Paranoia? Sure. However, your implication that its uncalled for is off the mark. Microsoft's history is way too littered with bad acts for me to trust them now just because they make warm fuzzy PR stunts. Perhaps you're just being a troll, but I'll bite
I'm not anarcho-communist. And I am *not* an FSF supporter. And I'm far from being a Stallmanist, too. In fact, I really despise the man. I use Linux because it is superior, not purely because it is FOSS. I support FOSS because my experience thus far is a higher quality, if at the sacrifice for quality.
I'm Linux camp, not GNU camp. It's "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux." Are you done trolling?
Why are we even surprised Microsoft is only half-assing their GPL'd virtualization drivers for Linux?
After all, the ONLY reason we got them opened in the first place was someone busted them for violating the GPL in the first place, and they were never interested in releasing real FOSS anything in the first place. How they got the OSI approval for one of their licenses is a mystery to me. I would have rejected it outright simply on grounds of principle. Here we have a company that has internally and publicly declared FOSS its enemy, after all.
Thus, I don't feel warm fuzzies when Microsoft does stuff like release GPL drivers, establish an "open" source license, supports projects like Mono or Moonlight, or opens sites like CodePlex. Their history is enough, in fact, for me to stand back and look for the ulterior motive and wonder when Microsoft is going to pull the rug out from under and screw those gullible folks who actually think Microsoft turned over a new leaf purely for the reasons stated above. I'm too familiar with their history for me to think they've actually changed, especially when their faux-friendly behavior towards FOSS doesn't look like a change from any other case of EEE or "partner and screw," two of Microsoft's favorite tactics.
Don't act so dense. Their intention was never to sue. If they did, Red Hat would have ended up in the soup years ago when Microsoft trolled this out the first time.
No, what Microsoft wanted was for a few distributors to blink. They got that. Novell, Linspire, and Xandros blinked, though questionably their motivation for blinking seems suspect anyway. Novell has de Icaza, so is it really a mystery they jumped at the chance to sign this deal when the biggest public Micropologist (Who called OOXML "superb" and embraced.NET as the "next great thing from Microsoft?") works for them? Linspire, from its beginning, has always wanted to be like Microsoft. Xandros is the only one I don't understand. They probably just fell for it.
Microsoft wants distributors under their thumb to inject poison into Linux and FOSS. That's what Mono and Moonlight are, in my opinion. And the only guy who actually wanted to develop a.NET/Silverlight implementation for Linux was non other than everyone's favorite Micropologist, yes, AGAIN, de Icaza.
This is just one example of Microsoft attacking Linux. TomTom is not a reliable enough example. First off, I don't think it had anything to do with the fact that TomTom uses Linux but that TomTom didn't licence vfat. They've done this to non-Linux distributing companies that violated the exact same patent.
Maybe spreading FUD campaigns against Linux like Get The Facts or this Best Buy thing in much more recent history.
Don't worry. It's just Microsoft giving more fodder to the gullible Micropologists to futily argue to those who are rightly suspicious or even hostile to Microsoft's actions (I STILL don't trust Mono, for example.). I remember having an argument with one where he insisted that Microsoft not only stopped its "war" on Linux, but was now helping Linux.
Now, very recently I am sure you are aware Microsoft launched yet another "Get The Facts" style FUD campaign against Linux, this time aimed at Best Buy employees! It's filled with the same inane dishonest bullshit you'd expect from a Microsoft-created FUD campaign.
Microsoft isn't trying to bury Linux? Bullshit. Microsoft wants to help open source? Jury is still out on that one, but I still think in the end Microsoft has no long-term FOSS interests and just wants to find a good way to mutilate as many FOSS projects as possible.
Many think I'm blindly hating on Microsoft here. No. Blindly hating on Microsoft usually involves simply hating Microsoft simply because its "trendy" without actually understanding WHY I'm hating Microsoft. I *know* why I hate Microsoft, and in my opinion, it's a damn fine reason (Or reasons.). I don't trust Microsoft because I am all-too-familiar with their past behavior. And this looks like just another case of Microsoft starting the "embrace" in "embrace, extend, extinguish." They did in with so many other things in the same way it looks like they're doing it with FOSS. And I'm expected to NOT be suspicious of Microsoft when they do this? Their history has taught me one big thing: Microsoft "helps" until they get what they want, then they get backstabbing.
Thus, it takes more than a Micropologist saying Microsoft no longer wants to harm FOSS and a little inane Microsoft PR (Like their "community promise.") to convince me Microsoft is anything BUT harmful.
Laughably was probably a poor word choice on my part, sorry. Impractical is a little better.
I find most SSDs price-to-space ratio to need a little improving. Speed is nice but I much prefer space, and from what I've seen with SSD, it's way too much to get an SSD of equivalent size to, say, a 500 GiB hard disk and not break the bank. I might be wrong, but I'm sure I could buy another 500 GiB HDD for only around $90... whereas I'd be hard put to find an SSD of equal size for less than a whopping $600, which is way more than I even payed for my computer.
I wouldn't. I seem to recall an old maintainer of glibc who got peeved that Richard Stallman started acting like he wasn't in charge of glibc jut because he made the mistake of putting it under the GNU umbrella. I'd say the EFF would be a better option.
That sounds a lot like the AUR in Archlinux. Anyone and their dog can upload packages, but only the good or popular ones actually get anywhere other than [unsupported]. Whereas if a TU likes it, it could go into [community] and have a better shot at getting downloaded. Eventually, if the package is really really REALLY good... it can get fully supported maintainership with the devs and go into [extra].
If it works, how come it breaks sound and (Pick one: ESD, OSSv4, ALSA, Phonon) doesn't?
Every time I used it it was a crap shoot. sometimes it'd work, then BAM! lag, huge latency, or sometimes it just completely kills my sound. If they were making sense of Linux sound APis, it wouldn't be doing that shit.
Unless you're using a bleeding-edge, rolling-release distribution like Arch or you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off compiling the latest kernel, you're not even using the relevant kernel version, and chances are this exploit will be gone by 2.6.30.2, and most certainly by 2.6.31. Chances are you're not even running a kernel newer than 2.6.29 on those "thousands" of systems you maintain, and thus this exploit is of no concern.
Just in case you're just an amateur who's trying to impress the/. crowd by saying you maintain "thousands of Linux system," I'm going to tell you about a command called "uname" that can telly ou exactly what kernel is being run.
I'm not pretending things are rosy. In fact, I'm mildly concerned since I am actually an Arch user running the kernel version in question. On the other hand, I doubt I'm really at risk being a home user who knows how to secure his system. It's rosy for the vast majority of Linux users because they're not even using this version of the kernel to begin with. And chances are, when they get a new version of their Linux distro it'll be 2.6.31 or beyond.
1. Virtual desktops is implemented in just about every WM and DE I've ever seen in Linux. Sure, X itself is optional but chances are you'll have this out of the box with most Linux distributions out of the box. Hardly an "add-on."
2. Really? I never saw a single configuration item for Windows that allows me to scroll anything in Windows without it having focus first. Never saw any add-ons for Windows with features to that effect.
3. See 1. If it's implemented in virtually every WM and DE (Which are needed to make X useful.) then it's hardly an add-on. Modular and "optional" does not equate to add-on, especially when almost all Linux distributions (Gasp!) support it out of the box.
4. See 1 and 3.
5. Mmmmm... I find the notifications in Linux to be a lot less obstructive and annoying than Windows. How many times does Windows XP/Vista/7 nag me when I boot it up before it finally shuts up over things that need no naggings?
6. Huh... I beg to differ on this one. Having compared the PS3 (An OpenGL machine.) to XBox 360 (A DirectX machine.) I find that OpenGL, with the right extensions and developers behind it blows DirectX away when used at its peak. I think this is largely because DirectX is *not* modular and *not* open source, thus developers have their work cut out for them when trying to make fantastic graphics. Another thing OpenGL beats the snot out of DirectX on is portability. I can develop using a combination of SDL (Which really is an underrated little game library, much easier to develop for than DirectX, in my experience, too. OpenGL itself is a PITA to program for, however.) and OpenGL and readily port to any POSIX system and yes, even to Windows without having to change too much of my code. Ports of Windows games to non-Microsoft consoles and vice versa? A nightmare, because the developers either have to hastily make wrappers for DirectX code, or wrappers for their own game library code (Or OpenGL.). This is time and money. If the game makers *really* want to maximize their profits and base, they'll make their code as portable as possible, and unfortunately that will mean *not* using DirectX, which only exists legitimately on Microsoft platforms like Windows or XBox (WINE's legal status is questionable, though I trust it a lot more than Mono.).
7. This myth is so easy to dispel. Most the Internet market is LAMP stacks. Guess what still gets targetted the most? Windows Server with IIS. MArket share sounds nice in theory for why something is/is not secure, but in reality it's the actual users and the security model of the systems themselves, NOT the amount of Windows installations. I run a firewall on the few moments I'll actually need Windows, but for Linux I have the confidence that Linux is secure enough standalone that a firewall isn't really needed unless I'm about to broadcast my IP address to the world (Like if I run a server.) same goes for installing a virus scanner. Most admins install ClamAV for Windows or Windows users, not Linux.
8. This is true, which is why every distro with a package management system (Almost all of them.) have ways of turning raw source tarballs you build into compatible binary packages for your system that can be managed by your system easily. Even without that, most makefiles generated by./configure these days have a little something called 'make uninstall.' I've used it enough times on Ubuntu and Arch.
9. As you say, almost no one except the paranoid doesn't give a shit if some MP3 codecs (Not all!) for Linux are illegal. I know I don't. That being said, there is at least ONE codec out there for Linux that is licensed and legal. But as you say, this matters very little since no one except the rigid "Stallmanists" gives a flying fuck about "illegitimate" licensing. Further, in some countries software patents have no jurisdiction and are, thus, fully legal. If it's out-of-the-box support you're bitching about, I seem to recall having to install codecs under Windows a lot, too. Maybe even more so.
10. Not that buggy. And it's still technically beta anyw
Thank you, Mark. Thank you for shutting up the rising tide of morons in the Ubuntu community who seem to keep trying to force the idea that Ubuntu and Linux in general needs to be "more like Windows."
Back when I still used Ubuntu, I was very much annoyed by these morons on Brainstorm trying to push some really stupid "make Linux like Windows" ideas on everyone. I submit anyone who thinks Linux should be more like Windows are not meant for Linux and are living in denial.
My only real complaint about the BSD license is that any company can take the code and lock it down. I'm thinking of the NT IP stack here, which I read somewhere was completely lifted, line-for-line from NetBSD, I think. Just seems like there's no real protection of accountability in the BSD license.
Wow, say that to the programmers in companies like Red Hat or Canonical who get paid to program open source apps.
You're definitely underestimating how many people are paid for working on Linux, includign Linus Torvalds himself.
Flash is fine for me. And I'm glad there is a decent 64-bit version now.
Pulse Audio is evil. I've seen those stupid "Pulse Audio is fine, its implementations suck" arguments. I've used PA on more than just Ubuntu myself. INVARIABLY, PA breaks sound and accomplishes nothing useful. Do I want software mixing? I can just us dmix or even break down and install OSSv4, which is about 50 billion times the sound system Pulse Audio would ever be. Network sound? Why in the hell would I ever need this in a day where just about every operating system under the sun provides their own sound system?
Pulse Audio is one of the reasons I was given a violent shove into Arch, because PA was starting to break sound in Ubuntu in 8.04, and 8.10 showed absolutely NO progress in fixing the problems. There were other big reasons I left Ubuntu, but they're irrelevant to the discussion.
I find it odd that PA would show the EXACT same breakages in Arch after I tried it on there (And quickly removed.) as Ubuntu. I know you probably think there's some magical installation of Pulse Audio where everything works and nothing is broken, but until there's a plugin that supports 100% ALSA capabilities for Pulse Audio, there's no such thing. Pulse Audio isn't even BETA yet, and sadly a lot of your more popular distributions mindlessly implement it, breaking sound for thousands of users.
I always thought of Pulse Audio as a bad case of a solution searching desperately for a problem. Sound was fin with ALSA, and in the rare cases where ALSA wasn't so great, there was OSS. All PA did was break stuff that worked fine.
Arch was a dreamland to me because it installed just the core and then I decided what was on my machine.
Flash runs fine for me now that I don't have to rely on the segfault-prone nspluginwrapper. And it works flawlessly because it doesn't have to convince Pulse Audio to work for it.
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No kidding. To be rid of the two biggest proponents of the two worst extremes of software philosophy.
Paranoia? Sure. However, your implication that its uncalled for is off the mark. Microsoft's history is way too littered with bad acts for me to trust them now just because they make warm fuzzy PR stunts. Perhaps you're just being a troll, but I'll bite
I'm not anarcho-communist. And I am *not* an FSF supporter. And I'm far from being a Stallmanist, too. In fact, I really despise the man. I use Linux because it is superior, not purely because it is FOSS. I support FOSS because my experience thus far is a higher quality, if at the sacrifice for quality.
I'm Linux camp, not GNU camp. It's "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux." Are you done trolling?
Why are we even surprised Microsoft is only half-assing their GPL'd virtualization drivers for Linux?
After all, the ONLY reason we got them opened in the first place was someone busted them for violating the GPL in the first place, and they were never interested in releasing real FOSS anything in the first place. How they got the OSI approval for one of their licenses is a mystery to me. I would have rejected it outright simply on grounds of principle. Here we have a company that has internally and publicly declared FOSS its enemy, after all.
Thus, I don't feel warm fuzzies when Microsoft does stuff like release GPL drivers, establish an "open" source license, supports projects like Mono or Moonlight, or opens sites like CodePlex. Their history is enough, in fact, for me to stand back and look for the ulterior motive and wonder when Microsoft is going to pull the rug out from under and screw those gullible folks who actually think Microsoft turned over a new leaf purely for the reasons stated above. I'm too familiar with their history for me to think they've actually changed, especially when their faux-friendly behavior towards FOSS doesn't look like a change from any other case of EEE or "partner and screw," two of Microsoft's favorite tactics.
Ha ha! If I hadn't replied to this article and I had mod points, you'd get modded up by me.
Indeed, it is hard to find alternatives to Exhanche/AD, and even harder to convince PHBs to use them.
It's likely why we're infected by Mono. Get everyone onto .NET, then shut the door on them.
Don't act so dense. Their intention was never to sue. If they did, Red Hat would have ended up in the soup years ago when Microsoft trolled this out the first time.
.NET as the "next great thing from Microsoft?") works for them? Linspire, from its beginning, has always wanted to be like Microsoft. Xandros is the only one I don't understand. They probably just fell for it.
.NET/Silverlight implementation for Linux was non other than everyone's favorite Micropologist, yes, AGAIN, de Icaza.
No, what Microsoft wanted was for a few distributors to blink. They got that. Novell, Linspire, and Xandros blinked, though questionably their motivation for blinking seems suspect anyway. Novell has de Icaza, so is it really a mystery they jumped at the chance to sign this deal when the biggest public Micropologist (Who called OOXML "superb" and embraced
Microsoft wants distributors under their thumb to inject poison into Linux and FOSS. That's what Mono and Moonlight are, in my opinion. And the only guy who actually wanted to develop a
This is just one example of Microsoft attacking Linux. TomTom is not a reliable enough example. First off, I don't think it had anything to do with the fact that TomTom uses Linux but that TomTom didn't licence vfat. They've done this to non-Linux distributing companies that violated the exact same patent.
Maybe spreading FUD campaigns against Linux like Get The Facts or this Best Buy thing in much more recent history.
Don't worry. It's just Microsoft giving more fodder to the gullible Micropologists to futily argue to those who are rightly suspicious or even hostile to Microsoft's actions (I STILL don't trust Mono, for example.). I remember having an argument with one where he insisted that Microsoft not only stopped its "war" on Linux, but was now helping Linux.
Now, very recently I am sure you are aware Microsoft launched yet another "Get The Facts" style FUD campaign against Linux, this time aimed at Best Buy employees! It's filled with the same inane dishonest bullshit you'd expect from a Microsoft-created FUD campaign.
Microsoft isn't trying to bury Linux? Bullshit. Microsoft wants to help open source? Jury is still out on that one, but I still think in the end Microsoft has no long-term FOSS interests and just wants to find a good way to mutilate as many FOSS projects as possible.
Many think I'm blindly hating on Microsoft here. No. Blindly hating on Microsoft usually involves simply hating Microsoft simply because its "trendy" without actually understanding WHY I'm hating Microsoft. I *know* why I hate Microsoft, and in my opinion, it's a damn fine reason (Or reasons.). I don't trust Microsoft because I am all-too-familiar with their past behavior. And this looks like just another case of Microsoft starting the "embrace" in "embrace, extend, extinguish." They did in with so many other things in the same way it looks like they're doing it with FOSS. And I'm expected to NOT be suspicious of Microsoft when they do this? Their history has taught me one big thing: Microsoft "helps" until they get what they want, then they get backstabbing.
Thus, it takes more than a Micropologist saying Microsoft no longer wants to harm FOSS and a little inane Microsoft PR (Like their "community promise.") to convince me Microsoft is anything BUT harmful.
Laughably was probably a poor word choice on my part, sorry. Impractical is a little better.
I find most SSDs price-to-space ratio to need a little improving. Speed is nice but I much prefer space, and from what I've seen with SSD, it's way too much to get an SSD of equivalent size to, say, a 500 GiB hard disk and not break the bank. I might be wrong, but I'm sure I could buy another 500 GiB HDD for only around $90... whereas I'd be hard put to find an SSD of equal size for less than a whopping $600, which is way more than I even payed for my computer.
I wouldn't. I seem to recall an old maintainer of glibc who got peeved that Richard Stallman started acting like he wasn't in charge of glibc jut because he made the mistake of putting it under the GNU umbrella. I'd say the EFF would be a better option.
Does this mean that SSDs aren't laughably expensive yet?
My problem with the "cloud" is I don't see a fucking point to it.
Why would I want to pay money to do something I could already do locally on my own PC for FREE and FASTER?
Seriously, I don't get it. Can someone explain this concept to me? Why is the "cloud" so popular?
That sounds a lot like the AUR in Archlinux. Anyone and their dog can upload packages, but only the good or popular ones actually get anywhere other than [unsupported]. Whereas if a TU likes it, it could go into [community] and have a better shot at getting downloaded. Eventually, if the package is really really REALLY good... it can get fully supported maintainership with the devs and go into [extra].
People file bugs all the time. All the developer does is spout bullshit and blame OTHER projects for why Pulse Audio is such a fuck up.
If it works, how come it breaks sound and (Pick one: ESD, OSSv4, ALSA, Phonon) doesn't?
Every time I used it it was a crap shoot. sometimes it'd work, then BAM! lag, huge latency, or sometimes it just completely kills my sound. If they were making sense of Linux sound APis, it wouldn't be doing that shit.
Unless you're using a bleeding-edge, rolling-release distribution like Arch or you're running around like a chicken with your head cut off compiling the latest kernel, you're not even using the relevant kernel version, and chances are this exploit will be gone by 2.6.30.2, and most certainly by 2.6.31. Chances are you're not even running a kernel newer than 2.6.29 on those "thousands" of systems you maintain, and thus this exploit is of no concern.
/. crowd by saying you maintain "thousands of Linux system," I'm going to tell you about a command called "uname" that can telly ou exactly what kernel is being run.
Just in case you're just an amateur who's trying to impress the
I'm not pretending things are rosy. In fact, I'm mildly concerned since I am actually an Arch user running the kernel version in question. On the other hand, I doubt I'm really at risk being a home user who knows how to secure his system. It's rosy for the vast majority of Linux users because they're not even using this version of the kernel to begin with. And chances are, when they get a new version of their Linux distro it'll be 2.6.31 or beyond.
I'll stop bashing Pulse Audio when it works.
1. Virtual desktops is implemented in just about every WM and DE I've ever seen in Linux. Sure, X itself is optional but chances are you'll have this out of the box with most Linux distributions out of the box. Hardly an "add-on." 2. Really? I never saw a single configuration item for Windows that allows me to scroll anything in Windows without it having focus first. Never saw any add-ons for Windows with features to that effect. 3. See 1. If it's implemented in virtually every WM and DE (Which are needed to make X useful.) then it's hardly an add-on. Modular and "optional" does not equate to add-on, especially when almost all Linux distributions (Gasp!) support it out of the box. 4. See 1 and 3. 5. Mmmmm... I find the notifications in Linux to be a lot less obstructive and annoying than Windows. How many times does Windows XP/Vista/7 nag me when I boot it up before it finally shuts up over things that need no naggings? 6. Huh... I beg to differ on this one. Having compared the PS3 (An OpenGL machine.) to XBox 360 (A DirectX machine.) I find that OpenGL, with the right extensions and developers behind it blows DirectX away when used at its peak. I think this is largely because DirectX is *not* modular and *not* open source, thus developers have their work cut out for them when trying to make fantastic graphics. Another thing OpenGL beats the snot out of DirectX on is portability. I can develop using a combination of SDL (Which really is an underrated little game library, much easier to develop for than DirectX, in my experience, too. OpenGL itself is a PITA to program for, however.) and OpenGL and readily port to any POSIX system and yes, even to Windows without having to change too much of my code. Ports of Windows games to non-Microsoft consoles and vice versa? A nightmare, because the developers either have to hastily make wrappers for DirectX code, or wrappers for their own game library code (Or OpenGL.). This is time and money. If the game makers *really* want to maximize their profits and base, they'll make their code as portable as possible, and unfortunately that will mean *not* using DirectX, which only exists legitimately on Microsoft platforms like Windows or XBox (WINE's legal status is questionable, though I trust it a lot more than Mono.). 7. This myth is so easy to dispel. Most the Internet market is LAMP stacks. Guess what still gets targetted the most? Windows Server with IIS. MArket share sounds nice in theory for why something is/is not secure, but in reality it's the actual users and the security model of the systems themselves, NOT the amount of Windows installations. I run a firewall on the few moments I'll actually need Windows, but for Linux I have the confidence that Linux is secure enough standalone that a firewall isn't really needed unless I'm about to broadcast my IP address to the world (Like if I run a server.) same goes for installing a virus scanner. Most admins install ClamAV for Windows or Windows users, not Linux. 8. This is true, which is why every distro with a package management system (Almost all of them.) have ways of turning raw source tarballs you build into compatible binary packages for your system that can be managed by your system easily. Even without that, most makefiles generated by ./configure these days have a little something called 'make uninstall.' I've used it enough times on Ubuntu and Arch.
9. As you say, almost no one except the paranoid doesn't give a shit if some MP3 codecs (Not all!) for Linux are illegal. I know I don't. That being said, there is at least ONE codec out there for Linux that is licensed and legal. But as you say, this matters very little since no one except the rigid "Stallmanists" gives a flying fuck about "illegitimate" licensing. Further, in some countries software patents have no jurisdiction and are, thus, fully legal. If it's out-of-the-box support you're bitching about, I seem to recall having to install codecs under Windows a lot, too. Maybe even more so.
10. Not that buggy. And it's still technically beta anyw
Thank you, Mark. Thank you for shutting up the rising tide of morons in the Ubuntu community who seem to keep trying to force the idea that Ubuntu and Linux in general needs to be "more like Windows." Back when I still used Ubuntu, I was very much annoyed by these morons on Brainstorm trying to push some really stupid "make Linux like Windows" ideas on everyone. I submit anyone who thinks Linux should be more like Windows are not meant for Linux and are living in denial.
My only real complaint about the BSD license is that any company can take the code and lock it down. I'm thinking of the NT IP stack here, which I read somewhere was completely lifted, line-for-line from NetBSD, I think. Just seems like there's no real protection of accountability in the BSD license.
Wow, say that to the programmers in companies like Red Hat or Canonical who get paid to program open source apps. You're definitely underestimating how many people are paid for working on Linux, includign Linus Torvalds himself.
Um. I hate to break it to you, but SunOS was never Linux.
Flash is fine for me. And I'm glad there is a decent 64-bit version now.
Pulse Audio is evil. I've seen those stupid "Pulse Audio is fine, its implementations suck" arguments. I've used PA on more than just Ubuntu myself. INVARIABLY, PA breaks sound and accomplishes nothing useful. Do I want software mixing? I can just us dmix or even break down and install OSSv4, which is about 50 billion times the sound system Pulse Audio would ever be. Network sound? Why in the hell would I ever need this in a day where just about every operating system under the sun provides their own sound system?
Pulse Audio is one of the reasons I was given a violent shove into Arch, because PA was starting to break sound in Ubuntu in 8.04, and 8.10 showed absolutely NO progress in fixing the problems. There were other big reasons I left Ubuntu, but they're irrelevant to the discussion.
I find it odd that PA would show the EXACT same breakages in Arch after I tried it on there (And quickly removed.) as Ubuntu. I know you probably think there's some magical installation of Pulse Audio where everything works and nothing is broken, but until there's a plugin that supports 100% ALSA capabilities for Pulse Audio, there's no such thing. Pulse Audio isn't even BETA yet, and sadly a lot of your more popular distributions mindlessly implement it, breaking sound for thousands of users.
I always thought of Pulse Audio as a bad case of a solution searching desperately for a problem. Sound was fin with ALSA, and in the rare cases where ALSA wasn't so great, there was OSS. All PA did was break stuff that worked fine.
Arch was a dreamland to me because it installed just the core and then I decided what was on my machine.
Flash runs fine for me now that I don't have to rely on the segfault-prone nspluginwrapper. And it works flawlessly because it doesn't have to convince Pulse Audio to work for it.
*Reads his comment, notices that he put the comment in the wrong topic, takes his own life. Shall not be mourned.*
There's better kids movies out there... and I did sit through this DVD a zillion times with my own kids. It's not really "adultly ironic" enough.