Closed drivers do suck, and they hamper the idea of open-source software.
You know, the argument about closed-source drivers and "the idea of open source" is getting old.
If I'd want a religiously open system, I'd be running debian. Oh well, I couldn't play the games I paid for, but I'd be running a 100% GPL'ed box, so I should be happy with it, right?
Since those games are closed source as well, that would be fine, ok, right?
What I want is a system that does what I want, the way I want it to (which in my case happens to mean linux, YMMV), and which lets me do the things I want to do (which in my case means installing the closed-source nvidia drivers).
Open code means that bugs can, and will, get fixed quicker.
Sure. Then explain why there are so many OSS projects where you can find bugs in the respective bugtrackers that haven't even been acknowledged after several years, and three-figure number of comments from people who stumbled over the same thing? Hunt the mozilla and kde bugtrackers for any number of examples.
To sum it up, I'm happy with linux as it is, and I'm perfectly fine with the one or other closed-source thing on my box, be it a driver, or any commercial app like moneyplex or the dozen or so games where I've happily bought the linux version.
oh, and a word to the plan9 advocates... I can't see any reason to install that. any at all.
Sounds like BeOS to me... good idea, dies (or shrinks to insificance) due to lack of apps and users. Happened to OS/2 as well, which was a shame.
Over here, any "normal" audio CD (normal, as in "mainstream, not some rare collectors import"), costs an average of 15 euro. Thats as much as CDs did cost back in the 80ies when the CD itself was brand new technology, and during the 90ies you could buy actual titles (not "CBS best price" titles) for (converted) as low as 5 euro...
well the one i'm going to buy in the next few months should work anywhere, its quad-band. A780, runs linux (not that i care as long as it WORKS), and some neat little gimmicks to boot: builtin GPS with a navigation software that has a "pedestrian mode" (whatever that is, i guess its a mode where it directs you straight through regions where a car wouldn't be allowed) comes with car mount + usb cable + 256mb flash chip loaded with the maps for your country bluetooth (my bluetooth handsfree will love that)
it seriously lacked content. I mean, it's basically a list of names, with screenshots.
but even though, okami (if it ever comes to.de, in german of course) might even put a ps2 on my shopping list.... together with katamari or what's it called...
Atheros chip, 54mbit, wep64, wep128, wpa (with wpa_supplicant), no need of ndiswrapper or similar bullshit, worked right out of the box on my suse 9.2, sells for around 30 euro over here in germany.
Sorry folks, but most of you do nothing but whine about the fact that you have been too stupid to follow the first golden rule of linux hardware support:
"Google first, buy later!"
No matter if its graphics cards, external usb hardware, or wireless networking, you can save yourself all the fiddling and trouble if you follow that rule, and look what's supported FIRST, then buy a piece of hardware where you can be sure that it works.
I've been following this rule for quite a while, and behold, the only time I was having hardware bellyache was with some kind of usb wlan stuff that I got because of the shop having confused my order somehow, and which I didnt send it back because I thought "a kit of 2 USB wlan dongles for the price of one 4port usb 1.1 hub, good deal."
Every other piece of hardware I bought has been googlechecked to be working on linux BEFORE I bought it, and with no exception has been working with little to no problems, right out of the box.
from what i've seen, it does sony's own ebook file format (which can be made DIY, sony offers tools to convert web pages and.txt files) as well as PDF files, so i could just put all of project gutenberg and schnoogle on it (with a choice selection of big SD cards) and be happy for the rest of my life... do any of you guys realize how inconvenient it is to read ebooks on your laptop when you're somewhere where handling a laptop is rather inconvenient?
TBH, i have somewhat close to 80 contacts in my IM app, with multiple contacts for the same person counted as one contact. When i cancelled my yahoo account, i lost contact with... noone. the TWO yahoo im contacts there were backup contacts of people on aim, icq, or jabber.
besides, all I ever got on yahoo was camwhore spam from bots. The same goes for yahoo mail, more or less.
to REALLY let you get straight what happened in my head:
- a bunch of scientists publishes a comic, which, given its scientifical nature, is not too bad, but lacking a certain entertainment value.
- a manga publisher who (as far as i can judge from what tokyopop.de, their german branch, does) so far has really published only manga and manwha links to it and calls it a manga
-/. makes it big news, also calling it manga
- i have a look, and find that its a comic, a not very good one, which doesnt even resemble the style generally used in mangas, and can't help to wonder why they call it a manga.
I mean, if someone would hand you a hors d'oevre but tell you it was sushi, would you think he's stupid?
reason: made in america by americans. manga is the japanese word for comic, so by definition its a manga when its made by japanese people, as well as manwha if its made by koreans.
putting that aside, its not even drawn manga-style.
putting that aside, its not even funny or entertaining.
yea, i had a Mk1 and a Mk2 as well, and loved it, until the shit hit the proverbial fan, which in my case meant getting to sit thru hour-long traffic jams three times in a row during one week because the socalled "RDS tuner" did not work properly, and they couldnt get it to work due to lack of RDS stations in the USA. reception was poor, support for RDS features, especially RDS-TA and RDS-AF was non-existent, and after I ebayed it off and got me a sony cd tuner combo that plays mp3 as well, i still had some serious cash left.
... i can freely say that the guy is seriously behind; webcomics have been around since '96 (the trophy for oldest webcomic that is still updated goes to http://www.sabrina-online.com/, closely followed by sluggy and user friendly).
So why does he notice only now?
You know, here in germany we have this term called "saure-gurken-zeit" (roughly translates as "pickled cucumbers period"), meaning this stretch during the summer where there are NO news at all, and the papers start publishing cooking recipes on their frontpages for lack of anything better to print...
... about time. didn't they promise those for ALL versions of windows that are still in maintenance?
a new searching mechanism
... some sort of process that always runs in the background, indexes ALL my files, eats up huge amounts of CPU time, RAM and disk space, and most likely chokes on any kind of file that is not written by a microsoft app? thanks, but i rather keep my stuff organized in directories and subdirectories, and use filenames that actually tell me whats inside those files.
lots of new laptop features
and those be? working suspend-to-ram? honestly, i can't think of "laptop features" in todays laptops that don't work with current windows versions.
parental controls
ok, now here's a point. "Parental control" is basically censorship. Now I don't say that it's bad per se. I have a 9yr old son myself, and I'm most likely the first to say that there are websites that are not... fit for non-mature audiences, but when you have a mechanism that blocks websites, do you really want to trust a company that is known for spreading FUD and other marketdroppings all over the place to control which websites you can see and which not? Or would you prefer your webbrowser block you from accessing kernel.org for example...
There will also be visual changes, thanks to Avalon, ranging from shiny translucent windows to icons that are tiny representations of a document itself.
Like X.org with the composite extension? Like KDE does it since when, last millennium?
Where's the point in that, other than having a reason to grab the latest geforce/radeon/$INSERT_HIGHEND_GFX_CARD_HERE?
Vista will be easier for businesses to deploy on multiple PCs and will also save costs by reducing the number of times computers will have to be rebooted.
So they finally admitted that the "unattended installation" is still a pain in the ass, and that rebooting after every software install even more so?
Slashdot Mirror
exactly.
katamari damacy (or rather, we love katamari) was the sole reason for me to get me a ps2.
You know, the argument about closed-source drivers and "the idea of open source" is getting old. If I'd want a religiously open system, I'd be running debian. Oh well, I couldn't play the games I paid for, but I'd be running a 100% GPL'ed box, so I should be happy with it, right? Since those games are closed source as well, that would be fine, ok, right? What I want is a system that does what I want, the way I want it to (which in my case happens to mean linux, YMMV), and which lets me do the things I want to do (which in my case means installing the closed-source nvidia drivers).
Sure. Then explain why there are so many OSS projects where you can find bugs in the respective bugtrackers that haven't even been acknowledged after several years, and three-figure number of comments from people who stumbled over the same thing? Hunt the mozilla and kde bugtrackers for any number of examples.
To sum it up, I'm happy with linux as it is, and I'm perfectly fine with the one or other closed-source thing on my box, be it a driver, or any commercial app like moneyplex or the dozen or so games where I've happily bought the linux version.
oh, and a word to the plan9 advocates... I can't see any reason to install that. any at all. Sounds like BeOS to me... good idea, dies (or shrinks to insificance) due to lack of apps and users. Happened to OS/2 as well, which was a shame.
what he said.
Over here, any "normal" audio CD (normal, as in "mainstream, not some rare collectors import"), costs an average of 15 euro. Thats as much as CDs did cost back in the 80ies when the CD itself was brand new technology, and during the 90ies you could buy actual titles (not "CBS best price" titles) for (converted) as low as 5 euro...
'nuff said.
'nuff said.
well the one i'm going to buy in the next few months should work anywhere, its quad-band.
A780, runs linux (not that i care as long as it WORKS), and some neat little gimmicks to boot:
builtin GPS with a navigation software that has a "pedestrian mode" (whatever that is, i guess its a mode where it directs you straight through regions where a car wouldn't be allowed)
comes with car mount + usb cable + 256mb flash chip loaded with the maps for your country
bluetooth (my bluetooth handsfree will love that)
it seriously lacked content. I mean, it's basically a list of names, with screenshots.
.de, in german of course) might even put a ps2 on my shopping list.... together with katamari or what's it called...
but even though, okami (if it ever comes to
so, for a "non-tech" person, reading the advertized specs of a notebook and finding the line "intel bg2200 wlan" is too hard?
i refuse to give any further comment here.
If you buy a laptop with built-in wifi... ...you hopefully have been buying one with intel 2100/2200 wifi which works just fine.
see my comment above.
Try to get a LevelOne WPC-0300.
Atheros chip, 54mbit, wep64, wep128, wpa (with wpa_supplicant), no need of ndiswrapper or similar bullshit, worked right out of the box on my suse 9.2, sells for around 30 euro over here in germany.
Sorry folks, but most of you do nothing but whine about the fact that you have been too stupid to follow the first golden rule of linux hardware support:
"Google first, buy later!"
No matter if its graphics cards, external usb hardware, or wireless networking, you can save yourself all the fiddling and trouble if you follow that rule, and look what's supported FIRST, then buy a piece of hardware where you can be sure that it works.
I've been following this rule for quite a while, and behold, the only time I was having hardware bellyache was with some kind of usb wlan stuff that I got because of the shop having confused my order somehow, and which I didnt send it back because I thought "a kit of 2 USB wlan dongles for the price of one 4port usb 1.1 hub, good deal."
Every other piece of hardware I bought has been googlechecked to be working on linux BEFORE I bought it, and with no exception has been working with little to no problems, right out of the box.
...and i SO want it.
.txt files) as well as PDF files, so i could just put all of project gutenberg and schnoogle on it (with a choice selection of big SD cards) and be happy for the rest of my life... do any of you guys realize how inconvenient it is to read ebooks on your laptop when you're somewhere where handling a laptop is rather inconvenient?
from what i've seen, it does sony's own ebook file format (which can be made DIY, sony offers tools to convert web pages and
happier, most likely.
TBH, i have somewhat close to 80 contacts in my IM app, with multiple contacts for the same person counted as one contact. When i cancelled my yahoo account, i lost contact with... noone. the TWO yahoo im contacts there were backup contacts of people on aim, icq, or jabber.
besides, all I ever got on yahoo was camwhore spam from bots. The same goes for yahoo mail, more or less.
I mean, how do you get 1nm visual resolution, when the wavelength of visual light ranges from 400-800 nm?
1. i have a region-free dvd player, and i prefer watching stuff on my tv.
2. i will not upgrade to vista anyways.
guess what?
yep. its simon.
seconded.
to REALLY let you get straight what happened in my head:
/. makes it big news, also calling it manga
- a bunch of scientists publishes a comic, which, given its scientifical nature, is not too bad, but lacking a certain entertainment value.
- a manga publisher who (as far as i can judge from what tokyopop.de, their german branch, does) so far has really published only manga and manwha links to it and calls it a manga
-
- i have a look, and find that its a comic, a not very good one, which doesnt even resemble the style generally used in mangas, and can't help to wonder why they call it a manga.
I mean, if someone would hand you a hors d'oevre but tell you it was sushi, would you think he's stupid?
reason: made in america by americans.
manga is the japanese word for comic, so by definition its a manga when its made by japanese people, as well as manwha if its made by koreans.
putting that aside, its not even drawn manga-style.
putting that aside, its not even funny or entertaining.
would be:
1. put some text about freedom of speech and/or human rights in china on your webserver
2. make sure google finds you
then the chinese government itself would see that chinese IP traffic can't reach you.
yea, i had a Mk1 and a Mk2 as well, and loved it, until the shit hit the proverbial fan, which in my case meant getting to sit thru hour-long traffic jams three times in a row during one week because the socalled "RDS tuner" did not work properly, and they couldnt get it to work due to lack of RDS stations in the USA. reception was poor, support for RDS features, especially RDS-TA and RDS-AF was non-existent, and after I ebayed it off and got me a sony cd tuner combo that plays mp3 as well, i still had some serious cash left.
... i can freely say that the guy is seriously behind; webcomics have been around since '96 (the trophy for oldest webcomic that is still updated goes to http://www.sabrina-online.com/, closely followed by sluggy and user friendly).
So why does he notice only now?
You know, here in germany we have this term called "saure-gurken-zeit" (roughly translates as "pickled cucumbers period"), meaning this stretch during the summer where there are NO news at all, and the papers start publishing cooking recipes on their frontpages for lack of anything better to print...
is there a term for this in english?
and those be? working suspend-to-ram? honestly, i can't think of "laptop features" in todays laptops that don't work with current windows versions.
ok, now here's a point. "Parental control" is basically censorship. Now I don't say that it's bad per se. I have a 9yr old son myself, and I'm most likely the first to say that there are websites that are not
Like X.org with the composite extension? Like KDE does it since when, last millennium? Where's the point in that, other than having a reason to grab the latest geforce/radeon/$INSERT_HIGHEND_GFX_CARD_HERE?
So they finally admitted that the "unattended installation" is still a pain in the ass, and that rebooting after every software install even more so?
you mean, like kill -9 $PID in any decent operating system?
then (by now) you just add your current credit card to your profile, and then you download your books again, encrypted with the new CC number.
and before you ask, YES it can be a bit more complicated if you dont have a CC anymore.