They actually DO beta test their software, right?????????? They did test it in.au and even did a survey to see what people thought of it. Oddly enough everybody thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.
Also, vista isn't so bad. Don't like it, then don't use it. Bitching about it isn't going to make it go away. I have to admit I don't really get all the Vista hysteria either. From what I recall, the general sentiment was pretty much the same when XP was released (most home users never saw 2k) : "whine, whine, bloat, useless eye candy".
Granted I only used Vista for all of 10 minutes when trying to recover an SD card that seemed to be dead according to my camera and to Linux on my recently bought laptop (came with Vista, runs KUbuntu). Vista said something along the lines of "aha, you are not allowed to write to that peripheral, you lowlife, this is *my* computer now". I poked a bit at permissions and in the end just shrugged and killed its partition to add it to my photo storage space.
On the other hand I see a few people using it with little issues. The main problem I consistently see is novice users that get confused with the 12 shutdown options (shutdown, sleep, slumber, snore, turn off, snooze, doze off, etc.). Apart from that it mostly works as expected (I've only seen it on laptops though since it's nearly impossible to get one without the thing lately). Nobody seems to mind the occasional confirmation prompt (there's only one in a while and from what I've seen they're reasonably insightful, at least if you read the text, which most users probably won't do though), and the heavy DRM should only be a problem in specific cases that don't apply to any of the users I know (though I do agree it shouldn't even be there in the first place).
I have yet to see it in a business setting though.
As for me I've run Linux or BSD for more than 10 years as my main platform so I'm not very up to date with the whole Microsoft thing. Just reporting what I see around me.
The fact that there are work-arounds for all of these things doesn't negate the fact that they were locked down in the first place. I don't know where you ever got the idea that Apple was an "open" company. It's stuff is locked up at least as tight as Microsoft's. The Darwin core's openness was a PR stunt at best (just try compiling the current version).
*However*, and that makes all the difference, Apple does *not* have a monopoly on the desktop. So they are free to do as they please. And apparently whatever it is they are doing, it doesn't bother their customers (yet).
So comparing Apple to Microsoft is just plain meaningless. In the current context, they have nothing in common.
I had the same trouble with my Thinkpad T61p. Get the alternate install disc and use that to install. Then you have to get the latest beta driver off the NVIDIA site, and install it by hand. Text mode will be your friend for this. I found the easiest way was to get sshd up and running and do it remotely. Hope this helps! *blink*
Wouldn't it be easier to dictate the commands to your dog ?
If the stupid thing can't get X running just switch to a console and type your commands there. You shouldn't have to buy another computer to install the first one (and what if the second computer breaks, huh ?).
As an aside all my machines (desktop, laptops run crappy intel or similar economical chipsets) run nVidia cards and worst case they couldn't figure out the resolution of the screen that was plugged in (24" Dell at 1920x1200) and it was a fairly easy fix.
On the older (i.e. not the last two) *ubuntu distributions, I had to grab the nVidia drivers by hand or live with the open source nv one from x.org. Nowadays you just have to enable the "not free" software repository (or whatever it's called).
It may be that LFS still does it the old way but it's a fair bet that all current distributions do the very same thing the *Ubuntus do and just install whatever is required, possibly warning the user about the installation of non free software along the way.
I'm pretty sure someone at Microsoft, IBM and Apple probably said something to that effect about GNU/Linux at one point as well. Sure, however Linux does have quite a few things going for it, like the fact that it's a Unix clone with oogles of software and that it scales fairly well from one to lots of users, and lately from a phone to a mainframe.
A single user desktop system, however innovative, is probably too late in the game.
I don't have anything against Be. "Back when", I wished something would come out of it.
But I can't say I was that surprised when nothing did.
And I did actually use OS/2 before that (before I completely switched to the Unixy side of life). And I watched it crash and burn. Apparently some people still use it IRL (which I wouldn't have thought even though it I should know better). Which means that some elderly programs are still maintained. Well, stranger things have happened. And they could be stuck with a worse platform. OS/2 was pretty good as mainstream oriented PC systems went.
It would be nice to see it not only bringing back the technical advancements that once were available but to also see it bringing some new features. Applications would be nice too.
It's nice to have all those systems, but when people are looking at creatingsoftware for an open system for the desktop, they target Linux, possibly with a side of BSD. If the result compiles on Be, that's an unintended bonus, but nobody in his right mind is going to go out of his way to make it so.
The people of Bibble Labs who make commercial (and closed source) photography software which I buy from them sell their stuff for Windows, Mac OS and Linux (which is why I use it).
The last time I looked at Be, it wasn't too hard to *port* Unix/Linux software to it. However it really needs to be able to "just" run it, at least for the Linux binaries (like the *BSD do with the Linux libs). Otherwise it's going to be a repeat of 1999 (or whenever that was) when everybody played with the Be live CD or created a little partition to poke at for a while, and then went back to Linux or Windows or whatever the system where his software and data lived was.
Be was/is a nice system, among other things I liked the ideas in the filesystem. But unless there's actually a reason to use it (and there's none), nobody will. Unless you're into that kind of thing and you still have a little space next to your OS/2 partition. But then you're probably too far gone anyway.
How do you take a balanced view of a religion that wont tell you it's beleifs before you've bought into it. Isn't it only a "religion" for tax reasons since the IRS started looking into it ? Before that it was a "self help" system or something.
Think they haven't heard about hidden volumes? You realise you are talking about the same people that believe that dihydrogen monoxyde is a dangerous chemical weapon and will confiscate it on sight ?
On a side note has anyone had experience with getting a Linux machine past those guys ?
Yes, you are. And there are still a lot of good things happening in this country, and for the most part I enjoy my life here. Then again, you don't live here and apparently most of what you know you get through the media or from Slashdot, so I suppose your attitude should be expected. It sums up nicely the outside view of the US though.
I know that I take pains to avoid stops there during long flights for fear of missing the second plane and I don't intend to visit again until the current insanity has abated (assuming it ever does). Luckily I don't have any business there currently. While it's not the rule, I do get the occasional horror story from people around me (being French doesn't help apparently). Typically though, the security people seem to just be obnoxious.
And as someone who travels a little (about 2 or 3 out of Europe trips per year, definitely not to "resort" kind of airports), I can say that I haven't yet met airport security people who are actively disagreeable. Inefficient, often, requiring bribes, sometimes (increasingly rarely), but that's pretty much the extent of it.
Where's the "ohnoitsroland" meta tag?:) Seriously, though...
The roll rate of the aerobatic A-4 Skyhawk plane is about 720 degrees per second. The roll rate of a barn swallow exceeds 5,000 degrees per second. I'm no physics buff, but doesn't this have something to do with the greatly diminished surface area and related physical stresses on the swallow? Anyone with some aeronautics background care to help me out? Presumably the swallow folds or at least partly folds its wings when performing such manoeuvres. I suppose they'd like the planed to do the same (although getting materials to react fast enough at that scale would be challenging).
If by "terrorists", you mean "furries" and "furry sympathizers", then I would have to agree with you. And if furries were deported to Guantanamo, it's a fair bet that nobody would care what happened down there.
Yes, Linux is playing captain Obvious here for most of the/. crowd. I think you mean Linus, not Linux. Yes I think so as well. Can't edit my posts though so I'll have to live with the shame.:-/
I rather liked the nomenclature that Clipper (an old dBase III-compatible compiler) used: "Winter '85", "Autumn '86", "Summer '87", etc. It's a bit like what Ubuntu does. Except nobody uses it:( I find it irritating to have to regularly look at/etc/lsb-release to remember what the stupid name of 7.10 was again. Debian is even worse. Nobody *ever* uses the release numbers.
I don't mind releases having a nickname. Except they shouldn't be used all over the place. Especially not in the system. (why does apt repositories always use the nickname instead of the version for example ?)
Here, even on the laptop, I don't maximize the browser window, it's also at around 8 or 900 pixels and that's fine for pretty much all sites. On the desktop, with a 1920 pixel wide display, maximizing would be absurd of course.
Yes, Linux is playing captain Obvious here for most of the/. crowd. However the story will hopefully be picked up by a few more mainstream outlets where it will help counterbalance the FUD a little. I expect that this is the point, it wasn't meant to get people in the LUGs talking.
As posters below rightfully point out, IBM wouldn't be neck deep in Linux if it was that encumbered.
Why, you want to give up $7 or $8? Financial analysts have valued Yahoo! at $38 or $39 a share. They may have valued it at that price but oddly enough they don't seem to be fighting to buy at that price. So the market value is still way below that.
Of course they *could* value it at $150 a share, just so that Microsoft feels it really could get its money's worth. Or at $12 a share so that shareholders feel they would make a profit. Doesn't change the market value though.
It's pretty nice - at least until you realize that long horizontal lines of text are more strenuous to read. Shorter lines with more rows are a lot easier on the eyes. Hint : You don't *have* to maximize your window.
My Firefox windows are spawned with a geometry of 850x1100 which makes for nicely legible text on most sites (and often hides some of the right hand ad bar on the wide ones).
ISP : "But look, this user could have connected any time he wanted, like, and that's just for last week, monday between 4:15 and 4:17 or thursday between 13:42 and 13:58 !"
Judge : "Indeed, that user is clearly wasting the time of the court. 10 lashes ! Now tell me about how those tubes work again."
Doomed? You, maybe. Me, being a trusted slashdot personality, am sure our new overlords will see how convenient to have someone like me at their side. Sure, I can see it from here :
T1000 : Are those the slashdotters ? Right, sort yourself by karma !... T1000 : Quicksort please !... T1000 : T100, take the half at the back away for recycling.
Slashdot Mirror
Oddly enough everybody thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.
Don't like it, then don't use it.
Bitching about it isn't going to make it go away. I have to admit I don't really get all the Vista hysteria either. From what I recall, the general sentiment was pretty much the same when XP was released (most home users never saw 2k) : "whine, whine, bloat, useless eye candy".
Granted I only used Vista for all of 10 minutes when trying to recover an SD card that seemed to be dead according to my camera and to Linux on my recently bought laptop (came with Vista, runs KUbuntu). Vista said something along the lines of "aha, you are not allowed to write to that peripheral, you lowlife, this is *my* computer now". I poked a bit at permissions and in the end just shrugged and killed its partition to add it to my photo storage space.
On the other hand I see a few people using it with little issues. The main problem I consistently see is novice users that get confused with the 12 shutdown options (shutdown, sleep, slumber, snore, turn off, snooze, doze off, etc.). Apart from that it mostly works as expected (I've only seen it on laptops though since it's nearly impossible to get one without the thing lately). Nobody seems to mind the occasional confirmation prompt (there's only one in a while and from what I've seen they're reasonably insightful, at least if you read the text, which most users probably won't do though), and the heavy DRM should only be a problem in specific cases that don't apply to any of the users I know (though I do agree it shouldn't even be there in the first place).
I have yet to see it in a business setting though.
As for me I've run Linux or BSD for more than 10 years as my main platform so I'm not very up to date with the whole Microsoft thing. Just reporting what I see around me.
*However*, and that makes all the difference, Apple does *not* have a monopoly on the desktop. So they are free to do as they please. And apparently whatever it is they are doing, it doesn't bother their customers (yet).
So comparing Apple to Microsoft is just plain meaningless. In the current context, they have nothing in common.
Wouldn't it be easier to dictate the commands to your dog ?
If the stupid thing can't get X running just switch to a console and type your commands there. You shouldn't have to buy another computer to install the first one (and what if the second computer breaks, huh ?).
As an aside all my machines (desktop, laptops run crappy intel or similar economical chipsets) run nVidia cards and worst case they couldn't figure out the resolution of the screen that was plugged in (24" Dell at 1920x1200) and it was a fairly easy fix.
On the older (i.e. not the last two) *ubuntu distributions, I had to grab the nVidia drivers by hand or live with the open source nv one from x.org. Nowadays you just have to enable the "not free" software repository (or whatever it's called).
It may be that LFS still does it the old way but it's a fair bet that all current distributions do the very same thing the *Ubuntus do and just install whatever is required, possibly warning the user about the installation of non free software along the way.
A single user desktop system, however innovative, is probably too late in the game.
I don't have anything against Be. "Back when", I wished something would come out of it.
But I can't say I was that surprised when nothing did.
And I did actually use OS/2 before that (before I completely switched to the Unixy side of life). And I watched it crash and burn. Apparently some people still use it IRL (which I wouldn't have thought even though it I should know better). Which means that some elderly programs are still maintained. Well, stranger things have happened. And they could be stuck with a worse platform. OS/2 was pretty good as mainstream oriented PC systems went.
It's nice to have all those systems, but when people are looking at creatingsoftware for an open system for the desktop, they target Linux, possibly with a side of BSD. If the result compiles on Be, that's an unintended bonus, but nobody in his right mind is going to go out of his way to make it so.
The people of Bibble Labs who make commercial (and closed source) photography software which I buy from them sell their stuff for Windows, Mac OS and Linux (which is why I use it).
The last time I looked at Be, it wasn't too hard to *port* Unix/Linux software to it. However it really needs to be able to "just" run it, at least for the Linux binaries (like the *BSD do with the Linux libs). Otherwise it's going to be a repeat of 1999 (or whenever that was) when everybody played with the Be live CD or created a little partition to poke at for a while, and then went back to Linux or Windows or whatever the system where his software and data lived was.
Be was/is a nice system, among other things I liked the ideas in the filesystem. But unless there's actually a reason to use it (and there's none), nobody will. Unless you're into that kind of thing and you still have a little space next to your OS/2 partition. But then you're probably too far gone anyway.
Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.
/Or/ he could have written better stories...- L. Ron Hubbard
Actually I don't know what TrueCrypt looks like in Windows, I had no idea there was an icon displayed in there... Sounds like it defeats the purpose.
On a side note has anyone had experience with getting a Linux machine past those guys ?
Yes, you are. And there are still a lot of good things happening in this country, and for the most part I enjoy my life here. Then again, you don't live here and apparently most of what you know you get through the media or from Slashdot, so I suppose your attitude should be expected. It sums up nicely the outside view of the US though.
I know that I take pains to avoid stops there during long flights for fear of missing the second plane and I don't intend to visit again until the current insanity has abated (assuming it ever does).
Luckily I don't have any business there currently. While it's not the rule, I do get the occasional horror story from people around me (being French doesn't help apparently). Typically though, the security people seem to just be obnoxious.
And as someone who travels a little (about 2 or 3 out of Europe trips per year, definitely not to "resort" kind of airports), I can say that I haven't yet met airport security people who are actively disagreeable. Inefficient, often, requiring bribes, sometimes (increasingly rarely), but that's pretty much the extent of it.
*whoosh*
I find it irritating to have to regularly look at
Debian is even worse. Nobody *ever* uses the release numbers.
I don't mind releases having a nickname. Except they shouldn't be used all over the place. Especially not in the system. (why does apt repositories always use the nickname instead of the version for example ?)
Here, even on the laptop, I don't maximize the browser window, it's also at around 8 or 900 pixels and that's fine for pretty much all sites. On the desktop, with a 1920 pixel wide display, maximizing would be absurd of course.
I reckon that it's a matter of taste too though.
Yes, Linux is playing captain Obvious here for most of the /. crowd. However the story will hopefully be picked up by a few more mainstream outlets where it will help counterbalance the FUD a little. I expect that this is the point, it wasn't meant to get people in the LUGs talking.
As posters below rightfully point out, IBM wouldn't be neck deep in Linux if it was that encumbered.
Of course they *could* value it at $150 a share, just so that Microsoft feels it really could get its money's worth. Or at $12 a share so that shareholders feel they would make a profit. Doesn't change the market value though.
My Firefox windows are spawned with a geometry of 850x1100 which makes for nicely legible text on most sites (and often hides some of the right hand ad bar on the wide ones).
ISP : "But look, this user could have connected any time he wanted, like, and that's just for last week, monday between 4:15 and 4:17 or thursday between 13:42 and 13:58 !"
Judge : "Indeed, that user is clearly wasting the time of the court. 10 lashes ! Now tell me about how those tubes work again."
Me, being a trusted slashdot personality, am sure our new overlords will see how convenient to have someone like me at their side. Sure, I can see it from here :
T1000 : Are those the slashdotters ? Right, sort yourself by karma !
T1000 : Quicksort please !
T1000 : T100, take the half at the back away for recycling.