> I've been trying to get into Slackware lately but I just can't seem to get > use to it. Are there any realb benifits to tranfering to it.
It may or may not be for you. That's the beauty of Linux. Use what you feel comfortable with.
> Right now I run Arch and I just came from Gentoo, and I like the speed > aspects of both and the optimization ability. Would there be such option in > Slackware
You can recompile every package to your specifications. See the Slackbuilds. Whether there's any actual benefit to doing so remains to be seen. Ditto for actual source you download. Optimizations are a CFLAGS away.
This release is, IMHO, a real milestone for Slackware. A major version jump in the desktop, a new package format, a 64-bit version, ext4, 2.6.29/30 kernels with all their goodies...wow, it's come a long way. Thanks to Pat and all other Slack'ers for putting it all together. Waiting eagerly for my subscription to arrive (yes, I put my money where my mouth is and Slackware is well worth the support).:-)
> dont you think the bank should reject anyone using my identity with an IP > address that is in another country?
No, they shouldn't. I travel often and routinely log in to do banking from overseas. Especially when somewhere else it'd be extremely irritating to get locked out just because of where you are. Banks shouldn't care where you are but who you are. And fortunately all authentication systems so far have been based on that premise.
> How about just using SSL for the login page? Most of them don't--it's hidden > in an iframe, and without viewing source or checking the form, you've got no > reason to be certain your login data will be securely transferred.
There's a Firefox Plugin which you might appreciate, that attempts to address this issue (or at least make you aware of it):
> The browser effectively turns into a sandboxed application, which is what > the banks here want.
Regardless of the wishes of those greedy fucks, a browser and each site should be sand-boxed in the first place. Viewing one site should have no relevance to the tab beside it, even less for your user files and most certainly not your system files.
I, for one, can't wait to have a fantastic 'SCO IS DEAD' party when Darl's zoo finally gets thrown by the bankruptcy trustees onto history's trash dump where it, IMHO, belongs!
> You have a right to anonymity. You forfeit it the instant you use it to > commit a crime or defame someone.
I've had some discussions about that in regards to free speech. Somebody told me, that if you were to say to a cop "You're an asshole!" you'd be guilty of defamation or whatever the legal term for it is and he'd have legal recourse against you. If, OTOH, you'd say "In my opinion you're an asshole!" you'd be covered under the first Amendment of free speech. Anyone know more about that?
Of course, in both examples above you'd likely get the shit kicked out of you...:-D
> The fact is, there's nothing unique about Linux that's going to somehow > reduce the piracy rate.
You're right. It's not a matter of platform but a matter of price (and, of course, quality of the product you purchase with said price). Look at Penumbra and the onslaught they had for being able to buy not just one but three games for 5 bucks. The price is so ridiculously low, it barely registers in both your mind (making it easier to buy) and your wallet. That's the price I want for all games. It still hasn't registered with big studios (games and films), that their products simply do not have the perceived value anymore as it used too, regardless of the content or the cost of making it or whatever. I think, it's a chance for smaller developers like Frictionalgames, who had the right idea and afterwards the dough to show for it...
How much good info would come out of that? It's not like they market separate Linux versions. So far it's all been Windows versions in a box with a later Linux client put up for download on their site.
Perhaps you accept as some sort of 'proof' a game developer's viewpoint....like Frictionalgames (Penumbra Series), who even wrote a big thank you note on their page after the Linux version deal got mentioned on Slashdot and people subsequently bought the games (I was one of them and I only ever buy games for Linux). In fact, from the note it appeared, that they teetered on the edge of development with a new version of Penumbra, but due to the sudden influx of cash they'll now happily go forward full steam.
> I'd love to see the robots given hunger, thirst, and a sex drive. Make 1/2 > the robots girls with red LEDs and 1/2 the robots boys with blue LEDs. Make > the food and water 'power', and give them the ability to 'harm' each other > by draining power. The girls would have a higher resource requirement to > reproduce. It'd be interesting to see over many generations what > relationship patterns form between the same and opposite sex.
I can tell you:
First the girl robots would seductively blink their red LED's at the boy robots. The boys get all silly and start swarming around the girl trying to get close to her. The boy with the biggest hydraulics then gets the girl and they roll off into some dark corner for playing with their cross-over cables and rolling around swapping oil and stuff. A few weeks later the girl robot will barf neon-green liquid all over the place, especially in the mornings. While she'll get increasingly cozy among lots of spare-parts the boy robot is frantically rolling around at 2am trying to get some yummy special machine oil, all the while freaking out about how his care-free life with his roboddies is now over. A few months later the clatter of little wheels is heard and the now coupled robots take countless pictures with their integrated cameras and send them via infra-red to every other robot that was built on the same assembly-line. They will not notice the deliberate Out-Of-Memory errors of the recipients. So far so good, until eventually the two start chirping at each other about the little things of robot-life. The woman will harp on the partner bot, why she always has to wipe off the nasty-smelling exhaust-buildup's of junior, that she has not seen a metal polisher in months to make herself shiny and how she should have anyway listened to her Mom warning her not to get involved with a guy with obviously inferior software. The man robot, OTOH, will simply bypass the receiving sensory circuit and refuse to send ACK packets, all the while playing robot wars with junior and generally doing, what a robot must do to make a living. Eventually they'll settle into their daily routine as the years go by. Despite their outward differences they now wouldn't want to miss each other anymore as their hinges start squeaking, rust appears and the last firmware update is but a distant memory. But as they prepare for being disassembled Junior...now all flashy with his LED's...rolls out into the world to link up with a girl of his own and start it all again... The EOF
> My experience with using a PS3 in standard def resolution was eye-strain > inducing, trying to read many of the text fonts the games would display.
Agreed. Have...ironically, a Sony Trinitron tube-TV and any kind of written text in PS3-games is so small you can hardly read it standing within arm's reach of the TV. Very annoying.
Getting rid of that farking region code would be terribly nice too. As far as I am concerned, publishers of games etc. should be grateful if people still buy their stuff at all, instead of worrying of where they purchase from.
Is it, even just theoretically, possible for a direct (cell) phone2phone voice connections without a base station in between?
Another neat thing would be SMS transmitted directly...Fido-net style. Basically the message just moves itself to another phone within reach until it reaches the recipient (maybe never:-)).
> Ubuntu seems to be including an encryption tool.
To use it on installation (it's called ecryptfs) do this with the standard Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" desktop CD installer:
Hit F6 and ESC on first CD bootup menu and add "user-setup/encrypt-home=true" to the 'boot' options between 'splash' and the '--' characters. Hit Enter. The following user setup screen will now have a 3rd option to encrypt the home directory. Proceed as normal.
After installation more users can be created with their home encrypted as well with:
(sudo) adduser --encrypt-home new_user_name
Caveat: If you ever change your user password you must also run this command immediately afterwards:
> > Maybe this is a new business opportunity for the Pirate Bay. In addition > > to the private VPN service, you could also get remote anonymous encrypted > > storage.
> This also sounds like an opportunity for the NSA and the Russian Mafia. For > anyone, really, who has a clue to what use might be made of front > organizations like Pirate Bay and billions of dollars to invest in traffic > analysis and crypto.
For all I care, Google and Gmail could be an NSA front-end (which would be quite a coup for them, wouldn't it?). Besides, if I would use such a service (which is not a bad idea actually as it keeps your data off your computer and out-of-reach for real-life thugs coming to your house), I'd certainly encrypt everything anyway and then upload to store 'in the cloud'. So even if run by a 'Do some evil' company, it wouldn't matter...my data's as safe as the crypto protecting it.
Slashdot Mirror
> Explain what slackware is
It's a Linux distribution. There are many other Linux distributions, but this one is Slackware! :-)
> I've been trying to get into Slackware lately but I just can't seem to get
> use to it. Are there any realb benifits to tranfering to it.
It may or may not be for you. That's the beauty of Linux. Use what you feel
comfortable with.
> Right now I run Arch and I just came from Gentoo, and I like the speed
> aspects of both and the optimization ability. Would there be such option in
> Slackware
You can recompile every package to your specifications. See the Slackbuilds.
Whether there's any actual benefit to doing so remains to be seen.
Ditto for actual source you download. Optimizations are a CFLAGS away.
This release is, IMHO, a real milestone for Slackware. A major version jump in the desktop, a new package format, a 64-bit version, ext4, 2.6.29/30 kernels with all their goodies...wow, it's come a long way. Thanks to Pat and all other Slack'ers for putting it all together. Waiting eagerly for my subscription to arrive (yes, I put my money where my mouth is and Slackware is well worth the support). :-)
> Queue the 'Killer meteor will come within 100 miles of earth!' too as the
> scientists ramp up their efforts to get funding.
Them getting funding for things like LINEAR is, of course, really silly
compared to:
"Oh look, honey, a shooting star! Quick...let's make a wish!"
"Wow, honey, that IS a beautiful shooting star!"
"I can still see it...you too, right?"
"That shooting star is...farking BIG!"
"Is it just me or is this gettin' creepy?"
"Now I can hear it too :-/"
WHOOOOOOSH........KABOOM!!!!!
[insert earth tremors, tidal waves and general catastrophe here]
In Soviet Russia the red star orbits You!
dd if=/dev/all_major_inter_slash_national_pipes of=/dev/dcs_in_maryland | grep -f echelon_keywords.txt > mail -s FARKINGCOMMIES! analyst14398@nsa.gov
You're welcome! :-)
> That is probably the nicest reply I've gotten to any critical post I've made
> on slashdot. Kudos.
Fuck you!! We always reply nicely!
> dont you think the bank should reject anyone using my identity with an IP
> address that is in another country?
No, they shouldn't. I travel often and routinely log in to do banking from
overseas. Especially when somewhere else it'd be extremely irritating to get
locked out just because of where you are. Banks shouldn't care where you are
but who you are. And fortunately all authentication systems so far have been
based on that premise.
> How about just using SSL for the login page? Most of them don't--it's hidden
> in an iframe, and without viewing source or checking the form, you've got no
> reason to be certain your login data will be securely transferred.
There's a Firefox Plugin which you might appreciate, that attempts to address
this issue (or at least make you aware of it):
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11894
> The browser effectively turns into a sandboxed application, which is what
> the banks here want.
Regardless of the wishes of those greedy fucks, a browser and each site should
be sand-boxed in the first place. Viewing one site should have no relevance to
the tab beside it, even less for your user files and most certainly not your
system files.
> A Lion is roaring and approaching you. You're trapped in a cave with no
> other exit. What do you do?
For what it's worth you could be in the wide open savannah...
I, for one, can't wait to have a fantastic 'SCO IS DEAD' party when Darl's zoo finally gets thrown by the bankruptcy trustees onto history's trash dump where it, IMHO, belongs!
> You have a right to anonymity. You forfeit it the instant you use it to
> commit a crime or defame someone.
I've had some discussions about that in regards to free speech. Somebody told
me, that if you were to say to a cop "You're an asshole!" you'd be guilty of
defamation or whatever the legal term for it is and he'd have legal recourse
against you. If, OTOH, you'd say "In my opinion you're an asshole!" you'd be
covered under the first Amendment of free speech. Anyone know more about that?
Of course, in both examples above you'd likely get the shit kicked out of
you...:-D
> The fact is, there's nothing unique about Linux that's going to somehow
> reduce the piracy rate.
You're right. It's not a matter of platform but a matter of price (and, of
course, quality of the product you purchase with said price). Look at Penumbra
and the onslaught they had for being able to buy not just one but three games
for 5 bucks. The price is so ridiculously low, it barely registers in both
your mind (making it easier to buy) and your wallet. That's the price I want
for all games. It still hasn't registered with big studios (games and films),
that their products simply do not have the perceived value anymore as it used
too, regardless of the content or the cost of making it or whatever. I think,
it's a chance for smaller developers like Frictionalgames, who had the right
idea and afterwards the dough to show for it...
> Certainly he has access to id's sales stats.
How much good info would come out of that? It's not like they market separate Linux versions. So far it's all been Windows versions in a box with a later Linux client put up for download on their site.
> The plural of "anecdote" is not "proof".
Perhaps you accept as some sort of 'proof' a game developer's viewpoint....like Frictionalgames (Penumbra Series), who even wrote a big thank you note on their page after the Linux version deal got mentioned on Slashdot and people subsequently bought the games (I was one of them and I only ever buy games for Linux). In fact, from the note it appeared, that they teetered on the edge of development with a new version of Penumbra, but due to the sudden influx of cash they'll now happily go forward full steam.
> I'd love to see the robots given hunger, thirst, and a sex drive. Make 1/2
> the robots girls with red LEDs and 1/2 the robots boys with blue LEDs. Make
> the food and water 'power', and give them the ability to 'harm' each other
> by draining power. The girls would have a higher resource requirement to
> reproduce. It'd be interesting to see over many generations what
> relationship patterns form between the same and opposite sex.
I can tell you:
First the girl robots would seductively blink their red LED's at the boy
robots.
The boys get all silly and start swarming around the girl trying to get close
to her.
The boy with the biggest hydraulics then gets the girl and they roll off into
some dark corner for playing with their cross-over cables and rolling around
swapping oil and stuff.
A few weeks later the girl robot will barf neon-green liquid all over the
place, especially in the mornings. While she'll get increasingly cozy among
lots of spare-parts the boy robot is frantically rolling around at 2am trying
to get some yummy special machine oil, all the while freaking out about how
his care-free life with his roboddies is now over.
A few months later the clatter of little wheels is heard and the now coupled
robots take countless pictures with their integrated cameras and send them via
infra-red to every other robot that was built on the same assembly-line. They
will not notice the deliberate Out-Of-Memory errors of the recipients.
So far so good, until eventually the two start chirping at each other about
the little things of robot-life. The woman will harp on the partner bot, why
she always has to wipe off the nasty-smelling exhaust-buildup's of junior,
that she has not seen a metal polisher in months to make herself shiny and how
she should have anyway listened to her Mom warning her not to get involved
with a guy with obviously inferior software.
The man robot, OTOH, will simply bypass the receiving sensory circuit and
refuse to send ACK packets, all the while playing robot wars with junior and
generally doing, what a robot must do to make a living.
Eventually they'll settle into their daily routine as the years go by. Despite
their outward differences they now wouldn't want to miss each other anymore as
their hinges start squeaking, rust appears and the last firmware update is but
a distant memory. But as they prepare for being disassembled Junior...now all
flashy with his LED's...rolls out into the world to link up with a girl of his
own and start it all again...
The EOF
> My experience with using a PS3 in standard def resolution was eye-strain
> inducing, trying to read many of the text fonts the games would display.
Agreed. Have...ironically, a Sony Trinitron tube-TV and any kind of written
text in PS3-games is so small you can hardly read it standing within arm's
reach of the TV. Very annoying.
Getting rid of that farking region code would be terribly nice too. As far as I am concerned, publishers of games etc. should be grateful if people still buy their stuff at all, instead of worrying of where they purchase from.
> There is TerraNet
Very interesting...mod up! Thank you for making me aware of it.
Is it, even just theoretically, possible for a direct (cell) phone2phone voice connections without a base station in between?
Another neat thing would be SMS transmitted directly...Fido-net style. Basically the message just moves itself to another phone within reach until it reaches the recipient (maybe never :-)).
> Loopback-Encrypted-Filesystem-HOWTO.html
Outdated. Current Linux distro's use LUKS or ecryptfs.
> And I think God should torture everyone without a Bible... Oh, wait, he's
> going to...
Nice god you got there...
And you have taken the Love your neighbor routine quite to heart I can tell...
> Ubuntu seems to be including an encryption tool.
To use it on installation (it's called ecryptfs) do this with the standard
Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" desktop CD installer:
Hit F6 and ESC on first CD bootup menu and add "user-setup/encrypt-home=true"
to the 'boot' options between 'splash' and the '--' characters. Hit Enter.
The following user setup screen will now have a 3rd option to encrypt the home
directory. Proceed as normal.
After installation more users can be created with their home encrypted as well
with:
(sudo) adduser --encrypt-home new_user_name
Caveat: If you ever change your user password you must also run this command
immediately afterwards:
ecryptfs-wrap-passphrase ~/.ecryptfs/wrapped-passphrase
> > Maybe this is a new business opportunity for the Pirate Bay. In addition
> > to the private VPN service, you could also get remote anonymous encrypted
> > storage.
> This also sounds like an opportunity for the NSA and the Russian Mafia. For
> anyone, really, who has a clue to what use might be made of front
> organizations like Pirate Bay and billions of dollars to invest in traffic
> analysis and crypto.
For all I care, Google and Gmail could be an NSA front-end (which would be
quite a coup for them, wouldn't it?).
Besides, if I would use such a service (which is not a bad idea actually as it
keeps your data off your computer and out-of-reach for real-life thugs coming
to your house), I'd certainly encrypt everything anyway and then upload to
store 'in the cloud'. So even if run by a 'Do some evil' company, it wouldn't
matter...my data's as safe as the crypto protecting it.