Yeah, right, it's just a lazy bunch of hippies with no brain... In what world are you living? Are part of the side of the 1%? Do you really think what they want is just get richer? Also, who's property are you talking about? I have read/seen/heard that they were anywhere else than on public spaces. Also, I think you might be the only person that doesn't know what they are protesting against.
You think it's "a bit excessive"? Hell, in what kind of country news coverage is forbidden? Next time I'll hear about critics to China, I'll talk about this event!!!
Gosh, even more. I've just checked, and it's a GMA950 chipset (eg: intel), which is very well supported by Linux, with the driver made directly by Intel itself. I don't see how this could be an issue.
And if there is a problem I can call technical support and complain
I just don't believe this sentence. How many times have you done that? If you did, was the flaw in the software fixed? What was the issue exactly?
For example I got a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (that came with Linux) I have never been able to get a full resolution on the screen. It thinks the 1024x600 screen is 800x600 and I googled and googled and tried fixes and no luck.
I'm tempted to call you an idiot indeed. You've bought a hardware that is sold to work with Linux, yet when you have an issue, you're not "call[ing the] technical support and complain[ing]" as you would with anything else but Linux (or if you did, then it didn't solve your issue despite you actually BOUGHT it). Sorry, but I fail to see the logic in what you wrote.
Extensive hardware and driver support. The current state is not good enough.
Well, what changed from back in around 2000 is that OEM are expecting that new hardware ships to be supported by Linux, and they even expect it to be in mainline kernels (if you don't trust me, ask Ben Hutching which is a kernel developer and Debian kernel package maintainer, he's the one who told me this at last debconf). So hardware support is there, you just need a newer kernel, and it's available from Debian backports. That at least have changed A LOT.
Finding installed applications should not be difficult.
Make installing any new application easy.
You'll have to explain that one. How is a non-packaged application, where you have to click and answer so many questions, harder that something integrated in the OS (eg: the package manager)? Why do you think it's hard to find installed application (dpkg -l does it, and if you don't like command lines, there's lots of GUI for that (at least 5 that I know of))?
3. There is the Linux Standard Base which in theory means that even binaries can run the same way on all distributions.
Well, when RedHat started the LSB thing, they wrote that to be LSB compiliant, you had to use RPM as the package manager. Thanks but no thanks. Of course, Debian didn't respect that part, but implemented the rest of (like init script and the lsb-base thing to write messages to the console). Anyway, LSB isn't a big thing, it's a tiny tiny stuff that doesn't help that much.
Somebody who really cares about performance or tinkering under the hood might use a Gentoo or Linux From Scratch system.
That might have been truth that recompiling was making a difference few years ago. But since we got the 64 bits arch, we aren't running things compiled for 486 anymore, and I don't think there's a so big gap now, if you run amd64 arch.
Debian's support for recent hardware starts to look a little thin by the time it's, say, 1.5 years into its release cycle.
Same as I wrote above. Use the backported debian-installer and it's more recent kernel, and it's gona work (see the Japanese URL on the above post). Also, the kernel team never stops adding new hardware support in Stable when it's possible to backport a driver.
With a friend, we have calculated that Mint is getting about 30k USD per month of revenue doing their search engine thing + the google adwords. That's insane if you consider that the full of the Debian budget is about 100k USD per year. And of course, all the real work is done in Debian, which doesn't do these search engine or adword crap (we remain 100% free).
Instead of giving your money to Mint, have you considered giving it to Debian instead?
In Windows if a program has dependencies it is up to the distributor to check and provide (download, link, install) or notify the user so they can install the dependency themselves. How much is this really a problem though?
Not really. In the windows world, if you need a library, you're gona either link statically with it, or ship the DLL together with your software. That's bad because if there's a security issue in it, then you'll have to upgrade the entire app. It's ok when it's localized to a single program, but what if it's a widely used library? Think about gzip... In Unix distribution, you just need to upgrade the library, and you're done. Plus it's not up to the software maintainer of the app to do it, it's though more generally (through the gzip maintainer in this case, or through the security team). This is a much much better approach.
This is really a symptom. They have to be very anal about it all. In fact, packaging for Debian is a social rite of passage. It really is a waste of human resources, so much so that true "developers" are a tiny minority, the majority are software repackagers.
It's not a social rite of passage, it's quality control, which is quite important. No, there's nothing wrong with it. Yes, there's a minority of DDs. I'm one of them, and we're between 8 and 900. But that doesn't mater much, there's a big activity on debian-mentors@lists.debian.org with so many people willing to package stuff. At the end, even with this quality checking from DDs, Debian still end up being the distro with the most packages.
Debian only (sort of) works because there's an army of people, because the processes is needlessly labor intensive (bad design). In fact, it is a true ecosystem: the fruits of their labor are then sucked by the Ubuntu parasites, which then handle a more polished product for consumption.
That's not the way (most) people think about Ubuntu inside the Debian community. Also, most packages from SID going to Ubuntu are left (almost) untouched. What they change in Ubuntu is mostly the GUI and installer, and that's about it.
I really don't get why you are saying that debian packaging is over-engineered. The new dh 8 short style helps a lot to make things even more simple as before. The minimum you need to write is like 5 files (rules, control, changelog, copyright and compat), that's really not much.
Frankly the debian package (.deb) format is about equivalent of RPM. They both declare dependencies
Just talking about dependency when we are speaking about packaging is talking about the tip of the iceberg only, and forgetting about the 90% under the water. Packaging involves a lot more skills. The real issue with RPM and yum isn't the result, which is now as much user friendly as in Debian in many aspects (I still prefer the Debian way, but as you said it's all about tastes). No, the real issue is how to actually make a package. RPM having all the packaging written on a single file, mixing both shell scripting, changelog, dependency, you name it... is simply a horrible idea. But that wasn't it, they had to make exception for patches that are lying around separately...
Yum's insistence on always updating its catalogs is a bit annoying
I'd write instead, yum insistence of not letting the user into the control of wants to do.
but then so is having to run apt-get update every few days before running apt-get install
You don't have to, you can use apt-cron or whatever so that your sources.list are always refreshed. In fact, what I find annoying is not being able to tell to apt "can you please just update THIS repo of my sources.list, I don't need to update the others".
It has always felt a bit annoying distro to use, especially with sudo and apt.
What makes Debian and it's derivative attractive really IS dpkg and apt, and the largest number of packages on any distro. I agree with Ubuntu forced overuse of sudo though, but that one isn't in Debian by default (sudo isn't installed by default in Debian).
and has a much larger company backing it (Red Hat).
That's also why we don't like it, and prefer to have things driven by communities. Big company driving open source projects have the tendency of following their agenda. The self-called "removal of Xen support" from RedHat is one very good example of big PR following self interest. In a distribution maintained only by volunteers, nobody is able to tell that this or that will be removed because "we don't like it". If there's enough people to maintain it, then it's there. CentOS also lacks of very important packages for being used as a server , and you got to work with not official repositories for many server components which makes it very hard to have a serious security update way.
Google, Mozilla, and Opera support a standard that is free of licensing
Microsoft and Apple support a standard that is well established
H.264+AAC+MP4 are only available in Microsoft and Apple products. So, with what you said above, we can deduct that a "standard" can be considered "well established" when Microsoft and Apple support it, and no one else? That might be truth on desktops, but it's Android that has the best position on mobile phones. So you got me: I don't agree with your above statement. I'd say:
Mozilla, and Opera are all supporting Theora+Vorbis+Ogg and WebM, and are actively pushing for a free codec adoption
Google don't care, and supports both free and non-free codecs, while being nice enough to open WebM, hoping for the best
Microsoft and Apple are trying to lock down users, supporting ONLY the codec with patent attached while REFUSING to add the free alternatives, when it would be so easy to use free open source codecs
So, fuck the self called standards, Microsoft and Apple just SUX in this case, and are annoying everyone. If they finally agreed to support Theora+Vorbis+Ogg OR WebM, we'd have no issue at all. The issue really IS a problem of supporting the open and free of patent formats, since it doesn't cost much development to the biggest software giants to support these free alternative. They are following their own agenda, that's 100% a fact.
but Flash Player is still far more CPU-efficient at this than existing web browsers
Do you know how to call the scripts you got to write for Flash? ECMA script. Wait... ECMA script, isn't this javascript?
I'm sure it used to be truth that flash was faster than native browser's javascript, but we're in 2011. Can you care to point me to a recent benchmarks to make sure you're correct?
One of the things he mentioned was Adobe's lack of attention to the stability of Flash on (his) mobile devices.
You're putting this very gently. Adobe policy on the flash player for ARM is a total disaster, and a huge security hole in every pockets. Zero updates in years, still version 9 which has multiple dozens of exploits. Jobs wasn't the only one to say it, he was just only the one to act in a reasonable manner.
I don't know if it will help developers, but I know for a fact that Adobe strategy doesn't protect the security of my (arm) mobile phone browser. They always have been crap with the ARM version of flash player, stuck at version 9. Frankly, because of this, I wish my phone didn't have flash support at all...
LOL ! Indeed. That would be the silly kind of formula everyone would have in mind instinctively. Is this real "scientist" bullshit, or just you explaining your (not proven) feelings?
Even, let's attempt to believe that your formula could be right. If it was, then variation of c(t) in a so small amount of time (sorry, how old are you exactly?), and your human memory so weak (you aren't special are you? Your memory is mixed with emotions, right?), that it would be too small for you to feel the difference of w(t). At least never enough to be able to say:
It was 71 degrees the other day on November 1st.
and then over-over-over simplify things and say:
We've already done more damage than we can reverse.
I could say "there was so much snow last winter in my country, your theory of global warming is stupid". That would be equally non-scientific and full of weak human perceptions like above, so I don't write it. Do you need an other one of the same style? Well, by the way, "the other day on November 1st" it was so cold in here, so your theory of global warming must be shit. Is this enough, or should I add a car analogy?
Do you think those Chinese "hackerspaces" are going to be available without strings attached? Do you honestly think they won't be monitored, censored, and otherwise strictly controlled?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, right, it's just a lazy bunch of hippies with no brain... In what world are you living? Are part of the side of the 1%? Do you really think what they want is just get richer? Also, who's property are you talking about? I have read/seen/heard that they were anywhere else than on public spaces. Also, I think you might be the only person that doesn't know what they are protesting against.
You think it's "a bit excessive"? Hell, in what kind of country news coverage is forbidden? Next time I'll hear about critics to China, I'll talk about this event!!!
If you want to get people to switch you have to make it feel like they haven't really switched.
If it's the same, then why switching? No, if you want to get people to switch, you got to make it BETTER.
Gosh, even more. I've just checked, and it's a GMA950 chipset (eg: intel), which is very well supported by Linux, with the driver made directly by Intel itself. I don't see how this could be an issue.
And if there is a problem I can call technical support and complain
I just don't believe this sentence. How many times have you done that? If you did, was the flaw in the software fixed? What was the issue exactly?
For example I got a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (that came with Linux) I have never been able to get a full resolution on the screen. It thinks the 1024x600 screen is 800x600 and I googled and googled and tried fixes and no luck.
I'm tempted to call you an idiot indeed. You've bought a hardware that is sold to work with Linux, yet when you have an issue, you're not "call[ing the] technical support and complain[ing]" as you would with anything else but Linux (or if you did, then it didn't solve your issue despite you actually BOUGHT it). Sorry, but I fail to see the logic in what you wrote.
Extensive hardware and driver support. The current state is not good enough.
Well, what changed from back in around 2000 is that OEM are expecting that new hardware ships to be supported by Linux, and they even expect it to be in mainline kernels (if you don't trust me, ask Ben Hutching which is a kernel developer and Debian kernel package maintainer, he's the one who told me this at last debconf). So hardware support is there, you just need a newer kernel, and it's available from Debian backports. That at least have changed A LOT.
Finding installed applications should not be difficult.
Make installing any new application easy.
You'll have to explain that one. How is a non-packaged application, where you have to click and answer so many questions, harder that something integrated in the OS (eg: the package manager)? Why do you think it's hard to find installed application (dpkg -l does it, and if you don't like command lines, there's lots of GUI for that (at least 5 that I know of))?
3. There is the Linux Standard Base which in theory means that even binaries can run the same way on all distributions.
Well, when RedHat started the LSB thing, they wrote that to be LSB compiliant, you had to use RPM as the package manager. Thanks but no thanks. Of course, Debian didn't respect that part, but implemented the rest of (like init script and the lsb-base thing to write messages to the console). Anyway, LSB isn't a big thing, it's a tiny tiny stuff that doesn't help that much.
Somebody who really cares about performance or tinkering under the hood might use a Gentoo or Linux From Scratch system.
That might have been truth that recompiling was making a difference few years ago. But since we got the 64 bits arch, we aren't running things compiled for 486 anymore, and I don't think there's a so big gap now, if you run amd64 arch.
Debian's support for recent hardware starts to look a little thin by the time it's, say, 1.5 years into its release cycle.
Same as I wrote above. Use the backported debian-installer and it's more recent kernel, and it's gona work (see the Japanese URL on the above post). Also, the kernel team never stops adding new hardware support in Stable when it's possible to backport a driver.
Debian installer at that time wasn't detecting the SATA drive in my laptop, and Ubuntu was essentially the path of least resistance.
Next time, give the backported debian-installer a try: http://kmuto.jp/debian/d-i/
With a friend, we have calculated that Mint is getting about 30k USD per month of revenue doing their search engine thing + the google adwords. That's insane if you consider that the full of the Debian budget is about 100k USD per year. And of course, all the real work is done in Debian, which doesn't do these search engine or adword crap (we remain 100% free).
Instead of giving your money to Mint, have you considered giving it to Debian instead?
That's normal. http://www.linuxatemyram.com/
In Windows if a program has dependencies it is up to the distributor to check and provide (download, link, install) or notify the user so they can install the dependency themselves. How much is this really a problem though?
Not really. In the windows world, if you need a library, you're gona either link statically with it, or ship the DLL together with your software. That's bad because if there's a security issue in it, then you'll have to upgrade the entire app. It's ok when it's localized to a single program, but what if it's a widely used library? Think about gzip... In Unix distribution, you just need to upgrade the library, and you're done. Plus it's not up to the software maintainer of the app to do it, it's though more generally (through the gzip maintainer in this case, or through the security team). This is a much much better approach.
This is really a symptom. They have to be very anal about it all. In fact, packaging for Debian is a social rite of passage. It really is a waste of human resources, so much so that true "developers" are a tiny minority, the majority are software repackagers.
It's not a social rite of passage, it's quality control, which is quite important. No, there's nothing wrong with it. Yes, there's a minority of DDs. I'm one of them, and we're between 8 and 900. But that doesn't mater much, there's a big activity on debian-mentors@lists.debian.org with so many people willing to package stuff. At the end, even with this quality checking from DDs, Debian still end up being the distro with the most packages.
Debian only (sort of) works because there's an army of people, because the processes is needlessly labor intensive (bad design). In fact, it is a true ecosystem: the fruits of their labor are then sucked by the Ubuntu parasites, which then handle a more polished product for consumption.
That's not the way (most) people think about Ubuntu inside the Debian community. Also, most packages from SID going to Ubuntu are left (almost) untouched. What they change in Ubuntu is mostly the GUI and installer, and that's about it.
I really don't get why you are saying that debian packaging is over-engineered. The new dh 8 short style helps a lot to make things even more simple as before. The minimum you need to write is like 5 files (rules, control, changelog, copyright and compat), that's really not much.
No need to make anything by yourself. Just get a Korg NanoKontrol, and you'll have enough knobs. It's very cheap too: about 30USD.
Frankly the debian package (.deb) format is about equivalent of RPM. They both declare dependencies
Just talking about dependency when we are speaking about packaging is talking about the tip of the iceberg only, and forgetting about the 90% under the water. Packaging involves a lot more skills. The real issue with RPM and yum isn't the result, which is now as much user friendly as in Debian in many aspects (I still prefer the Debian way, but as you said it's all about tastes). No, the real issue is how to actually make a package. RPM having all the packaging written on a single file, mixing both shell scripting, changelog, dependency, you name it... is simply a horrible idea. But that wasn't it, they had to make exception for patches that are lying around separately...
Yum's insistence on always updating its catalogs is a bit annoying
I'd write instead, yum insistence of not letting the user into the control of wants to do.
but then so is having to run apt-get update every few days before running apt-get install
You don't have to, you can use apt-cron or whatever so that your sources.list are always refreshed. In fact, what I find annoying is not being able to tell to apt "can you please just update THIS repo of my sources.list, I don't need to update the others".
It has always felt a bit annoying distro to use, especially with sudo and apt.
What makes Debian and it's derivative attractive really IS dpkg and apt, and the largest number of packages on any distro. I agree with Ubuntu forced overuse of sudo though, but that one isn't in Debian by default (sudo isn't installed by default in Debian).
and has a much larger company backing it (Red Hat).
That's also why we don't like it, and prefer to have things driven by communities. Big company driving open source projects have the tendency of following their agenda. The self-called "removal of Xen support" from RedHat is one very good example of big PR following self interest. In a distribution maintained only by volunteers, nobody is able to tell that this or that will be removed because "we don't like it". If there's enough people to maintain it, then it's there. CentOS also lacks of very important packages for being used as a server , and you got to work with not official repositories for many server components which makes it very hard to have a serious security update way.
they both felt WebM infringed on patents
What patents is that exactly? Is there an ongoing h.264 vs WebM justice case?
Google, Mozilla, and Opera support a standard that is free of licensing Microsoft and Apple support a standard that is well established
H.264+AAC+MP4 are only available in Microsoft and Apple products. So, with what you said above, we can deduct that a "standard" can be considered "well established" when Microsoft and Apple support it, and no one else? That might be truth on desktops, but it's Android that has the best position on mobile phones. So you got me: I don't agree with your above statement. I'd say:
Mozilla, and Opera are all supporting Theora+Vorbis+Ogg and WebM, and are actively pushing for a free codec adoption
Google don't care, and supports both free and non-free codecs, while being nice enough to open WebM, hoping for the best
Microsoft and Apple are trying to lock down users, supporting ONLY the codec with patent attached while REFUSING to add the free alternatives, when it would be so easy to use free open source codecs
So, fuck the self called standards, Microsoft and Apple just SUX in this case, and are annoying everyone. If they finally agreed to support Theora+Vorbis+Ogg OR WebM, we'd have no issue at all. The issue really IS a problem of supporting the open and free of patent formats, since it doesn't cost much development to the biggest software giants to support these free alternative. They are following their own agenda, that's 100% a fact.
but Flash Player is still far more CPU-efficient at this than existing web browsers
Do you know how to call the scripts you got to write for Flash? ECMA script. Wait ... ECMA script, isn't this javascript?
I'm sure it used to be truth that flash was faster than native browser's javascript, but we're in 2011. Can you care to point me to a recent benchmarks to make sure you're correct?
One of the things he mentioned was Adobe's lack of attention to the stability of Flash on (his) mobile devices.
You're putting this very gently. Adobe policy on the flash player for ARM is a total disaster, and a huge security hole in every pockets. Zero updates in years, still version 9 which has multiple dozens of exploits. Jobs wasn't the only one to say it, he was just only the one to act in a reasonable manner.
I don't know if it will help developers, but I know for a fact that Adobe strategy doesn't protect the security of my (arm) mobile phone browser. They always have been crap with the ARM version of flash player, stuck at version 9. Frankly, because of this, I wish my phone didn't have flash support at all...
This is a gross simplification
LOL ! Indeed. That would be the silly kind of formula everyone would have in mind instinctively. Is this real "scientist" bullshit, or just you explaining your (not proven) feelings?
Even, let's attempt to believe that your formula could be right. If it was, then variation of c(t) in a so small amount of time (sorry, how old are you exactly?), and your human memory so weak (you aren't special are you? Your memory is mixed with emotions, right?), that it would be too small for you to feel the difference of w(t). At least never enough to be able to say:
It was 71 degrees the other day on November 1st.
and then over-over-over simplify things and say:
We've already done more damage than we can reverse.
I could say "there was so much snow last winter in my country, your theory of global warming is stupid". That would be equally non-scientific and full of weak human perceptions like above, so I don't write it. Do you need an other one of the same style? Well, by the way, "the other day on November 1st" it was so cold in here, so your theory of global warming must be shit. Is this enough, or should I add a car analogy?
It does (at least for this site).
Do you think those Chinese "hackerspaces" are going to be available without strings attached? Do you honestly think they won't be monitored, censored, and otherwise strictly controlled?
This is a FACT, at least for Xinchejian.
FUCK! I sponsor the hosting for xinchejian.com, I wasn't expected it to be slashdoted ... :(