But the theory makes claims outside of those aforementioned areas, which is the whole problem. It is something you must take on faith, which many physicists won't do.
Mathematics is not science. It is mathematics. Math is its own thing, and unless you take an extreme Platonic foundation of mathematics... math is not explored, it is created. That is, math is simply about pure mental constructions, and doesn't necessarily have any connection to the "outside world" or "reality".
As a fan of math myself (I am currently playing with non-well-founded axiomatic set theory), it irks me when people claim that math is a science, or has applications as its purpose. Similarly, it is bothersome when people bring religious concepts such as the Platonic Realm into math.
The very intent of math is to have certainty, not faith in the external existence of mathematical objects - somehow independent and trancendental apart from our minds.
Who knows, maybe these theories do exist independently from our thought, but we can't confirm this. However, we can confirm our own thought's existence, and therefore math should be founded on such a thing.
String Theory is either a religion or philosophy in that it makes a claim about reality based on nothing other than faith. It is just as valid a science as creationism. I do find String Theory to be more interesting though as it makes use of interesting math:)
Check the reviews? So I am going to read some girl's bias review stating how Fedora sucks? Meanwhile I am using it as my sole desktop OS, and I love it? So I should listen to someone else?
Why not try Fedora out before you comment? I assure you it is Redhat Linux. Noone is saying to use Fedora in a production environment... instead Redhat's intent is for you to use Redhat Enterprise Linux, which will be based on Fedora. You get stability and support.
You just sound like someone who hasn't even used the recent Redhat Linces, and the new Fedora Core 1. You are pointing to a rose and telling me that it is not a rose because of a review you read.
Ok, *noppix. Sorry, forgot about Gnoppix, and other customized Knoppices. However, Knoppix starts with a "K" because of the name of its inventor, Klaus Knopper (sp?). Anyway, everyone _should_ have a copy of some *noppix, to serve as a super save disk;-)
The initial installation, hardware setup, etc... makes it tougher than most people are willing to deal with. Knoppix, for example, does autohardware detection, and you can do a harddrive install of Knoppix, then dist-upgrade to Debian testing. So yeah, Knoppix is Debian. I personally think that Redhat should steer Fedora to be a similar Debian customization. They should port the config tools, bluecurve, etc... the installer has already been ported to Debian.
It is silly for Redhat to not tap into the Debian community. Sure it would require a little more work up front, to slowly port Fedora-only stuff to Debian, but once done, they could rely on a large and structured Debian community.
Redhat or Fedora with apt-rpm and a 3rd party repository like FreshRPMs, is easy to setup, and allows for mp3 codecs and mplayer (video player) to be downloaded by the click of a button.
If you want an easy ride, why are you bothering with custom disk formatting? Shouldn't the installer do that stuff automatically and choose good defaults? I have never tried a different format because I just go with a default install and then I install a 3rd party's apt package.
Fedora is Redhat Linux, in everything but name and commercial support. I challenge you to a test: run Redhat Linux 9 and Fedora Core 1 side-by-side. Then come back here and tell us how Fedora isn't an option for current Redhat Linux users. It is the same f*cking OS you dolts!
Out of those listed, the top 4 distros that will appeal the most to Redhat users are in order with most appealing as #1 and least appealing as #4:
1. Fedora (aka "the distro formally known as Redhat Linux") 2. Mandrake 3. Suse (beware it has closed proprietary parts) 4. Knoppix (everyone has a copy of Knoppix)
I have used Redhat 9 since it was released, and I loved it as a desktop Linux distro. I just upgraded to Fedora early this week, and guess what? It is just what you would have expected Redhat 10 to be like. It looks and feels like Redhat 9, but as many improvements.
Fedora is like Debian in that both are community Linux distro projects, but Fedora is still largely controlled and developed by Redhat... while Debian is a OSS purist's distro that is not controlled by a commercial entity.
However, with the current state of both Fedora and Debian, if you are a newb or just want an easy introduction to Linux on the desktop, then go with Fedora.
Debian on the desktop is only practical when you use a highly customized Debian such as Knoppix or Lindows.
I would love to see more cross-porting between Fedora and Debian. So far Debian's package manager has been ported to Fedora, and Fedora's install has been ported to Debian. These "inter-distro" developments are important for keeping the Linux community unified.
How is installing Mandrake any easier than installing the distro formally known as Redhat, aka Fedora?
How is using Mandrake any easier than using Fedora?
Somehow I have the impression that you are just saying things without basis in fact. I can do an entirely automatic desktop install of Fedora. Pop in the CD, keep clicking next, reboot, and bam! A working Linux desktop.
Your loss. All you have to do it give Media Player Classic (MPC) a fair try for about a week. I have run both WMP and MPC on slower machines (400mhz cpu) and faster machines (1.8ghz cpu), and on both machines I notice a difference in startup times. On the slower machines it is painfully obvious that MPC is faster.
Just give it a try. It is easy to install and use. No reason to not at least give it a try. Everyone I have convinced to give MPC a try, have all fallen in love with it.
I have converted over to 100% Linux, so I no longer run MPC - Linux's MPC is called "mplayer"... but even mplayer isn't as good as MPC - that is one of the very few windows apps that I "missed" since my conversion.
WMP on the other hand... couldn't even handle fullscreen when I have my laptop docked into a CRT. Pathetic. WMP would cause the screen to flicker, and pop back to non-fullscreen. Sure a docked laptop is a non-standard setup to play movies on, but then why is MPC capable of doing fullscreen with such a setup?
I am sure MPC has its share of bugs too, but at least MPC is actively developed, with frequent updates.
Just give it a try. Stop being close minded. If you don't like it, then you can easily uninstall it. It doesn't even try to steal your file associations, though you can make it, if you dig through the GUI enough, there is an option to force it to steal file associations.
Are you sure MPC can find the DVB-T codec? Post to mailinglists/forums or send an email to the MPC developer asking about getting DVB-T working with MPC. I think that one of the bug selling points of MPC is that it is a one stop media player, and I am pretty sure the developer prides himself on it.
Am I the only one that notices a performance improvement with MPC over WMP? Even on faster machines I was able to notice an improvement. On slower machines it is painfully obvious.
You are really missing out. Get with the program. WMP is crap. It can't play every video format, it is slow, and its interface is chubby and wastes space. It was strange how WMP actually got slower after WMP 6.4. The interface was also changed to the chubby monster it now is, with large space wasting empty borders.
The absolute best video player for Windows is open source, has an interface similar to WMP 6.4, is faster than any other video player, and it can play any and every video format! It is called Media Player Classic.
Seriously, you are missing out. Install the latest WMP so that you have the latest MS codecs, do the same with Quicktime, Real, DIVX, etc... (again in order to get the codecs) and then install Media Player Classic. Give yourself a week of using Media Player Classic for all video playing, and I know you won't go back to WMP. You won't be able to tolerate WMP's slow startup times, sluggish performance, its chubby interface, and its lack of codec/format support.
Media Player Classic. Just keep repeating those words. Open source, free, faster, more versatile, and just plain better! One media player to rule them all!
Read the the page you just linked, and you will see that repositories with packages like mplayer and mp3 decoders aren't considered "Fedora Extras". Here is why, taken right out of the page you linked:
These packages, like all packages that are part of The Fedora Project, must conform to the legal requirements of the project and conform to the Fedora Extras policies.
3rd party apt repositories, like Fresh RPMs, have been around for a while, are used by thousands, can be trusted, and make available apt for rpm packages that will do everything I said, even for old distros like Redhat 7.3. The process you need to get "Synaptic" installed on your system is something that can be done once (I do it right after the distro is installed). From there on after, software installation, updating, and uninstalling, is far easier than would be on Windows.
Here are the steps you could take: 1. Go to the link I gave in this post, and read the page. 2. Install the version of apt available from that page, for your distro version. 3. Install it as you would any other RPM 4. open a su terminal and type "apt-get update" 5. (you might have to do part 4 twice depending on the version of apt-rpm that is available for RH7.3) 6. type "apt-get dist-upgrade" 7. type "apt-get install synaptic"
I am not sure where the Synaptic icon will be placed on RH7.3, but on RH9 and FC1 it is placed under "System Settings". The GUI is pretty easy to understand, and you can use it to install things like mplayer, update things like gnome, etc...
As far as using the latest software with your old distro, you can use additional 3rd party repositories that are mentioned on the FreshRPMs site. HOWEVER, only stick to repositories that FreshRPMs garentees are compatible... otherwise you can end up back where you started, with versioning problems.
Really, the magic is more in the repositories than it is in apt or other package managers like yum. APT resolves dependencies, but the repository must supply a comprehensive set of packages such that the dependencies can be met and that any software you want is available.
With FC1 and FreshRPMs + crew (the 3 other repos FreshRPMs recommends as inter-compatible), I have been able to find EVERYTHING I needed through Synaptic.
If you want to upgrade distro versions, such as upgrade from 7.3 to 8.0, you might be able to do it using Synaptic, but don't take my word for it as I have never tried it myself. Maybe I will soon, as I have still have two RH9 computers.
Linux is ready for the desktop, but first everything has to be setup correctly. This isn't skipping around the problem as it should be acceptable to have, say FC1 installed on your average joe's computer along with Synaptic. That is something feasible for an OEM such as Dell to do. The user can then use and care for their system using Synaptic.
Redhat and the Fedora project cannot distribute certain useful packages such as mplayer and mp3 decoders because of patent limitations. However, these are available through a number of 3rd-party apt or yum repositories. The problem is that there is little coherence between 3rd-party repositories, and some are incompatible with others.
Does Redhat or the Fedora project plan on setting up guidelines for minimizing the chaos involved with using multiple 3rd-party repositories, like a listing of each repository along with a listing of which repositories are incompatible/compatible?
I will disprove you with an example. Lets say the user wants to watch a couple movies he downloaded that are xvids and divxs.
On windows, the user has to download each individual codec and run each individual installer. If the user lacks a recent version of a fundamental set of dlls such as DirectX, then they have to download and install that first. Then the user must do the same for a media player capable of playing the files such as Media Player Classic, which is hands down the best windows media player btw.
Note that on windows, for each package that must be installed the user has to first locate a site to download the package from, download the package, and run the installer.
Lets compare this to Fedora Core 1. The user must run Synaptic, search for a video player... most likely mplayer, which is the best player for Linux btw. The user selects "mplayer" out of the search results graphical list, press the "install" button, and then the "proceed" button.
Note how on Linux there is just one step: use synaptic to install the media player. All necessary codecs, libraries, etc... are installed automatically.
I have done both of these things on my no longer existant Windows 2000 computer, and on my Redhat 9 and Fedora Core 1 computers. My first try on Windows failed when one of the codec packs that I installed conflicted with another previously installed codec. When I tried to play my movies all I got was a green screen! Linux worked on the first try!
In conclusion, you are simply wrong. Installing software on Linux is far more simple than doing so on WIndows. Also, don't even bring up Windows 98SE. My wife's 98SE computer is unusuable right now because some installer installed a conflicting comdlg32.dll or some such shared library. Nothing works now, except the OS can boot into an unusable desktop. Not only that, but windows has no means of tracking software updates for anything other than a small subset of software that comes with the OS (Windows Update).
On Linux I can update all of my software automatically. Not just the stuff that came with the OS. Linux keeps my IRC and IM clients up-to-date, as well as my browser, media player, office suite, p2p apps, etc...
Windows has no unified means of package management, but Linux does. This means that installing, removing, and updating installed software is far easier on Linux than Windows.
I am waiting for a few more things to be integrated in addition to WiFi and Bluetooth. I want integrated GPS and mobile phone. THAT would be a device that I would always carry around because it would always have a use.
I am using it right now. It has huge performance improvements over Redhat 9 because of NPTL. The desktop is far more responsive. No more latency issues! It was easy to install, and it is easy to maintain too if you use apt for rpm with some 3rd party repositories.
Are you going to tell me that some ivory-tower egg head (Homer Simpson says it best) hasn't come up with a highly reliable computerized voting architecture based around public/private keys, solutions to the Byzantine Generals Problem, and other distributed algorithms?
It seems like our technology, properly applied, should be able to result in a voting system that is more reliable than the old fashion pen/paper methods. I am sure no matter what, there is always a case for fraud, but if the system is distributed enough, then to rig all of the votes should require someone to comprimise hundreds of distributed nodes throughout the nation.
In other words, make the computer based voting at least as hard to hack as the pen/paper method, and the benefit is not an increase in reliability as much as an increase in efficiency.
Gentoo is very new, and therefore the distro and its community haven't stood the test of time, as Debian has. Gentoo still has some maturing to do, before it can be used as a foundational distribution.
How many of those nations you mentioned were paid billions of dollars to support us, and do the peoples of said nations support their government's decision to sell-out to the USA?
You missed his point. The point is that you can have 1001 Linux distros, but it would eliminate allot of duplicated effort if they were based on Debian because Debian already has a comprehensive software package repository, a structured filesystem layout, and a demoncratic multi-national internet based community that develops, tests, maintains, supports, and uses Debian.
You can still have many distros, even when they are all based on Debian. See Knoppix and Lindows for example. Not only that, but see the many variations of Knoppix: Gnome Knoppix, MAME Knoppix, etc...
Slashdot Mirror
But the theory makes claims outside of those aforementioned areas, which is the whole problem. It is something you must take on faith, which many physicists won't do.
Mathematics is not science. It is mathematics. Math is its own thing, and unless you take an extreme Platonic foundation of mathematics... math is not explored, it is created. That is, math is simply about pure mental constructions, and doesn't necessarily have any connection to the "outside world" or "reality".
:)
As a fan of math myself (I am currently playing with non-well-founded axiomatic set theory), it irks me when people claim that math is a science, or has applications as its purpose. Similarly, it is bothersome when people bring religious concepts such as the Platonic Realm into math.
The very intent of math is to have certainty, not faith in the external existence of mathematical objects - somehow independent and trancendental apart from our minds.
Who knows, maybe these theories do exist independently from our thought, but we can't confirm this. However, we can confirm our own thought's existence, and therefore math should be founded on such a thing.
String Theory is either a religion or philosophy in that it makes a claim about reality based on nothing other than faith. It is just as valid a science as creationism. I do find String Theory to be more interesting though as it makes use of interesting math
Check the reviews? So I am going to read some girl's bias review stating how Fedora sucks? Meanwhile I am using it as my sole desktop OS, and I love it? So I should listen to someone else?
Why not try Fedora out before you comment? I assure you it is Redhat Linux. Noone is saying to use Fedora in a production environment... instead Redhat's intent is for you to use Redhat Enterprise Linux, which will be based on Fedora. You get stability and support.
You just sound like someone who hasn't even used the recent Redhat Linces, and the new Fedora Core 1. You are pointing to a rose and telling me that it is not a rose because of a review you read.
Ok, *noppix. Sorry, forgot about Gnoppix, and other customized Knoppices. However, Knoppix starts with a "K" because of the name of its inventor, Klaus Knopper (sp?). Anyway, everyone _should_ have a copy of some *noppix, to serve as a super save disk ;-)
The initial installation, hardware setup, etc... makes it tougher than most people are willing to deal with. Knoppix, for example, does autohardware detection, and you can do a harddrive install of Knoppix, then dist-upgrade to Debian testing. So yeah, Knoppix is Debian. I personally think that Redhat should steer Fedora to be a similar Debian customization. They should port the config tools, bluecurve, etc... the installer has already been ported to Debian.
It is silly for Redhat to not tap into the Debian community. Sure it would require a little more work up front, to slowly port Fedora-only stuff to Debian, but once done, they could rely on a large and structured Debian community.
Redhat or Fedora with apt-rpm and a 3rd party repository like FreshRPMs, is easy to setup, and allows for mp3 codecs and mplayer (video player) to be downloaded by the click of a button.
If you want an easy ride, why are you bothering with custom disk formatting? Shouldn't the installer do that stuff automatically and choose good defaults? I have never tried a different format because I just go with a default install and then I install a 3rd party's apt package.
Fedora is Redhat Linux, in everything but name and commercial support. I challenge you to a test: run Redhat Linux 9 and Fedora Core 1 side-by-side. Then come back here and tell us how Fedora isn't an option for current Redhat Linux users. It is the same f*cking OS you dolts!
Out of those listed, the top 4 distros that will appeal the most to Redhat users are in order with most appealing as #1 and least appealing as #4:
1. Fedora (aka "the distro formally known as Redhat Linux")
2. Mandrake
3. Suse (beware it has closed proprietary parts)
4. Knoppix (everyone has a copy of Knoppix)
I have used Redhat 9 since it was released, and I loved it as a desktop Linux distro. I just upgraded to Fedora early this week, and guess what? It is just what you would have expected Redhat 10 to be like. It looks and feels like Redhat 9, but as many improvements.
Fedora is like Debian in that both are community Linux distro projects, but Fedora is still largely controlled and developed by Redhat... while Debian is a OSS purist's distro that is not controlled by a commercial entity.
However, with the current state of both Fedora and Debian, if you are a newb or just want an easy introduction to Linux on the desktop, then go with Fedora.
Debian on the desktop is only practical when you use a highly customized Debian such as Knoppix or Lindows.
I would love to see more cross-porting between Fedora and Debian. So far Debian's package manager has been ported to Fedora, and Fedora's install has been ported to Debian. These "inter-distro" developments are important for keeping the Linux community unified.
How is installing Mandrake any easier than installing the distro formally known as Redhat, aka Fedora?
How is using Mandrake any easier than using Fedora?
Somehow I have the impression that you are just saying things without basis in fact. I can do an entirely automatic desktop install of Fedora. Pop in the CD, keep clicking next, reboot, and bam! A working Linux desktop.
Everyone I know that has given it a fair chance, has loved it and never gone back to WMP.
Your loss. All you have to do it give Media Player Classic (MPC) a fair try for about a week. I have run both WMP and MPC on slower machines (400mhz cpu) and faster machines (1.8ghz cpu), and on both machines I notice a difference in startup times. On the slower machines it is painfully obvious that MPC is faster.
Just give it a try. It is easy to install and use. No reason to not at least give it a try. Everyone I have convinced to give MPC a try, have all fallen in love with it.
I have converted over to 100% Linux, so I no longer run MPC - Linux's MPC is called "mplayer"... but even mplayer isn't as good as MPC - that is one of the very few windows apps that I "missed" since my conversion.
WMP on the other hand... couldn't even handle fullscreen when I have my laptop docked into a CRT. Pathetic. WMP would cause the screen to flicker, and pop back to non-fullscreen. Sure a docked laptop is a non-standard setup to play movies on, but then why is MPC capable of doing fullscreen with such a setup?
I am sure MPC has its share of bugs too, but at least MPC is actively developed, with frequent updates.
Just give it a try. Stop being close minded. If you don't like it, then you can easily uninstall it. It doesn't even try to steal your file associations, though you can make it, if you dig through the GUI enough, there is an option to force it to steal file associations.
Are you sure MPC can find the DVB-T codec? Post to mailinglists/forums or send an email to the MPC developer asking about getting DVB-T working with MPC. I think that one of the bug selling points of MPC is that it is a one stop media player, and I am pretty sure the developer prides himself on it.
Am I the only one that notices a performance improvement with MPC over WMP? Even on faster machines I was able to notice an improvement. On slower machines it is painfully obvious.
You are really missing out. Get with the program. WMP is crap. It can't play every video format, it is slow, and its interface is chubby and wastes space. It was strange how WMP actually got slower after WMP 6.4. The interface was also changed to the chubby monster it now is, with large space wasting empty borders.
The absolute best video player for Windows is open source, has an interface similar to WMP 6.4, is faster than any other video player, and it can play any and every video format! It is called Media Player Classic.
Seriously, you are missing out. Install the latest WMP so that you have the latest MS codecs, do the same with Quicktime, Real, DIVX, etc... (again in order to get the codecs) and then install Media Player Classic. Give yourself a week of using Media Player Classic for all video playing, and I know you won't go back to WMP. You won't be able to tolerate WMP's slow startup times, sluggish performance, its chubby interface, and its lack of codec/format support.
Media Player Classic. Just keep repeating those words. Open source, free, faster, more versatile, and just plain better! One media player to rule them all!
What are you waiting for? Just try it!
3rd party apt repositories, like Fresh RPMs, have been around for a while, are used by thousands, can be trusted, and make available apt for rpm packages that will do everything I said, even for old distros like Redhat 7.3. The process you need to get "Synaptic" installed on your system is something that can be done once (I do it right after the distro is installed). From there on after, software installation, updating, and uninstalling, is far easier than would be on Windows.
Here are the steps you could take:
1. Go to the link I gave in this post, and read the page.
2. Install the version of apt available from that page, for your distro version.
3. Install it as you would any other RPM
4. open a su terminal and type "apt-get update"
5. (you might have to do part 4 twice depending on the version of apt-rpm that is available for RH7.3)
6. type "apt-get dist-upgrade"
7. type "apt-get install synaptic"
I am not sure where the Synaptic icon will be placed on RH7.3, but on RH9 and FC1 it is placed under "System Settings". The GUI is pretty easy to understand, and you can use it to install things like mplayer, update things like gnome, etc...
As far as using the latest software with your old distro, you can use additional 3rd party repositories that are mentioned on the FreshRPMs site. HOWEVER, only stick to repositories that FreshRPMs garentees are compatible... otherwise you can end up back where you started, with versioning problems.
Really, the magic is more in the repositories than it is in apt or other package managers like yum. APT resolves dependencies, but the repository must supply a comprehensive set of packages such that the dependencies can be met and that any software you want is available.
With FC1 and FreshRPMs + crew (the 3 other repos FreshRPMs recommends as inter-compatible), I have been able to find EVERYTHING I needed through Synaptic.
If you want to upgrade distro versions, such as upgrade from 7.3 to 8.0, you might be able to do it using Synaptic, but don't take my word for it as I have never tried it myself. Maybe I will soon, as I have still have two RH9 computers.
Linux is ready for the desktop, but first everything has to be setup correctly. This isn't skipping around the problem as it should be acceptable to have, say FC1 installed on your average joe's computer along with Synaptic. That is something feasible for an OEM such as Dell to do. The user can then use and care for their system using Synaptic.
Redhat and the Fedora project cannot distribute certain useful packages such as mplayer and mp3 decoders because of patent limitations. However, these are available through a number of 3rd-party apt or yum repositories. The problem is that there is little coherence between 3rd-party repositories, and some are incompatible with others.
Does Redhat or the Fedora project plan on setting up guidelines for minimizing the chaos involved with using multiple 3rd-party repositories, like a listing of each repository along with a listing of which repositories are incompatible/compatible?
I will disprove you with an example. Lets say the user wants to watch a couple movies he downloaded that are xvids and divxs.
On windows, the user has to download each individual codec and run each individual installer. If the user lacks a recent version of a fundamental set of dlls such as DirectX, then they have to download and install that first. Then the user must do the same for a media player capable of playing the files such as Media Player Classic, which is hands down the best windows media player btw.
Note that on windows, for each package that must be installed the user has to first locate a site to download the package from, download the package, and run the installer.
Lets compare this to Fedora Core 1. The user must run Synaptic, search for a video player... most likely mplayer, which is the best player for Linux btw. The user selects "mplayer" out of the search results graphical list, press the "install" button, and then the "proceed" button.
Note how on Linux there is just one step: use synaptic to install the media player. All necessary codecs, libraries, etc... are installed automatically.
I have done both of these things on my no longer existant Windows 2000 computer, and on my Redhat 9 and Fedora Core 1 computers. My first try on Windows failed when one of the codec packs that I installed conflicted with another previously installed codec. When I tried to play my movies all I got was a green screen! Linux worked on the first try!
In conclusion, you are simply wrong. Installing software on Linux is far more simple than doing so on WIndows. Also, don't even bring up Windows 98SE. My wife's 98SE computer is unusuable right now because some installer installed a conflicting comdlg32.dll or some such shared library. Nothing works now, except the OS can boot into an unusable desktop. Not only that, but windows has no means of tracking software updates for anything other than a small subset of software that comes with the OS (Windows Update).
On Linux I can update all of my software automatically. Not just the stuff that came with the OS. Linux keeps my IRC and IM clients up-to-date, as well as my browser, media player, office suite, p2p apps, etc...
Windows has no unified means of package management, but Linux does. This means that installing, removing, and updating installed software is far easier on Linux than Windows.
I am waiting for a few more things to be integrated in addition to WiFi and Bluetooth. I want integrated GPS and mobile phone. THAT would be a device that I would always carry around because it would always have a use.
I am using it right now. It has huge performance improvements over Redhat 9 because of NPTL. The desktop is far more responsive. No more latency issues! It was easy to install, and it is easy to maintain too if you use apt for rpm with some 3rd party repositories.
Are you going to tell me that some ivory-tower egg head (Homer Simpson says it best) hasn't come up with a highly reliable computerized voting architecture based around public/private keys, solutions to the Byzantine Generals Problem, and other distributed algorithms?
It seems like our technology, properly applied, should be able to result in a voting system that is more reliable than the old fashion pen/paper methods. I am sure no matter what, there is always a case for fraud, but if the system is distributed enough, then to rig all of the votes should require someone to comprimise hundreds of distributed nodes throughout the nation.
In other words, make the computer based voting at least as hard to hack as the pen/paper method, and the benefit is not an increase in reliability as much as an increase in efficiency.
Gentoo is very new, and therefore the distro and its community haven't stood the test of time, as Debian has. Gentoo still has some maturing to do, before it can be used as a foundational distribution.
How many of those nations you mentioned were paid billions of dollars to support us, and do the peoples of said nations support their government's decision to sell-out to the USA?
You missed his point. The point is that you can have 1001 Linux distros, but it would eliminate allot of duplicated effort if they were based on Debian because Debian already has a comprehensive software package repository, a structured filesystem layout, and a demoncratic multi-national internet based community that develops, tests, maintains, supports, and uses Debian.
You can still have many distros, even when they are all based on Debian. See Knoppix and Lindows for example. Not only that, but see the many variations of Knoppix: Gnome Knoppix, MAME Knoppix, etc...