If Sun, Novell, IBM, Dell, and all the other ones we read about in the papers are all moving to Linux then smaller companies are going to start questioning why they haven't moved also. Where the shepherd goes, the sheep will follow.
People will only follow Dell and IBM when they start selling kit with Linux installed as default and Windows as an option.
I know I can buy a server from Dell with RedHat enterprise, but I can not buy a laptop from either IBM or Dell with any flavour of linux on it, despite their much flaunted marketing campaigns.
yep, well pretty much. More so than most manufacturors.
..submitted by a very happy thinkpad/linux user.
Let me see... If we drill down to the SuSE page, and then to the certification page for the ThinkPad T41p we get this:
Certification only valid with kernelparameter "acpi=off"
Graphics: only framebuffer mode supported
internal WLAN adapter not supported
APM not properly supported
Selfcertification by customer
So, I can use Linux on my Think pad just so long as I do not want to use the Wireless network connection or the power saving functionality. Which are the 2 major reasons for using a laptop...
And the only reason we know this is because a SuSE customer tried it out. Neither SuSE nor IBM have done any certification
Until the hardware is supported 100% then there is no point selling them
KDE already took care of this. Mandrake's tools are also open source, so you don't have to use Mandrake to use the tools anyway. Besides that, since Linux is configure once/never break, why do you need easy discovery of other resources? Why can't you just stick the same fstab entries on every machine and they all know where to look? Slightly more configuration overhead for administrators (that doesn't scale well, admittedly), but no maintenance overhead.
Because when my other half gets a nice shiney new photo quality printer and shares it out from her machine I want to be able to know about it.
I also want to be able to print photos of our daughter from linux without having them come out like something from a 1980 dot line printer.
I want the laptop to see the fileserver without having to hardcode new mount points in the config files.
Of course, you have to doubt the sanity of someone who thinks taking a lock of their hair and chanting to it will make them fall in love or whatever...
Of course, you have to doubt the sanity of someone who thinks getting down on their knees and mubling an incantation will get them a perfect afterlife where they are waited on by angels.
Every religion is ridiculous if you choose to look at it in that way. Every religion is correct if you choose to look at it in another way.
Hmm if memory serves, our (still quite monopolistic) British Telecom (BT) was toying with the idea of fibre to the home, as was our government...
I live on a new houseing estate (my house will be 3 years old this month), when the BT engineer came to 'install' the phone[1] I asked him whether it was copper or fibre to the house. He said it was copper all the way from the exchange, they tried to lay fibre in the next estate over, but they couldn't get it to work.
So BT are not only monopolistic and slow, they are also incompetent[2]
[1] 168 pounds to 'install' my line, all he did was come in, stick a handset in the socket and make sure there was a dial tone. Amazing what you can charge when there is no competition[3]
[2] Okay, so the estate was started _after_ BT announced they would do ADSL, so you would think that all new houses would be capable wouldn't you. No such luck, too far from the exchange and too much line impeedence
[3] The only services allowed to put connections to a new property are, gas, electric, water and BT. No other telco is allowed, no cable company is allowed. They have to wait until the top surface is put on the road, and them come and dig it all up again...
Not that I remember it ever happening, but many companies were afraid that it might, & kept their developers' names OFF of the packages. And only the folks who are into geek trivial pursuit could name the actual programmers who worked on Word 1.x, WordPefect 4.x, Lotus 123, dBase III, PC Tools, & other packages of that era.
That may well be when you are putting your own employees in the credits, but the suggestion is to put open source developers who do not work for your company in the credits. There is no comeback for the company if they mention 3 or 4 people outside their company who helped improve the product.
Doing that is like publishing a list of which engineers other companies should try to hire away and which to avoid, eventually leaving the company with a bunch of Ernies.
Remember, these are open source developers who do not actually work for the company. The credits file would most likely be something like: "XYZ Corp would like to thank the following people for their invaluable contribution to this driver:..."
If this then gets used by a third company who is willing to hire you on the basis of your conribution so be it. If they are going to value you more than your current employer why shouldn't they try to head hunt you.
You only get left with a company full of 'Ernies' if you do not value your good staff. The only companies I have worked at that were full of 'Ernies' deserved to be.
Apps doesn't need to be written to take advantage of anti-aliasing. I run an X server (not XFree86) that provides anti-aliased, hinted, TrueType fonts to all X legacy applications.
I would be very impressed if Exceed were anti aliasing your fonts. It may very well be using true type fonts but they will not be anti aliased.
X has had the ability to use true type fonts for many years. Initially there was a separate font server you could run, now it has been incorporated into main source tree.
The question is when will VMware support XFree4? XFree86 4.0 was released back in March, and VMware still doesn't support it (i.e. accelerated video).
XFree 4.0 really needs a 2.4 kernel (you can run it with a 2.2 kernel with certain patches, but that is not a 'standard'). VMWare have stated that they will not support development kernels and will only support 2.4 when it has been officially released.
So until 2.4 gets officialy released, do not expect anything from VMWare. Even if they do relase a 2.4 kernel module, there is no way to force them to use XFree 4.0 features, especially when so few people use XFree 4.0 compared with 3.3
This is one of the reasons that in the UK you can have a.ltd.uk domain. Only a registered Limited company can have the domain. And since all Limited company names are unique there can be no question about which company you are refering to.
You even have to present your Limited Company certificate before they can release it
Of course no one ever uses them as everyone would much rather have a.com or even a.co.uk
Various people here and in the articles linked from the story have gone on about using Fullerines as a drug delivery system.
However it has also been stated that fullerines are incredibly stable.
So how do the drugs (or indeed anything else carried by the fullerine) get out of the bucky ball and actually delivered?
Remember, this thing has 14 motors
on
AI Monkey Robot
·
· Score: 1
You have to remember this is not as simple as reach out and grab the next rung. The robot starts hanging directly beneath a rung and it has to swing to get up enough momentum to get to the next rung. It does this by swinging the legs and twisting at the hips. It had to learn all of this from scratch.
I think you will find that if they had not told the robot the distance between the rung then it would have to learn it using some kind of visual recognition system which is an entirely different project.
I wonder how many people here who claim that this is nothing much could do it...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think "merkin" means "woman's pubic wig" in olde English...
Quite apt, really...:)
This dates back to alt.fan.pratchett from a while ago (counts on fingers...) oh dear about 8 years ago, well before the Eternal September. Americans were often refered to as Merkins. Someone kindly pointed out what it really means, we all said "yes, we know" and carried on using it;O) I put in in instinctivly as I was discussing Americans and Prathcett at the same time...
I know that this is a little off topic but it is Pratchett related.
July this year sees the start of "MillenniCon Hand & Shrimp" - the 3rd Discworld Convention. This year it is being held at the Raddison Edwardian Hotel near Heathrow England. From 29th - 31st July there will be much merriment and drinking;O)
But Good Omens will be even harder to put into a movie than other favorites like _Ender's Game_. Why? Well, one of the best things about _Good Omens_ is the language. Full of nuance and wit, the narration tells more than the dialog or actions.
However it is the easiest of Terry's books to turn into a film as it is set on Earth, in surroundings that all of the audience can understand.
Can you imagine the problems of trying to do a 'live' Discworld film. Trying to get people who have never read one of the books to understand the concept of a planet on the back of four elephants on the back of a giant turtle...
Good omens also has the advantage that it is a stand-alone book and does not require the reader to have read any other books in the series. Most of the Discworld books have characters who were introduced several books earlier and if you do not know about them it can be a little disorientating.
Personally I think that Good Omens is the best book to do as a live action and I hope that it goes well...
I hope they don't Americanify it (i.e. have it take place here in the States as opposed to England) or leave out Death (I remember reading somewhere that some studio executives didn't like having the Grim Reaper in a comedy, but that could just have been idle talk).
That was Mort. A Merkin film company wanted to make a movies of the book. (As I am sure you all know the book was about Death and his apprentice). The film company wanted to "loose the Death angle". Needless to say they did not get pemission.
Several people have tried to get permission to do films in the past and Terry has turned them all down (until now). He too is worried about "Americanification". The only films have be cartoon versions of Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters by Cosgrove Hall.
As I recall about a year ago this was tried for Linux. The RFE sat at the top of the request list by a long way and Sun just ignored it. What has changed in the last year or so to make Sun more amenable to porting it to other OSs now?
My neighbor's testing. He got the email within a week of applying, but didn't recieve the game untill about a week ago. I read the email. It said they had 25000 applicants, not the 2000 shown by the above comment. I don't know. Hemos does.
The 25000 was for the PC beta test which got a bit more publicity. And Activision are a bit of a larger company.
I think that 2000 requests kind of swamped LokiSoft.
With only a month or so to go I do not feel so bad about not becoming a beta tester
Wordperfect Suite 8 is stable. I've been using for over a year and I have had it crash only twice during that time.
You musn't do a lot of mail merges. WP8 crashes every single time I try to do a mail merge. The only way that I have found is to build the data file using Word Perfects built in record editor and then merge it to a file created only in Word Perfect. Given that all of my data is in PostgreSQL this is not much use.
Star Office randomly decides that all data fields are blank (if it doesn't crash).
All I want is a damn word processor which will mail merge. I am being forced to retreive an old 850Mb disk to put Windows on it simply so I can install word6
Head over to VMware and read about their upcoming beta. The software is supposed to allow you to run any ix86 OS under Linux or (*cough*) NT. It's a little pricey ($300), but they're claiming it runs near-native speed. It would certainly remove the need for a Windows or BeOS partition here.
It seems that not only do you need to spend $300 to get VMWare you also need to have the operating system you are going to use... It seems a lot easier to spend $300 on a new HD and slap the OS on there.
Slashdot Mirror
People will only follow Dell and IBM when they start selling kit with Linux installed as default and Windows as an option.
I know I can buy a server from Dell with RedHat enterprise, but I can not buy a laptop from either IBM or Dell with any flavour of linux on it, despite their much flaunted marketing campaigns.
Let me see... If we drill down to the SuSE page, and then to the certification page for the ThinkPad T41p we get this:
So, I can use Linux on my Think pad just so long as I do not want to use the Wireless network connection or the power saving functionality. Which are the 2 major reasons for using a laptop...
And the only reason we know this is because a SuSE customer tried it out. Neither SuSE nor IBM have done any certification
Until the hardware is supported 100% then there is no point selling them
Does anyone actually know the differences between "SuSE Professional 9" and "SuSE Enterprise 8"?
The SuSE website does not give any indication why I should spen 998 for SLE8 as opposed to 60 for SPro9.
Because when my other half gets a nice shiney new photo quality printer and shares it out from her machine I want to be able to know about it.
I also want to be able to print photos of our daughter from linux without having them come out like something from a 1980 dot line printer.
I want the laptop to see the fileserver without having to hardcode new mount points in the config files.
Mornington Crescent...
Of course, you have to doubt the sanity of someone who thinks getting down on their knees and mubling an incantation will get them a perfect afterlife where they are waited on by angels.
Every religion is ridiculous if you choose to look at it in that way. Every religion is correct if you choose to look at it in another way.
I live on a new houseing estate (my house will be 3 years old this month), when the BT engineer came to 'install' the phone[1] I asked him whether it was copper or fibre to the house. He said it was copper all the way from the exchange, they tried to lay fibre in the next estate over, but they couldn't get it to work.
So BT are not only monopolistic and slow, they are also incompetent[2]
[1] 168 pounds to 'install' my line, all he did was come in, stick a handset in the socket and make sure there was a dial tone. Amazing what you can charge when there is no competition[3]
[2] Okay, so the estate was started _after_ BT announced they would do ADSL, so you would think that all new houses would be capable wouldn't you. No such luck, too far from the exchange and too much line impeedence
[3] The only services allowed to put connections to a new property are, gas, electric, water and BT. No other telco is allowed, no cable company is allowed. They have to wait until the top surface is put on the road, and them come and dig it all up again...
That may well be when you are putting your own employees in the credits, but the suggestion is to put open source developers who do not work for your company in the credits. There is no comeback for the company if they mention 3 or 4 people outside their company who helped improve the product.
Remember, these are open source developers who do not actually work for the company. The credits file would most likely be something like: "XYZ Corp would like to thank the following people for their invaluable contribution to this driver: ..."
If this then gets used by a third company who is willing to hire you on the basis of your conribution so be it. If they are going to value you more than your current employer why shouldn't they try to head hunt you.
You only get left with a company full of 'Ernies' if you do not value your good staff. The only companies I have worked at that were full of 'Ernies' deserved to be.
I would be very impressed if Exceed were anti aliasing your fonts. It may very well be using true type fonts but they will not be anti aliased.
X has had the ability to use true type fonts for many years. Initially there was a separate font server you could run, now it has been incorporated into main source tree.
XFree 4.0 really needs a 2.4 kernel (you can run it with a 2.2 kernel with certain patches, but that is not a 'standard'). VMWare have stated that they will not support development kernels and will only support 2.4 when it has been officially released.
So until 2.4 gets officialy released, do not expect anything from VMWare. Even if they do relase a 2.4 kernel module, there is no way to force them to use XFree 4.0 features, especially when so few people use XFree 4.0 compared with 3.3
This is one of the reasons that in the UK you can have a .ltd.uk domain. Only a registered Limited company can have the domain. And since all Limited company names are unique there can be no question about which company you are refering to.
You even have to present your Limited Company certificate before they can release it
Of course no one ever uses them as everyone would much rather have a .com or even a .co.uk
Various people here and in the articles linked from the story have gone on about using Fullerines as a drug delivery system.
However it has also been stated that fullerines are incredibly stable.
So how do the drugs (or indeed anything else carried by the fullerine) get out of the bucky ball and actually delivered?
You have to remember this is not as simple as reach out and grab the next rung. The robot starts hanging directly beneath a rung and it has to swing to get up enough momentum to get to the next rung. It does this by swinging the legs and twisting at the hips. It had to learn all of this from scratch.
I think you will find that if they had not told the robot the distance between the rung then it would have to learn it using some kind of visual recognition system which is an entirely different project.
I wonder how many people here who claim that this is nothing much could do it...
This dates back to alt.fan.pratchett from a while ago (counts on fingers...) oh dear about 8 years ago, well before the Eternal September. Americans were often refered to as Merkins. Someone kindly pointed out what it really means, we all said "yes, we know" and carried on using it ;O) I put in in instinctivly as I was discussing Americans and Prathcett at the same time...
Frugal
I know that this is a little off topic but it is Pratchett related.
July this year sees the start of "MillenniCon Hand & Shrimp" - the 3rd Discworld Convention. This year it is being held at the Raddison Edwardian Hotel near Heathrow England. From 29th - 31st July there will be much merriment and drinking ;O)
Confirmed Guests included
If you are interested have a look at the web site www.lspace.org/fandom/cons/dwcon2k or email memberships@dwcon.lspace.org
We now return you to your abnormal service...
Frugal - Memberships/Chair of Vice DWCon2k
However it is the easiest of Terry's books to turn into a film as it is set on Earth, in surroundings that all of the audience can understand.
Can you imagine the problems of trying to do a 'live' Discworld film. Trying to get people who have never read one of the books to understand the concept of a planet on the back of four elephants on the back of a giant turtle...
Good omens also has the advantage that it is a stand-alone book and does not require the reader to have read any other books in the series. Most of the Discworld books have characters who were introduced several books earlier and if you do not know about them it can be a little disorientating.
Personally I think that Good Omens is the best book to do as a live action and I hope that it goes well...
That was Mort. A Merkin film company wanted to make a movies of the book. (As I am sure you all know the book was about Death and his apprentice). The film company wanted to "loose the Death angle". Needless to say they did not get pemission.
Several people have tried to get permission to do films in the past and Terry has turned them all down (until now). He too is worried about "Americanification". The only films have be cartoon versions of Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters by Cosgrove Hall.
As I recall about a year ago this was tried for Linux. The RFE sat at the top of the request list by a long way and Sun just ignored it. What has changed in the last year or so to make Sun more amenable to porting it to other OSs now?
The 25000 was for the PC beta test which got a bit more publicity. And Activision are a bit of a larger company.
I think that 2000 requests kind of swamped LokiSoft.
With only a month or so to go I do not feel so bad about not becoming a beta tester
You musn't do a lot of mail merges. WP8 crashes every single time I try to do a mail merge. The only way that I have found is to build the data file using Word Perfects built in record editor and then merge it to a file created only in Word Perfect. Given that all of my data is in PostgreSQL this is not much use.
Star Office randomly decides that all data fields are blank (if it doesn't crash).
All I want is a damn word processor which will mail merge. I am being forced to retreive an old 850Mb disk to put Windows on it simply so I can install word6
It seems that not only do you need to spend $300 to get VMWare you also need to have the operating system you are going to use... It seems a lot easier to spend $300 on a new HD and slap the OS on there.