First, we have wide LSB compliance. Next, we'll be getting an LSB Desktop spec later this year, which expands on LSB to be more meaningful to end-user needs (covers GUI components, etc).
It'll be interesting to see how meaningful it will be to end-users.
There is also the DCC Alliance, whose members (Knoppix, Xandros, Linspire, MEPIS and several others) will all share the same LSB Desktop core. Ubuntu hasn't joined, but they now have an agreement with the DCCA to synchronize their kernels.
Yeah, but these are all Debian based. They weren't terribly different to begin with. The reason Ubuntu won't agree to this is because they want to be on a bleeding edge. They don't want to compromize on a standard base which is likely to get out of date very quickly.
I dunnno. I guess there are some things one can do to make the LInux experience more unified, but at some point you just have to recognize that there are reasons for the fragmentation.
Packaging programs in a different wrapper, and/or including different parts of the program in the wrapper do not make them different OS's.
Excuse me, but I qualified that. I said "for most intents and purposes." I mean practically. For most practical purposes Redhat and Debian, for example, may as well be different OS's. Especially when it comes to commercial software which might only "support" one or the other. It happens.
This is an important distinction because it make developing shrinkwrapped software for Linux in general very difficult for software vendors. Unlike Windows, vendors can't simply release a single installer. They have to cater to each distribution as if they were different OS's. They may not actually be different OS's, but the reality demands that they be treated as such. In the WIndows world it is the opposite. Windows 98 and Windows NT are different OS's, but software venders can write their software and distribute binaries as if they weren't.
With a little (well, OK, a lot) of work you could change any distribution into any other, maintaining a working system throughout the change.
Sure, but who is going to do that? That is not a real life situation. It does not fall under "most intents and purposes."..If you want to install the latests verson of KDE, for example, you really need a package that is built for your particular version of a particular distribution...
Or you could compile the vanilla KDE source on any distribution and have it work.
You could, but if the different linux distributions were so similar and interchangable, this wouldn't be necessary.
Do you think you can only be a KDE developer if you use distribution "X", or they develop several versions in parallel to cater for their developers preferences?
No, but package maintainers do. Don't underestimate the work a good package maintainer has to do to make a package play nice with your particular distribution. It often isn't a whole lot different than porting. I doubt that you would want to run (and maintain) KDE compiled from vanilla source. I wouldn't. I like all the work package maintainers put into customizing software for Debian.
But if you take your reasoning to its natural conclusion, it doesn't really matter if they use Linux at all. You can't tell the difference between a document produced in OpenOffice on Windows and a document produced in Redhat either. Heck, they could probably use a closed solution so long as it could produce compatable documents. And even then, why do you care? Those documents are for internal use only, generally. Any public documents are already in open formats (insofar as PDF is open, I guess).
Sorry, i know I am being unnecessarily argumentative. It's just that I think you are going out of your way to avoid a distro flame war which was never going to happen. You missed the point of my first response.
They are, for most intents and purposes, different OS's.
Save for the system administrators, what difference does it make anyone outside IBM Germany that the distros may be diverging and/or be different OS's? I cannot tell a difference between a document created on a RedHat system vs. a SuSE system.
I'm glad IBM Germany is going in this direction regardless of what distro they choose. It doesn't make any difference to me, especially since I'm not an end user of their services and I suspect if the end users of their services get the same quality of service they have up to this point, they won't care either.
If it doesn't matter you you, why are you glad they are going this direction?
I find more and more tools crossmigrating between the platforms; these days on Fedora you can use yum, up2date and apt more or less seamlessly; heck, most repositories publish their packages for all of the managers, and most other distributions work the same way.
But I can't use that same repository, as a general rule, to install packages on a Debian system, for example. Sometimes you can convert an RPM to a.deb using alien and it will work, but not always. And certainly not for a package above a certain level of complexity. If you want to install the latests verson of KDE, for example, you really need a package that is built for your particular version of a particular distribution. I've even had trouble installing Ubuntu packages on Debian or vise versa. And they use the exact same packaging system and tools!
I know what you mean about more interoperability between distributions. But it is my impression that as the interoperability goes up, so does the overall complexity of the software and services.
Slightly different library versions makes sharing dynamically linked binaries difficult even on different patchlevels on the same OS. DLL hell ring a bell?
But to a much, much smaller degree. DLL hell tends to cause small glitches. Not major incompatibilities. The fact is that you can generally run a Win32 application on any Windows platform from Win95 to Windows 2003. What makes DLL hell such hell is not the incompatabilities, but rather the awkwardness of tracking down the source of a problem. Unix binaries tend to be much more strictly versioned such that you just can't run an application if you have libdb4.1 intead of libdb4.0, for example. This has has the benefit of avoiding the in hair pulling glitches you get in DLL hell, but it makes sharing binaries even within the same distribution (diferent release) much more difficult.
Why do you think they they call it "backporting" when you have to repackage a program from an older version of a distribution? It really is like "porting." Like I said, for most intents and purposes, Linux distributions are different OS's.
I think it is getting to the point (maybe it's always been this way) where Linux distributions are effectively different OS's. Well, maybe you can group them into "Debian based," "Redhat based," etc. Think about it. Each one has a different packaging system. Different installers. Different standard locations for files. Slightly different library versions that makes sharing dynamically linked binaries problematic. The difference between Debian and Redhat is nearly the same as the difference between Slackware and FreeBSD (in practice. obviously there are some significant differences under the hood). You could probably technically run the same binary on all 4 of them (with FBSD's linux emulation), but ideally you would compile a "native" binary/package on each system. They are, for most intents and purposes, different OS's.
This isn't about originality. This is about selling out. It is about give PR departments a free outlet for their worthless propaganda. It is similar to supposed tech news sites which merely regurgitate corporate press releases when a new product comes out.
The "principle" of the thing is that email providers are free to do whatever they want with mail. If they want to cripple their service, let them. They'll pay for it in the long run.
Under this scheme we have two choices: 1) Ignore it and risk these users losing their messages as spam (which is the most likely choice). 2) Cut off all our AOL users. 3) Make someone eat the stick to pay for them to get messages.
Or tell the AOL users to sign up for a free gmail account if they want to recieve mail from your list (assuming the messages actually do get blocked). Maybe they'll even dump AOL outright and get a real ISP.
Not with such bad PR. My prediction is that AOL will lose customers as a result of this move (even before spammers start paying money to get their SPAM certified). "Totally Free" email will become a selling point. Just like Google's practically unlimited storage has become a selling point. Not only that, but it is so darn easy to switch email providers. It isn't like switching ISPs where you have to place an order and wait and all that. You just sign up for Gmail or some other free email. Or use your work email or school or whatever.
It might be great to get bug fixes in a matter of hours but no sys admin in there right mind should apply patches that are untested unless they don't mind having hoards of users after wanting to kill them. Vendor patches from Microsoft and OSS companies take longer to be released since they have to guarantee it won't break anything.
If there is a critical bug preventing me or my users from getting something done, sometime it is worth the risk to apply "untested" patches. Also, a lot of the wait time in getting patches from vendors is NOT due to testing. It is due to company priorities. If you are experiencing a bug that isn't affecting most other users, you're often SOL until the next service pack. And you may not even get the patch then.
Of course, this depends on the size of the company and your relative importance to them. I've personally worked directly with engineers to get a fix for proprietary software and I had a custom build/patch sent to me. But this is rare. To a company like MS, you're an ant.
Compagnies like the safaty of having someone to blame if stuff goes to hell.
This is a tired, stupid argument. Having someone to blame does absolutely nothing but appease the egos of incompetent management and staff. In the end, the stuff has gone to hell. ANd no amount of blame can change that.
I'm a big advocate of OSS and all but applying random patches is just careless and stupid.
Of course applying "random" patches is careless and stupid. But we're not talking about "random" patches. We're talking about specific patches that will solve a specific existing problem. One great thing about OSS is that often (if you have the skill) you don't even need to wait for ANYONE to supply a patch. I can't tell you how many times I have actually gone into the code myself and fixed a problem or added a minor feature. You just can't do this with most proprietary software. If something goes to hell, I'll gladly take the blame. If something goes wrong, I'd much rather it be my fault. That way I am much more able to make it right again.
For one thing, proper credit is given to the AP. Also, there is a difference in that, AFAIK, you can't go directly to the AP to get the content (can you?). So the newspaper or magazines are providing a service by packaging AP content for you. When you search the interenet and get one of the bad sites in question, there is no credit to the original source... AND and original source gets pushed down the search rankings.
Slashdot produces TONS of original content. I'm typing some of it right now.
You don't seem to understand what this article is about. We're talking about people who put up a bogus site and clutter up search results making it more difficult to find the real content your're looking for. How many times have you typed in search words and linked to a site with nothing but ads and a few random blurbs about the search terms you plugged in? Happens to me all the time. And it is annoying.
Stop! I'm sick of it. Its just a little javascript and some XML. It isn't "desktop-like." They're just web sites. This isn't new technlology. Give it a rest.
I think I am going to shoot the next person who says "Web 2.0."
You're splitting hairs. To take your blurring to its natural extreme, a comptuer is useless without any software at all.
Considering that, as a Linux user, all my software, support, and documentation comes from the 'net, I hardly think it inappropriate to state that my computer is largely useless without the 'net.
One could easily take your burring of a computer's utility to a natural extreme as well. A computer could be used as a paper weight, nightlight, heater, small fan, etc.
Access to files from the Internet through "sneakernet" (a misnomer here) and an "Internet Connection" are two different things, and in parenting the difference becomes both noticable and vital.
In the first situation ("no connection"), the child literally cannot get any web page without going through the parent.
Or his friend down the street. How much control does a parent have over a child's use of the internet if the child goes over to his friend's house to use it? We both know that he/she will.
In the second ("with connection"), the child can wind up anywhere.
The way I see it, denying a child access to the internet at home not only takes the supervision out of the parent's hands, but also denies the child a valuable resource for learning about technology. Also, we should be more clear about what age of child we are talking about. Certainly a 6 year old would be happy plugging away at some piece of edutainment software for a couple hours a day, but many children beyond, say, 12 would benefit from the internet as a resource. You also have to consider the child's temperment. Is the child apt to simply look for porn or is he or she going to learn programming or do genuine research or something like that?
A computer is a multi-purpose tool. The fact that you have many different things that can also do (some of) the same things doesn't change what a computer can do without the internet.
A computer can also be used as a paper weight, but I doubt you'd list that because there are cheaper, more appropriate items to use as paper weights.
The topic of conversation was a computer for a child, possibly without the internet. That is, without a live internet connection. Everything you poked around as needing the 'net for can be done via a jump drive and someone else's connection.
That still counts as using the Internet. You're just replacing the ethernet interface with sneakernet.
Look, I'm not saying that a computer is completely useless without internet access. I'm just saying that without an internet connection, Linux in particular is very crippled. I, for one, would not limit a child like that if I could help it. The Internet is far too valuable as a resource as well as a learning opportunity in and of itself.
You mean you don't use your bank's online account management?
Media player
Again, already have one of those. It is called a CD player. Without and internet connectino, the only media I would have to play would come from those CD's. Computer is needed for playing media that I... download off the internet.
word processor
You mean the one I downloaded off the internet?
Learning Computer Programming
I'll never go back to programming without the internet as a resource.
playing computer games
You mean the ones I download off the 'net? How about when I want to talk to others about the games or get hints? How about playing with real human opponents rather than braindead AI?
quiz-tester
Quiz what?
Study aide
You mean like researching stuff on the web? Ooops, requires and internet connection.
I'm not so sure about Linux, though I imagine Linux could be a learning experience all by itself, sans internet connection.
Kinda, but you need some way to download the different distributions and open source packages to experiment with. When i was first starting out in Linux, I was lucky enough to have access to high speed internet at the school I worked at so I could download the 20 (or whatever) Slackware floppy images to get started. And once you get started, you often need the internet to get support/documentation. Man pages only go so far.
Anyways, you remember the days when 33.6 Kb was a hot shit modem? And when you only had one phone line & no call waiting? Yea, I didn't spend much time online either.
I paid money for my own phone line as an adolescent.
What we need is a concerted effort from our worldwide developers to create better interoperability with Microsoft's Active Directory structure and better hardware compatibility.
Umm, that implies that you would have Linux desktops and Windows servers (for Active Directory). That seems like a rather improbable and inappropriate combination. Novell's eDirectory woudl be a much better choice of directories. Novell has been doing the directory thing for more than 15 years. eDirectory will even run on Linux and Novell already has significant integration (ConsoleOne, Groupwise, etc).
Trying to play catch up with a company like Microsoft is just a losing battle. Nobody wants to run a system that only aims to be compatable with another. IBM tried that with OS/2. One of its biggest features was that it was a "better Windows than Windows." Be that as it may, most people would just ask themselves, "Why don't I just run Windows?"
What's also missing is the "zero-user" configurability that Windows has, allowing any user to load and install any application or hardware accessory without needing to be a hardware tech. Linux need to be engineereed to be "smarter" for the casual office user.
Actually it is the other way around. Linux has "zero-user configurablity." That means regular users can't install hardware or software at will. Windows is (by default) open to all kinds of user initiated configuration changes. In a properly managed office environment, users are not permitted to install hardware or software at will.
How is this an incompatible fork? According to the website, they're working with upstream X development to make this a part of or at least easily added to the regular X distribution. It's just that only FC5 has things setup just right so far.
Slashdot Mirror
First, we have wide LSB compliance. Next, we'll be getting an LSB Desktop spec later this year, which expands on LSB to be more meaningful to end-user needs (covers GUI components, etc).
It'll be interesting to see how meaningful it will be to end-users.
There is also the DCC Alliance, whose members (Knoppix, Xandros, Linspire, MEPIS and several others) will all share the same LSB Desktop core. Ubuntu hasn't joined, but they now have an agreement with the DCCA to synchronize their kernels.
Yeah, but these are all Debian based. They weren't terribly different to begin with. The reason Ubuntu won't agree to this is because they want to be on a bleeding edge. They don't want to compromize on a standard base which is likely to get out of date very quickly.
I dunnno. I guess there are some things one can do to make the LInux experience more unified, but at some point you just have to recognize that there are reasons for the fragmentation.
-matthew
Packaging programs in a different wrapper, and/or including different parts of the program in the wrapper do not make them different OS's.
..If you want to install the latests verson of KDE, for example, you really need a package that is built for your particular version of a particular distribution...
Excuse me, but I qualified that. I said "for most intents and purposes." I mean practically. For most practical purposes Redhat and Debian, for example, may as well be different OS's. Especially when it comes to commercial software which might only "support" one or the other. It happens.
This is an important distinction because it make developing shrinkwrapped software for Linux in general very difficult for software vendors. Unlike Windows, vendors can't simply release a single installer. They have to cater to each distribution as if they were different OS's. They may not actually be different OS's, but the reality demands that they be treated as such. In the WIndows world it is the opposite. Windows 98 and Windows NT are different OS's, but software venders can write their software and distribute binaries as if they weren't.
With a little (well, OK, a lot) of work you could change any distribution into any other, maintaining a working system throughout the change.
Sure, but who is going to do that? That is not a real life situation. It does not fall under "most intents and purposes."
Or you could compile the vanilla KDE source on any distribution and have it work.
You could, but if the different linux distributions were so similar and interchangable, this wouldn't be necessary.
Do you think you can only be a KDE developer if you use distribution "X", or they develop several versions in parallel to cater for their developers preferences?
No, but package maintainers do. Don't underestimate the work a good package maintainer has to do to make a package play nice with your particular distribution. It often isn't a whole lot different than porting. I doubt that you would want to run (and maintain) KDE compiled from vanilla source. I wouldn't. I like all the work package maintainers put into customizing software for Debian.
-matthew
But if you take your reasoning to its natural conclusion, it doesn't really matter if they use Linux at all. You can't tell the difference between a document produced in OpenOffice on Windows and a document produced in Redhat either. Heck, they could probably use a closed solution so long as it could produce compatable documents. And even then, why do you care? Those documents are for internal use only, generally. Any public documents are already in open formats (insofar as PDF is open, I guess).
Sorry, i know I am being unnecessarily argumentative. It's just that I think you are going out of your way to avoid a distro flame war which was never going to happen. You missed the point of my first response.
-matthew
They are, for most intents and purposes, different OS's.
Save for the system administrators, what difference does it make anyone outside IBM Germany that the distros may be diverging and/or be different OS's? I cannot tell a difference between a document created on a RedHat system vs. a SuSE system.
I'm glad IBM Germany is going in this direction regardless of what distro they choose. It doesn't make any difference to me, especially since I'm not an end user of their services and I suspect if the end users of their services get the same quality of service they have up to this point, they won't care either.
If it doesn't matter you you, why are you glad they are going this direction?
-matthew
I find more and more tools crossmigrating between the platforms; these days on Fedora you can use yum, up2date and apt more or less seamlessly; heck, most repositories publish their packages for all of the managers, and most other distributions work the same way.
.deb using alien and it will work, but not always. And certainly not for a package above a certain level of complexity. If you want to install the latests verson of KDE, for example, you really need a package that is built for your particular version of a particular distribution. I've even had trouble installing Ubuntu packages on Debian or vise versa. And they use the exact same packaging system and tools!
But I can't use that same repository, as a general rule, to install packages on a Debian system, for example. Sometimes you can convert an RPM to a
I know what you mean about more interoperability between distributions. But it is my impression that as the interoperability goes up, so does the overall complexity of the software and services.
Slightly different library versions makes sharing dynamically linked binaries difficult even on different patchlevels on the same OS. DLL hell ring a bell?
But to a much, much smaller degree. DLL hell tends to cause small glitches. Not major incompatibilities. The fact is that you can generally run a Win32 application on any Windows platform from Win95 to Windows 2003. What makes DLL hell such hell is not the incompatabilities, but rather the awkwardness of tracking down the source of a problem. Unix binaries tend to be much more strictly versioned such that you just can't run an application if you have libdb4.1 intead of libdb4.0, for example. This has has the benefit of avoiding the in hair pulling glitches you get in DLL hell, but it makes sharing binaries even within the same distribution (diferent release) much more difficult.
Why do you think they they call it "backporting" when you have to repackage a program from an older version of a distribution? It really is like "porting." Like I said, for most intents and purposes, Linux distributions are different OS's.
-matthew
I think it is getting to the point (maybe it's always been this way) where Linux distributions are effectively different OS's. Well, maybe you can group them into "Debian based," "Redhat based," etc. Think about it. Each one has a different packaging system. Different installers. Different standard locations for files. Slightly different library versions that makes sharing dynamically linked binaries problematic. The difference between Debian and Redhat is nearly the same as the difference between Slackware and FreeBSD (in practice. obviously there are some significant differences under the hood). You could probably technically run the same binary on all 4 of them (with FBSD's linux emulation), but ideally you would compile a "native" binary/package on each system. They are, for most intents and purposes, different OS's.
-matthew
This isn't about originality. This is about selling out. It is about give PR departments a free outlet for their worthless propaganda. It is similar to supposed tech news sites which merely regurgitate corporate press releases when a new product comes out.
-matthew
The "principle" of the thing is that email providers are free to do whatever they want with mail. If they want to cripple their service, let them. They'll pay for it in the long run.
-matthew
Under this scheme we have two choices:
1) Ignore it and risk these users losing their messages as spam (which is the most likely choice).
2) Cut off all our AOL users.
3) Make someone eat the stick to pay for them to get messages.
Or tell the AOL users to sign up for a free gmail account if they want to recieve mail from your list (assuming the messages actually do get blocked). Maybe they'll even dump AOL outright and get a real ISP.
-matthew
Not with such bad PR. My prediction is that AOL will lose customers as a result of this move (even before spammers start paying money to get their SPAM certified). "Totally Free" email will become a selling point. Just like Google's practically unlimited storage has become a selling point. Not only that, but it is so darn easy to switch email providers. It isn't like switching ISPs where you have to place an order and wait and all that. You just sign up for Gmail or some other free email. Or use your work email or school or whatever.
-matthew
It might be great to get bug fixes in a matter of hours but no sys admin in there right mind should apply patches that are untested unless they don't mind having hoards of users after wanting to kill them. Vendor patches from Microsoft and OSS companies take longer to be released since they have to guarantee it won't break anything.
If there is a critical bug preventing me or my users from getting something done, sometime it is worth the risk to apply "untested" patches. Also, a lot of the wait time in getting patches from vendors is NOT due to testing. It is due to company priorities. If you are experiencing a bug that isn't affecting most other users, you're often SOL until the next service pack. And you may not even get the patch then.
Of course, this depends on the size of the company and your relative importance to them. I've personally worked directly with engineers to get a fix for proprietary software and I had a custom build/patch sent to me. But this is rare. To a company like MS, you're an ant.
Compagnies like the safaty of having someone to blame if stuff goes to hell.
This is a tired, stupid argument. Having someone to blame does absolutely nothing but appease the egos of incompetent management and staff. In the end, the stuff has gone to hell. ANd no amount of blame can change that.
I'm a big advocate of OSS and all but applying random patches is just careless and stupid.
Of course applying "random" patches is careless and stupid. But we're not talking about "random" patches. We're talking about specific patches that will solve a specific existing problem. One great thing about OSS is that often (if you have the skill) you don't even need to wait for ANYONE to supply a patch. I can't tell you how many times I have actually gone into the code myself and fixed a problem or added a minor feature. You just can't do this with most proprietary software. If something goes to hell, I'll gladly take the blame. If something goes wrong, I'd much rather it be my fault. That way I am much more able to make it right again.
-matthew
For one thing, proper credit is given to the AP. Also, there is a difference in that, AFAIK, you can't go directly to the AP to get the content (can you?). So the newspaper or magazines are providing a service by packaging AP content for you. When you search the interenet and get one of the bad sites in question, there is no credit to the original source... AND and original source gets pushed down the search rankings.
-matthew
Slashdot produces TONS of original content. I'm typing some of it right now.
You don't seem to understand what this article is about. We're talking about people who put up a bogus site and clutter up search results making it more difficult to find the real content your're looking for. How many times have you typed in search words and linked to a site with nothing but ads and a few random blurbs about the search terms you plugged in? Happens to me all the time. And it is annoying.
-matthew
Why are you storing so much data in your root directory?
-matthew
I imagine the lack of Airport extreme support would be a problem for some. And I wonder how well the 3D video is supported.
-matthew
When you least expect it...
Stop! I'm sick of it. Its just a little javascript and some XML. It isn't "desktop-like." They're just web sites. This isn't new technlology. Give it a rest.
I think I am going to shoot the next person who says "Web 2.0."
-matthew
...even if they didn't intend to!
You're splitting hairs. To take your blurring to its natural extreme, a comptuer is useless without any software at all.
Considering that, as a Linux user, all my software, support, and documentation comes from the 'net, I hardly think it inappropriate to state that my computer is largely useless without the 'net.
One could easily take your burring of a computer's utility to a natural extreme as well. A computer could be used as a paper weight, nightlight, heater, small fan, etc.
Access to files from the Internet through "sneakernet" (a misnomer here) and an "Internet Connection" are two different things, and in parenting the difference becomes both noticable and vital.
In the first situation ("no connection"), the child literally cannot get any web page without going through the parent.
Or his friend down the street. How much control does a parent have over a child's use of the internet if the child goes over to his friend's house to use it? We both know that he/she will.
In the second ("with connection"), the child can wind up anywhere.
The way I see it, denying a child access to the internet at home not only takes the supervision out of the parent's hands, but also denies the child a valuable resource for learning about technology. Also, we should be more clear about what age of child we are talking about. Certainly a 6 year old would be happy plugging away at some piece of edutainment software for a couple hours a day, but many children beyond, say, 12 would benefit from the internet as a resource. You also have to consider the child's temperment. Is the child apt to simply look for porn or is he or she going to learn programming or do genuine research or something like that?
-matthew
Already have one of those.
Irrelevent.
A computer is a multi-purpose tool. The fact that you have many different things that can also do (some of) the same things doesn't change what a computer can do without the internet.
A computer can also be used as a paper weight, but I doubt you'd list that because there are cheaper, more appropriate items to use as paper weights.
The topic of conversation was a computer for a child, possibly without the internet. That is, without a live internet connection. Everything you poked around as needing the 'net for can be done via a jump drive and someone else's connection.
That still counts as using the Internet. You're just replacing the ethernet interface with sneakernet.
Look, I'm not saying that a computer is completely useless without internet access. I'm just saying that without an internet connection, Linux in particular is very crippled. I, for one, would not limit a child like that if I could help it. The Internet is far too valuable as a resource as well as a learning opportunity in and of itself.
-matthew
Calculator
Already have one of those.
Budget tracking
You mean you don't use your bank's online account management?
Media player
Again, already have one of those. It is called a CD player. Without and internet connectino, the only media I would have to play would come from those CD's. Computer is needed for playing media that I... download off the internet.
word processor
You mean the one I downloaded off the internet?
Learning Computer Programming
I'll never go back to programming without the internet as a resource.
playing computer games
You mean the ones I download off the 'net? How about when I want to talk to others about the games or get hints? How about playing with real human opponents rather than braindead AI?
quiz-tester
Quiz what?
Study aide
You mean like researching stuff on the web? Ooops, requires and internet connection.
alarm clock
Again, already got one of those.
-matthew
I'm not so sure about Linux, though I imagine Linux could be a learning experience all by itself, sans internet connection.
Kinda, but you need some way to download the different distributions and open source packages to experiment with. When i was first starting out in Linux, I was lucky enough to have access to high speed internet at the school I worked at so I could download the 20 (or whatever) Slackware floppy images to get started. And once you get started, you often need the internet to get support/documentation. Man pages only go so far.
Anyways, you remember the days when 33.6 Kb was a hot shit modem? And when you only had one phone line & no call waiting? Yea, I didn't spend much time online either.
I paid money for my own phone line as an adolescent.
-matthew
What we need is a concerted effort from our worldwide developers to create better interoperability with Microsoft's Active Directory structure and better hardware compatibility.
Umm, that implies that you would have Linux desktops and Windows servers (for Active Directory). That seems like a rather improbable and inappropriate combination. Novell's eDirectory woudl be a much better choice of directories. Novell has been doing the directory thing for more than 15 years. eDirectory will even run on Linux and Novell already has significant integration (ConsoleOne, Groupwise, etc).
Trying to play catch up with a company like Microsoft is just a losing battle. Nobody wants to run a system that only aims to be compatable with another. IBM tried that with OS/2. One of its biggest features was that it was a "better Windows than Windows." Be that as it may, most people would just ask themselves, "Why don't I just run Windows?"
What's also missing is the "zero-user" configurability that Windows has, allowing any user to load and install any application or hardware accessory without needing to be a hardware tech. Linux need to be engineereed to be "smarter" for the casual office user.
Actually it is the other way around. Linux has "zero-user configurablity." That means regular users can't install hardware or software at will. Windows is (by default) open to all kinds of user initiated configuration changes. In a properly managed office environment, users are not permitted to install hardware or software at will.
-matthew
How is this an incompatible fork? According to the website, they're working with upstream X development to make this a part of or at least easily added to the regular X distribution. It's just that only FC5 has things setup just right so far.
-matthew
A computer is a tool, teach your kids that.
The internet... is a distraction that young children don't need.
Maybe i've been using Linux too long, but I've found that my computer is largely useless as a tool without an internet connection.
-matthew