It depends. You might have a video card that doesn't get good performance in X, or you might not have DMA mode turned on. These are two common causes; it might be something else entirely. If your local LUG can't help you out, borrow mine; it's quite good:
http://lug.umbc.edu
LUG mailing lists/meetings are a much better forum for solving Linux issues than Slashdot:)
When I had 256M of RAM and a K6-3 400, my system ran great (and even better when I dumped KDE for something lighter...). There's no reason yours shouldn't.
First of all, the GNU compromise was a local user, not a result of the FTP daemon. They do not run wu-ftpd (and neither should you; in fact, don't run an FTP daemon at all, unless it's only anonymous, and then you could use publicfile).
Also, don't forget about BIND. This is pretty much the exact same situation as Sendmail vs. Qmail. The mainstream app is a big fat binary, and so is more difficult to audit. Why did they design it this way? Isn't this against the spirit of Unix?
To be fair, DJB's ideas of where binaries should go in the filesystem is...er. But you can put everything in/usr/local and run daemontools out of/var/service if you want (which is what I do). And if his license bothers you, there are other implementations arising, such as MaraDNS.
Really? If you don't have any MTA on your workstation, how do you get all of the email messages to root telling you that things are wrong with your system? Or might that be why you are reinstalling all the time?:)
You could try Debian; not only does it not install Sendmail by default (I think they're on Exim now; used to be smail, IIRC), but it's designed to only have to be installed once, ever, which solves your other problem.
I think they switched which MTA was installed by default between Potato and Woody, but neither one was Sendmail. And of course, they have you configure it when it's installed, and you can just tell it to not run the daemon and deliver local mail only (so you still get important stuff sent to root).
I've used Postfix, and like it very much. Currently, the email server for which I'm responsible runs Sendmail, because I haven't had time to figure out how to port the virtusertable over to Postfix.
As for hackstraw's comment, Debian makes it easy because packages depend on "an MTA", and all of the MTAs conflict, so you just use APT to install your MTA of choice, and it replaces the existing one.
Is this the same Department of Homeland Security that recently signed a contract with Microsoft to provide their software? And they're complaining about Sendmail?
Michael Powell is the chairman of the FCC, not the FTC. And oh, how I wish it weren't so (William Kennard, the former chairman, was all in favor of low-power FM and local content.)
We got in 100th Window at WMBC, and it didn't have any problems in any CD player where I tried it (including a CD-RW drive in Linux), and was also rippable (we have a rotating playlist fill in our gaps when there are no live DJs).
As far as boycotts, I say that we should make sure to have big increases in sales of non-**AA movies and music, to point out where the revenue really went. Nothing would make me happier:)
Support small artists, folks. They actually want you to listen to their music. Reply to my other post above if you want suggestions.
There are many fine forms of entertainment that aren't controlled by the RIAA/MPAA, and don't agree with them. Live near Baltimore? See a John Waters film at The Charles. Music? Dischord, Touch and Go, Archenemy, Fueled By Ramen (geeks ought to like that label). I went to see Eleni Mandell last Wednesday; it was her first time in Baltimore. It's CRIMINAL that she doesn't get more attention, as she's a wonderful artist (and really nice in person). Far more criminal than some kids depriving Britney Spears of a hypothetical $1 per CD.
This site:
http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/
has a "bookmarklet" to help you identify non-RIAA bands when you're shopping online. Or, you could find the small clubs in your area (Baltimore: The Talking Head, The Ottobar, The Mojo). Check their schedule, look up the bands (who will probably have free, legal downloads). Go see the ones you might like; it's probably only $5 or so. Buy their CDs if you do like them; most of it goes to them, and the CDs are cheaper too.
Reply to this post with your tastes if you want suggestions. I can't help with hip-hop so much, but I can with nearly everything else. And, shameless plug, WMBC will start broadcasting again in a few weeks:)
DivX (I think I got the caps right) was the pay-per-play, only licensed for 1 player DVD technology that Circuit City was pushing (fortunately, it flopped horribly). So someone creates a video CODEC that's pretty good, good enough to get widespread adoption, and they name it "DivX;-}"!? That was a really good idea; no chance of confusing anyone with that name.
You won't get arrested for hemp, but the FDA outlawed food products made with hemp a little while ago (fortunately, that was reversed; hemp pretzels are really good). And there are only a few states in which you can grow hemp, and even there you have to jump through all sorts of hoops.
And to think that during WWI (I think it was I and not II), farmers were _required_ to grow hemp. No, for the record, I've never smoked marijuana and don't plan on it. But I do have some very nice clothes which are cotton/hemp blend, and they're more comfortable and durable than the 100% cotton ones (and seem to hold dyes better).
Thanks for playing, but in 9 years of driving, I've never run out of gas. But I'll reply to you, since you were slightly less rude than the AC.
Computer networks have "firewalls" to keep "junk" from getting onto their networks. Water, air, many things are filtered. Are those filters perfect? My car is a generic block (Pontiac 6000) from 1988, and does not make any funny noises or need babying to be reliable. I guess maybe I can't be doing everything wrong.
I may have just been trolled, but I think you misunderstood me. All of the base components of OpenBSD have been thoroughly audited, some multiple times, for security problems. Security issues will arise on BUGTRAQ for software distributed with other Unices (free and non-free), and OpenBSD will have preemptively fixed the bug months ago.
As for "general-purpose", I meant as opposed to operating systems that were, say, NSA-specific beasts that performed only a few tasks.
So, I run Debian on my desktop for usability and convenience, but the firewall runs OpenBSD.
You're correct in some respects, but I would say that according to your link, stating "the people ARE the shareholders!" is a bit misleading, something like saying "the people ARE the SUV drivers!" Less than half of families (however that's defined) own corporate stock, so protecting only their rights is perfectly OK?
I would venture to say that more businesses, and through extension people (employees, customers, etc.) benefit from Free software, and Linux in particular, than benefit from SCO (which at this point can probably be narrowed down to mostly their stockholders). I don't think that the government should necessarily do anything about it at this point, because as you pointed out, it's not their place (beyond whatever comes out of the Red Hat and IBM suits against SCO).
And as my father, a mechanic, will tell you, most people do not check the oil, coolant, power steering fluid, tire pressure, etc. The more careful ones bring in the car if it makes a funny noise long enough. Many people only think about the car when it won't run anymore. Putting gas in the car is pretty much the only thing "end-users" do reliably, and even that doesn't happen often enough sometimes (did you know that it's better for your car to not allow it to get below 1/4 tank, because then junk on the bottom of the fuel tank gets sucked into the engine?)
The frightening bit is that my mom, a Physician's Assistant, will tell you the same thing about people and their bodies. She gets in all sorts of cases where people have had horrible things wrong with them and haven't bothered to come in for a week, or the guy who drank 3 40-oz. beers a night, and his main concern was wondering why he had to wake up to go to the bathroom so often.
(as for dishwashers, most of them require you to at least scrape your plate before you put it in, and my father, having cleared out a dishwasher that pretended you didn't have to do that, will tell you that they ALL require this.)
This is exactly what I was going to say, except that I was going to have to alter the analogy slightly since my car is so old that I forgot about locking gas caps. Older versions of operating system that made it onto the Internet were not designed for security, and originally cars (and doors) didn't have locks, etc. But it's irresponsible to fail to address discovered security problems in new releases.
Note to crazy people: I am not suggesting that Linux is perfect, nor any existing operating system. OpenBSD comes closest today (in terms of "general purpose" operating systems).
I don't think that the fact that some people who have passed the driver's test can't really drive is an invalidation of the concept of testing. I just think we need a more thorough test.
My father (who repaired county police vehicles at the time, and repairs state vehicles now) set up traffic cones and made me weave through them. I had to practice skidding on an empty, icy parking lot (and braking from 60mph on a non-icy lot) to see what would happen and prepare myself. I learned in a 1971 Plymouth Valiant with a 3-speed manual transmission and no power brakes.
After passing the current driving test, you are allowed to drive on the road. So take them through the above additions (maybe not the Valiant:), and take the test further: out on the road. Go through twisty backwoods roads. Merge onto a major highway, change a few lanes. Go through one of those freakish 5-way intersections with one direction of one road split by concrete medians into 3 segments, two of which turn left (in different ways) and one of which goes on only to be further split by highway entrances on both sides of the road, right after the traffic light.
Under the DMCA, reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability is allowed. I don't think that anyone could seriously argue that a competing office suite didn't need interoperability with the file format of the office suite with the market majority.
DRM, as another poster mentioned, may be a problem, but this could conceivably be made available in StarOffice while not in OpenOffice, if that becomes necessary.
"The company is 'looking very seriously' at requiring future versions of Windows to accept automatic software fixes unless the user specifically refuses to receive them..."
So yes you can "at least press Ok first." Although I'm sure CmdrTaco has nothing to worry about, since he doesn't run Windows any more, which I suppose is why he didn't read the article.
Personally, I think that this would probably be a responsible move on their part (and Bruce Schneier apparently agrees with me). I especially like the fact that they're going to start shipping Windows with the firewall enabled. As far as I'm concerned, no one should be worried as long as you can disable automatic updates and disable the firewall (though I think they should make it slightly non-obvious how to do so, so that the people this is intended to benefit won't turn it off). After all, you don't leave Windows exactly as it comes off the CD, do you? Hopefully, you'll also be able to create corporate install CDs with these features disabled if need be.
There are only two things that concern me:
1. Broken patches: What if, as has happened in the past, an update breaks the auto-update mechanism? Then they'll be pretty well stuffed. I'm not sure what to say about that other than "don't do that."
2. Dial-up users: As the article mentions, SP1a is big. Really big. I mean, you might think that the OpenOffice download is big, but that's just peanuts compared to...right. However, that was a combination of many small patches, and just like many other things in life, if people had updated incrementally as they should have, they wouldn't have a need for a giant update. Hopefully, MS will be able to keep the patch size down, and we can watch 2003 to see if they can keep the frequency down as well.
(Yes, I now have to care about Microsoft products again, which is annoying, but I might as well make the best of it).
Try Phantasy Star Online. It's not technically a MMORPG, since you can only actually play the _battle_ part of the game with 3 other people at a time (though it's debatable whether that's better or worse than FF XI's policy of people being randomly placed on servers and never, ever meeting those on other servers). But there are a good number of classes, weapons, etc., and plenty of non-cheaters left.
The Xbox version is better because it has voice chat; although I have a Gamecube keyboard now, it's just too slow for things like "Hey, did anyone notice the Dark Bringer over here that's about to KILL YOU ALL while you're wasting time killing Claws?", or "You stupid chunk of tin, why the hell did you grab that Trifluid?[magic restoring item; androids have no magic]". However, cheating in the Xbox version is even worse than on the GameCube, it costs more (I think), and you can't play with people from other countries (who are often nicer than US gamers).
You can change the sorting order of Mutt with single-key shortcuts, and you're going to have a very hard time convincing me that Outlook has better filtering capabilities than Procmail. Mutt is certainly not a less complex program, although as you say, it (and moreso PINE) can be very easy for novice users. But Mutt is really more like Vim: it can be incredibly efficient, but there is certainly more of a learning curve. I like it because you can learn as much of it as you want. I'm not using the full capabilities of either Mutt or Procmail, because I don't need them (yet). Debian does make it easy since most of the defaults are exactly what I want. One thing that I would really hate to do without for my mailing list reading is the threaded view for messages. Going back to the "normal" way (sorted by date received alone) would seem like a traffic accident. Plus I can edit my email in whatever editor I want (Vim), and display the least-annoying version of a multi-part message in the order that I specify.
PS: for mailing lists, you should really filter by X-Mailing-List or similar rather than sender; it's more reliable.
I had an interesting moment the other day. My father works several doors down from me; I'm IT support for the Physical Plant, he's the Auto Shop supervisor.
His new laptop (for running auto diagnostic software) came without an SSH client installed, so he had been trying to use Netscape Mail to read his email. He found it impossible; it was way too inefficient for the volume of email that he gets from various technician's groups. He requested that I "put PINE on the machine so I can check my email like I do at home."
Here is a guy that doesn't like PCs at all, only using them to get info about cars and ask me where we should meet for lunch on Sunday, and a text-based MUA works better for his needs than a GUI one. Someone who gets the volume of email that you do may want to take a closer look at an MUA with the efficiency, flexibility, and power of Mutt.
Also:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/mbx2mbox/
"Converts Outlook Express.mbx files into standard RFC822 mail files."
On the first page of results for "outlook". Written in Perl and supposedly cross-platform.
You should go back and read the part of his post that you didn't quote. Microsoft currently has a near-monopoly on the desktop browser population. However:
1. Vast numbers of devices that are not desktops and have never been online before are starting to get online. Some of these will use Windows embedded stuff, but many will not. These are browsers too. These count too, and probably more than computers. I'll bet that many people would not bother with a home PC if they could check their email and surf the Web with their cell phone/PDA. Especially if someone came out with a "docking station" for the home that gave you a real keyboard, display, and pointing device.
2. Windows users have no way to get a new version of IE without getting a new version of Windows. That will not be available for about 2 more years. Jakob Nielson estimates that "most" people will have upgraded to a version of a browser 2 years after it has come out. Will people abandon IE when it stagnates for 2 years? Did they abandon Netscape 4 when it stagnated for 2 years?
(There is apparently software that gives IE tabs and popup blocking, but I didn't hear anything about mouse gestures, and I can only imagine that the tab implementation will continue to improve in Mozilla to the point where it's impossible to emulate [like moving tabs between windows]. Clever freeware authors can't prop up IE indefinitely.)
Lazarus and The Coroner's Toolkit were developed several years ago by Wietse Venema (Postfix, TCPWrappers) and Dan Farmer (SATAN). Lazarus recovers deleted files which can then be browsed with a Web browser. The Coroner's Toolkit is forensics software (post-breakin analysis). I saw a presentation on them in 1999, and they looked very useful then; I'm sure they're even better now. Fortunately, I haven't had occasion to use them:)
"But many people have said [that] Linux is NOT a replacement for a desktop operating system, thus Linux does not satisfy the home user or the business user's needs. And look how many years it's taken already. I say move on and write a new program."
I say eat it. I took accounting in school, I keep track of every last cent that passes through my life, and GNUcash is excellent. It took maybe 30 minutes to get started, and several more to figure out split transactions, but that was definitely worth it. Yes, there are areas that could use improvement, but saying "I don't like it, my friends say it's bad, start over" is idiotic.
[On a side note, it's a major failing of the educational system in the US that NOTHING is taught about budgets, finances, etc. in grade school. At least the importance of keeping records should be impressed. GNUcash, a program that keeps track of things correctly, should be much more popular.]
That's not how I interpret that statement. When NASA builds equipment to go into space, they use 386/486 CPUs because they absolutely know how they work and how to keep them reliable. You don't want to have to fix something in space.
This is to a lesser degree, of course, but having to stop their survey and wait for a "tech guy" to drive out and fix the computer would be a real pain. Having to stop the survey because the OS needs to be rebooted would be a lesser pain, but still a pain. And when did the computer crash? Which parts of the road do you have to re-cover? Was the data leading up to the crash reliable?
Slashdot Mirror
It depends. You might have a video card that doesn't get good performance in X, or you might not have DMA mode turned on. These are two common causes; it might be something else entirely. If your local LUG can't help you out, borrow mine; it's quite good:
:)
http://lug.umbc.edu
LUG mailing lists/meetings are a much better forum for solving Linux issues than Slashdot
When I had 256M of RAM and a K6-3 400, my system ran great (and even better when I dumped KDE for something lighter...). There's no reason yours shouldn't.
First of all, the GNU compromise was a local user, not a result of the FTP daemon. They do not run wu-ftpd (and neither should you; in fact, don't run an FTP daemon at all, unless it's only anonymous, and then you could use publicfile).
/usr/local and run daemontools out of /var/service if you want (which is what I do). And if his license bothers you, there are other implementations arising, such as MaraDNS.
Also, don't forget about BIND. This is pretty much the exact same situation as Sendmail vs. Qmail. The mainstream app is a big fat binary, and so is more difficult to audit. Why did they design it this way? Isn't this against the spirit of Unix?
To be fair, DJB's ideas of where binaries should go in the filesystem is...er. But you can put everything in
Really? If you don't have any MTA on your workstation, how do you get all of the email messages to root telling you that things are wrong with your system? Or might that be why you are reinstalling all the time? :)
You could try Debian; not only does it not install Sendmail by default (I think they're on Exim now; used to be smail, IIRC), but it's designed to only have to be installed once, ever, which solves your other problem.
I think they switched which MTA was installed by default between Potato and Woody, but neither one was Sendmail. And of course, they have you configure it when it's installed, and you can just tell it to not run the daemon and deliver local mail only (so you still get important stuff sent to root).
I've used Postfix, and like it very much. Currently, the email server for which I'm responsible runs Sendmail, because I haven't had time to figure out how to port the virtusertable over to Postfix.
As for hackstraw's comment, Debian makes it easy because packages depend on "an MTA", and all of the MTAs conflict, so you just use APT to install your MTA of choice, and it replaces the existing one.
Is this the same Department of Homeland Security that recently signed a contract with Microsoft to provide their software? And they're complaining about Sendmail?
4 25 0&mode=thread&tid=103&tid=99
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/16/163
On the other hand, maybe they'll train their sights on BIND next.
Michael Powell is the chairman of the FCC, not the FTC. And oh, how I wish it weren't so (William Kennard, the former chairman, was all in favor of low-power FM and local content.)
We got in 100th Window at WMBC, and it didn't have any problems in any CD player where I tried it (including a CD-RW drive in Linux), and was also rippable (we have a rotating playlist fill in our gaps when there are no live DJs).
:)
i d= 6755408
As far as boycotts, I say that we should make sure to have big increases in sales of non-**AA movies and music, to point out where the revenue really went. Nothing would make me happier
Support small artists, folks. They actually want you to listen to their music. Reply to my other post above if you want suggestions.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=75555&c
There are many fine forms of entertainment that aren't controlled by the RIAA/MPAA, and don't agree with them. Live near Baltimore? See a John Waters film at The Charles. Music? Dischord, Touch and Go, Archenemy, Fueled By Ramen (geeks ought to like that label). I went to see Eleni Mandell last Wednesday; it was her first time in Baltimore. It's CRIMINAL that she doesn't get more attention, as she's a wonderful artist (and really nice in person). Far more criminal than some kids depriving Britney Spears of a hypothetical $1 per CD.
:)
This site:
http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/
has a "bookmarklet" to help you identify non-RIAA bands when you're shopping online. Or, you could find the small clubs in your area (Baltimore: The Talking Head, The Ottobar, The Mojo). Check their schedule, look up the bands (who will probably have free, legal downloads). Go see the ones you might like; it's probably only $5 or so. Buy their CDs if you do like them; most of it goes to them, and the CDs are cheaper too.
Reply to this post with your tastes if you want suggestions. I can't help with hip-hop so much, but I can with nearly everything else. And, shameless plug, WMBC will start broadcasting again in a few weeks
DivX (I think I got the caps right) was the pay-per-play, only licensed for 1 player DVD technology that Circuit City was pushing (fortunately, it flopped horribly). So someone creates a video CODEC that's pretty good, good enough to get widespread adoption, and they name it "DivX ;-}"!? That was a really good idea; no chance of confusing anyone with that name.
You won't get arrested for hemp, but the FDA outlawed food products made with hemp a little while ago (fortunately, that was reversed; hemp pretzels are really good). And there are only a few states in which you can grow hemp, and even there you have to jump through all sorts of hoops.
And to think that during WWI (I think it was I and not II), farmers were _required_ to grow hemp. No, for the record, I've never smoked marijuana and don't plan on it. But I do have some very nice clothes which are cotton/hemp blend, and they're more comfortable and durable than the 100% cotton ones (and seem to hold dyes better).
Thanks for playing, but in 9 years of driving, I've never run out of gas. But I'll reply to you, since you were slightly less rude than the AC.
Computer networks have "firewalls" to keep "junk" from getting onto their networks. Water, air, many things are filtered. Are those filters perfect? My car is a generic block (Pontiac 6000) from 1988, and does not make any funny noises or need babying to be reliable. I guess maybe I can't be doing everything wrong.
I may have just been trolled, but I think you misunderstood me. All of the base components of OpenBSD have been thoroughly audited, some multiple times, for security problems. Security issues will arise on BUGTRAQ for software distributed with other Unices (free and non-free), and OpenBSD will have preemptively fixed the bug months ago.
As for "general-purpose", I meant as opposed to operating systems that were, say, NSA-specific beasts that performed only a few tasks.
So, I run Debian on my desktop for usability and convenience, but the firewall runs OpenBSD.
You're correct in some respects, but I would say that according to your link, stating "the people ARE the shareholders!" is a bit misleading, something like saying "the people ARE the SUV drivers!" Less than half of families (however that's defined) own corporate stock, so protecting only their rights is perfectly OK?
I would venture to say that more businesses, and through extension people (employees, customers, etc.) benefit from Free software, and Linux in particular, than benefit from SCO (which at this point can probably be narrowed down to mostly their stockholders). I don't think that the government should necessarily do anything about it at this point, because as you pointed out, it's not their place (beyond whatever comes out of the Red Hat and IBM suits against SCO).
And as my father, a mechanic, will tell you, most people do not check the oil, coolant, power steering fluid, tire pressure, etc. The more careful ones bring in the car if it makes a funny noise long enough. Many people only think about the car when it won't run anymore. Putting gas in the car is pretty much the only thing "end-users" do reliably, and even that doesn't happen often enough sometimes (did you know that it's better for your car to not allow it to get below 1/4 tank, because then junk on the bottom of the fuel tank gets sucked into the engine?)
The frightening bit is that my mom, a Physician's Assistant, will tell you the same thing about people and their bodies. She gets in all sorts of cases where people have had horrible things wrong with them and haven't bothered to come in for a week, or the guy who drank 3 40-oz. beers a night, and his main concern was wondering why he had to wake up to go to the bathroom so often.
(as for dishwashers, most of them require you to at least scrape your plate before you put it in, and my father, having cleared out a dishwasher that pretended you didn't have to do that, will tell you that they ALL require this.)
This is exactly what I was going to say, except that I was going to have to alter the analogy slightly since my car is so old that I forgot about locking gas caps. Older versions of operating system that made it onto the Internet were not designed for security, and originally cars (and doors) didn't have locks, etc. But it's irresponsible to fail to address discovered security problems in new releases.
Note to crazy people: I am not suggesting that Linux is perfect, nor any existing operating system. OpenBSD comes closest today (in terms of "general purpose" operating systems).
I don't think that the fact that some people who have passed the driver's test can't really drive is an invalidation of the concept of testing. I just think we need a more thorough test.
:), and take the test further: out on the road. Go through twisty backwoods roads. Merge onto a major highway, change a few lanes. Go through one of those freakish 5-way intersections with one direction of one road split by concrete medians into 3 segments, two of which turn left (in different ways) and one of which goes on only to be further split by highway entrances on both sides of the road, right after the traffic light.
My father (who repaired county police vehicles at the time, and repairs state vehicles now) set up traffic cones and made me weave through them. I had to practice skidding on an empty, icy parking lot (and braking from 60mph on a non-icy lot) to see what would happen and prepare myself. I learned in a 1971 Plymouth Valiant with a 3-speed manual transmission and no power brakes.
After passing the current driving test, you are allowed to drive on the road. So take them through the above additions (maybe not the Valiant
Under the DMCA, reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability is allowed. I don't think that anyone could seriously argue that a competing office suite didn't need interoperability with the file format of the office suite with the market majority.
DRM, as another poster mentioned, may be a problem, but this could conceivably be made available in StarOffice while not in OpenOffice, if that becomes necessary.
From the article:
"The company is 'looking very seriously' at requiring future versions of Windows to accept automatic software fixes unless the user specifically refuses to receive them..."
So yes you can "at least press Ok first." Although I'm sure CmdrTaco has nothing to worry about, since he doesn't run Windows any more, which I suppose is why he didn't read the article.
Personally, I think that this would probably be a responsible move on their part (and Bruce Schneier apparently agrees with me). I especially like the fact that they're going to start shipping Windows with the firewall enabled. As far as I'm concerned, no one should be worried as long as you can disable automatic updates and disable the firewall (though I think they should make it slightly non-obvious how to do so, so that the people this is intended to benefit won't turn it off). After all, you don't leave Windows exactly as it comes off the CD, do you? Hopefully, you'll also be able to create corporate install CDs with these features disabled if need be.
There are only two things that concern me:
1. Broken patches: What if, as has happened in the past, an update breaks the auto-update mechanism? Then they'll be pretty well stuffed. I'm not sure what to say about that other than "don't do that."
2. Dial-up users: As the article mentions, SP1a is big. Really big. I mean, you might think that the OpenOffice download is big, but that's just peanuts compared to...right. However, that was a combination of many small patches, and just like many other things in life, if people had updated incrementally as they should have, they wouldn't have a need for a giant update. Hopefully, MS will be able to keep the patch size down, and we can watch 2003 to see if they can keep the frequency down as well.
(Yes, I now have to care about Microsoft products again, which is annoying, but I might as well make the best of it).
Try Phantasy Star Online. It's not technically a MMORPG, since you can only actually play the _battle_ part of the game with 3 other people at a time (though it's debatable whether that's better or worse than FF XI's policy of people being randomly placed on servers and never, ever meeting those on other servers). But there are a good number of classes, weapons, etc., and plenty of non-cheaters left.
The Xbox version is better because it has voice chat; although I have a Gamecube keyboard now, it's just too slow for things like "Hey, did anyone notice the Dark Bringer over here that's about to KILL YOU ALL while you're wasting time killing Claws?", or "You stupid chunk of tin, why the hell did you grab that Trifluid?[magic restoring item; androids have no magic]". However, cheating in the Xbox version is even worse than on the GameCube, it costs more (I think), and you can't play with people from other countries (who are often nicer than US gamers).
(Disclaimer: I don't have an Xbox myself.)
You can change the sorting order of Mutt with single-key shortcuts, and you're going to have a very hard time convincing me that Outlook has better filtering capabilities than Procmail. Mutt is certainly not a less complex program, although as you say, it (and moreso PINE) can be very easy for novice users. But Mutt is really more like Vim: it can be incredibly efficient, but there is certainly more of a learning curve. I like it because you can learn as much of it as you want. I'm not using the full capabilities of either Mutt or Procmail, because I don't need them (yet). Debian does make it easy since most of the defaults are exactly what I want. One thing that I would really hate to do without for my mailing list reading is the threaded view for messages. Going back to the "normal" way (sorted by date received alone) would seem like a traffic accident. Plus I can edit my email in whatever editor I want (Vim), and display the least-annoying version of a multi-part message in the order that I specify.
PS: for mailing lists, you should really filter by X-Mailing-List or similar rather than sender; it's more reliable.
I had an interesting moment the other day. My father works several doors down from me; I'm IT support for the Physical Plant, he's the Auto Shop supervisor.
.mbx files into standard RFC822 mail files."
His new laptop (for running auto diagnostic software) came without an SSH client installed, so he had been trying to use Netscape Mail to read his email. He found it impossible; it was way too inefficient for the volume of email that he gets from various technician's groups. He requested that I "put PINE on the machine so I can check my email like I do at home."
Here is a guy that doesn't like PCs at all, only using them to get info about cars and ask me where we should meet for lunch on Sunday, and a text-based MUA works better for his needs than a GUI one. Someone who gets the volume of email that you do may want to take a closer look at an MUA with the efficiency, flexibility, and power of Mutt.
Also:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/mbx2mbox/
"Converts Outlook Express
On the first page of results for "outlook". Written in Perl and supposedly cross-platform.
You should go back and read the part of his post that you didn't quote. Microsoft currently has a near-monopoly on the desktop browser population. However:
1. Vast numbers of devices that are not desktops and have never been online before are starting to get online. Some of these will use Windows embedded stuff, but many will not. These are browsers too. These count too, and probably more than computers. I'll bet that many people would not bother with a home PC if they could check their email and surf the Web with their cell phone/PDA. Especially if someone came out with a "docking station" for the home that gave you a real keyboard, display, and pointing device.
2. Windows users have no way to get a new version of IE without getting a new version of Windows. That will not be available for about 2 more years. Jakob Nielson estimates that "most" people will have upgraded to a version of a browser 2 years after it has come out. Will people abandon IE when it stagnates for 2 years? Did they abandon Netscape 4 when it stagnated for 2 years?
(There is apparently software that gives IE tabs and popup blocking, but I didn't hear anything about mouse gestures, and I can only imagine that the tab implementation will continue to improve in Mozilla to the point where it's impossible to emulate [like moving tabs between windows]. Clever freeware authors can't prop up IE indefinitely.)
Lazarus and The Coroner's Toolkit were developed several years ago by Wietse Venema (Postfix, TCPWrappers) and Dan Farmer (SATAN). Lazarus recovers deleted files which can then be browsed with a Web browser. The Coroner's Toolkit is forensics software (post-breakin analysis). I saw a presentation on them in 1999, and they looked very useful then; I'm sure they're even better now. Fortunately, I haven't had occasion to use them :)
Let's replace a few words:
"But many people have said [that] Linux is NOT a replacement for a desktop operating system, thus Linux does not satisfy the home user or the business user's needs. And look how many years it's taken already. I say move on and write a new program."
I say eat it. I took accounting in school, I keep track of every last cent that passes through my life, and GNUcash is excellent. It took maybe 30 minutes to get started, and several more to figure out split transactions, but that was definitely worth it. Yes, there are areas that could use improvement, but saying "I don't like it, my friends say it's bad, start over" is idiotic.
[On a side note, it's a major failing of the educational system in the US that NOTHING is taught about budgets, finances, etc. in grade school. At least the importance of keeping records should be impressed. GNUcash, a program that keeps track of things correctly, should be much more popular.]
That's not how I interpret that statement. When NASA builds equipment to go into space, they use 386/486 CPUs because they absolutely know how they work and how to keep them reliable. You don't want to have to fix something in space.
This is to a lesser degree, of course, but having to stop their survey and wait for a "tech guy" to drive out and fix the computer would be a real pain. Having to stop the survey because the OS needs to be rebooted would be a lesser pain, but still a pain. And when did the computer crash? Which parts of the road do you have to re-cover? Was the data leading up to the crash reliable?