I remember reading about this in the paper edition of New Scientist a few months ago; that doesn't make it any less interesting, particularly the announcement recently that Micro$oft is funding research into genetic methods for software development. The article I read said that the developers were still having trouble with the system; particularly in that the evolved "program"---actually instructions for an FPGA---would only work on one chip at one temperature. I'd love to see how they're doing now.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
I also like KFM, but I have three minor gripes; first, it does something occasionally that crashes my X server (but hopefully that'll get sorted in XF86 4.0), second, Qt is horrendously ugly (although it's rather nicer in Motif mode), and third, KFM doesn't support HTTP authentication. I use authentication for several projects that I'm working on, so I have to use Netscape or Lynx to test them.
Incidentally, this is off-topic, but why on earth does Qt in its Win95-lookalike mode replicate Windows' horrendous behaviour with dragging scrollbars (move the pointer more than 50-odd pixels away from the scrollbar while dragging it and it pops back to its previous position)? (Fortunately it doesn't do this in Motif mode.)
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Re:Kernel Usage will fork unless...
on
Kernels Galore
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· Score: 1
No, like many deprecated features ( in HTML springs to mind), cuax was dropped because it served no useful purpose. It is certainly not "required by many widely used packages", as you suggest---ttySx can be used wherever cuax was used before.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Re:Stay away from 2.2.11!!!!
on
Kernels Galore
·
· Score: 1
I've had trouble with 2.2 too, although in my case it was 2.2.10. 2.2.9 was rock-solid, as is 2.2.11; under 2.2.10 I got frequent lock-ups in X.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
The types come from glib, upon which GTK is based. The main purpose of glib is to provide "modern" types like lists (OK, LISP had them in the 60s, but you know what I mean) and extendable strings, and the functions to deal with them safely; the other types, like gchar, simply provide a type system that's consistent between platforms and C compilers. Using glib is a good thing, even in non-GTK programs. And gtk_main isn't mandatory.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
I agree. I maintain a simple GTK app, xhippo, a playlist manager which essentially has a status bar, three buttons and a listbox. The listbox is implemented as a (deprecated) GtkList, and I'm converting it to a GtkCList. In order to do this, I've had to consult the source for GTK several times. Fortunately it's well-written and very readable, but it would certainly be easier, particularly for new programmers, if the tutorial was rather more complete. Volunteers?
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
If you don't like the default GTK look---and I can't say I'm that keen on it either, although it's far nicer than Qt's Win95 look---try some of the themes available on gtk.themes.org. I'm currently using the Step theme, which along with WindowMaker gives me a very NeXTStep-ish interface.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
You have a point. Certainly in Britain, if you have a phone line and a friend with a little technical knowledge to help you fix up an old machine, you can get online for just the cost of the phone calls (via Freeserve, Virgin or another free ISP). Using Arachne, you can even get online with an 8088, and it's easy to get a junk 386 these days.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
I thought 386BSD predated Linux. (I'm probably wrong, because Linus started Linux to learn 386 assembler programming when he got a 386.) Minix certainly predated Linux, as did Xenix, Coherant and other commercial Unices.
This is probably the point to make the "hey, RMS created the *license*" argument (but then I'll be accused of being a GNU bigot... hmmm...). Linux would certainly not exist without the GNU tools before (gcc has always been used to develop Linux, even before it was self-hosting).
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
These are reasonable ideas, but they're not GNU-style.
1. Original author(s) is (are) given credit for creation of said document.
No, that's BSD-style. Copyright and courtesy require this, not the GNU licenses.
2. Any changes made to the document are commented, and that reasonable efforts be made to give a copy of the changed document to the original author.
Again, that's courtesy.
3. No fee be charged, beyond that of the price of the media and packaging, for distributions of the documents.
No, the GNU-style licenses say that you can charge as much as you like, but you must make the source (SGML here) available. For instance, under a GNU GPTL (General Public Text License), O'Reilly or similar could produce a nicely printed copy of the book, but they'd have to say where you can get the SGML to make your own from.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Re:I think they are going in the wrong direction h
on
The Future of KDE
·
· Score: 1
Wrong. GTK also supports coded (shared library) themes---in fact, the pixmap themes are done via a "pixmap" shared library. I'll use KDE when I can get a Step theme for it.:) (Love KFM though... can't wait to try Konq.)
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Since when is 8 instructions per bit a problem? Shift, mask, output, repeat. And you can "freeze" the serial bitstream by using the flow control lines. And I don't think it would be impossible to do this---TCP/IP allows you to simply discard anything that you're not immediately interested in and expect to get it again in a short while.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
If you're even vaguely adept at electronics, or have a friend who is, you can build your own simple passive mixer to take care of this. Take a 10k resistor from the output of each computer to a common point; connect this common point to one end of a 10k variable resistor; connect the grounds of all the inputs and the output to the other end of the variable resistor; connect the output to the wiper of the variable resistor. This works fine in most situations.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Get something like IJB that you can use to filter out Referrer: headers. It breaks most counters, but do you really miss those? It can cut out banner ads too.
And no, I don't work for Junkbusters. I just like (well, mostly) their software. Mail me for patches to make it mangle pages less badly.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
IIRC, I believe that's why the EMACS maintainers won't port it to Macintosh.
This used to be true, but GNU have since relaxed their stance. Given that Apple are now just another UNIX manufacturer and are trying to pick up the whole Open Source (bletch) idea, I don't think they're too worried any more.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Better idea: stick a big flashing light and radio transmitter on it, so we know when it's coming round again. Hey, maybe we could get a Linux box put on a comet!
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Neither does my Netscape config. That's an advantage in my book---Java, JavaScript and cookies are only ever used for things that annoy me.
What I miss is the lack of support for HTTP authentication. KFM's rendering only screws up on sites that seriously abuse tables (although it renders Slashdot just fine). The fact that it's a KDE program is also a little annoying---we need that rendering engine in GNOME, please.:)
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
More importantly, they gave themselves the option to do this. I don't trust a project where they want you to do the work and can then take it away again. Like the previous poster, I use Netscape because there's not much choice for highly graphical pages---otherwise I use Lynx or w3m.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Have you tried KDE yet? The KDE filemanager, kfm, works reasonably well as a web browser, and has a much more IE-like appearance (whether that's an advantage or not is a matter of taste). When Opera appears for Linux, you might want to consider that too.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
I realize that this might be seen as flame-bait, but if you have a 486 lying around that you want to make into a small workgroup server, a BSD is probably the way to go.
I have a 486sx25 with 8Mb of error-free parity RAM and 700Mb of storage. It's going to be a mail server for my parents next year. On the grounds that I wanted to try it out, I grabbed OpenBSD 2.4 and tried installing it. The first problem is that if you've got a mono monitor, you can forget about using OpenBSD from the console---it just appears black. I tried using a serial console with no luck---I couldn't get it to talk to the serial port at all. I therefore "obtained" a colour monitor for it and tried again. My next problem came with setting up a network card; as mine differed from the default configuration, OpenBSD refused to see it unless I used the kernel configuration tool (/bsd -c at the boot prompt); it doesn't remember these settings, so I have to do it each time I boot up (as opposed to Linux, where it autodetects my weird config, and even if it didn't all distributions include Ethernet drivers as modules so I could set it automatically). I know I could build a custom kernel, but I'd rather not have to (it's yet another large download).
After this, the installation was reasonably easy; it installed quite happily over NFS. I didn't like the way that OpenBSD installed the bootloader without asking me---I had a small DOS partition on there (for playing 4D Stunts Driving, of course!) and needed a bootdisk to get back in to it (although AFAIK you can configure the bootloader to boot a DOS partition; if I was serious, I could put LILO back on there as a selector).
I then logged in, read the very informative afterboot man page---an excellent idea, BTW---and started playing around. Within ten minutes, I got a kernel panic. Hmph. I rebooted, and tried building a newer version of Apache from the source code. I couldn't help but notice that it compiled very slowly (compared to under Linux on the same machine), so I fired up systat to see what else was going on---to find out that OpenBSD was only using 4Mb of RAM, because it was believing the machine's rather confused BIOS. Under Linux, there's a boot param I can pass to the kernel to say "hey, I've got 8Mb", but setting the parameters in OpenBSD's bootloader had no effect.
I've therefore gone back to Slackware Linux on that box, which runs very nicely indeed. To OpenBSD's credit, it runs fairly well under VMWare on my main (K6-2 333Mhz) Linux box, so I'll experiment more.
IMHO, having both BSD and Linux is a huge advantage for our community, because of the interchange of ideas. I don't think arguing is very productive---try both and see what you like.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
I don't see any legal problems with not displaying banner ads (although morally I'd like to help CmdrTaco out, just preferably not at 33k6). Are you claiming that the thousands of people who view Slashdot using Lynx (like me), W3M, Emacs-W3 or simply with images turned off are equivalent to cable service thieves?
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR "All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Slashdot Mirror
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Incidentally, this is off-topic, but why on earth does Qt in its Win95-lookalike mode replicate Windows' horrendous behaviour with dragging scrollbars (move the pointer more than 50-odd pixels away from the scrollbar while dragging it and it pops back to its previous position)? (Fortunately it doesn't do this in Motif mode.)
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
This is probably the point to make the "hey, RMS created the *license*" argument (but then I'll be accused of being a GNU bigot... hmmm...). Linux would certainly not exist without the GNU tools before (gcc has always been used to develop Linux, even before it was self-hosting).
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
These are reasonable ideas, but they're not GNU-style.
1. Original author(s) is (are) given credit for creation of said document.
No, that's BSD-style. Copyright and courtesy require this, not the GNU licenses.
2. Any changes made to the document are commented, and that reasonable efforts be made to give a copy of the changed document to the original author.
Again, that's courtesy.
3. No fee be charged, beyond that of the price of the media and packaging, for distributions of the documents.
No, the GNU-style licenses say that you can charge as much as you like, but you must make the source (SGML here) available. For instance, under a GNU GPTL (General Public Text License), O'Reilly or similar could produce a nicely printed copy of the book, but they'd have to say where you can get the SGML to make your own from.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
That doesn't stop them being a bunch of criminals. This kind of attitude does not help.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Get something like IJB that you can use to filter out Referrer: headers. It breaks most counters, but do you really miss those? It can cut out banner ads too.
And no, I don't work for Junkbusters. I just like (well, mostly) their software. Mail me for patches to make it mangle pages less badly.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
This used to be true, but GNU have since relaxed their stance. Given that Apple are now just another UNIX manufacturer and are trying to pick up the whole Open Source (bletch) idea, I don't think they're too worried any more.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
I also don't remember Commodore suing the company that made a 486 PC in an Amiga 1200-style case. Now that's a machine I would like very much to own.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Neither does my Netscape config. That's an advantage in my book---Java, JavaScript and cookies are only ever used for things that annoy me.
What I miss is the lack of support for HTTP authentication. KFM's rendering only screws up on sites that seriously abuse tables (although it renders Slashdot just fine). The fact that it's a KDE program is also a little annoying---we need that rendering engine in GNOME, please. :)
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Have you tried KDE yet? The KDE filemanager, kfm, works reasonably well as a web browser, and has a much more IE-like appearance (whether that's an advantage or not is a matter of taste). When Opera appears for Linux, you might want to consider that too.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
I have a 486sx25 with 8Mb of error-free parity RAM and 700Mb of storage. It's going to be a mail server for my parents next year. On the grounds that I wanted to try it out, I grabbed OpenBSD 2.4 and tried installing it. The first problem is that if you've got a mono monitor, you can forget about using OpenBSD from the console---it just appears black. I tried using a serial console with no luck---I couldn't get it to talk to the serial port at all. I therefore "obtained" a colour monitor for it and tried again. My next problem came with setting up a network card; as mine differed from the default configuration, OpenBSD refused to see it unless I used the kernel configuration tool (/bsd -c at the boot prompt); it doesn't remember these settings, so I have to do it each time I boot up (as opposed to Linux, where it autodetects my weird config, and even if it didn't all distributions include Ethernet drivers as modules so I could set it automatically). I know I could build a custom kernel, but I'd rather not have to (it's yet another large download).
After this, the installation was reasonably easy; it installed quite happily over NFS. I didn't like the way that OpenBSD installed the bootloader without asking me---I had a small DOS partition on there (for playing 4D Stunts Driving, of course!) and needed a bootdisk to get back in to it (although AFAIK you can configure the bootloader to boot a DOS partition; if I was serious, I could put LILO back on there as a selector).
I then logged in, read the very informative afterboot man page---an excellent idea, BTW---and started playing around. Within ten minutes, I got a kernel panic. Hmph. I rebooted, and tried building a newer version of Apache from the source code. I couldn't help but notice that it compiled very slowly (compared to under Linux on the same machine), so I fired up systat to see what else was going on---to find out that OpenBSD was only using 4Mb of RAM, because it was believing the machine's rather confused BIOS. Under Linux, there's a boot param I can pass to the kernel to say "hey, I've got 8Mb", but setting the parameters in OpenBSD's bootloader had no effect.
I've therefore gone back to Slackware Linux on that box, which runs very nicely indeed. To OpenBSD's credit, it runs fairly well under VMWare on my main (K6-2 333Mhz) Linux box, so I'll experiment more.
IMHO, having both BSD and Linux is a huge advantage for our community, because of the interchange of ideas. I don't think arguing is very productive---try both and see what you like.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
I don't see any legal problems with not displaying banner ads (although morally I'd like to help CmdrTaco out, just preferably not at 33k6). Are you claiming that the thousands of people who view Slashdot using Lynx (like me), W3M, Emacs-W3 or simply with images turned off are equivalent to cable service thieves?
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS