discarded it with relief as soon as the TI-30 "slide-rule" scientfic calculator came out. For me, a "slipstick" was a PITA. Now, I just use Linux scientific calculator software and Excel for any complex or lengthy calculation I'm likely to have to repeat.
Slashdot Mirror
platform agnostic, no ifs. ands, buts, or excuses.
If the BBC CTO can't figure out how to do what millions of webmasters have figured out (I mean, if he'd just gone with Flash, that's everything including Macs and Linux boxes) he needs to be replaced by somebody competent. At least competent enough to figure out how to make a deal with YouTube.
Of course, perhaps the technical arguments for XP-only were made by MS in GBP, Euros, or unmarked US $100 bills.
Straight loratidine isn't a problem. It's the version with ephedrine (Claritin D) which is one of the precursors for meth that's behind the counter. Whether or not regular Claritin would have worked for the guy or not is something I have no idea about. The regular product works just fine for me, and there's a bottle of the generic in my bedroom right now.
but the state of affairs you describe is the one where the terrorists in fact have won.
At that point, we have a government "terrorist sponsors" can deal with amicably without concerns as to whether the people will vote out of office legislators who voted for something like the deal to have an Arab government managing our ports.
well, if your idea of a healthy and normal relationship is between a person who deliberately spreads STDs and his targets, maybe.
no text
Hypothetically speaking, let's say there was a company that had just dropped about $6B on a descendant of the NT kernel that's going nowhere in particular, realized that the path to a stable OS is based on a *nix of some sort, and is emotionally attached to proprietary IP. And would like a proprietary *nix with virtualization capability to make it possible to run their legacy OSs in emulation. (it's my understanding that the original Win4Lin IP that Win4lin 9.x was based on was originally from SCO)
Turning SCO Unix into a modern, viable OS certainly would cost less then $6 billion.
at the factory over a Linux host, and let people who want to install Windows or whatever put it on the machine from inside the VMware Server wizard... or preinstall it for people who don't already have an installable XP copy. They can preinstall and set up SAMBA at the same time to make it easy to access Linux files from the Windows VM.
Dual boot means to me "the next app I need will require a reboot". (the dual boot corollary to Murphy's Law) This ended my first experiment with Linux after the second week, my first full-time use of a Linux desktop was with FC2 and Win4Lin 9.x .
With virtualization, the stability of the Windows guest is basically the stability of the host doing the heavy lifting. Which is how I have a reliable and stable Windows 98SE running my Eudora mail client. If VMware Server can stabilize 98SE, it can almost certainly stabilize Vista. The other advantage is a shared clipboard, so I can cut/paste from e-mail into any Linux app running. With SAMBA running, I can keep my Eudora mailboxes and all the rest of the data I generate in the Linux filesystem, meaning when I run recollindex, ALL the user data files on the computer get indexed, and I can use either Windows or Linux apps on all of my data. (even at the same time, if one is careful)
If Dell does this, they'll probably have a lot less customer service issues with the Windows part of the box and customers who can run just about any Windows or Linux application on data.
to a few friends. . . with the subject line "feel-good story of the day".
the problem is that the kernel will only tolerate the insertion of a module compiled on the same compiler version as the kernel.
meaning mainly, lower launch to orbit costs. Doing this not only gets us power, it gives us a platform for space industrialization.
the kernel I got was compiled with gcc 4.1 and the gcc version that's current and pushed out via automated upgrade is 4.2? Remember, the team responsible for distributing updated Debian-packaged kernels is also the one who decide what compiler goes into the current distro upgrade. I think this problem is going to be common to any driver that has to be compiled into the kernel, I'm merely glad that for me, nvidia is the only problem.
.deb Debian repackage is also supposed to be up to date with the current kernel for the same reasons.
More to the point, the nvidia
In general, for the great majority of applications used by ordinary users, Linux is actually there. If all I did was websurfing and OpenOffice and I had a video card for which support is compiled into the kernel, I'd probably need to use the command line every few weeks.
It's when one steps outside the safe zone that one gets hammered. I've got a UPS (ever try using network ups tools?) , I run a drive mirror, and I've got what Linux considers a slightly non-standard video card. I run Windows 98SE via VMware Server. (works better than it ever did on it's own box... ever seen a reliable and stable Windows 98? I've got one.) Note that how-tos that a newbie can follow are now available for each of those configurations. They exist because I wrote them for publication.
But this is a vast improvement on where Linux was 3 years ago. . . I wrote a 2 part "how to use multimedia" article back then (probably about 6000 words). I couldn't sell such a thing now because "use debconf" or "use automatix" can't be inflated into 1000 words. I wrote a how to on running a Palm PDA with Linux. "Install jpilot and plug in your PDA" can't be inflated into 1000 words, either. The only automatic upgrades I get nervous about are the ones where there's a new kernel version.
I don't recommend that people new to Linux run it full time as their only workstation unless there's an available Linux guru to help out in case of trouble.
OTOH, I'd tell anyone thinking of Vista who won't take the "Run away, run away" advice I'd first give to find a Windows expert, too... and investigate hardware compatibility first.
The only OS I know of that's trouble-free enough that I'd say "go out and use it and don't worry" is OSX. Though how long that'll last given the way Apple is being run these days is problematic.
actually, I'm running stable / testing. I avoid unstable for the exact reason you cite, by the time a package gets to testing, these problems are supposed to be worked out. And they usually are.
vendors of video display cards? Yes, that would be nvidia and ATI. So it's reasonable to expect support. Yes, I know the legal / technical / political issues involved, it's hardly possible to write for money about Linux without being aware of them. Would "the masses" know to research whether or not a video chipset is supported? More to the point, I verified that there was Linux support for nvidia before buying the motherboard.
Debian packagers do supply packages for nvidia and rebuilt as debs... as you might have noticed from my post that said the usual method for upgrading nvidia is # aptitude install nvidia.
The problem here is that the nvidia packages weren't fully maintained up to current version and there were problems with them besides that. All a Debian end user is responsible for is to check to see if Debian maintains driver packages compatible with the product one is considering buying. An end user isn't supposed to have to cope with situations where the compiler that's current with a distro (gcc 4.2) that one uses to build a nvidia binary (as I said, the Debian nvidia wasn't ready) is not the same as the one the kernel was built in (gcc 4.1). One of the points behind automated upgrades is to prevent that situation from happening.
If the driver packages exist in Debian repositories, that's "supported" as far as a Debian user is concerned. It's the developer/packager problem to make sure that they work on the chipsets they are claimed to work with.
Part of the Debian learning curve is finding out that non-free and contrib sections of the repositories have to be added to sources.list so one can get access to proprietary drivers. I think they deal with this better in Ubuntu.
Installing a Linux distro on compatible hardware is fairly easy.
Keeping it running gets interesting.
I am not a Linux guru, but I've been writing how-to articles on Linux for the last 3 years.
I have a fairly standard sort of setup, a Biostar GeForce 6100 AM2 integrated motherboard with Nvidia chipset and Athlon 64x2/4200 and 2G DDR2.
The normal procedure for installing a new nvidia video driver is:
# aptitude remove nvidia
# aptitude install nvidia[version compatible with kernel version]
Easy enough.
I had to do extensive research to find workarounds that would permit me to install the nvidia driver on the last three kernel upgrades
Last time around, I found out that the new kernel upgrade was compiled on a different gcc version than the version of gcc which had been pushed out via automatic update about a month before.
Before that, I found out based on a web search on the error message that the kernel developers decided to make a kernel call relating to paravirtualization unavailable to non-GPL proprietary drivers, some digging found me a patched kernel with the fix.
Would you like to talk a MCSE or your grandmother through what I just described?
I don't take the assertion that "Linux is ready for the masses" seriously yet and neither should anyone else. This delusion is bad for the Linux community as a whole, as it reduces the pressure on developers to fix the remaining problems.
Getting there? Certainly. I'd be far more surprised than not if Linux is to the point where a member of the general public can use it without having a Linux guru available to provide hands-on help by this time next year. But that time is not now. Do you want 20 or 30 million people running into trouble they can't handle, reformatting their boxes for XP, and telling their friends that Linux is shit? I certainly don't.
an eBay conversion to Vista servers and desktops at a really, really good price Real Soon Now.
IMO, MS and eBay deserve each other.
that doesn't need customizing?
While Debian should have a more complete sources.list (they can always comment out the ones that might be risky for n00bs), once one adds one to the list, it works stably, reliably, and predictably.
However, having to add the PGP key is a PITA, that part of the process should be automated. (i.e. once there's a new sources.list entry, apt should find and install the key from the PGP server network without user intervention)
you set up your /. account. It's obvious that your handle should be n00b432.
I'm a Debian end user who gets tzdata updates whenever they come out, because unlike the complainer, my system is not misconfigured for updates.
if you were part of it. Astroturfing isn't IT.
I am a Debian user who gets my tzdata updates whenever they came out. I don't have to touch the command line to get the time right because my system isn't misconfigured, unlike the original complainer.
Checked the time on your computer lately?
Linux users that don't know what a zipfile is?
with Vista and ME as examples of prior art.
except for the 1/10 salary part.
I expect a large number of the Fortune 1000 to be run out of India and China in the next decade and the majority in the next generation.
With enough "core" business processes offshored, just what is the value-add of US management?
Easy to hide and/or snailmail in addition to a backup mirror.
Downside: I'm up to 17 DVDs in a backup set... I wish the industry would settle on a single standard so we can get cheap high-density DVD burners and media.
But even 17 DVDs is an easy to mail package and largely immune to any hazard other than non-delivery.
in the mid-1970s, and discarded it with relief as soon as the TI-30 "slide-rule" scientfic calculator came out. For me, a "slipstick" was a PITA. Now, I just use Linux scientific calculator software and Excel for any complex or lengthy calculation I'm likely to have to repeat.
for security reasons, so when I set up Ubuntu, I set up the root account as well.