Fatbrain.com (formerly Computer Literacy) has always been a great online bookstore. I prefer them to Amazon.com whenever I'm getting technical books. Their shipping is usually a bit faster, too, and they actually do have real life stores if you're in California (great browsing!)
Sadly, it looks like the author has moved away from the usual GNU style by not using Texinfo. I've always loved being able to produce PostScript, HTML, and GNU info files from the same input. It's nice to be able to view them from within Emacs.
But, at least the book is going to be truly free, so if I or someone else feels so inclined, we could make a Texinfo version ourself.
I'd really like to see Qt become more of an application framework rather than just a widget set. When working on a Qt project, I got very caught up in just getting a good solid framework created. I still have hardly even started on the project.
(I'm not the type of coder to just bang out code, it's got to be done right.)
Seems like the only free framework we've really got is wxWindows and, while not bad, there are a lot of things I don't like about it.
I think I caught wind of a project to create a free GPL'ed BIOS. Of course you'd have to have the equipment to burn the chip. Anyone know anything more about that?
I'm still trying to figure out why the heck they felt the need to air the movie three times, back to back.
I came in about half way through the movie and was on IRC so my attention to the movie was somewhat poor. I didn't know when it ended and another "instance" started so I, at first, thought they were doing something really screwy with bouncing back and forth between times. Ha.
But, hey, they showed it three times so I just paid better attention later and watched the whole thing.
Maybe TNT just knows us geeks too well. Knows we were all hacking or chatting and not paying much attention. We needed the movie three times before we really got it.
I found this quote at the end to be the most interesting:
Another sign of Microsoft's interest in open source comes from user statistics released Monday by Linux.com. Microsoft was the leading corporate visitor to the site in the first two weeks after it opened last month, with 15,000 visits from Microsoft servers.
That's a lot of visits in a month, about 500/day. I'm not sure what consistutes a "visit" (a single hit on any page?), but it seems like Microsoft is certainly keeping an eye on us Linux people.
As long as it's quick, I'd be a great way to display online help in an application. If it's done well, it'll be very popular.
XEmacs can be a widget in an application, too, but I've never actually seen anyone use it for that, presumably because of incredibly extreme bloat. (It's great as an app, but as a widget!?)
There are a couple of other really nice new gtk widgets: GtkSheet (a spreadsheet with inplace editing, widgets inside the sheet, etc.) and GtkPlot (a really nice plotting widget). You can see them right here
I like the little logo that says "Alien Furniture Technology (TM)". I haven't figured out what the logo is supposed to depict---I suppose only an alien mind would know.
It'd be nice to recline while computing, but with the stuff I'm currently doing at work, I'd probably just fall asleep.
I have never found Linux to be difficult to install, with the exception of XFree86 which can sometimes be a bit difficult.
I think Linux has a bad reputation for installation because people actually *do* have to install it, unlike Windows---few people actually install Windows because it's preinstalled.
I certainly hope that the people doing these reviews have actually installed the "competition", because Windows 95/98/NT can be quite difficult to install. I remember having particularly difficult problems getting NT to recognize a mainstream sound card and had a horrible time trying to make it do anything other than 16 colors.
I'd still like to see the Linux installation process get even better, and I know it will.
I'd guess that Microsoft wouldn't use the GPL, BSD, or artistic licenses. I'm certain that they would control all rights to distributing binaries of their source (you won't see Joe's Word 98).
Microsoft is just doing it to be on the latest bandwagon, they're doing it because they feel it will ultimately make them money. They don't want to miss the boat like they missed the Internet. I think most businesses which are truly in the Open Source market (Cygnus, for example) are there because they believe in it. Microsoft will only muddy the waters with proprietary licenses.
The only products of theirs that are worth open sourcing are the operating systems. It'd be nice to have the source so Windows programmers could more easily diagnose system crashes and strange behavior. Open sourcing Microsoft Word would never work---you think Mozilla had a long ramp up time, imagine Microsoft Word!
Just remember, if Microsoft open sources anything it won't be for your good, it'll be for theirs. You won't be able to distribute changes or binaries. It won't be Open Source (tm), it'll be Microsoft Semi-Open Source with an End User License Agreement that would make RMS puke.
I don't see what's wrong with it
on
BSD vs GPL
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· Score: 2
Maxwell says "Stating, once again, the GPL's habit of infecting derived works." Maxwell views this as a bad thing. I think most of us would tend to view this as a good thing. It keeps the software we've worked on free. The BSD license, on the other hand, allows someone to make modifications and redistribute binary only copies and not make the source available, provided they show the original copyright phrase. I don't want GPL'ed code I write to be used in that way. This has nothing to do with communism or Richard Stallman or the RMS beard. All it has to do with is my code's eternal freedom. I don't want anyone ever making changes and keeping them secret. One could argue that this takes away the freedom of others, but I argue that it keeps the freedom of the code. When I give code away, I think it's perfectly acceptable to ask others to do the same if they use my code. All in all, the article does nothing but affirm the GPL. Maxwell just restates what the GPL already restates. And I think the GPL is a good license and does just what RMS and the FSF intend it to do.
I remember reading a quote where Linus _liked_ that people still run old kernels. He liked the fact that people didn't just _have_ to upgrade their kernels. Often, an older kernel suited someone just fine and they saw no reason to upgrade.
I think that's a pretty big complement to a programmer. That's basically like saying that what you had two years ago is good enough for me, what you have now must be fantastic!
Of course, all of that being said, you don't _have_ to have a reason to upgrade. You can do it just because you want to. That's reason enough.
I was just about to buy a dual processor PII-400 system because I didn't want to make the modifications to two Celeron processors to make them run SMP. I hadn't heard about this before! I'll have to pick up a couple of nice (and cheap) PPGA socket 370 400 MHz chips for next to nothing and run them instead! Anyone heard anything good (or bad) about running these in a Tyan Tiger 100 board?
I skimmed the article and started reading the bad things about Linux immediately. The author says that Linux isn't well documented. I think it's important to put things into perspective---compared to most commercial/proprietary products I've seen, Linux documentation actually fairs quite well.
The LDP (Linux Documentation Project) at http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/ has an incredible amount of information. The HOWTOs are excellent. The manuals are excellent.
I have most of the GNU manuals from various GNU products like sed, awk, gcc, and Emacs. Those manuals are very, very well done.
The RedHat installation manual was pretty good, I paged through a friend's copy once. I'm sure other distributions' manuals are equally good.
It's pretty common for people to say that Linux is poorly documented. I might instead say that Linux is very well documented if you know how to read and know where to look.
31 comments already and no one has asked "Who are the Linux experts?" Mindcraft got busted hard and now they're trying to make up for it. But don't expect Linux to win. Remember: No one in the Linux community will ever be a customer of Mindcraft, but Microsoft will be, and we know the pockets of Microsoft. Mindcraft has no reason not to botch the test again and post false, misleading, or biased results.
Mindcraft is a business, and as a business they only want the almighty buck. I seriously doubt they really care about publishing correct results.
Before the original slashdot.org story, I'd never heard of Mindcraft. Now I see why...
Why does he just port Linux to the ZX81 instead? But seriously, according to the article it says it'll be two years before the machine is to market. I don't see why it would take that long, there are plenty of good options for a cheap PC right now. You can throw together an AMD based machine which would be quite nice for next to nothing. I wonder if they're actually planning on designing their own motherboard rather than OEM'ing something.
Oh, well, the ZX81, Spectrum, etc. were classics. Perhaps this new machine will eventually become one, too!
Certification, a college degree, publications,... they're all things people put on their resume, but they don't always mean much of anything. I went to an excellent school for my undergraduate degree and I came out knowing a lot. But there were plenty of other people who graduated with me that I wouldn't even consider hiring.
Certification is the same way, plenty of people come out of a program knowing no more than when they went in.
Education is important, but you've got to figure out in an interview who can really cut the code and who can't. I've found it's really quite easy to pick out the good from the bad with about twenty questions.
College degrees, certification, etc. can help you initially take ten resumes and put them into categories (I wouldn't hire someone without at least a BSCS or equivalent experience for the current openings, for example), but beyond categorizing people you don't know, these "qualifications" are somewhat meaningless.
I suppose people with graduate degrees and ten years of programming experience who help to develop Linux software are just "punk kids". I'll now wear a button around saying that.
I believe a issue of Linux Journal had a survey of the major Linux kernel developers to debunk this myth. I couldn't find it on the web, perhaps someone else out there has a link. If I recall correctly, the credentials of the developers were impressive.
If the software is truly free (free speech) and not pseudo free (free beer), then I will have the source code and I can simply remove the banner ads and redistribute my changes.
Of course, I seriously doubt the company would allow that, so it probably wouldn't really be free.
I would consider it commercial software and I seriously doubt I'd use it. But that's just me...
The logo is a bit "busy"---the best logos tend to be simple, yet eye catching. Gnome's logo comes to mind as being a good one. Cygnus has a nice logo, too. The Linux penguin is nice, too.
That said, I couldn't design a logo for anything if my life depended on it. I'm definitely Gimp challenged.
...then there will be a horrible pricing and marketing scheme designed to fool the users. There will be ten different subscription levels, and to the untrained eye deceived by marketing, the most expensive ones look the best, but to those in the know, the cheapest ones are just as good for 25% of the price. Kind of like Pentium II/IIIs and Celerons.
I'm not sure what standards they are referring to. Linux has a very nice standards compliant C/C++ compiler. It has great POSIX compliance. It uses X11, _the_ standard network transparent windowing system. It uses almost all of the UNIX standards I can think of, such as HTTP, FTP, telnet, ssh. It has all of the standard UNIX utilities in GNU form (sed, awk, etc.).
Now let's look at Micro~1 Windows. Almost anything considered "standard" on Micro~1 Windows are things that are contrived by Micro~1 themselves. If you want standards compliance on Micro~1, you often have to buy things or install additional software.
Oh well. We all know the article was a waste of time anyway.
RedHat has always been upgradable
on
Red Hat 6.0
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· Score: 1
Ever since RedHat 2.0, it's always been upgradable. When you run the CD installation, you're given the option to Install or Upgrade. I've successfully upgraded many RedHat systems with few if any troubles.
On the other hand, I can't recall ever upgrading a Windows-like system to its next release without hosing up half of the applications.
If you think Windows is easier to maintain than Linux, then you've probably not tried to maintain many Windows machines before.
Linux tends to be slightly more difficult to configure the first time around than, say, Windows NT, but once you configure it, it's solid as a rock for as long as you want. After you've configured a few Linux boxes, it's considerably easier to configure Linux than Windows NT after you've configured a few NT boxes. At least that's my experience.
Windows NT configuration is a black art. Linux is just a collection of text files that are easily backed up and restored as you purchase new machines. I find cloning NT configurations much more difficult. For a school which sets up lots and lots of machines, I think Linux is the better choice.
Slashdot Mirror
Fatbrain.com (formerly Computer Literacy) has always been a great online bookstore. I prefer them to Amazon.com whenever I'm getting technical books. Their shipping is usually a bit faster, too, and they actually do have real life stores if you're in California (great browsing!)
Sadly, it looks like the author has moved away from the usual GNU style by not using Texinfo. I've always loved being able to produce PostScript, HTML, and GNU info files from the same input. It's nice to be able to view them from within Emacs.
But, at least the book is going to be truly free, so if I or someone else feels so inclined, we could make a Texinfo version ourself.
I'd really like to see Qt become more of an application framework rather than just a widget set. When working on a Qt project, I got very caught up in just getting a good solid framework created. I still have hardly even started on the project.
(I'm not the type of coder to just bang out code, it's got to be done right.)
Seems like the only free framework we've really got is wxWindows and, while not bad, there are a lot of things I don't like about it.
I think I caught wind of a project to create a free GPL'ed BIOS. Of course you'd have to have the equipment to burn the chip. Anyone know anything more about that?
I'm still trying to figure out why the heck they felt the need to air the movie three times, back to back.
I came in about half way through the movie and was on IRC so my attention to the movie was somewhat poor. I didn't know when it ended and another "instance" started so I, at first, thought they were doing something really screwy with bouncing back and forth between times. Ha.
But, hey, they showed it three times so I just paid better attention later and watched the whole thing.
Maybe TNT just knows us geeks too well. Knows we were all hacking or chatting and not paying much attention. We needed the movie three times before we really got it.
I found this quote at the end to be the most interesting:
Another sign of Microsoft's interest in open source comes from user statistics released Monday by Linux.com. Microsoft was the leading corporate visitor to the site in the first two weeks after it opened last month, with 15,000 visits from Microsoft servers.
That's a lot of visits in a month, about 500/day. I'm not sure what consistutes a "visit" (a single hit on any page?), but it seems like Microsoft is certainly keeping an eye on us Linux people.
As long as it's quick, I'd be a great way to display online help in an application. If it's done well, it'll be very popular.
XEmacs can be a widget in an application, too, but I've never actually seen anyone use it for that, presumably because of incredibly extreme bloat. (It's great as an app, but as a widget!?)
There are a couple of other really nice new gtk widgets: GtkSheet (a spreadsheet with inplace editing, widgets inside the sheet, etc.) and GtkPlot (a really nice plotting widget). You can see them right here
.I like the little logo that says "Alien Furniture Technology (TM)". I haven't figured out what the logo is supposed to depict---I suppose only an alien mind would know.
It'd be nice to recline while computing, but with the stuff I'm currently doing at work, I'd probably just fall asleep.
I have never found Linux to be difficult to install, with the exception of XFree86 which can sometimes be a bit difficult.
I think Linux has a bad reputation for installation because people actually *do* have to install it, unlike Windows---few people actually install Windows because it's preinstalled.
I certainly hope that the people doing these reviews have actually installed the "competition", because Windows 95/98/NT can be quite difficult to install. I remember having particularly difficult problems getting NT to recognize a mainstream sound card and had a horrible time trying to make it do anything other than 16 colors.
I'd still like to see the Linux installation process get even better, and I know it will.
I'd guess that Microsoft wouldn't use the GPL, BSD, or artistic licenses. I'm certain that they would control all rights to distributing binaries of their source (you won't see Joe's Word 98).
Microsoft is just doing it to be on the latest bandwagon, they're doing it because they feel it will ultimately make them money. They don't want to miss the boat like they missed the Internet. I think most businesses which are truly in the Open Source market (Cygnus, for example) are there because they believe in it. Microsoft will only muddy the waters with proprietary licenses.
The only products of theirs that are worth open sourcing are the operating systems. It'd be nice to have the source so Windows programmers could more easily diagnose system crashes and strange behavior. Open sourcing Microsoft Word would never work---you think Mozilla had a long ramp up time, imagine Microsoft Word!
Just remember, if Microsoft open sources anything it won't be for your good, it'll be for theirs. You won't be able to distribute changes or binaries. It won't be Open Source (tm), it'll be Microsoft Semi-Open Source with an End User License Agreement that would make RMS puke.
Maxwell says "Stating, once again, the GPL's habit of infecting derived works." Maxwell views this as a bad thing. I think most of us would tend to view this as a good thing. It keeps the software we've worked on free. The BSD license, on the other hand, allows someone to make modifications and redistribute binary only copies and not make the source available, provided they show the original copyright phrase. I don't want GPL'ed code I write to be used in that way. This has nothing to do with communism or Richard Stallman or the RMS beard. All it has to do with is my code's eternal freedom. I don't want anyone ever making changes and keeping them secret. One could argue that this takes away the freedom of others, but I argue that it keeps the freedom of the code. When I give code away, I think it's perfectly acceptable to ask others to do the same if they use my code. All in all, the article does nothing but affirm the GPL. Maxwell just restates what the GPL already restates. And I think the GPL is a good license and does just what RMS and the FSF intend it to do.
I remember reading a quote where Linus _liked_ that people still run old kernels. He liked the fact that people didn't just _have_ to upgrade their kernels. Often, an older kernel suited someone just fine and they saw no reason to upgrade.
I think that's a pretty big complement to a programmer. That's basically like saying that what you had two years ago is good enough for me, what you have now must be fantastic!
Of course, all of that being said, you don't _have_ to have a reason to upgrade. You can do it just because you want to. That's reason enough.
I was just about to buy a dual processor PII-400 system because I didn't want to make the modifications to two Celeron processors to make them run SMP. I hadn't heard about this before! I'll have to pick up a couple of nice (and cheap) PPGA socket 370 400 MHz chips for next to nothing and run them instead! Anyone heard anything good (or bad) about running these in a Tyan Tiger 100 board?
I skimmed the article and started reading the bad things about Linux immediately. The author says that Linux isn't well documented. I think it's important to put things into perspective---compared to most commercial/proprietary products I've seen, Linux documentation actually fairs quite well.
The LDP (Linux Documentation Project) at http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/ has an incredible amount of information. The HOWTOs are excellent. The manuals are excellent.
I have most of the GNU manuals from various GNU products like sed, awk, gcc, and Emacs. Those manuals are very, very well done.
The RedHat installation manual was pretty good, I paged through a friend's copy once. I'm sure other distributions' manuals are equally good.
It's pretty common for people to say that Linux is poorly documented. I might instead say that Linux is very well documented if you know how to read and know where to look.
O'Reilly is an excellent publisher. Getting a book published by them means you've definitely doing something right!
31 comments already and no one has asked "Who are the Linux experts?" Mindcraft got busted hard and now they're trying to make up for it. But don't expect Linux to win. Remember: No one in the Linux community will ever be a customer of Mindcraft, but Microsoft will be, and we know the pockets of Microsoft. Mindcraft has no reason not to botch the test again and post false, misleading, or biased results.
Mindcraft is a business, and as a business they only want the almighty buck. I seriously doubt they really care about publishing correct results.
Before the original slashdot.org story, I'd never heard of Mindcraft. Now I see why...
Why does he just port Linux to the ZX81 instead? But seriously, according to the article it says it'll be two years before the machine is to market. I don't see why it would take that long, there are plenty of good options for a cheap PC right now. You can throw together an AMD based machine which would be quite nice for next to nothing. I wonder if they're actually planning on designing their own motherboard rather than OEM'ing something.
Oh, well, the ZX81, Spectrum, etc. were classics. Perhaps this new machine will eventually become one, too!
Certification, a college degree, publications, ... they're all things people put on their resume, but they don't always mean much of anything. I went to an excellent school for my undergraduate degree and I came out knowing a lot. But there were plenty of other people who graduated with me that I wouldn't even consider hiring.
Certification is the same way, plenty of people come out of a program knowing no more than when they went in.
Education is important, but you've got to figure out in an interview who can really cut the code and who can't. I've found it's really quite easy to pick out the good from the bad with about twenty questions.
College degrees, certification, etc. can help you initially take ten resumes and put them into categories (I wouldn't hire someone without at least a BSCS or equivalent experience for the current openings, for example), but beyond categorizing people you don't know, these "qualifications" are somewhat meaningless.
I suppose people with graduate degrees and ten years of programming experience who help to develop Linux software are just "punk kids". I'll now wear a button around saying that.
I believe a issue of Linux Journal had a survey of the major Linux kernel developers to debunk this myth. I couldn't find it on the web, perhaps someone else out there has a link. If I recall correctly, the credentials of the developers were impressive.
If the software is truly free (free speech) and not pseudo free (free beer), then I will have the source code and I can simply remove the banner ads and redistribute my changes.
Of course, I seriously doubt the company would allow that, so it probably wouldn't really be free.
I would consider it commercial software and I seriously doubt I'd use it. But that's just me...
The logo is a bit "busy"---the best logos tend to be simple, yet eye catching. Gnome's logo comes to mind as being a good one. Cygnus has a nice logo, too. The Linux penguin is nice, too.
That said, I couldn't design a logo for anything if my life depended on it. I'm definitely Gimp challenged.
...then there will be a horrible pricing and marketing scheme designed to fool the users. There will be ten different subscription levels, and to the untrained eye deceived by marketing, the most expensive ones look the best, but to those in the know, the cheapest ones are just as good for 25% of the price. Kind of like Pentium II/IIIs and Celerons.
I'm not sure what standards they are referring to. Linux has a very nice standards compliant C/C++ compiler. It has great POSIX compliance. It uses X11, _the_ standard network transparent windowing system. It uses almost all of the UNIX standards I can think of, such as HTTP, FTP, telnet, ssh. It has all of the standard UNIX utilities in GNU form (sed, awk, etc.).
Now let's look at Micro~1 Windows. Almost anything considered "standard" on Micro~1 Windows are things that are contrived by Micro~1 themselves. If you want standards compliance on Micro~1, you often have to buy things or install additional software.
Oh well. We all know the article was a waste of time anyway.
Ever since RedHat 2.0, it's always been upgradable. When you run the CD installation, you're given the option to Install or Upgrade. I've successfully upgraded many RedHat systems with few if any troubles.
On the other hand, I can't recall ever upgrading a Windows-like system to its next release without hosing up half of the applications.
If you think Windows is easier to maintain than Linux, then you've probably not tried to maintain many Windows machines before.
Linux tends to be slightly more difficult to configure the first time around than, say, Windows NT, but once you configure it, it's solid as a rock for as long as you want. After you've configured a few Linux boxes, it's considerably easier to configure Linux than Windows NT after you've configured a few NT boxes. At least that's my experience.
Windows NT configuration is a black art. Linux is just a collection of text files that are easily backed up and restored as you purchase new machines. I find cloning NT configurations much more difficult. For a school which sets up lots and lots of machines, I think Linux is the better choice.