I'll never forget trying to install RedHat on some old 486 thinkpads. The installer refused to run on the machines because they only had 16MB of ram. (Even in text mode!) I pulled up an earlier release, but it couldn't understand the PCMCIA network card installed on them.
I finally ended up mounting the compressed initrd of the installer as a block device on another machine, hacked the PCMCIA database to make the new card look like a previously understood card, and slipped the new compressed ramdisk on the boot floppy.
In the process I tried installing everything from Debian to Slackware. All I needed was a bare bones Linux install that would boot a bare X server and act as a terminal for the server. I just had to make it complicated by tryign to get the minimal distros to talk to a newer network card.
Those laptops still run, by the way, after 3 years. I use them twice a year to set up a network for a folk festival. And they are still running that minimal RedHat 6.0 install. I keep meaning to burninate a new Gentoo build for them, but if it ain't broken, why fix it?
Folks, Capitalism only works if a product is scarce. We don't charge for air because it's freely available everywhere. Unless, of course, you need a quantity to take with you underwater but even then it's relatively cheap.
With all of our rampant cost cutting and large scale manufacturing we are rapidly entering an age in which the most expensive part of a product is the carton it's shipped in and the shelf space it occupies.
Look at phones. I am usually they guy who bitches about de-regulation, but I have a flat fee I pay that allows be to yak for an unlimited amount of time to anywhere in the US. The billing and tracking what call goes where costs more than providing the service, so many new providers are just charging a flat rate.
The same is true with roadways. The first highways were toll roads. Now, everyone chips in a little in tax money, and the roads are free. Well at least everywhere but the Northeast.
I used to love college because you had the meal plan. You pay and assload of money up front, but you get to stroll into the cafeteria and eat however much, or little, however many times you wanted.
To tell you the truth, the most expensive part of a resteraunt these days are the staff, rent, and utilities. The huge portions are so you don't feel ripped off for paying $10/plate. How long till some large chain starts a "membership" club. Pay a flat fee, and eat as often as you like. Just think of the line at checkout. There wouldn't be one.
Ok, pull up the documentation in your car where it describes how to change the oil.
Usually I have to get a Chilton's manual for that. Assuming of course I don't pop the hood, discern where the fill cap and a drain cap are, and try to read the capacity off the block. Or I could say fsck it and pay the service station to do it.
Tinkerers don't need manual. Manual people know they need several. And consumers know they need to hire a pro.
Car a bad example? Ok, when you bought your house, did it come with a document that tells you where all the wiring and plumbing are routed, and detailed directions on how to add new service?
If you did, I really have to find out who your builder was. For me, I live in a 1910 era trinity. The house was rennovated at least twice. I recently discovered that all the outlets on the second floor go through one outlet box in bedroom. The hard way. I have old plumbing, new plumbing, and the electrical system is radically different than what would have been in the house as built. Assuming the house had electricity at all.
Go on jury duty. Do you get a manual for that? How about getting married? Or having a baby? We do really complex things all without a guidebook. Even religion can be roll your own, or just show up twice a year and we take care of the rest.
Pull up the "documentation" on your car. There you have a system that requires an understanding of physics and the legal system just to operate.
Say what you will about compicated concepts, the moron tailgating me doesn't seem to understand that braking distance is proportional to the square of his velocity, and that a rear collision is 100% the fault of the driver behind, yet he seems to be operating the vehicle.
I won't call you lame, or quitter, or anything like that.
Though for the record, I had a much easier time configuring Gentoo to play with my Vaio than I ever did with XP. (Sure the new models come with XP, but try upgrading one of the ME models.) I also buy parts that fit Linux rather than fit Linux to the parts I buy.
Not out of laziness, out of experience. (That $10 I tried to save on too many occasions cost me more than that in time, effort, and components thrown against blunt objects.)
It's funny. You run cygwin to provide a Linux envirnment under Windows. I run Win4lin to provide a Windows environment under Linux. If the tools work, who cares HOW it's running or what it's running on.
Largely because most of the tools you will ever use were ported or re-written for it.
Anyone at home on an AIX box, an SGI, or a Solaris only need to know where the various files and commands live. The concepts are all the same.
If you don't grok Unix, you probably didn't grok DOS. Oh yes, DOS lifted a lot of concepts from Unix. (Though techically DOS lifted them from VMS, which was developed in the same era by folks taught in the same school. That would be "old school.")
Unix is not something to be learned. It is something to be experienced. You have to play around with it. Pick up a concept at a time.
For the record, I have a much easier time getting stuff to work under Gentoo that RedHat.
You always have a more up to date version of the software, and if you find a problem odds are that someone had the exact problem 6 months ago and the answer is in the forums.
(Ok, this from the guy who figured out how to hack the kernel Visor module so his new Clie could sync. Well the steps are easy to find if you...)
Frankly, I have never been flamed for having a genuinely good question. Heck, even when I asked something boneheaded, the worst I would get would be a snide comment AND A LINK TO THE APPROPRIATE RESOURCE.
Anyone looking to get into Linux need not be afraid. The Nick Burns' of the world do not bother to read newsgroups or participate in help-forums. And the trolls are pretty easy to spot.
I agree. And running a network of Losedose boxes and Macintrashes, I can assure you that no interface is too simple for users to confuse themselves over. Heck, even if you had a system that could plug into the back of their head and read their thoughts, they would have to know what it is they wanted the damn thing to do, AND what it is possible for the damn thing to do.
Not to mention ethical, legal, or just plain good manners. I can't tell you how many requests I get that are technically possible, but not possible for some other reason. (No, policy says I can't allow you to sift your co-workers email. No, letter bombing our member list is not good way to attract business. Um, you do realize that what you are asking violates the following laws...)
Dictatorships work, so long as we all agree what the end result would be.
Hence why a gaggle of volunteers can put together and enterprise-worth OS in their spare time.
Unfortunately, pure R&D is never that clean. You often don't know in what direction a new technology is going to take you. In WWII, the answer both the Axis and the Allies had was to simply fund everything that had a glimmer of a chance, and research everything in parallel. Sure there were a lot of failures, but you also got a lot of radically different and paradigm changing designs. It is the era the brought us Jet powered aircraft, RADAR, cruise missiles, liquid fueled rockets, nuclear weapons, SONAR, and electronic computers. And that's ignoring massive new understanding in industrial production, chemistry, and materials.
When designing something new and unprecidented, you have to play the field and try alternatives. More productive than a complete fork would be to simply try an idea at a time, and fold the best of breed back into a common reference build.
Oh wait, the Linux kernel guys already do that. The wiley hackers!
The next set of initials for a release are determined by the roll of 2d26 and consulting Appendix 25 of the Dungeon Master's Guidebook.
26 sided die are a special order item, though you can cheat and use 5 rolls of a six sided die for each latter, subtracting 4 from the total. The results aren't as consistant as a real 26 sided die, but if you are on a budget...
Installer: You are here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You felt it your entire life--like there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
User: The Upgrade?
Installer: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Upgrade is. You have to install it for yourself.
User: How?
Installer: This is your last chance. After this, there is no going back. If you click F3, the installation ends and the system will reboot and you can believe whatever you want to believ. If you click F8, you accept the EULA and we see just how much the upgrade will fix.
Well you see, the XP line is an allegory for Kant's three stages of man.
We all thought the XP desktop was the fisher price operating system. Indeed, we were correct. XP is an metaphor for early development. We constanty consult wizards who go off and do things on our behalf. These are the stand-ins for parents.
Now in second installment, YQ, we switch to the adolescent/young adult mode. We are given a command line, and the means to shoot ourselves in the foot. We get to test the waters. But in exchange for this newfound freedom we have a much bleaker view of the world. The bright colors are more drab. The round shapes are sharp.
The third installment, ZR, we switch to the convelescent stage of development. Our "outlook" seems childlike again. The interfaces are designed so we can't hurt ourselves with it. All over we are surrounded by helpers who are there to assist us. Each one is well meaning, but they more or less treat us like we are a child. In the process our brain atrophies, and we await the sweet release of death and migration to a new platform...
Our CEO's Vaio runs XP. (Groan). To it's credit, the only times we have had to re-install have been when something untoward happens to his file system or the physical drive. Well, and Sony Tech support mixing work orders up and re-images the machine when it just needed a new touchpad.
And I always forget some setting, loose a few addresses, and/or forget to remove or logon account so it doesn't boot straight into his desktop. I'm an engineer not a... (ring) (Yes sir... no I didn't know you read slashdot sir...)
No, no, sequals don't to it justice. In fact it's the same product with a bunch of extra cheezy effects.
Think of the difference between the Charton Heston "Planet of the Apes" and the Marky Mark "Planet of the Apes." That's pretty much Win9x and WinXP. 98 is a genre bit that "borrows" elements from other genre bits. The XP version has flashier visual effects, but the underlying plot is shallow and idiotic.
But also think of the sweetheart pricing on Oracle the feds can "negotiate" as part of the "settlement."
Other than that, I really have a hard time figuring out why they wouldn't so much as whimper through the entire HP/Compaq merger, and decide to speak up now. There is either more to the story, or someone in the department finally has a pair.
I love it, but the only reason it reminds one of golden age Sci-Fi is because it steals just about every cliche. Ok, no kittens and no Admiral Akbar, but the Faustis bit at the end was a little thick.
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I finally ended up mounting the compressed initrd of the installer as a block device on another machine, hacked the PCMCIA database to make the new card look like a previously understood card, and slipped the new compressed ramdisk on the boot floppy.
In the process I tried installing everything from Debian to Slackware. All I needed was a bare bones Linux install that would boot a bare X server and act as a terminal for the server. I just had to make it complicated by tryign to get the minimal distros to talk to a newer network card.
Those laptops still run, by the way, after 3 years. I use them twice a year to set up a network for a folk festival. And they are still running that minimal RedHat 6.0 install. I keep meaning to burninate a new Gentoo build for them, but if it ain't broken, why fix it?
With all of our rampant cost cutting and large scale manufacturing we are rapidly entering an age in which the most expensive part of a product is the carton it's shipped in and the shelf space it occupies.
Look at phones. I am usually they guy who bitches about de-regulation, but I have a flat fee I pay that allows be to yak for an unlimited amount of time to anywhere in the US. The billing and tracking what call goes where costs more than providing the service, so many new providers are just charging a flat rate.
The same is true with roadways. The first highways were toll roads. Now, everyone chips in a little in tax money, and the roads are free. Well at least everywhere but the Northeast.
I used to love college because you had the meal plan. You pay and assload of money up front, but you get to stroll into the cafeteria and eat however much, or little, however many times you wanted.
To tell you the truth, the most expensive part of a resteraunt these days are the staff, rent, and utilities. The huge portions are so you don't feel ripped off for paying $10/plate. How long till some large chain starts a "membership" club. Pay a flat fee, and eat as often as you like. Just think of the line at checkout. There wouldn't be one.
Usually I have to get a Chilton's manual for that. Assuming of course I don't pop the hood, discern where the fill cap and a drain cap are, and try to read the capacity off the block. Or I could say fsck it and pay the service station to do it.
Tinkerers don't need manual. Manual people know they need several. And consumers know they need to hire a pro.
Car a bad example? Ok, when you bought your house, did it come with a document that tells you where all the wiring and plumbing are routed, and detailed directions on how to add new service?
If you did, I really have to find out who your builder was. For me, I live in a 1910 era trinity. The house was rennovated at least twice. I recently discovered that all the outlets on the second floor go through one outlet box in bedroom. The hard way. I have old plumbing, new plumbing, and the electrical system is radically different than what would have been in the house as built. Assuming the house had electricity at all.
Go on jury duty. Do you get a manual for that? How about getting married? Or having a baby? We do really complex things all without a guidebook. Even religion can be roll your own, or just show up twice a year and we take care of the rest.
Say what you will about compicated concepts, the moron tailgating me doesn't seem to understand that braking distance is proportional to the square of his velocity, and that a rear collision is 100% the fault of the driver behind, yet he seems to be operating the vehicle.
Though for the record, I had a much easier time configuring Gentoo to play with my Vaio than I ever did with XP. (Sure the new models come with XP, but try upgrading one of the ME models.) I also buy parts that fit Linux rather than fit Linux to the parts I buy.
Not out of laziness, out of experience. (That $10 I tried to save on too many occasions cost me more than that in time, effort, and components thrown against blunt objects.)
It's funny. You run cygwin to provide a Linux envirnment under Windows. I run Win4lin to provide a Windows environment under Linux. If the tools work, who cares HOW it's running or what it's running on.
That is the true meaning of enlightenment.
KDE has a nice blinkenlights interface to CUPS as well.
Yeah, it's girly. But when the wife needs to print, she doesn't want to hear about another "Skippy plays with config files..." episode.
Largely because most of the tools you will ever use were ported or re-written for it.
Anyone at home on an AIX box, an SGI, or a Solaris only need to know where the various files and commands live. The concepts are all the same.
If you don't grok Unix, you probably didn't grok DOS. Oh yes, DOS lifted a lot of concepts from Unix. (Though techically DOS lifted them from VMS, which was developed in the same era by folks taught in the same school. That would be "old school.")
Unix is not something to be learned. It is something to be experienced. You have to play around with it. Pick up a concept at a time.
You always have a more up to date version of the software, and if you find a problem odds are that someone had the exact problem 6 months ago and the answer is in the forums.
(Ok, this from the guy who figured out how to hack the kernel Visor module so his new Clie could sync. Well the steps are easy to find if you ...)
Anyone looking to get into Linux need not be afraid. The Nick Burns' of the world do not bother to read newsgroups or participate in help-forums. And the trolls are pretty easy to spot.
Not to mention ethical, legal, or just plain good manners. I can't tell you how many requests I get that are technically possible, but not possible for some other reason. (No, policy says I can't allow you to sift your co-workers email. No, letter bombing our member list is not good way to attract business. Um, you do realize that what you are asking violates the following laws...)
Hence why a gaggle of volunteers can put together and enterprise-worth OS in their spare time.
Unfortunately, pure R&D is never that clean. You often don't know in what direction a new technology is going to take you. In WWII, the answer both the Axis and the Allies had was to simply fund everything that had a glimmer of a chance, and research everything in parallel. Sure there were a lot of failures, but you also got a lot of radically different and paradigm changing designs. It is the era the brought us Jet powered aircraft, RADAR, cruise missiles, liquid fueled rockets, nuclear weapons, SONAR, and electronic computers. And that's ignoring massive new understanding in industrial production, chemistry, and materials.
When designing something new and unprecidented, you have to play the field and try alternatives. More productive than a complete fork would be to simply try an idea at a time, and fold the best of breed back into a common reference build.
Oh wait, the Linux kernel guys already do that. The wiley hackers!
26 sided die are a special order item, though you can cheat and use 5 rolls of a six sided die for each latter, subtracting 4 from the total. The results aren't as consistant as a real 26 sided die, but if you are on a budget...
User: The Upgrade?
Installer: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Upgrade is. You have to install it for yourself.
User: How?
Installer: This is your last chance. After this, there is no going back. If you click F3, the installation ends and the system will reboot and you can believe whatever you want to believ. If you click F8, you accept the EULA and we see just how much the upgrade will fix.
(User hesitates)
We all thought the XP desktop was the fisher price operating system. Indeed, we were correct. XP is an metaphor for early development. We constanty consult wizards who go off and do things on our behalf. These are the stand-ins for parents.
Now in second installment, YQ, we switch to the adolescent/young adult mode. We are given a command line, and the means to shoot ourselves in the foot. We get to test the waters. But in exchange for this newfound freedom we have a much bleaker view of the world. The bright colors are more drab. The round shapes are sharp.
The third installment, ZR, we switch to the convelescent stage of development. Our "outlook" seems childlike again. The interfaces are designed so we can't hurt ourselves with it. All over we are surrounded by helpers who are there to assist us. Each one is well meaning, but they more or less treat us like we are a child. In the process our brain atrophies, and we await the sweet release of death and migration to a new platform...
Well it should have been "The Two Towers", but we all know how well that would have flown over.
And I always forget some setting, loose a few addresses, and/or forget to remove or logon account so it doesn't boot straight into his desktop. I'm an engineer not a ... (ring) (Yes sir... no I didn't know you read slashdot sir ...)
Clippy died at the end of the first one. It's just a matter of Gate not bringing it back to life, AGAIN.
Um, that would be longhorn.
Think of the difference between the Charton Heston "Planet of the Apes" and the Marky Mark "Planet of the Apes." That's pretty much Win9x and WinXP. 98 is a genre bit that "borrows" elements from other genre bits. The XP version has flashier visual effects, but the underlying plot is shallow and idiotic.
Why when I think "service pack" do a bunch of hookers who specialize in felacio come to mind?
And don't forget about their upcoming mobile project. It combines some old school technologies, CE, ME, and NT. It's windows CEMENT.
But also think of the sweetheart pricing on Oracle the feds can "negotiate" as part of the "settlement."
Other than that, I really have a hard time figuring out why they wouldn't so much as whimper through the entire HP/Compaq merger, and decide to speak up now. There is either more to the story, or someone in the department finally has a pair.
Oh, right, this is an election year...
Only in the hacker world he'll be "EON." For how long it takes him to load and unload.
Only in the temperate regions of Northern Hemisphere, you insensitive clod!
I love it, but the only reason it reminds one of golden age Sci-Fi is because it steals just about every cliche. Ok, no kittens and no Admiral Akbar, but the Faustis bit at the end was a little thick.