I know you were being facetious, but I regularly set up new gentoo boxes (without X) in two or three hours. If you want $WindowManager, flip a few flags in USE, start up emerge, and leave it overnight. It will probably be done in the morning.
There are some programs you're better off not compiling from source, however:
I set up software RAID with a pair of 1TB SATA drives on a custom-built Gentoo box several months ago. It was almost trivially easy; it was certainly no more difficult than regular partitioning, other than an easy few extra commands to initialize the RAID array.
Setting up RAID in Windows still requires a floppy drive. A FLOPPY DRIVE! It sickens me.
I actually read most of what you wrote, and to be honest most of it comes across as nitpicks.
The one I will agree with is new windows stealing focus, but you have to admit it's a hard problem to solve. If I open Word via a desktop shortcut, should the desktop retain focus, or should Word get it? What if I have Word open, I click on the desktop, then open Firefox via another shortcut? What should get focus, Firefox or the desktop? What if I don't click on the desktop first?
If an in-focus application has an error, should the error dialog get focus? I would find it extremely annoying to have to click or alt-tab to the error dialog before being allowed to press enter to close it.
The solution to the focus problem is either mind-reading what the user wants or needs (and that's not going to happen), or having the OS learn what the user wants or needs based on behavior (but I don't think any OS vendor will be willing to do that... it takes effort). TBH a lot of programs could use a hefty dose of learning from user behavior. (If I never use toolbar icon X during a ten-month period of active use, why is the application showing it to me? My screen space is valuable.)
Regarding your "open Explorer and go to \\server" problem... I've never had the issue, and I've never *seen* the issue, and this is something I do a lot (read: several times daily) in both XP and Vista on a fifty-computer network. I would guess you either have an odd (read: broken) network setup or a finnicky network connection. Try not to blame bad networking skills on the OS;)
If you can access the machine but not a particular directory on the machine (as you seem to indicate here), then your problem is with filesystem permissions, not internet routing.
My ISP had a similar issue early last year. They told me someone had plugged the incoming cat-5 (from the ISP) into the wrong port on their router... so this customer's router was handing out bogus IP addresses on the ISP's network.
You'll notice that I did use the word "often" when describing the $300 price difference. You're absolutely right that it's not a rule, but (in my experience) it's fairly reliable in the long run. YMMV.
And for reference, when I bought a laptop from Dell Small Business last week, I was able to opt out of the "productivity" software (Office or Works), antivirus, and ISPs. I don't think there's anything else you would want to opt out of, except maybe the Dell-branded media and recovery stuff they install.
It's a "third trimester" class... stuff like how to recognize when it's time to go to the hospital (before it's too late, that is), they give a tour of the hospital so you know where to go, some other stuff.
Do you have any hard figure on how much OEMs get paid for the crapware?
Dell lets you opt out of most of the crapware, anyway... at least they do when you buy through their Small Business site instead of the Home & Home Office site (which everyone should, because Dell's Small Business computers often cost like $300 less for the same configurations).
I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that it would cost Dell more to offer a "blank hard drive" option, since with that option Dell would actually have to spend less time on those machines (not having to install an OEM copy of Windows).
I'm recovering from a stomach flu. My pregnant wife is watching TV while I work up the energy to play a video game to take my mind off the nausea. Tomorrow, assuming I'm recovered enough, we have a pregnancy class thing to go to...
"Cheap" doesn't refer to the cost to end-users, it refers to developer time/salaries/whatever. Many open source projects are funded - Mozilla, for example, funds Firefox development, Google funds development of several projects, etc etc.
So, theoretically, we've chosen "fast" and "reliable".
Does that include multiple instances of the same application? Many applications have moved away from the "multiple document" interface to the "multiple instance" interface, meaning that you run an instance of Word for every Word document you have open. So would I be limited to two Word documents and Firefox, or could I have six Word documents open, counting as one "application"?
I'm honestly getting tired of Microsoft's versioning shenanigans.
I don't know that that's particularly relevant. It's likely that people don't buy both the electronic and the audio versions of a book, so if someone buys the ebook to play it out loud, they're probably buying it because it was cheaper than the audiobook, not because they wanted both and were getting two for one.
Yes, audiobooks might be more expensive than ebooks. Couldn't this just be a market force driving down the price of audiobooks?
Let's say I write software that takes an audio file and spits out a text file containing the words spoken in the audio file. It can be used for a multitude of tasks - transcriptions of recordings of lecture sessions in schools, for example. Is it illegal to use it to take a legally purchased audiobook and spit out a text version of the book? What if I'm deaf? If it is, should my product be banned entirely because it might be used for illegal purposes, despite having legitimate uses? Does this sound at all familiar?
In Amazon's case, this is even more complicated. They sell both DRM-laden and DRM-free books. They simply advertise text-to-speech as a convenience feature. Should they be forced to remove a useful feature from their product because it *might* be used to do something that *might* be an infringement of copyright for *some* of the books sold on the kindle? (I say "might" because the legitimacy of their claim is dubious, and I'm sure Amazon has the same viewpoint at the moment. Or do you really believe they were unaware of the potential legal issues involved with the feature?)
There's a bigger question here. Why should authors get to decide the feature set of the product they sell their ebooks on? They should be allowed to decide whether or not to sell their ebooks on the Kindle, and nothing more.
To make a clearer analogy, if Amazon wants to advertise a printer for the Kindle, there is no reason they shouldn't - nobody would argue that a PC's printer driver constitutes a copyright infringement device because it might be used to print out a DRM-laden PDF, and the hypothetical Kindle printer is no different. (We're arguing about changing formats, right? Amazon sells both print and electronic versions of these books. It's essentially the same situation.)
Basically, I think that if authors don't like the feature, they shouldn't sell on the Kindle, end of story.
With all these rights landgrabs that Amazon is making with their digital books on Amazon (and heck, digital media in general)
Just to clarify what appears to be a misconception, Amazon has insisted on DRM-free music for Amazon MP3 since the beginning... so while the Kindle does appear to be a rights land-grab in some ways, not all of their digital media is treated equally.
Furthermore, Amazon does provide some DRM-free ebooks for the Kindle (e.g. several O'Reilly titles). Whether to include DRM on the Kindle ebooks appears to be a decision made by the publisher, not by Amazon, so don't blame Amazon for simply making the platform available. Based on their other activities, I'd say they're probably pushing for less ebook DRM behind the scenes.
Basement bedroom for several years, college dorm room for a year, the Dominican Republic for two years, then a half-basement apartment with my wife for two years... yeah, you could say I've been living in a cave.
I've had several ASUS motherboards die on me (P5N-e boards) within a short span of time. I've had good luck with MSI's P45 Neo boards, and very bad luck with two eVGA 750i FTW boards.
I realize this contradicts what most of the parent posts have said. Isn't anecdotal evidence great?
(On a somewhat related note, I suspect we have a static shock problem in our building, so it may not be the fault of the hardware manufacturers.)
Ah, the joys of custom-building computers for a software development company to save a few bucks.
Why? Because, in the opinion of many people, their products are awesome.
Why should I settle for an inferior product with good documentation when I can get a superior product for the same or lower price, even though it has no documentation? I don't program drivers, so hardware interface documentation has nothing to do with which company I buy my graphics cards from.
And why should it? As long as nvidia is supplying up-to-date linux drivers for their hardware, there isn't an actual need for hardware documentation, and those who complain about it are just being overly purist about the whole situation.
Slashdot Mirror
I know you were being facetious, but I regularly set up new gentoo boxes (without X) in two or three hours. If you want $WindowManager, flip a few flags in USE, start up emerge, and leave it overnight. It will probably be done in the morning.
There are some programs you're better off not compiling from source, however:
heron@heron6400 ~ $ genlop -t openoffice
* app-office/openoffice
Sun Aug 31 19:48:13 2008 >>> app-office/openoffice-2.4.1
merge time: 3 hours, 19 minutes and 36 seconds.
Sun Nov 30 23:42:34 2008 >>> app-office/openoffice-3.0.0
merge time: 3 hours, 10 minutes and 40 seconds.
I set up software RAID with a pair of 1TB SATA drives on a custom-built Gentoo box several months ago. It was almost trivially easy; it was certainly no more difficult than regular partitioning, other than an easy few extra commands to initialize the RAID array.
Setting up RAID in Windows still requires a floppy drive. A FLOPPY DRIVE! It sickens me.
I actually read most of what you wrote, and to be honest most of it comes across as nitpicks.
The one I will agree with is new windows stealing focus, but you have to admit it's a hard problem to solve. If I open Word via a desktop shortcut, should the desktop retain focus, or should Word get it? What if I have Word open, I click on the desktop, then open Firefox via another shortcut? What should get focus, Firefox or the desktop? What if I don't click on the desktop first?
If an in-focus application has an error, should the error dialog get focus? I would find it extremely annoying to have to click or alt-tab to the error dialog before being allowed to press enter to close it.
The solution to the focus problem is either mind-reading what the user wants or needs (and that's not going to happen), or having the OS learn what the user wants or needs based on behavior (but I don't think any OS vendor will be willing to do that... it takes effort). TBH a lot of programs could use a hefty dose of learning from user behavior. (If I never use toolbar icon X during a ten-month period of active use, why is the application showing it to me? My screen space is valuable.)
Regarding your "open Explorer and go to \\server" problem... I've never had the issue, and I've never *seen* the issue, and this is something I do a lot (read: several times daily) in both XP and Vista on a fifty-computer network. I would guess you either have an odd (read: broken) network setup or a finnicky network connection. Try not to blame bad networking skills on the OS ;)
My ISP locks me out of the fiber-to-ethernet device they installed in my utility room...
Admittedly it's a cheap lock and the case is plastic, so if I cared I could open it, but that's beside the point.
If you can access the machine but not a particular directory on the machine (as you seem to indicate here), then your problem is with filesystem permissions, not internet routing.
My ISP had a similar issue early last year. They told me someone had plugged the incoming cat-5 (from the ISP) into the wrong port on their router... so this customer's router was handing out bogus IP addresses on the ISP's network.
It was quite annoying.
You'll notice that I did use the word "often" when describing the $300 price difference. You're absolutely right that it's not a rule, but (in my experience) it's fairly reliable in the long run. YMMV.
And for reference, when I bought a laptop from Dell Small Business last week, I was able to opt out of the "productivity" software (Office or Works), antivirus, and ISPs. I don't think there's anything else you would want to opt out of, except maybe the Dell-branded media and recovery stuff they install.
It's a "third trimester" class... stuff like how to recognize when it's time to go to the hospital (before it's too late, that is), they give a tour of the hospital so you know where to go, some other stuff.
Do you have any hard figure on how much OEMs get paid for the crapware?
Dell lets you opt out of most of the crapware, anyway... at least they do when you buy through their Small Business site instead of the Home & Home Office site (which everyone should, because Dell's Small Business computers often cost like $300 less for the same configurations).
I want both XP and Linux so I can play games in Windows and do the rest of my stuff in Linux. That's why.
I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that it would cost Dell more to offer a "blank hard drive" option, since with that option Dell would actually have to spend less time on those machines (not having to install an OEM copy of Windows).
Yes, I'm fully aware that I'm doing little more than complaining. Everyone deserves to complain once in a while...
Most of us use command recall. Let this be a lesson to you.
I'm recovering from a stomach flu. My pregnant wife is watching TV while I work up the energy to play a video game to take my mind off the nausea. Tomorrow, assuming I'm recovered enough, we have a pregnancy class thing to go to...
So not much celebrating here :(
"Cheap" doesn't refer to the cost to end-users, it refers to developer time/salaries/whatever. Many open source projects are funded - Mozilla, for example, funds Firefox development, Google funds development of several projects, etc etc.
So, theoretically, we've chosen "fast" and "reliable".
Swap is still relatively important in some low-memory environments (such as virtual machines limited to 256MB of RAM).
Does that include multiple instances of the same application? Many applications have moved away from the "multiple document" interface to the "multiple instance" interface, meaning that you run an instance of Word for every Word document you have open. So would I be limited to two Word documents and Firefox, or could I have six Word documents open, counting as one "application"?
I'm honestly getting tired of Microsoft's versioning shenanigans.
That's no longer a valid comparison, as Apple has discontinued DRM in their music. ;)
A very concise explanation, thank you. I'd mod you up but I've already participated in this discussion quite a bit ;)
I don't know that that's particularly relevant. It's likely that people don't buy both the electronic and the audio versions of a book, so if someone buys the ebook to play it out loud, they're probably buying it because it was cheaper than the audiobook, not because they wanted both and were getting two for one.
Yes, audiobooks might be more expensive than ebooks. Couldn't this just be a market force driving down the price of audiobooks?
Let's say I write software that takes an audio file and spits out a text file containing the words spoken in the audio file. It can be used for a multitude of tasks - transcriptions of recordings of lecture sessions in schools, for example. Is it illegal to use it to take a legally purchased audiobook and spit out a text version of the book? What if I'm deaf? If it is, should my product be banned entirely because it might be used for illegal purposes, despite having legitimate uses? Does this sound at all familiar?
In Amazon's case, this is even more complicated. They sell both DRM-laden and DRM-free books. They simply advertise text-to-speech as a convenience feature. Should they be forced to remove a useful feature from their product because it *might* be used to do something that *might* be an infringement of copyright for *some* of the books sold on the kindle? (I say "might" because the legitimacy of their claim is dubious, and I'm sure Amazon has the same viewpoint at the moment. Or do you really believe they were unaware of the potential legal issues involved with the feature?)
There's a bigger question here. Why should authors get to decide the feature set of the product they sell their ebooks on? They should be allowed to decide whether or not to sell their ebooks on the Kindle, and nothing more.
To make a clearer analogy, if Amazon wants to advertise a printer for the Kindle, there is no reason they shouldn't - nobody would argue that a PC's printer driver constitutes a copyright infringement device because it might be used to print out a DRM-laden PDF, and the hypothetical Kindle printer is no different. (We're arguing about changing formats, right? Amazon sells both print and electronic versions of these books. It's essentially the same situation.)
Basically, I think that if authors don't like the feature, they shouldn't sell on the Kindle, end of story.
With all these rights landgrabs that Amazon is making with their digital books on Amazon (and heck, digital media in general)
Just to clarify what appears to be a misconception, Amazon has insisted on DRM-free music for Amazon MP3 since the beginning... so while the Kindle does appear to be a rights land-grab in some ways, not all of their digital media is treated equally.
Furthermore, Amazon does provide some DRM-free ebooks for the Kindle (e.g. several O'Reilly titles). Whether to include DRM on the Kindle ebooks appears to be a decision made by the publisher, not by Amazon, so don't blame Amazon for simply making the platform available. Based on their other activities, I'd say they're probably pushing for less ebook DRM behind the scenes.
Basement bedroom for several years, college dorm room for a year, the Dominican Republic for two years, then a half-basement apartment with my wife for two years... yeah, you could say I've been living in a cave.
I've had several ASUS motherboards die on me (P5N-e boards) within a short span of time. I've had good luck with MSI's P45 Neo boards, and very bad luck with two eVGA 750i FTW boards.
I realize this contradicts what most of the parent posts have said. Isn't anecdotal evidence great?
(On a somewhat related note, I suspect we have a static shock problem in our building, so it may not be the fault of the hardware manufacturers.)
Ah, the joys of custom-building computers for a software development company to save a few bucks.
Why? Because, in the opinion of many people, their products are awesome.
Why should I settle for an inferior product with good documentation when I can get a superior product for the same or lower price, even though it has no documentation? I don't program drivers, so hardware interface documentation has nothing to do with which company I buy my graphics cards from.
And why should it? As long as nvidia is supplying up-to-date linux drivers for their hardware, there isn't an actual need for hardware documentation, and those who complain about it are just being overly purist about the whole situation.