I don't even know why I'm responding to this whine, but here goes... I only put that as a kind of disclaimer to the fact that I was going to say something that I knew a large portion of Slashdot would disagree with. It wasn't meant as a "martyrdom" or anything.
Geez buddy, calm down. I wasn't making a personal affont, and I hadn't even read YOUR comment before typing mine. Furthermore, you seemed to have a more level head when you made your comment - desiring open source but not demanding it. That is fine - my gripe (and it wasn't even that) was with the way things like this seem to be handled by SOME PEOPLE in our community. All I was trying to do was empathize with the well-meaning comapnies which these days want to get their products out to our market but are still a little unsure of the concept of open sourcing. Sure, they could turn around and throw a fee on it suddenly or nag it or something to that extent, but I like to give the benefit of the doubt. *shrug* Ah well. Shame on me.:)
Alright, I know I'm probably going to get moderated down for this one, but here goes... Why is it that whenever a company releases a powerful and useful tool for free, the first response of many here is to say "Great, now give us the source and we will like you!" I'm not trying to rant or make any personal griping here, but to me it is in very bad form to expect so much of a company when they are still in a transition toward the entire concept of Open Source Software. I do not believe that Any Company, when approached with the concept of releasing their tools for free, looks upon the idea without a jaundiced eye at first, and I belive that it is only after weighing their options and realizing the goal that they make an action like the one Inprise made today. It is a big deal to them, and they are being good sports and catering to our community with something like this... so why must we grab their outstreched hand and tug them toward us with all our might? Ah well... it just seems rude to me. Moderate away.
I wonder how well this kind of display would work for people like myself, who can only see out of one eye... I have long feared the coming of Virtual Reality and display systems like this one, because I felt I would be held back by my disability. Does normal eye-vision have a bearing on the usability of this sort of device? Does anyone know?
\RANT mode=1 I agree... people seem to want to run as fast as they can from ncurses and upgrade to X-based installations. The problem is, a lot of people (read: me) don't want to deal with the extra overhead, instability, and even complexity associated with an X-based installation. While converting 22 Macs over to Linux, the LinuxPPC/Redhat ncurses installation method was the only feasible meathod that I could install the OS from... the X version (which was also the "recommended install method") wouldn't work correctly, and often crashed out entirely.
People really need to understand here that though ncurses might be ugly as sin, it sure as hell beats crashing during an OS installation! \RANT mode=0
I wonder, can you use pigs to catch trolls like this one? Oh wait, that's truffles... I suppose with trolls you just reach into the nearest pile of idiotic assertions and petty goading and pull out a nice little Anonymous Coward!
I wonder if you can use Trolls to find things? I suppose if I wanted to locate pig dung, a troll would be the right way to go. *nods*
Right, well Quake 3: Arena has apparently gone gold according to this story. It seems to me that this is just a TAD early, and I am sick and tired of patching. Frankly, I've been using the test for a while now, it ran great on my Voodoo 2 and I had no problems, no errors, no bugs, no visual glitches, and everything was nice and pretty. Lightmap and all. Whee... But then, the Demo came out. (insert ominous music here)
This demo is horrible, in my opinion. I loved the Quake 3: Arena Test because it ran pretty well on my system, with little configuration at all. Great frame rate, no slowdowns (Voodoo2 on a 333Mhz P2) and I thought the graphics were better than good. But this Demo is horrible! To not get visual artifacting and texture map errors I have to run it with vertex lighting instead of lightmap, which is not only ugly as sin but seems to slow the game down! No shitting! The server list won't save the servers between sessions, so that I have to reload the whole list when I inevitably get onto a server that stinks the first couple of times! But frankly, the worst was the fact that they have support for so few cards. I know that Linux support of 3d video cards is minimal, but this is pathetic! Having to use my Voodoo2 instead of my TNT2 Ultra is not good, in my opinion, and I think they could have done a better job on that. And I know that someone got the TNT2 to work with acceptable framerates, but it requires a lower version X (3.3.1 as opposed to 3.3.5) and I am not willing to deal with that sort of hassle for a stupid game.
Now I'm back to playing GNU Chess all the time... though not as much asthetic fun as Quake3, at least it runs quite well. Great framerate too!
Hey, is anyone having problems with the video from this game? I mean, it all looked great for a time, but then suddenly the walls and ceiling started flickering madly and I could no longer see my targets! This did not happen in the previous test.
To note, I have a Voodoo 2 card and I am using the given driver.
Like many of us, I had myself convinced at one point earlier this year that Mozilla would fail. All the rumors, from AOL killing it to it just killing itself have come to me through this site, and I'm glad for it, because I want to know the rumors. But I got caught up, and it wasn't until I downloaded M10 that I realized my mistake.
People, never could I have expressed this more strongly... try it out! I tried it out, and the bugs were quite obvious for the large part. However, the engine is quite nice, it loaded Slashdot very fast on my connection. But the real nifty part was when I was designing a web site... I kept trying to use CSS and transparent PNG images, but Netscape won't view them right. Interestingly enough though, Mozilla parsed it all perfectly! Even the transparent PNG, it all looked great!
Right off, I realized that the people who are making Mozilla aren't screwing around. These people are serious, and they are making a serious browser, one that seems to have its standards straight for once! If I could code, I would be doing all I could to help these guys, as they are working on an application that will be a cornerstone of Linux in the future! Please, people, just give the damn thing a chance, it might crash but it won't bite, and you just might be surprised!
These OS's all sound neat... not just EROS either, but also the Nemesis mentioned and ExoKernel that I've read of before.
Unfortunately, there still seems to be a bit of confusion about how to introduce a bit of nifty tech. What I wanted to know, from reading all these wonderful releases of info and such, was, "What difference this will make to my computing experience, should I try one of these new OS's?"
Now you don't have to mention it - it is a callous and greedy thing to say, I realize that. But frankly, isn't this what it all comes down to? What good is it for you on the desktop if it can't run a web browser, the GNU tools, art programs, etc? At least EROS mentioned, albiet with a great deal of obscurity, that they would be supporting UNIX binaries - which is a good thing. But when these babies are ready for public consumption, let us know what they can do for us as well... not just what we can do for them.
Ah well. I'm not coder, so I probably don't have any right making these spurious and trite observations. Flames, commence!
(if you have never seen the Anime known as Dragonball, you will not get this)
And if you collect 7 of the Dragonball VZs, a giant dragon appears and will grant a wish for you!
Just watch out for the evil guys. You can tell who they are because they either have veins sticking out all over themselves, or an evil sneer.
(in further news, an updated version of the Dragonball VZs will be released, called the Dragonball NameckZs. These will have the added functionality of being able to tell an enemy's power level, turn into a motorized vehicle when smashed on the ground, and when seven are collected, will summon a more powerful dragon to grant 3 wishes instead of one.
For further information, see Kami-san, the God of Earth.
Alright, I have had in my current PC two soundcards at various points in time - a PCI Turtle Beach Montego and an ISA Sound Blaster AWE 64. Now, I couldn't find any drivers for the Montego and as far as I know they don't exist - but the AWE 64 was very well supported in Linux. Since then, my Montego has gotten messed up somehow, but the AWE works great still, both under Windows and Linux... and it sounds better on MP3s than the Montego ever did. What I'm getting at is that unless you have no free ISA slots or own a computer with a motherboard that has no ISA slots on it, I would recommend getting an ISA soundcard. They are cheap and work well, especially the AWE. But I'm sure that someone has a convincing arguement against my view, so here's the question - what functionality does a PCI soundcard provide in Linux that is not found in a comparable ISA soundcard?:)
I'm only going to say this once. It will probably be seen as redundant, but after reading that article, I feel the need to say it. Hell, it's probably too late to be moderated anyway, but here goes...
IT'S ALL UNIX - IT'S ALL GOOD
I cannot understand the huge controversy about this sort of thing. I mean, I've used Debian, Red Hat, SUSE and Slackware, in that order, and I've never used FreeBSD. I don't know what any of the BSDs are like, but why on Earth do we need to whine about this sort of thing? GNU software? Fine, it's all good, I have no problem with it. I don't have a problem with people who want to charge for their software either, so long as they understand that what's on my computer is mine. But for all our sakes, don't dismiss or advocate one version of UNIX over another!
Webmasters aren't incorporating PNG images in their websites for a number of reasons, but the reason I can think of as being the most prevalent in my mind is that for most browsers the support for PNG is pretty rudimentary. There are too many "conditions" and broken features involved... no one wants to deal with that! Lossless compression is great, but it also causes the inevitable circumstance of an image still being bigger than it would be under GIF. People who have 56k analog modems will cry when they have to wait for these images to load up, and no webmaster wants irate visitors to his/her website.
Don't get me wrong now... I like the PNG format, and I'm considering using it on my own website when I finally get my butt around to making it. But the fact remains that so long as the common browser cannot deal with it as easily as dealing with GIF and JPEG, it will have a very large thorn in it's side.
Mozilla authors, are you reading this??? Support PNG!!! (I would aid you, but I can't code worth a damn)
Alright, it is obvious that the feebs in Kansas have no idea what the heck they are talking about in making it no longer mandated to learn about Evolution in the state. That is stupid. However (flamegate, open) I also believe that the complete and utter removal of all right to religious beliefs in this day and age is also incorrect. I have seen many people writing in on this topic and basically saying "we are right, you are wrong" to those of us who believe in a Higher Power. Well, frankly this is just as bad as us saying that we religious people are right and you are wrong! I mean, this is common sense people... It is one thing to have an opinion on this issue - in fact I hope everyone does. But it is another thing to call the opposing force "stupid and ignorant and incompetant" for it. I am a Coptic Gnostic, which basically means I believe there is a God but that He isn't limited to our beliefs in Him. Which means that in my view, Evolution is okay! Not everyone believes the Bible you know! *chuckle* Okay, my rant is done. Feel free to call me ignorant now. But be careful where you throw your stones, because you might be standing in a glass house.
Hey, let's be frank here... I think everyone at one point in time or another has left a job for some reason or another. If you haven't, then you are either very lucky or very meek, and enjoy being walked on. From what I have ascertained, Raster was, in fact, being walked on by someone else. This someone else held a more concrete position in the company than him. Also, given the evidence, I would have to say that this employee was genuinely hostile toward Raster and Enlightenment. It could be a fabrication, but what real reason would Raster have to lie? I'll be honest here... I'm using RedHat 6.0. I disabled GNOME (with an almost silly amount of effort to do so) and am using Enlightenment DR15 like it was designed by Raster, without GNOME, and it hasn't crashed once. I pieced my computer together myself and I have not crashed with this setup yet without it being something _I_ did (we all do silly things sometimes). What I'm getting at is, Raster left for a very honest and honorable reason - he did not like the environment he was in. I say that he made a mature and wise decision. Granted, I am not impartial on this - I use Enlightenment, after all, and have since DR13. But I still think that Raster made the right decision, if it makes him happy.
Now all I'm worried about is RedHat. I seriously think they may have lost some direction. I don't worry about them dominating the market - we (the Linux community) would squash them if they tried. However, I do think that they are acting somewhat suspicious. I just wish SUSE6.1 had newer libraries *sigh*
*LOL* Right now I'm on Slashdot and taping the movie "Sneakers", one of my favourite movies - and one that deals with the NSA. Curious the coincedences that abound...
There is a major difference when dealing with the Linux community though. The thing that many people (including those at Microsoft) forget is that we don't HAVE to use Linux, we want to. We aren't being forced to use it. I might be a sucker, but I think that human nature will eventually prevail, and that people will eventually realize that with Microsoft, there is no choice involved. Choice is the essence of what makes us human. We chose Linux. And no one can take that from us.:-)
Yes, you can find information on the Merced and other microprocessor technologies at the award winning web site www.transmeta.com... As well as the unveiling of the new chip that Transmeta is working on... just re-arrange the letters of "this web page is not here yet" until you find something interesting -- now that's innovation!!!
Slashdot Mirror
I don't even know why I'm responding to this whine, but here goes... I only put that as a kind of disclaimer to the fact that I was going to say something that I knew a large portion of Slashdot would disagree with. It wasn't meant as a "martyrdom" or anything.
Ma gavte la nata. (Pull out the cork)
Geez buddy, calm down. I wasn't making a personal affont, and I hadn't even read YOUR comment before typing mine. Furthermore, you seemed to have a more level head when you made your comment - desiring open source but not demanding it. That is fine - my gripe (and it wasn't even that) was with the way things like this seem to be handled by SOME PEOPLE in our community. All I was trying to do was empathize with the well-meaning comapnies which these days want to get their products out to our market but are still a little unsure of the concept of open sourcing. Sure, they could turn around and throw a fee on it suddenly or nag it or something to that extent, but I like to give the benefit of the doubt. *shrug* Ah well. Shame on me. :)
Alright, I know I'm probably going to get moderated down for this one, but here goes... Why is it that whenever a company releases a powerful and useful tool for free, the first response of many here is to say "Great, now give us the source and we will like you!" I'm not trying to rant or make any personal griping here, but to me it is in very bad form to expect so much of a company when they are still in a transition toward the entire concept of Open Source Software. I do not believe that Any Company, when approached with the concept of releasing their tools for free, looks upon the idea without a jaundiced eye at first, and I belive that it is only after weighing their options and realizing the goal that they make an action like the one Inprise made today. It is a big deal to them, and they are being good sports and catering to our community with something like this... so why must we grab their outstreched hand and tug them toward us with all our might? Ah well... it just seems rude to me. Moderate away.
I wonder how well this kind of display would work for people like myself, who can only see out of one eye... I have long feared the coming of Virtual Reality and display systems like this one, because I felt I would be held back by my disability. Does normal eye-vision have a bearing on the usability of this sort of device? Does anyone know?
\RANT mode=1
I agree... people seem to want to run as fast as they can from ncurses and upgrade to X-based installations. The problem is, a lot of people (read: me) don't want to deal with the extra overhead, instability, and even complexity associated with an X-based installation. While converting 22 Macs over to Linux, the LinuxPPC/Redhat ncurses installation method was the only feasible meathod that I could install the OS from... the X version (which was also the "recommended install method") wouldn't work correctly, and often crashed out entirely.
People really need to understand here that though ncurses might be ugly as sin, it sure as hell beats crashing during an OS installation! \RANT mode=0
I wonder, can you use pigs to catch trolls like this one? Oh wait, that's truffles... I suppose with trolls you just reach into the nearest pile of idiotic assertions and petty goading and pull out a nice little Anonymous Coward!
I wonder if you can use Trolls to find things? I suppose if I wanted to locate pig dung, a troll would be the right way to go. *nods*
Right, well Quake 3: Arena has apparently gone gold according to this story. It seems to me that this is just a TAD early, and I am sick and tired of patching. Frankly, I've been using the test for a while now, it ran great on my Voodoo 2 and I had no problems, no errors, no bugs, no visual glitches, and everything was nice and pretty. Lightmap and all. Whee... But then, the Demo came out. (insert ominous music here)
This demo is horrible, in my opinion. I loved the Quake 3: Arena Test because it ran pretty well on my system, with little configuration at all. Great frame rate, no slowdowns (Voodoo2 on a 333Mhz P2) and I thought the graphics were better than good. But this Demo is horrible! To not get visual artifacting and texture map errors I have to run it with vertex lighting instead of lightmap, which is not only ugly as sin but seems to slow the game down! No shitting! The server list won't save the servers between sessions, so that I have to reload the whole list when I inevitably get onto a server that stinks the first couple of times! But frankly, the worst was the fact that they have support for so few cards. I know that Linux support of 3d video cards is minimal, but this is pathetic! Having to use my Voodoo2 instead of my TNT2 Ultra is not good, in my opinion, and I think they could have done a better job on that. And I know that someone got the TNT2 to work with acceptable framerates, but it requires a lower version X (3.3.1 as opposed to 3.3.5) and I am not willing to deal with that sort of hassle for a stupid game.
Now I'm back to playing GNU Chess all the time... though not as much asthetic fun as Quake3, at least it runs quite well. Great framerate too!
Thanks a lot, it worked great.
Hey, is anyone having problems with the video from this game? I mean, it all looked great for a time, but then suddenly the walls and ceiling started flickering madly and I could no longer see my targets! This did not happen in the previous test.
To note, I have a Voodoo 2 card and I am using the given driver.
Like many of us, I had myself convinced at one point earlier this year that Mozilla would fail. All the rumors, from AOL killing it to it just killing itself have come to me through this site, and I'm glad for it, because I want to know the rumors. But I got caught up, and it wasn't until I downloaded M10 that I realized my mistake.
People, never could I have expressed this more strongly... try it out! I tried it out, and the bugs were quite obvious for the large part. However, the engine is quite nice, it loaded Slashdot very fast on my connection. But the real nifty part was when I was designing a web site... I kept trying to use CSS and transparent PNG images, but Netscape won't view them right. Interestingly enough though, Mozilla parsed it all perfectly! Even the transparent PNG, it all looked great!
Right off, I realized that the people who are making Mozilla aren't screwing around. These people are serious, and they are making a serious browser, one that seems to have its standards straight for once! If I could code, I would be doing all I could to help these guys, as they are working on an application that will be a cornerstone of Linux in the future! Please, people, just give the damn thing a chance, it might crash but it won't bite, and you just might be surprised!
These OS's all sound neat... not just EROS either, but also the Nemesis mentioned and ExoKernel that I've read of before.
Unfortunately, there still seems to be a bit of confusion about how to introduce a bit of nifty tech. What I wanted to know, from reading all these wonderful releases of info and such, was, "What difference this will make to my computing experience, should I try one of these new OS's?"
Now you don't have to mention it - it is a callous and greedy thing to say, I realize that. But frankly, isn't this what it all comes down to? What good is it for you on the desktop if it can't run a web browser, the GNU tools, art programs, etc? At least EROS mentioned, albiet with a great deal of obscurity, that they would be supporting UNIX binaries - which is a good thing. But when these babies are ready for public consumption, let us know what they can do for us as well... not just what we can do for them.
Ah well. I'm not coder, so I probably don't have any right making these spurious and trite observations. Flames, commence!
(if you have never seen the Anime known as Dragonball, you will not get this)
And if you collect 7 of the Dragonball VZs, a giant dragon appears and will grant a wish for you!
Just watch out for the evil guys. You can tell who they are because they either have veins sticking out all over themselves, or an evil sneer.
(in further news, an updated version of the Dragonball VZs will be released, called the Dragonball NameckZs. These will have the added functionality of being able to tell an enemy's power level, turn into a motorized vehicle when smashed on the ground, and when seven are collected, will summon a more powerful dragon to grant 3 wishes instead of one.
For further information, see Kami-san, the God of Earth.
hehe
Alright, I have had in my current PC two soundcards at various points in time - a PCI Turtle Beach Montego and an ISA Sound Blaster AWE 64. Now, I couldn't find any drivers for the Montego and as far as I know they don't exist - but the AWE 64 was very well supported in Linux. Since then, my Montego has gotten messed up somehow, but the AWE works great still, both under Windows and Linux... and it sounds better on MP3s than the Montego ever did. What I'm getting at is that unless you have no free ISA slots or own a computer with a motherboard that has no ISA slots on it, I would recommend getting an ISA soundcard. They are cheap and work well, especially the AWE. But I'm sure that someone has a convincing arguement against my view, so here's the question - what functionality does a PCI soundcard provide in Linux that is not found in a comparable ISA soundcard? :)
I'm only going to say this once. It will probably be seen as redundant, but after reading that article, I feel the need to say it. Hell, it's probably too late to be moderated anyway, but here goes...
IT'S ALL UNIX - IT'S ALL GOOD
I cannot understand the huge controversy about this sort of thing. I mean, I've used Debian, Red Hat, SUSE and Slackware, in that order, and I've never used FreeBSD. I don't know what any of the BSDs are like, but why on Earth do we need to whine about this sort of thing? GNU software? Fine, it's all good, I have no problem with it. I don't have a problem with people who want to charge for their software either, so long as they understand that what's on my computer is mine. But for all our sakes, don't dismiss or advocate one version of UNIX over another!
Webmasters aren't incorporating PNG images in their websites for a number of reasons, but the reason I can think of as being the most prevalent in my mind is that for most browsers the support for PNG is pretty rudimentary. There are too many "conditions" and broken features involved... no one wants to deal with that! Lossless compression is great, but it also causes the inevitable circumstance of an image still being bigger than it would be under GIF. People who have 56k analog modems will cry when they have to wait for these images to load up, and no webmaster wants irate visitors to his/her website.
Don't get me wrong now... I like the PNG format, and I'm considering using it on my own website when I finally get my butt around to making it. But the fact remains that so long as the common browser cannot deal with it as easily as dealing with GIF and JPEG, it will have a very large thorn in it's side.
Mozilla authors, are you reading this??? Support PNG!!! (I would aid you, but I can't code worth a damn)
Alright, it is obvious that the feebs in Kansas have no idea what the heck they are talking about in making it no longer mandated to learn about Evolution in the state. That is stupid. However (flamegate, open) I also believe that the complete and utter removal of all right to religious beliefs in this day and age is also incorrect. I have seen many people writing in on this topic and basically saying "we are right, you are wrong" to those of us who believe in a Higher Power. Well, frankly this is just as bad as us saying that we religious people are right and you are wrong! I mean, this is common sense people... It is one thing to have an opinion on this issue - in fact I hope everyone does. But it is another thing to call the opposing force "stupid and ignorant and incompetant" for it. I am a Coptic Gnostic, which basically means I believe there is a God but that He isn't limited to our beliefs in Him. Which means that in my view, Evolution is okay! Not everyone believes the Bible you know! *chuckle* Okay, my rant is done. Feel free to call me ignorant now. But be careful where you throw your stones, because you might be standing in a glass house.
Hey, let's be frank here... I think everyone at one point in time or another has left a job for some reason or another. If you haven't, then you are either very lucky or very meek, and enjoy being walked on.
From what I have ascertained, Raster was, in fact, being walked on by someone else. This someone else held a more concrete position in the company than him. Also, given the evidence, I would have to say that this employee was genuinely hostile toward Raster and Enlightenment. It could be a fabrication, but what real reason would Raster have to lie?
I'll be honest here... I'm using RedHat 6.0. I disabled GNOME (with an almost silly amount of effort to do so) and am using Enlightenment DR15 like it was designed by Raster, without GNOME, and it hasn't crashed once. I pieced my computer together myself and I have not crashed with this setup yet without it being something _I_ did (we all do silly things sometimes). What I'm getting at is, Raster left for a very honest and honorable reason - he did not like the environment he was in. I say that he made a mature and wise decision. Granted, I am not impartial on this - I use Enlightenment, after all, and have since DR13. But I still think that Raster made the right decision, if it makes him happy.
Now all I'm worried about is RedHat. I seriously think they may have lost some direction. I don't worry about them dominating the market - we (the Linux community) would squash them if they tried. However, I do think that they are acting somewhat suspicious. I just wish SUSE6.1 had newer libraries *sigh*
*LOL* Right now I'm on Slashdot and taping the movie "Sneakers", one of my favourite movies - and one that deals with the NSA. Curious the coincedences that abound...
Know ye not that ye are Gods???
There is a major difference when dealing with the Linux community though. The thing that many people (including those at Microsoft) forget is that we don't HAVE to use Linux, we want to. We aren't being forced to use it. I might be a sucker, but I think that human nature will eventually prevail, and that people will eventually realize that with Microsoft, there is no choice involved. Choice is the essence of what makes us human. We chose Linux. And no one can take that from us. :-)
Yes, you can find information on the Merced and other microprocessor technologies at the award winning web site www.transmeta.com... As well as the unveiling of the new chip that Transmeta is working on... just re-arrange the letters of "this web page is not here yet" until you find something interesting -- now that's innovation!!!