> Maybe it's just because of the large installed base of x86 machines.
Got it in one try. Anyone interested in actually using this thing has a spare PC to load FC4 on, almost none has a spare top of the line PowerMac in the closet. Heck, most don't have a top of the line Powermac period.
Guess some people ride the short bus. I said it on the parent post, lemme say it again, only more brutally.
Evil corporations trying to dictate one sided terms are always a bad idea. Apple shouldn't be able to artifically tie their hardware and OS using DRM. Sony shouldn't be using DRM on music cds. The DVD CCA shouldn't be using DRM to tie DVDs so they can only play on approved players in approved places. Etc. Etc. Almost everyone reading Slashdot understands this in their bones, except for Apple fanboys giving Apple a pass on accepted codes of moral behavior.
If I want a big assed pimped machine or a tiny little EPIA, it isn't my OS vendor's business. I have no problem if Apple decides that supporting the horrific diversity of PC hardware is beyond them and only supports the short list of hardware they actually sell. But forbidding third parties to support their hardware under OS X is going too far, using the DMCA on em crosses the line to evil.
And if you still don't understand, imagine the borg doing exactly what Apple is doing. Imagine they tied Shorthorn to a new line of Microsoft PCs with the same TCPA tricks. Imagine how fast they would end up in court again.
> Why is Slashdot so obsessed with cracking OS X to run it on generic x86 machines..
Ah, Apple fanboys.:(
I suspect a lot of people would want to do it to have Apple's supposedly superior OS on a) the totally adaquate hardware the person already owns and b) on the unquestionably superior variety of PC hardware. With Apple you get to pick from a couple of desktops, a couple of laptops and one or two servers. In PC land, Dell has more choices of hardware and they are only one of hundreds of PC vendors to pick from, including parting out your dream machine from your fav online vendors.
Personally I don't see the point, but I then I don't particularly like OS X or Apple. I want UNIX, Apple is close but no bananna. My opinion of em is based on OS X 10.0 though, if I could plunk down a C note and try the current version on my existing box I'd probably give em another look just to be current. But I ain't buying a whole PC with all the side costs that entails just to look. And unlike most potential Apple customers I even have a KVM switch at home.
Then again, I'm not a typical customer. Would never make an unfree OS my primary work environment. I will still play with unfree stuff but I'm RMS pure enough to never depend on the stuff for anything important.
> What makes you think you can't? That's pretty much what support does when they need to send your machine somewhere > where they might reformat it. Bootloader issues still apply, but that's true of any OS.
Because it won't freaking work. Been there, tried that. Another poster says it has finally been fixed for 10.4. If so, it took em long enough but they have finally removed that roadblock to adoption.
> 1) I hate nipple mice. A *REAL* mouse is a trackball, but they don't make those in laptops anymore. I usually > carry a small optical, USB mouse in my pack for when I set up at a desk.
I like the nipple pointer enough that I usually don't bother with an external mouse. Especially since I prefer to travel light. I do have a traditional laptop bag full of crap, but only use that when travelling. I keep a power pack at home and dock at work. My usual transport is a portfolio case so my travelling weight is about 4 pounds. What is the point of a small laptop if you put it in a ten plus pound bag o crap.
> 3) The prices of Apple Laptops *ARE* comparable to Thinkpads. I'm not certain where you get the idea that they aren't. > Take this page and this page as examples. The prices line up pretty well, but in every instance the Thinkpad has a > slower processor, less memory, and a smaller hard drive for the same price.
Or lets not. The current X series is kinda crappy. Besides it isn't honest to compare the tiny X series to big honking Powerbooks. Instead compare the T series to Powerbooks. Bottom Powerbook is 1.5GhzG4/512MB/80GB HDD for $1,499 vs the Thinkpad with 1.73GhzP3M/512MB/60GB HDD for $1,399. The Mac does get DVD burning, better 3D video acceleration and a bigger HDD to balance against the slower CPU, smaller screen and the extra $100 sticker price. And this sort of price parity is a fairly new thing. Things have traditionally been MUCH more unbalanced and IBM themselves is a very premium brand experience.
> That's not such a good dock. I've used several docks....
I know. Of course it works perfectly under the "other" PC operating system. Grr. But docking is convienient. A bigger screen, a proper IBM Model M keyboard, Logitech three button mouse (No wheel!) sound system, power, etc by just dropping in in the dock. Apple needs to realize that docking isn't optional for a lot of business environments.
> In any case, I understand you have a preference for IBM because that's what you've been using. But I honestly don't > think that many of your criticisms are all that accurate and are probably colored by a lack of experience with the > platform.
Only for portables do I prefer IBM. Toshiba also makes nice laptops and I have used them. (They also have nipple mice and docks on much of their business lines) For desktops I prefer the ones I build myself. No crappy parts, no overbuying components I will never use, solid Linux compatibility, etc.
But the big reason for not buying Apple is I just don't like OS X. It isn't UNIX, doesn't really try and probably never will. Yes you can strip away most of the Apple cruft from the BSD guts but it would be easier to just load a pure BSD or Yellow Dog. But none of those work very well on current Apple kit and if you are going to have to fight to install there is at least a lot more information available for PCs.
> Better go take a look (no, that would be harder than just assuming it's a pile of crap and feeling all smug and big). > Since before OS X 10.0, ditto could be used to duplicate a drive exactly (including resource forks). In 10.4, cp, tar, > cpio, etc join it. Want to make a bootable copy? bless. Been there for years, command line only as you say.
Yes, I know about bless and yes it isn't any more different than lilo or grub. But cp, tar and cpio drop the resource forks and THAT isn't acceptable. Kinda like the situation with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 & 4. tar and cpio no longer work, basically for the same reason (ACLs, used by Samba and SELinux) but they include a version of star that does backup everything, and they also made sure a vital tool like cp actually copies the whole freaking file. But most importantly they documented it all in the README.
On the other hand, Apple didn't care. If they have finally fixed this gaping hole in their system for 10.4 that is good news. But it still makes me think they don't really care about UNIX users since it took them YEARS to get around to it. And at any rate it was far too late for me when I was making my decision in Fall 03.
> There are still quite a few, though. I'm thinking those are the people who haven't > yet pulled their heads out and realized that OS X isn't the same thing as OS 9.
I have used OS X a bit. UNIX it ain't. When you can use tar, cpio or hell, ANY command line tool to back one up and get a usable machine back, I'll look at it again.
And when I can buy a decent laptop for a reasonable price, I'll take another look at a Mac. But overpriced with a one button pad just doesn't get me excited. Gimme a 'nipple mouse' with a proper complement of three buttons on a machine with the build quality of a Thinkpad for a comparable price and I'll look. Comparing to Apple to Dell is damning with faint praise.
> All I can say is, once you go Mac OS X, everything else seems inferior. And I > mean EVERYTHING.:-)
Bull. Been there, tried that. Played with a couple of macs, desktop and laptops. When it was time to pick a new laptop I was told I could have either flavor, I asked for another Thinkpad. Besides, 3.8 pounds is a form factor Apple couldn't touch. A notebook computer that is actually about the size and weight of a notebook, imagine that.
Yes I fought hardware support pre and post sales, goes with the territory. But doing my research pre sales and specing the Cisco 350 wireless instead of the Intel shit means I have proper wireless support without trying to shoehorn a Windows.dll in. The only glitches I still have are dock related. No hot or warm docking/undocking, CD drive accesses at only 4X (on the dock) and the USB ports on the dock don't work. But no Powerbook has a dock anyway, another strike against a Mac.
Firefox is a commercial branded product looking to make co marketing deals for the initial bookmarks and such. I wouldn't give them a dime. They are even ordering me to remove Firefox from my RHEL rebuild distro because I don't have permission to use their precious trademark. Feh. So the next WBEL4 release will have Iceweasel in instead. Just not getting in a hurry to to the rebranding work because 1) I don't like getting rolled by buttweasels and 2) I was kinda hoping for consensus among the Free Software community on a new name. Iceweasel is what the Debian folk have been half jokingly suggesting calling it if Firefox does more than rattle their sabers at em, but for now they seem to think the best course is ignoring em and hope they just go away.
And forget passing out customized copies either. Even Speakeasy couldn't do it, instead they pass out a little plugin to install after Firefox to accomplish their cusomizations. As for me at my public library, since Netscape doesn't appear to be going to release a Netscape Communicator Customization Kit for the current release, my choices for our next setup CD (we have two dozen public access dialups) is either a setup doc walking an end user through Firefox, Thunderbird and local customizations for both (support nightmare!) or trying to get a Windows devel box up and building a customized Seamonkey when it finally comes out of Alpha. Double Bleh!
If the Seamonkey guys are hard up for cash though, I'd gladly toss THEM a few bux to keep the caffine flowing in their veins. They are our best hope for getting a 100% Free browser at this point.
> I would love to think the SCOTUS would overturn Wickard, but I haven't done anything like > enough [insert hallucinogenic drug here] today.
Patience. Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito make four. Stevens in 85. If he has the decency to go in the next couple of years we will finally have five Justices who can read.
Although Scalia did go the wrong way on the last clear cut Commerce Clause case, his logic was such that it probably wouldn't apply outside that one case. Besides, I suspect he just didn't want to make a balls to the wall push that would destroy all civility in the Supreme Court just to 'let some hippies in California smoke dope.' Because lets be realistic, had that case went the other way the only logical endpoint was gutting the Controlled Substances Act. And once it fell, the lid would be off on the thousands of other illegal laws Congress has passed over the last hundred or so years; all falsely justified by the Commerce Clause. We are talking a single stroke of a judicial pen that would set off a reorganization of American society that would make Roe v. Wade seem like a trivial detail.
> But the problem is not technical - the board would be illegal.
Ah, but that is the beauty of the situation. Since any attempt to outlaw the millions of boards already in the field would be a non-starter, they really can't try outlawing mere possession of an unlicensed encoder. Nope, they will go for their old standby and only try to outlaw importation and sales. And because of the nature of our form of government, Congress lacks the power to outlaw sales so they will go for their old standby and invoke the Commerce Clause, forbidding unFritzed boards to be sold in "Interstate Commerce". But neighbors selling to neighbors aren't engaged in Interstate Commerce and we are about to have a majority on the Supreme Court who can actually read. Interesting times ahead.
Even if they were willing to ignore the millions of video capture products already in the field, there ain't no way they can outlaw making more.
They could outlaw boxed solutions in stores, but just how do you outlaw a high speed analog to digital converter chip? If you can't do that you can't stop open source solutions. Ok, we don't have all in one tuner/encoder boards, but stick a high speed ADC on a PCI card and run a VCR's video out plug into it. IR output on a serial port to control the tuner and some software based DSP code to crunch video frames out of the datastream. By the time the existing supply of tuner cards and PVR cards dried up a lowball CPU should be more than enough to do the DSP work. Or hell, stick a generic programmable array logic chip out on the PCI board with that ADC and you can relieve the load from the CPU. Stick a tuner module off of a cable modem in there and you have a Video capture board. Think they can stop em from coming in, even as kits? After all, pick the components right and you could have a kit version. They probably can't outlaw the etched PCB. Just pick parts that don't require surface mount soldering skills and you get a nice garage business model.
> I would expect the case, and as others have mentioned kb, mouse, joystick, monitor, etc. to be included. > The system is not much use without that stuff.
Well an keyboard & mouse is only $10 for the set just about anywhere. Add another $10 if you want an optical mouse. But speakers do seem to be something gamers fret about as is the display.
If this was a 'toss together a gaming box from stuff in your discard pile' piece then there should have been lots of things different about this article. If you have a decent case you should have the P/S already in it. Probably a few sticks of older PC333 or PC266 memory also, maybe only 256MB total, but hey, we are building on the cheap, right? Ditto on having an older sub 100GB hard drive and non-burner optical drive lying around handy.
Point is this piece is clueless, first off by not defining the target well enough to be useful.
Uh huh. A gaming machine that doesn't run Windows? Or are they just yo ho ho pirates at Tom's and expecting everyone to be loading it up from the bootleg.iso of Windows XP Corporate Edition that 'everybody' has in their shoebox of warez?
Add that line item in and to stay on budget will require some drastic downsizing in everything else.
Oh, and I know they only cost $20 sans P/S but they also forgot a case. Idiots.
> The conclusion is that social activists are modders too. They want to change the > government into something that supports a productive society. They want institutions > to stop hiding facts and to pay attention to science. They want to change corporations, > change people's day-to-day behavior, and change our own social relationships.
Oh bullshit. YOU may THINK you are promoting that in YOUR activism. Other equally activist folk are promoting very different things. So stop projecting your own political notions on everyone else and pretending it is the only possible viewpoint.
Typical slashdot twaddle, what passes for politics and philosophy here isn't even cereal box pop philosophy. Bah!
> The best office package I've used is Lotus Smart Suite. I'd be glad to pay a three digit > sum for a cross-plattform version (Linux/OS X/Win) of that office package.
I'd drop $99 for SmartSuite without thinking. At $199 I'd think a bit, maybe bitch and moan a little and then pay up. But IBM can't bring themselves to invest any money into it and they can't just set it free either. So it languishes in limbo becoming more obsolete year by year until it's value will slide to zero.
> It doesn't matter how reputable the source is. You should always check their research > before you accept their claims as conclusive.
Not in the real world. In the real world there are various constraints, mainly time. There simply isn't enough time to track down and verify every statement everyone makes. Therefore it is very helpful to be able to cull out the known cranks, crackpots and axe grinders.
That said, Captain Obvious over at ZDNet isn't exactly leaking classified information when he says OO.o is a bloated C++ (and since C++ isn't bad enough, Sun is adding extra Java suckiness!) horror and slow as molasses in January. Being pro Open Source doesn't mean we have to pretend OO.o doesn't need some serious performance tuning. The miracle is they shipped the feature set in 2.0 at all, now they need to stop adding features for awhile and make them work right.
> nothing makes me aware of how much I need to upgrade my processor like starting OpenOffice.
That was the old deal between Microsoft and Intel. Microsoft would release software that would be ever more bloated and slow to drive sales of new hardware. But they haven't been keeping their end of the deal at Microsoft these last few years. XP was more bloated than 98/ME but not by enough to justify a 3+ GHz Processor. Of course ANYONE who makes a deal with Microsoft eventually gets shafted, it is just in their nature.
But still, Intel can't afford to overly annoy Microsoft even after they got shafted by them yet again by Microsoft picking IBM/Power for the Xbox 360 over Intel.
But I am suprised they aren't quietly pushing OO.o on exactly the ground you mention, that widespread adoption of it would be just the ticket to drive a round of hardware upgrades.
> Hard disk space is doubling every 6 months - wait 5 years and you'll be able to buy...
Which is of course something to factor into any plans. The original question said they need 25TB now and 1PB later. So one big part of the plan should be upsizing the drives in the existing arrays in the future instead of just growing more racks.
> I am sure that is what Germany thought. It is almost like several countries could create some sort of aliance...
Yea, like. Europe is infantalized and sliding into chaos as the chickens come home to roost with their socialist welfare states. They probably lack the military strength now to defend themselves and that will only get worse. Projecting military power is no longer an option for them.
China has numbers aplenty but is likely to lack the ability to field significant quantities of modern military hardware for another couple of decades. And lacking a navy they would also have a hard time projecting military power in any sort of meaningful way.
Russia was always a third world country with fusion bombs. They might get it together and rejoin the list of 'countries that matter' in a few decades but they ain't there now. So who is left? Not much. Scary ain't it. If we go rogue there probably isn't going to be somebody out there that can stop us like we could stop Germany when they went mad. So lets work really hard on making sure we don't go off the deep end.
> ICANN had all but approved the.XXX domain but because a few Christian groups complained...
Good for them, even a stopped clock is right twice a day..xxx was THE most stupid idea to come down the pike in a decade. So I really don't care who finally managed to get it put on hold, so long as it NEVER, EVER goes live as a tld. It would literally be the end of the Internet as we have known it.
In a single stroke it would transform the Internet from a free and open instuition into one that was mandated by law to be child safe..xxx would be banned universally yet all objectionable (read as not fit for a five year old) content would be forced to.xxx to avoid lawsuits. No, let us instead create.kids and lock the kiddies browswer to only go there.
> Just remember, for every person that agrees with you, there are another two that would > tell you that one of the several rising-star countries could take our place and we > would become like China was a few decades ago.
No they couldn't take our place. If China rises to supplant the US then we get the new Dark Age I was referring to. They don't even pretend to be a Free Society as Western Civilization understands the word, so their rise would herald the fall of civilization as we understand it.
Perhaps India could safely assume the mantle of Guardian of the Civilization in another 25-50 years but there really isn't any other viable candidates at the moment. If we cease our current protective role the two alternatives are barbarian hordes from the Middle East or China or worse, our own iron legions unleashed across the globe depending on which bad turn we take.
> George Bush has, by himself, already given enough of the UN reason to doubt our future.
Oh boo hoo. I don't doubt the UN, I know them to be a corrupt and morally bankrupt instituition worthy only of being torn down and replaced with something less disfunctional by design.
As for Europe, I understand fully why they hate us so. Because to do otherwise would be to face a very uncomfortable Truth. That we ARE the lone defender of civilization manning the ramparts against the hordes of darkness and that they couldn't help us even if they woke up and smelled the coffee because they long ago surrendered both their military capacity to do so and the moral authority to even try.
> Our (US) government is not perpetual, and any system can fall. If it did, the rest of > the world wouldn't want the internet governed by whatever restriction could come about > in such a case.
Don't worry about the root DNS servers if the US ever completes it's slide to socialism or lurches towards a police state. Just remember that the US of A is THE number one power on this planet and the implications of that. No, if we go over to the Dark Side I can personally promise everyone that they won't be worrying about what we order ICANN to do to the root name servers; no you guys will be far too busy cowering in terror from our war machine.
Which is why I prefer the root servers stay under the Dept of Commerce. Moving it to the UN has enormous downside potential and zero upside. So long as the US remains the lone force holding the line against the Darkness and defending Truth, Justice and Western Civilization there isn't a problem leaving ICANN in charge of DNS. Should we sucumb to the Darkness, lose the will to continue holding the line or be ultimately defeated by the barbarians, it just doesn't matter anymore because the whole world will slide into a new Dark Ages anyway.
Oh hell yes, lets do! If there is an area of our private lives that the Federal, State now local government can't find a way to micromanage for us, by all means lets bully private industry into doing it instead. I'm a fscking moron who could never make a sensible decision on my own so please have someone else make it for me.
Yea, right. The fact that crap like this makes the front page of slashdot instead of being silently deleted along with black helicopter chaser posts that I'm sure they get a hundred of every day tells me this stupid idea isn't being seen as stupid by nearly enough people.... so expect it to be the next 'big thing' in freedom reduction by the leftist moonbat activists.
> A judge or two ruling otherwise does NOT change the law.
Of course not.... unless they are on the Supreme Court, then whatever they say IS law. Until the Congress finally tires of having its powers usurped and starts Impeaching rogue Justices who exceed their mandated role as impartial judges. Most currently sitting Justices (and past ones of the previous century or so) have flagrently violated their oath of office and should rightly be removed from office. Haven't caught Scalia or Thomas at it and since Roberts has yet to sign onto a ruling he gets a pass; the others are all in violation of their Oath on at least one occasion.
> now those of us that do not run a popular rpm based distro are forced to fight our way > into installing it.
Good riddence. This isn't the early 90s anymore and package management is mandatory on machines not in someone's dorm and most of those are running Gentoo; which does package management.
For a major package like OO.o the best source should be your distribution itself. If yours doesn't have a package for OO.o 2.0 yet just wait a bit, most will probably roll one soon enough.
Ok, I read the page and the commentary already posted on/. and I'm still confused.
1. Who is the target market for this product? It is a software renderer. Might be faster than Mesa but is still going to run like a dog for any real world use. After all, just how many people have flaming P4s or A64s and a 2D only framebuffer? I suspect a Radeon 9200 with the 3d support in x.org would outperform this product.
2. Since the answer to the first question is almost certainly going to describe a fairly small group, even among the/. crowd, why is this ad for a niche commercial product that only runs on Windows (runs under Cedega doesn't count as it is also a commercial product) on slashdot as an article instead of a paid advertisement?
Slashdot Mirror
> Maybe it's just because of the large installed base of x86 machines.
Got it in one try. Anyone interested in actually using this thing has a spare PC to load FC4 on, almost none has a spare top of the line PowerMac in the closet. Heck, most don't have a top of the line Powermac period.
> OK, I give up. What other reason is there?
Guess some people ride the short bus. I said it on the parent post, lemme say it again, only more brutally.
Evil corporations trying to dictate one sided terms are always a bad idea. Apple shouldn't be able to artifically tie their hardware and OS using DRM. Sony shouldn't be using DRM on music cds. The DVD CCA shouldn't be using DRM to tie DVDs so they can only play on approved players in approved places. Etc. Etc. Almost everyone reading Slashdot understands this in their bones, except for Apple fanboys giving Apple a pass on accepted codes of moral behavior.
If I want a big assed pimped machine or a tiny little EPIA, it isn't my OS vendor's business. I have no problem if Apple decides that supporting the horrific diversity of PC hardware is beyond them and only supports the short list of hardware they actually sell. But forbidding third parties to support their hardware under OS X is going too far, using the DMCA on em crosses the line to evil.
And if you still don't understand, imagine the borg doing exactly what Apple is doing. Imagine they tied Shorthorn to a new line of Microsoft PCs with the same TCPA tricks. Imagine how fast they would end up in court again.
> Why is Slashdot so obsessed with cracking OS X to run it on generic x86 machines..
:(
Ah, Apple fanboys.
I suspect a lot of people would want to do it to have Apple's supposedly superior OS on a) the totally adaquate hardware the person already owns and b) on the unquestionably superior variety of PC hardware. With Apple you get to pick from a couple of desktops, a couple of laptops and one or two servers. In PC land, Dell has more choices of hardware and they are only one of hundreds of PC vendors to pick from, including parting out your dream machine from your fav online vendors.
Personally I don't see the point, but I then I don't particularly like OS X or Apple. I want UNIX, Apple is close but no bananna. My opinion of em is based on OS X 10.0 though, if I could plunk down a C note and try the current version on my existing box I'd probably give em another look just to be current. But I ain't buying a whole PC with all the side costs that entails just to look. And unlike most potential Apple customers I even have a KVM switch at home.
Then again, I'm not a typical customer. Would never make an unfree OS my primary work environment. I will still play with unfree stuff but I'm RMS pure enough to never depend on the stuff for anything important.
> What makes you think you can't? That's pretty much what support does when they need to send your machine somewhere
> where they might reformat it. Bootloader issues still apply, but that's true of any OS.
Because it won't freaking work. Been there, tried that. Another poster says it has finally been fixed for 10.4. If so, it took em long enough but they have finally removed that roadblock to adoption.
> 1) I hate nipple mice. A *REAL* mouse is a trackball, but they don't make those in laptops anymore. I usually
> carry a small optical, USB mouse in my pack for when I set up at a desk.
I like the nipple pointer enough that I usually don't bother with an external mouse. Especially since I prefer to travel light. I do have a traditional laptop bag full of crap, but only use that when travelling. I keep a power pack at home and dock at work. My usual transport is a portfolio case so my travelling weight is about 4 pounds. What is the point of a small laptop if you put it in a ten plus pound bag o crap.
> 3) The prices of Apple Laptops *ARE* comparable to Thinkpads. I'm not certain where you get the idea that they aren't.
> Take this page and this page as examples. The prices line up pretty well, but in every instance the Thinkpad has a
> slower processor, less memory, and a smaller hard drive for the same price.
Or lets not. The current X series is kinda crappy. Besides it isn't honest to compare the tiny X series to big honking Powerbooks. Instead compare the T series to Powerbooks. Bottom Powerbook is 1.5GhzG4/512MB/80GB HDD for $1,499 vs the Thinkpad with 1.73GhzP3M/512MB/60GB HDD for $1,399. The Mac does get DVD burning, better 3D video acceleration and a bigger HDD to balance against the slower CPU, smaller screen and the extra $100 sticker price. And this sort of price parity is a fairly new thing. Things have traditionally been MUCH more unbalanced and IBM themselves is a very premium brand experience.
> That's not such a good dock. I've used several docks....
I know. Of course it works perfectly under the "other" PC operating system. Grr. But docking is convienient. A bigger screen, a proper IBM Model M keyboard, Logitech three button mouse (No wheel!) sound system, power, etc by just dropping in in the dock. Apple needs to realize that docking isn't optional for a lot of business environments.
> In any case, I understand you have a preference for IBM because that's what you've been using. But I honestly don't
> think that many of your criticisms are all that accurate and are probably colored by a lack of experience with the
> platform.
Only for portables do I prefer IBM. Toshiba also makes nice laptops and I have used them. (They also have nipple mice and docks on much of their business lines) For desktops I prefer the ones I build myself. No crappy parts, no overbuying components I will never use, solid Linux compatibility, etc.
But the big reason for not buying Apple is I just don't like OS X. It isn't UNIX, doesn't really try and probably never will. Yes you can strip away most of the Apple cruft from the BSD guts but it would be easier to just load a pure BSD or Yellow Dog. But none of those work very well on current Apple kit and if you are going to have to fight to install there is at least a lot more information available for PCs.
> Better go take a look (no, that would be harder than just assuming it's a pile of crap and feeling all smug and big).
> Since before OS X 10.0, ditto could be used to duplicate a drive exactly (including resource forks). In 10.4, cp, tar,
> cpio, etc join it. Want to make a bootable copy? bless. Been there for years, command line only as you say.
Yes, I know about bless and yes it isn't any more different than lilo or grub. But cp, tar and cpio drop the resource forks and THAT isn't acceptable. Kinda like the situation with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 & 4. tar and cpio no longer work, basically for the same reason (ACLs, used by Samba and SELinux) but they include a version of star that does backup everything, and they also made sure a vital tool like cp actually copies the whole freaking file. But most importantly they documented it all in the README.
On the other hand, Apple didn't care. If they have finally fixed this gaping hole in their system for 10.4 that is good news. But it still makes me think they don't really care about UNIX users since it took them YEARS to get around to it. And at any rate it was far too late for me when I was making my decision in Fall 03.
> There are still quite a few, though. I'm thinking those are the people who haven't
:-)
.dll in. The only glitches I still have are dock related. No hot or warm docking/undocking, CD drive accesses at only 4X (on the dock) and the USB ports on the dock don't work. But no Powerbook has a dock anyway, another strike against a Mac.
> yet pulled their heads out and realized that OS X isn't the same thing as OS 9.
I have used OS X a bit. UNIX it ain't. When you can use tar, cpio or hell, ANY command line tool to back one up and get a usable machine back, I'll look at it again.
And when I can buy a decent laptop for a reasonable price, I'll take another look at a Mac. But overpriced with a one button pad just doesn't get me excited. Gimme a 'nipple mouse' with a proper complement of three buttons on a machine with the build quality of a Thinkpad for a comparable price and I'll look. Comparing to Apple to Dell is damning with faint praise.
> All I can say is, once you go Mac OS X, everything else seems inferior. And I
> mean EVERYTHING.
Bull. Been there, tried that. Played with a couple of macs, desktop and laptops. When it was time to pick a new laptop I was told I could have either flavor, I asked for another Thinkpad. Besides, 3.8 pounds is a form factor Apple couldn't touch. A notebook computer that is actually about the size and weight of a notebook, imagine that.
Yes I fought hardware support pre and post sales, goes with the territory. But doing my research pre sales and specing the Cisco 350 wireless instead of the Intel shit means I have proper wireless support without trying to shoehorn a Windows
Firefox is a commercial branded product looking to make co marketing deals for the initial bookmarks and such. I wouldn't give them a dime. They are even ordering me to remove Firefox from my RHEL rebuild distro because I don't have permission to use their precious trademark. Feh. So the next WBEL4 release will have Iceweasel in instead. Just not getting in a hurry to to the rebranding work because 1) I don't like getting rolled by buttweasels and 2) I was kinda hoping for consensus among the Free Software community on a new name. Iceweasel is what the Debian folk have been half jokingly suggesting calling it if Firefox does more than rattle their sabers at em, but for now they seem to think the best course is ignoring em and hope they just go away.
And forget passing out customized copies either. Even Speakeasy couldn't do it, instead they pass out a little plugin to install after Firefox to accomplish their cusomizations. As for me at my public library, since Netscape doesn't appear to be going to release a Netscape Communicator Customization Kit for the current release, my choices for our next setup CD (we have two dozen public access dialups) is either a setup doc walking an end user through Firefox, Thunderbird and local customizations for both (support nightmare!) or trying to get a Windows devel box up and building a customized Seamonkey when it finally comes out of Alpha. Double Bleh!
If the Seamonkey guys are hard up for cash though, I'd gladly toss THEM a few bux to keep the caffine flowing in their veins. They are our best hope for getting a 100% Free browser at this point.
> I would love to think the SCOTUS would overturn Wickard, but I haven't done anything like
> enough [insert hallucinogenic drug here] today.
Patience. Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito make four. Stevens in 85. If he has the decency to go in the next couple of years we will finally have five Justices who can read.
Although Scalia did go the wrong way on the last clear cut Commerce Clause case, his logic was such that it probably wouldn't apply outside that one case. Besides, I suspect he just didn't want to make a balls to the wall push that would destroy all civility in the Supreme Court just to 'let some hippies in California smoke dope.' Because lets be realistic, had that case went the other way the only logical endpoint was gutting the Controlled Substances Act. And once it fell, the lid would be off on the thousands of other illegal laws Congress has passed over the last hundred or so years; all falsely justified by the Commerce Clause. We are talking a single stroke of a judicial pen that would set off a reorganization of American society that would make Roe v. Wade seem like a trivial detail.
> But the problem is not technical - the board would be illegal.
Ah, but that is the beauty of the situation. Since any attempt to outlaw the millions of boards already in the field would be a non-starter, they really can't try outlawing mere possession of an unlicensed encoder. Nope, they will go for their old standby and only try to outlaw importation and sales. And because of the nature of our form of government, Congress lacks the power to outlaw sales so they will go for their old standby and invoke the Commerce Clause, forbidding unFritzed boards to be sold in "Interstate Commerce". But neighbors selling to neighbors aren't engaged in Interstate Commerce and we are about to have a majority on the Supreme Court who can actually read. Interesting times ahead.
Even if they were willing to ignore the millions of video capture products already in the field, there ain't no way they can outlaw making more.
They could outlaw boxed solutions in stores, but just how do you outlaw a high speed analog to digital converter chip? If you can't do that you can't stop open source solutions. Ok, we don't have all in one tuner/encoder boards, but stick a high speed ADC on a PCI card and run a VCR's video out plug into it. IR output on a serial port to control the tuner and some software based DSP code to crunch video frames out of the datastream. By the time the existing supply of tuner cards and PVR cards dried up a lowball CPU should be more than enough to do the DSP work. Or hell, stick a generic programmable array logic chip out on the PCI board with that ADC and you can relieve the load from the CPU. Stick a tuner module off of a cable modem in there and you have a Video capture board. Think they can stop em from coming in, even as kits? After all, pick the components right and you could have a kit version. They probably can't outlaw the etched PCB. Just pick parts that don't require surface mount soldering skills and you get a nice garage business model.
> I would expect the case, and as others have mentioned kb, mouse, joystick, monitor, etc. to be included.
> The system is not much use without that stuff.
Well an keyboard & mouse is only $10 for the set just about anywhere. Add another $10 if you want an optical mouse. But speakers do seem to be something gamers fret about as is the display.
If this was a 'toss together a gaming box from stuff in your discard pile' piece then there should have been lots of things different about this article. If you have a decent case you should have the P/S already in it. Probably a few sticks of older PC333 or PC266 memory also, maybe only 256MB total, but hey, we are building on the cheap, right? Ditto on having an older sub 100GB hard drive and non-burner optical drive lying around handy.
Point is this piece is clueless, first off by not defining the target well enough to be useful.
Uh huh. A gaming machine that doesn't run Windows? Or are they just yo ho ho pirates at Tom's and expecting everyone to be loading it up from the bootleg .iso of Windows XP Corporate Edition that 'everybody' has in their shoebox of warez?
Add that line item in and to stay on budget will require some drastic downsizing in everything else.
Oh, and I know they only cost $20 sans P/S but they also forgot a case. Idiots.
> The conclusion is that social activists are modders too. They want to change the
> government into something that supports a productive society. They want institutions
> to stop hiding facts and to pay attention to science. They want to change corporations,
> change people's day-to-day behavior, and change our own social relationships.
Oh bullshit. YOU may THINK you are promoting that in YOUR activism. Other equally activist folk are promoting very different things. So stop projecting your own political notions on everyone else and pretending it is the only possible viewpoint.
Typical slashdot twaddle, what passes for politics and philosophy here isn't even cereal box pop philosophy. Bah!
> The best office package I've used is Lotus Smart Suite. I'd be glad to pay a three digit
> sum for a cross-plattform version (Linux/OS X/Win) of that office package.
I'd drop $99 for SmartSuite without thinking. At $199 I'd think a bit, maybe bitch and moan a little and then pay up. But IBM can't bring themselves to invest any money into it and they can't just set it free either. So it languishes in limbo becoming more obsolete year by year until it's value will slide to zero.
> It doesn't matter how reputable the source is. You should always check their research
> before you accept their claims as conclusive.
Not in the real world. In the real world there are various constraints, mainly time. There simply isn't enough time to track down and verify every statement everyone makes. Therefore it is very helpful to be able to cull out the known cranks, crackpots and axe grinders.
That said, Captain Obvious over at ZDNet isn't exactly leaking classified information when he says OO.o is a bloated C++ (and since C++ isn't bad enough, Sun is adding extra Java suckiness!) horror and slow as molasses in January. Being pro Open Source doesn't mean we have to pretend OO.o doesn't need some serious performance tuning. The miracle is they shipped the feature set in 2.0 at all, now they need to stop adding features for awhile and make them work right.
> nothing makes me aware of how much I need to upgrade my processor like starting OpenOffice.
That was the old deal between Microsoft and Intel. Microsoft would release software that would be ever more bloated and slow to drive sales of new hardware. But they haven't been keeping their end of the deal at Microsoft these last few years. XP was more bloated than 98/ME but not by enough to justify a 3+ GHz Processor. Of course ANYONE who makes a deal with Microsoft eventually gets shafted, it is just in their nature.
But still, Intel can't afford to overly annoy Microsoft even after they got shafted by them yet again by Microsoft picking IBM/Power for the Xbox 360 over Intel.
But I am suprised they aren't quietly pushing OO.o on exactly the ground you mention, that widespread adoption of it would be just the ticket to drive a round of hardware upgrades.
> Hard disk space is doubling every 6 months - wait 5 years and you'll be able to buy...
Which is of course something to factor into any plans. The original question said they need 25TB now and 1PB later. So one big part of the plan should be upsizing the drives in the existing arrays in the future instead of just growing more racks.
> I am sure that is what Germany thought. It is almost like several countries could create some sort of aliance...
Yea, like. Europe is infantalized and sliding into chaos as the chickens come home to roost with their socialist welfare states. They probably lack the military strength now to defend themselves and that will only get worse. Projecting military power is no longer an option for them.
China has numbers aplenty but is likely to lack the ability to field significant quantities of modern military hardware for another couple of decades. And lacking a navy they would also have a hard time projecting military power in any sort of meaningful way.
Russia was always a third world country with fusion bombs. They might get it together and rejoin the list of 'countries that matter' in a few decades but they ain't there now. So who is left? Not much. Scary ain't it. If we go rogue there probably isn't going to be somebody out there that can stop us like we could stop Germany when they went mad. So lets work really hard on making sure we don't go off the deep end.
> ICANN had all but approved the .XXX domain but because a few Christian groups complained...
.xxx was THE most stupid idea to come down the pike in a decade. So I really don't care who finally managed to get it put on hold, so long as it NEVER, EVER goes live as a tld. It would literally be the end of the Internet as we have known it.
.xxx would be banned universally yet all objectionable (read as not fit for a five year old) content would be forced to .xxx to avoid lawsuits. No, let us instead create .kids and lock the kiddies browswer to only go there.
Good for them, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
In a single stroke it would transform the Internet from a free and open instuition into one that was mandated by law to be child safe.
> Just remember, for every person that agrees with you, there are another two that would
> tell you that one of the several rising-star countries could take our place and we
> would become like China was a few decades ago.
No they couldn't take our place. If China rises to supplant the US then we get the new Dark Age I was referring to. They don't even pretend to be a Free Society as Western Civilization understands the word, so their rise would herald the fall of civilization as we understand it.
Perhaps India could safely assume the mantle of Guardian of the Civilization in another 25-50 years but there really isn't any other viable candidates at the moment. If we cease our current protective role the two alternatives are barbarian hordes from the Middle East or China or worse, our own iron legions unleashed across the globe depending on which bad turn we take.
> George Bush has, by himself, already given enough of the UN reason to doubt our future.
Oh boo hoo. I don't doubt the UN, I know them to be a corrupt and morally bankrupt instituition worthy only of being torn down and replaced with something less disfunctional by design.
As for Europe, I understand fully why they hate us so. Because to do otherwise would be to face a very uncomfortable Truth. That we ARE the lone defender of civilization manning the ramparts against the hordes of darkness and that they couldn't help us even if they woke up and smelled the coffee because they long ago surrendered both their military capacity to do so and the moral authority to even try.
> Our (US) government is not perpetual, and any system can fall. If it did, the rest of
> the world wouldn't want the internet governed by whatever restriction could come about
> in such a case.
Don't worry about the root DNS servers if the US ever completes it's slide to socialism or lurches towards a police state. Just remember that the US of A is THE number one power on this planet and the implications of that. No, if we go over to the Dark Side I can personally promise everyone that they won't be worrying about what we order ICANN to do to the root name servers; no you guys will be far too busy cowering in terror from our war machine.
Which is why I prefer the root servers stay under the Dept of Commerce. Moving it to the UN has enormous downside potential and zero upside. So long as the US remains the lone force holding the line against the Darkness and defending Truth, Justice and Western Civilization there isn't a problem leaving ICANN in charge of DNS. Should we sucumb to the Darkness, lose the will to continue holding the line or be ultimately defeated by the barbarians, it just doesn't matter anymore because the whole world will slide into a new Dark Ages anyway.
Oh hell yes, lets do! If there is an area of our private lives that the Federal, State now local government can't find a way to micromanage for us, by all means lets bully private industry into doing it instead. I'm a fscking moron who could never make a sensible decision on my own so please have someone else make it for me.
Yea, right. The fact that crap like this makes the front page of slashdot instead of being silently deleted along with black helicopter chaser posts that I'm sure they get a hundred of every day tells me this stupid idea isn't being seen as stupid by nearly enough people.... so expect it to be the next 'big thing' in freedom reduction by the leftist moonbat activists.
> A judge or two ruling otherwise does NOT change the law.
Of course not.... unless they are on the Supreme Court, then whatever they say IS law. Until the Congress finally tires of having its powers usurped and starts Impeaching rogue Justices who exceed their mandated role as impartial judges. Most currently sitting Justices (and past ones of the previous century or so) have flagrently violated their oath of office and should rightly be removed from office. Haven't caught Scalia or Thomas at it and since Roberts has yet to sign onto a ruling he gets a pass; the others are all in violation of their Oath on at least one occasion.
> now those of us that do not run a popular rpm based distro are forced to fight our way
> into installing it.
Good riddence. This isn't the early 90s anymore and package management is mandatory on machines not in someone's dorm and most of those are running Gentoo; which does package management.
For a major package like OO.o the best source should be your distribution itself. If yours doesn't have a package for OO.o 2.0 yet just wait a bit, most will probably roll one soon enough.
Ok, I read the page and the commentary already posted on /. and I'm still confused.
/. crowd, why is this ad for a niche commercial product that only runs on Windows (runs under Cedega doesn't count as it is also a commercial product) on slashdot as an article instead of a paid advertisement?
1. Who is the target market for this product? It is a software renderer. Might be faster than Mesa but is still going to run like a dog for any real world use. After all, just how many people have flaming P4s or A64s and a 2D only framebuffer? I suspect a Radeon 9200 with the 3d support in x.org would outperform this product.
2. Since the answer to the first question is almost certainly going to describe a fairly small group, even among the