There's lots of open-source audio production software out there. Ardour, mentioned by others, and for midi composition I quite like rosegarden. There's also a bunch of other software which follows a more unixy philosophy - it does one thing and does it well but it's designed to be chained together. For example, there's jack, a low latency audio framework designed for audio production. It has a nice patch panel which allows you to link the output of any jack-enabled software to the input of any other jack-enabled software, ad nauseum. There's also an insanely huge pile of LADSPA plugins available for any software which supports them (most open-source stuff). There are many, many open-source software synths: timidity and fluidsynth being only the tip of the iceberg. One which may be of interest is bristol - it's an emulator for many popular and famous old synths.
But when it comes down to it, I use FL studio. It's proprietary and not very highly regarded amongst some (snobby) audiophiles, but FL Studio runs quite well in wine, though it may require some tweaking to get it working smoothly. I like FL studio for its intuitive interface and bundled synthesizers. It's easy to use for a beginner with little audio production experience but it has enough knobs and dials that you're not lacking for options when you want to start getting more technical.
I highly recommend running FL studio in it's own wineprefix so that you can tweak to your heart's content and so that other wine programs don't interfere with it. Since wine and FL both support ASIO you can plug FL studio into jack and use all the awesome open-source jack-based tools out there in conjunction with FL.
For the open-source crowd, there's the inevitable open-source recreation: LMMS (Linux Multimedia Studio). When I last played with it it was very new and immature but it did support using VSTs through wine and it looks like it has matured well - I'd definitely recommend giving it a try.
Because the length of time since episode 2 was released. Clearly the "episodic gaming" thing valve was pushing back then (i.e regular releases of smaller/shorter games) has not panned out, otherwise we'd be at episode 10 by now. I'm saying I expect a full game, not just an episode.
Is the length of time a game is in development representative of how long the game should be?
In this case, yes! the fact that the releases haven't been frequent kills the episodic gaming idea.
I think the real chance for dominance will be when the Playstation 5 and XBoxInconsistentlyNamedFourthModel come out.
Console gamer: "So, did you hear? the PS5 comes out soon!"
SteamBox gamer: "Yeah I saw. Noticed that it won't run any of your PS4 games. So I guess you'll be building an entirely new game library from scratch at AU$90/title, eh?"
Console gamer: "Well...yeah...but 'Call of Duty 27: Lets milk this for all it's worth' will be a PS5 exclusive! Your crappy 5-year old SteamBox wouldn't even run that!"
SteamBox Gamer: "Yeah, I'm going to have to take it to the shop and get it upgraded soon, I can't run Half-life 4. Should only be about $100. How much is the PS5 again?"
It won't be "SteamBox exclusive", it'll be "SteamOS exclusive". That means that if you don't want to hand over your cash for a SteamBox you could always just install SteamOS on your PC (for free). That's the beauty of an open system.
And it's not like there won't ever be a windoze version - you can bet that'll come out 6 months after the SteamOS version.
It better not be episode 3: after this long, I expect a full game which takes me 12+ hours to finish.
I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here:
"I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs."
"I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking."
"Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding up both puppets!"
"Shut up! Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control. Here's Love Connection. Watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinking beer, you fucking morons."
Assuming of course they're correctly identifying faults, of the three types, IMHO the first two are capable of forging a good working relationships whereas the third passively destroys relationships by having no feedback system. Sure, there's a difference in the degree of skin thickness required between types 1 and 2 but if you're the sort of person that can accept constructive criticism in the first place you're already doing better than most.
There are various degrees of the above of course, depending on the magnitude of the mistake, but when I fuck up, I'd prefer someone to tell me I've fucked up. Disguise the swearing with some floridity if you really feel you want or need to, but the intent is still the same and it's the intent that's all important IMHO.
Linus' job is more than just that of a manager, he's also a mentor and a teacher as well. Occasionally this means hauling out a particularly daft member of the school for everyone else to see and making an example of them. If Linus doesn't tell people off when they start going wrong sooner or later someone pushes there luck and eventually you get 20MB patches dumped in rc8 to break the last 10MB patch that went in in rc7.
Every time I've seen a/. headline about Linus going off on one, the ticking off he's given always seems to have been warranted for technical reasons, I've never seen him threaten someone.
Agreed. I want the guy in charge of the kernel I rely on working the way he does - it makes the software better.
I've seen a few articles with titles like 'Linus explodes again!' over the years, and any time I've read on and looked at the reason why he's 'exploded' it seems to boil down to him saying "you made a stupid fucking mistake".
Being told you've made a stupid fucking mistake works - people do that extra bit of due diligence because they don't want to hear it again.
There was an article a while back about linus warning about profanity: this is his way of saying "don't make any stupid fucking mistakes!"
If I was a kernel dev, I'd be very careful about not making any mistakes - don't want to piss off Linus!
As an end-user who relies on the software they're producing on a daily basis, I'm happy when I see an article about Linus swearing at someone - the fact that he swears at people is part of the reason I feel confident when I do an 'apt-get update'
This will change as soon as web developers stop supporting IE, instead displaying a message along the lines of "You're using IE. Unfortunately IE isn't a web browser - a web browser is able to render a standards-compliant page. To View this page, you'll need to install a web browser. Please come back when you have one". Alternatively, developers could be less militant and make pages which are better in Firefox, then display a "This page is best viewed in firefox" message.
* Non-technical individuals that have no desire to "upset" the voodoo magic that makes their computer connect to the intarnet.
When their slightly-less-non-technical friend explains that there's special voodoo magic called firefox, and maybe even installs it for them, they'll never look back. I've done 'IE takeovers' on three friend's machines already (install firefox and adblock, delete IE shortcuts, create new shortcut on desktop with an IE Icon which starts firefox, walk away without even mentioning that you've done anything). They've all come to me later and thanked me.
I'd also point out that these same non-technical users have no problem with installing Azureus.
* IE enthusiasts.
LOL
* People who use websites that only work in IE (like my employer's time card system brought to you by Mrs. Arnold's fifth grade class).
Does it jive with commercial software development? Not really.
Yes, because we all saw what a failure basing the Commercial Mac OS X on the open-source BSD was.
Is commercial development important to consumers? YES. If there are no consumers of OSS, is it relevant? NO. Put the GPL/Linux koolaid down please and think real hard what OSS/openness/freedom etc. in technology really means to you, how it actually (in the real world) benefits others, who it benefits
Everyone.
So, you don't use firefox? Well, do you know why IE7 has tabbed browsing? png support? Firefox.
So, you don't use linux? Well, do you know why vista has all those funky gadgets on the desktop? Mac OS X. Also there are many projects out there for linux (like beryl) which vista has "borrowed" from.
And then there's apache. Nuff said.
As per the discussion above about derivation vs innovation, good ideas get copied. And so Open Source, where good ideas can thrive with community support and without commercial concerns, benefits everyone - even those who don't use it directly, or care either way.
No. The two models produced so far were explicitly for developers -- the consumer models were yet to come.
No.
The GTA02 was originally marketed as a consumer model. It was only after many posts in their mailing lists complaining that it was a long way from consumer grade that they changes their website to say that it was a developer's phone.
aah... the 'click click click' that goes with posting on slashdot...
The day I can't connect my genuine 1980s Model M to my PC is the day I give up PCs.
Of course, this will never happen: In 300 years time, my great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren will be squabbling with each other over who gets the great family heirloom - the indestructible and still fully functional Model M. The family Jet will collect dust and the collection of sportscars will go unnoticed as all fight singlemindedly for custody of the great Model M.
...That's *IF* I decide to be generous, and don't have it buried with me...
The Model M is the greatest keyboard ever, and no other keyboard could ever possibly live up to it. Simple fact, case closed. If you disagree, it means you're not qualified to make a judgement.
It's great to see that someone is still producing them - perhaps the 5 Model M's I've been hoarding as spares are superfluous...
Actually, they *are* superfluous; not because Unicomp is still making them, but because they are Utterly, totally, completely indestructible. This is a keyboard which can easily be used as a murder weapon. This is a keyboard of such impressive durability that when you throw your keyboard at the wall in a fit of rage, the wall gives way rather than the keyboard. If NASA had the sense to use Model M keyboards as heat shielding for the space shuttle, we'd still have Columbia. In the distant future, archeologists will only be able to speculate on the possible function of most of man's inventions, because they'll have trouble reverse-engineering the heavily-decayed skeletons of cars, planes, computers, and other artifacts. The Model M won't suffer this problem, because they'll just dig them out of the ancient ruins and plug them in.
An alternative theory of mine is that they won't have to speculate on the nature of the Model M, because it'll be their religion.
I have spilt coke, coffee, orange juice, cigarette ash, tomato sauce, sweat, blood, and tears into my model M. You don't even have to stop typing to turn the keyboard upside down and shake the liquid out - you just keep typing, firm in the knowledge that the coffee will dry up sooner or later, and that will happen long before it will do any kind of damage to your Model M.
Model M keyboard owners do not fear burglary by armed intruders, or even raids by SWAT teams, because they know that a thrown Model M is far more deadly than an armalite ar-10 carbine gas powered semi-automatic weapon, and far more bulletproof than that piddly body armour those soldiers wear.
Slashdot Mirror
There's lots of open-source audio production software out there. Ardour, mentioned by others, and for midi composition I quite like rosegarden. There's also a bunch of other software which follows a more unixy philosophy - it does one thing and does it well but it's designed to be chained together. For example, there's jack, a low latency audio framework designed for audio production. It has a nice patch panel which allows you to link the output of any jack-enabled software to the input of any other jack-enabled software, ad nauseum. There's also an insanely huge pile of LADSPA plugins available for any software which supports them (most open-source stuff). There are many, many open-source software synths: timidity and fluidsynth being only the tip of the iceberg. One which may be of interest is bristol - it's an emulator for many popular and famous old synths.
But when it comes down to it, I use FL studio. It's proprietary and not very highly regarded amongst some (snobby) audiophiles, but FL Studio runs quite well in wine, though it may require some tweaking to get it working smoothly. I like FL studio for its intuitive interface and bundled synthesizers. It's easy to use for a beginner with little audio production experience but it has enough knobs and dials that you're not lacking for options when you want to start getting more technical.
I highly recommend running FL studio in it's own wineprefix so that you can tweak to your heart's content and so that other wine programs don't interfere with it. Since wine and FL both support ASIO you can plug FL studio into jack and use all the awesome open-source jack-based tools out there in conjunction with FL.
For the open-source crowd, there's the inevitable open-source recreation: LMMS (Linux Multimedia Studio). When I last played with it it was very new and immature but it did support using VSTs through wine and it looks like it has matured well - I'd definitely recommend giving it a try.
Why do you expect this?
Because the length of time since episode 2 was released. Clearly the "episodic gaming" thing valve was pushing back then (i.e regular releases of smaller/shorter games) has not panned out, otherwise we'd be at episode 10 by now. I'm saying I expect a full game, not just an episode.
Is the length of time a game is in development representative of how long the game should be?
In this case, yes! the fact that the releases haven't been frequent kills the episodic gaming idea.
Yes. Unity was the reason I switched to Xubuntu. Mir will be the reason I switch to Arch or Mint - Do not want.
I think the real chance for dominance will be when the Playstation 5 and XBoxInconsistentlyNamedFourthModel come out.
Console gamer: "So, did you hear? the PS5 comes out soon!"
SteamBox gamer: "Yeah I saw. Noticed that it won't run any of your PS4 games. So I guess you'll be building an entirely new game library from scratch at AU$90/title, eh?"
Console gamer: "Well...yeah...but 'Call of Duty 27: Lets milk this for all it's worth' will be a PS5 exclusive! Your crappy 5-year old SteamBox wouldn't even run that!"
SteamBox Gamer: "Yeah, I'm going to have to take it to the shop and get it upgraded soon, I can't run Half-life 4. Should only be about $100. How much is the PS5 again?"
It won't be "SteamBox exclusive", it'll be "SteamOS exclusive". That means that if you don't want to hand over your cash for a SteamBox you could always just install SteamOS on your PC (for free). That's the beauty of an open system.
And it's not like there won't ever be a windoze version - you can bet that'll come out 6 months after the SteamOS version.
It better not be episode 3: after this long, I expect a full game which takes me 12+ hours to finish.
telcos have a blanket policy of not letting home users run their own Service.
Sounds like you need to switch to a good ISP. Maybe one which will Stand for the users rights
except wolves are less viscous.
Has any real research been done into their comparative viscosity? I'd dearly love to see a wolf/hyena drop experiment.
I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here:
"I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs."
"I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking."
"Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding up both puppets!"
"Shut up! Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control. Here's Love Connection. Watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinking beer, you fucking morons."
- Bill Hicks
Assuming of course they're correctly identifying faults, of the three types, IMHO the first two are capable of forging a good working relationships whereas the third passively destroys relationships by having no feedback system. Sure, there's a difference in the degree of skin thickness required between types 1 and 2 but if you're the sort of person that can accept constructive criticism in the first place you're already doing better than most.
There are various degrees of the above of course, depending on the magnitude of the mistake, but when I fuck up, I'd prefer someone to tell me I've fucked up. Disguise the swearing with some floridity if you really feel you want or need to, but the intent is still the same and it's the intent that's all important IMHO.
Linus' job is more than just that of a manager, he's also a mentor and a teacher as well. Occasionally this means hauling out a particularly daft member of the school for everyone else to see and making an example of them. If Linus doesn't tell people off when they start going wrong sooner or later someone pushes there luck and eventually you get 20MB patches dumped in rc8 to break the last 10MB patch that went in in rc7.
Every time I've seen a /. headline about Linus going off on one, the ticking off he's given always seems to have been warranted for technical reasons, I've never seen him threaten someone.
Agreed. I want the guy in charge of the kernel I rely on working the way he does - it makes the software better.
I've seen a few articles with titles like 'Linus explodes again!' over the years, and any time I've read on and looked at the reason why he's 'exploded' it seems to boil down to him saying "you made a stupid fucking mistake".
Being told you've made a stupid fucking mistake works - people do that extra bit of due diligence because they don't want to hear it again.
There was an article a while back about linus warning about profanity: this is his way of saying "don't make any stupid fucking mistakes!"
If I was a kernel dev, I'd be very careful about not making any mistakes - don't want to piss off Linus!
As an end-user who relies on the software they're producing on a daily basis, I'm happy when I see an article about Linus swearing at someone - the fact that he swears at people is part of the reason I feel confident when I do an 'apt-get update'
+1 informative
I like my Sanyo PLV-Z700. No more squinting. Wasn't cheap though. And I'm told that Sanyo don't exist anymore.
before and just immediately after it was released, to hear a user talking about it you would have thought it was God's own OS.
Nah, I use Fedora...
* Corporations with policies of only using IE.
This will change as soon as web developers stop supporting IE, instead displaying a message along the lines of "You're using IE. Unfortunately IE isn't a web browser - a web browser is able to render a standards-compliant page. To View this page, you'll need to install a web browser. Please come back when you have one". Alternatively, developers could be less militant and make pages which are better in Firefox, then display a "This page is best viewed in firefox" message.
* Non-technical individuals that have no desire to "upset" the voodoo magic that makes their computer connect to the intarnet.
When their slightly-less-non-technical friend explains that there's special voodoo magic called firefox, and maybe even installs it for them, they'll never look back. I've done 'IE takeovers' on three friend's machines already (install firefox and adblock, delete IE shortcuts, create new shortcut on desktop with an IE Icon which starts firefox, walk away without even mentioning that you've done anything). They've all come to me later and thanked me.
I'd also point out that these same non-technical users have no problem with installing Azureus.
* IE enthusiasts.
LOL
* People who use websites that only work in IE (like my employer's time card system brought to you by Mrs. Arnold's fifth grade class).
See point 1.
Duh, everybody knows that the world will end at 2:14am eastern time, August 29th, 1997...
You forgot:
3a) Restart your PC
3b) Uninstall then reinstall
If uninstalling and reinstalling doesn't solve it, nothing will.
Does it jive with commercial software development? Not really.
Yes, because we all saw what a failure basing the Commercial Mac OS X on the open-source BSD was.
Is commercial development important to consumers? YES. If there are no consumers of OSS, is it relevant? NO. Put the GPL/Linux koolaid down please and think real hard what OSS/openness/freedom etc. in technology really means to you, how it actually (in the real world) benefits others, who it benefits
Everyone.
So, you don't use firefox? Well, do you know why IE7 has tabbed browsing? png support? Firefox.
So, you don't use linux? Well, do you know why vista has all those funky gadgets on the desktop? Mac OS X. Also there are many projects out there for linux (like beryl) which vista has "borrowed" from.
And then there's apache. Nuff said.
As per the discussion above about derivation vs innovation, good ideas get copied. And so Open Source, where good ideas can thrive with community support and without commercial concerns, benefits everyone - even those who don't use it directly, or care either way.
No. The two models produced so far were explicitly for developers -- the consumer models were yet to come.
No.
The GTA02 was originally marketed as a consumer model. It was only after many posts in their mailing lists complaining that it was a long way from consumer grade that they changes their website to say that it was a developer's phone.
"No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris." - Orville Wright
Exactly. Say a "dissident" in a country like China or Australia wanted to upload/download torrents deemed "inappropriate" by the state.
With a VPN, they would surely be safer.
There, fixed that for you...
...then what type of mouse do you have? I've never seen a mouse that could kill someone - I want one!
Um... So I'm guessing that you haven't seen Fight Club?
;)
You should Look into that...
I thought his phrasing was quite appropriate
Remember, this is slashdot...
perhaps it's the grime and dirt that makes them coffee-proof...
aah... the 'click click click' that goes with posting on slashdot...
...That's *IF* I decide to be generous, and don't have it buried with me...
The day I can't connect my genuine 1980s Model M to my PC is the day I give up PCs.
Of course, this will never happen: In 300 years time, my great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren will be squabbling with each other over who gets the great family heirloom - the indestructible and still fully functional Model M. The family Jet will collect dust and the collection of sportscars will go unnoticed as all fight singlemindedly for custody of the great Model M.
The Model M is the greatest keyboard ever, and no other keyboard could ever possibly live up to it. Simple fact, case closed. If you disagree, it means you're not qualified to make a judgement.
It's great to see that someone is still producing them - perhaps the 5 Model M's I've been hoarding as spares are superfluous...
Actually, they *are* superfluous; not because Unicomp is still making them, but because they are Utterly, totally, completely indestructible. This is a keyboard which can easily be used as a murder weapon. This is a keyboard of such impressive durability that when you throw your keyboard at the wall in a fit of rage, the wall gives way rather than the keyboard. If NASA had the sense to use Model M keyboards as heat shielding for the space shuttle, we'd still have Columbia. In the distant future, archeologists will only be able to speculate on the possible function of most of man's inventions, because they'll have trouble reverse-engineering the heavily-decayed skeletons of cars, planes, computers, and other artifacts. The Model M won't suffer this problem, because they'll just dig them out of the ancient ruins and plug them in.
An alternative theory of mine is that they won't have to speculate on the nature of the Model M, because it'll be their religion.
I have spilt coke, coffee, orange juice, cigarette ash, tomato sauce, sweat, blood, and tears into my model M. You don't even have to stop typing to turn the keyboard upside down and shake the liquid out - you just keep typing, firm in the knowledge that the coffee will dry up sooner or later, and that will happen long before it will do any kind of damage to your Model M.
Model M keyboard owners do not fear burglary by armed intruders, or even raids by SWAT teams, because they know that a thrown Model M is far more deadly than an armalite ar-10 carbine gas powered semi-automatic weapon, and far more bulletproof than that piddly body armour those soldiers wear.
...And when you crash your race car it means you'll be catching the bus to work...