Yes, but they know that the political basklash would be severe. People here have never had a prevelent $1 coin currency and like the $1 bill. I am amoung them. I live in Buffalo, NY about 20 minutes from Niagara Falls, ON and I personally dispise the Canadian $1 and $2 coins. It is quite the pain, they do not go in a walet and I personally don't like pockets full of change. I have friends who worked as cashiers during the introduction of the last $1 coin here and people would go out of their way to request bills instead of them as change. It might be better for the government because of their longevity but as far as I can see that is the only upside, and it isn't one that I personally care about, nor do many other Americans.
You mean just as liberal Canadians post about topics and criticize forien leaders that they are outright wrong and uninformed about? We will get back to some of your outright flame worthy yet 2 moderated comments in a minute.
Really, though, Echelon is there just as customs booths are there at borders, to monitor communications as they travel from nation to nation to make sure that it is not abused in such a way as to harm any of it's affiliates. Just as the customs officials have the right to pratically rip apart my car looking for contraband when I go into Canada or even return to the United States looking for such things. At the very least I have to answer questions about why I am going there and what I am brining in and out. When you are sending a package internationally you need to fill out a customs form detailing the contents, their dollar value, and sign it. It is then placed on the top of your package for all to see. Even still the other nation has the option to open it and examine it's contents if they wish. It should be no different for electronic communications internationally. However, where I draw the line is domestic communications. Those should not be monitored by our government in the same way by an international system, but much the same as other domestic communications are monitored by court ordered wire taps and search warrents. And, having another nation do the monitoring for you should not be a way around that.
By the way, somewhat unrelated, the popular vote is not what elects a president in the United States, it is the electoral college. It was designed as a comprimise to help give a bit more weight to the people who reside in smaller states so that a few states with large populations cannot elect a president if the vast majority of the states want somebody else. And what was undemocratic was a certain candidate trying to change the rules of the election after the fact, in court, rather than just admit that he lost. And a certain treaty about that makes missle defense "illegal" was signed by a certain Soviet Union that no longer exists.
I have been using Key Bank's Online Banking and have been quite happy with it. It is really nice and well designed and it works with Netscape and IE in both windows and linux. The only problem I have been having is I have been using Mozilla more and more and I installed the 128-bit encyption add on the other night. Every other secure web page I goto, smithbarney.com and mbnanetaccess.com etc all work just fine but Key's crashes Mozilla. I am not sure whether this is a Mozilla problem or a Key problem, though, so I don't hold it against them. Has anybody else had problems with secure sites using Mozilla M18 with the Netscape Personal Security Manager addon?
I read the article and the howto and other referenced material but they don't answer one question. Is it possible to put CE back on after you install linux? I love linux, use it the majority of the time on my home machine, but I am not sure that it is what I would be loading on my handheld. Speaking from experience myself and my friends who have palm pilots use it to keep a schedule and take notes and do basic things but important things. These things can be done on CE but I am not sure there is software on linux to do them as adequatly yet. Not to mention that CE comes with pocket word and excel, and the ability to change a bit of data in a spreadsheet on the fly to get some updated data is something that might come in REALLY handy. Also, CE is quite a bit more stable than any of the other windows counterparts, which isn't saying much but means that it should be reliable enough for day to day use.
I guess the point of this entire thing is that if I had one I probably would put linux on it to just see what it ran like, but ONLY if I could go back to CE to do day to day work until some linux software could provide me with a comparable functionality. I find it strange that nowhere does it answer this obvious question...
I work at as a computer consultant and I find UserFriendly very funny. After reading this guy's article I think that he is completely missing the point. The purpose of this and other strips is not to ridicule new users, it is as an outlet for professionals in the field. As somebody who actually works as a tech support person it is nice after a hard day to read a strip like UF and laugh about what I go through. I can understand and laugh at the humorous situations in this strip. Does this mean that I am taking a sick satisfaction out of making fun of new users? No, it is meerly stepping back and laughing at my job. I would wager that just about all professions have inside jokes and do the same thing. The form that ours takes is these online strips because their target audience is usually online and able to read them while they work. Man, you are taking these strips and yourself too seriously. If you don't like them don't read them, but for god's sakes don't give me this holier than thou bullshit about how I should not read and enjoy them.
Well, SGI designed their systems for Content Creation and they used X. Now they are sharing their knowledge with linux in this and other areas to bring that sort of ability to linux. People like to knock X but there is also something to be said for standards and networkability. Especially in todays age, X's underlying architecture is a godscend. I have X windows open from about 3 different machines right now, two of which are sgi machines and one is a x86/linux machine. Let me see you do that in Be. If you add a direct rendering architecture too that so I can run my apps remotely, and run games and do content creation as well then that is the best of both worlds. As for having to recompile constantly... I load modules compiled for 2.1 kernels from time to time, and you certainly don't have to recompile to change preferences unless they are very low level. Also, linux makes old pentiums and 486s fly. And it is more likely that you are going to see Adobe and Metacreations port to linux before Be, because linux has the support and the hype, and Adobe at least already has unix versions which are easy to port. Linux is well on it's way and it is a far more standards compliant and robust solution that Be.
I just wanted to point out to all of the people who on every Be related post point out that Be is the multimedia OS. Well, I think it is going to be a much different situation when we get the SGI direct rendering in X and/or XFree86-4 out in a few months. Also, the SMP support in linux is going to improve considerably with the 2.4 version of linux, which is also forthcoming. KDE 2.0 promises to be better than ever, with KOffice moving right along. We already have the support and development interest of the two best gaming companies on the planet. Figure in that linux is being backed by corporations like SGI, IBM, Intel, Compaq, and RedHat (now with enough money to make things happen), it is free, and that we have a large and rather annoying user base who is forcing the hardware vendors to write drivers as well.... This seems like the recipe for a serious desktop OS in the immediate future. For the time being Be has a great architecture which is unmatched, but it does not have the support and momentum that linux has. OS/2 had the same thing and look where that is today. This is the thing about linux, not only does it rock now but it's development methodolgy, userbase, and recent wall street and media success mean it is going to really fucking rock later. That is why linux is a competitor on the desktop... It is a revolution... It never stops coming back around and getting in Microsoft's face.
Re:Apple design portable design innovations
on
iBook boots Linux
·
· Score: 1
I am sorry about the lack of paragraphs, I did have them when I wrote that one in the word processor, and they disapeared in the cut and paste... I won't let it happen again:)
Apple design portable design innovations
on
iBook boots Linux
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· Score: 1
I am writing this on a Dell Inspiron 3500 (Which does run linux quite well actually) and I really really love this machine. There are three things that annoy me about it, however. First, it gets awfully hot, second it chugs batteries, and third I have to plug in a network cord or a phone cord to use the internet at home (which arn't in the places I would prefer to use it). These are pretty standard gripes with all of the IBM Compatible laptops out there. Leave it to Apple to actually do something about these obvious and common complaints in all of their laptops. I owe much of how this beautifal Inspiron laptop looks and feels to Apple, believe it or not. If you look at the older PC laptops they ended at the keyboard, and the ergonomics and feel of them were terrible. If I am not mistaken the Powerbook was one of the first black laptops, and one of the first to sport an extended wristwrest with a touchpad and a great keyboard. I am a PC person, and I am a linux person, but I would buy a Powerbook. They are pretty nice looking, pretty fast, and they have great battery power. I know several people that feel the same way. The Powerbook appeals to me and my friends because that is it's target market, techies. It even fixes my first two gripes. This is owed to the very low power and cool running PowerPC chip. The iBook appeals to the average home buyer, not be a techie. So the way that I see it apple has their bases covered. If you are a techie you have the Powerbook, if you are not you have the bit more trendy less substance iBook. The only thing about the iBook besides the less than appealing to me design is the AirPort. This is something that anybody with a laptop has wanted, and once again it takes Apple to release such an innovation. I may not be a Mac person, but I do recognize that many developments on my laptop and PC have come from Apple, and I surely don't want them to stop innovating and go out of buisiness. Kudos to Apple, you have a sound product line and you have really come up with some great innocations, keep up the good work. Maybe we will see the PC world do what it does best and copy your AirPort and it'll be in my laptop soon:) I really do wish they would be more open with their specs and such so that those of us who would like to run linux on their machines can do so. That is what Apple's problem has always been, trying to keep all of these innvoations and products soo closed that it actually turns companies and people away from buying and developing for them. If I could buy an AirPort for my machine, I would. I would pay the hommage to Apple for coming up with it. It would catch on like wildfire, you would see Campuses completely covered by Airport so you could you a laptop anywhere, it would be a new standard lead by Apple. Sure, those without iBooks would have to stick an antenna on their laptop, but I am sure one could be designed to attatch most laptops. Hell, the iBook people would have the advantage of not having the funny antennas on the back of their laptops. But they won't, they will make you buy and iBook for it, and it will not gain acceptance. Somebody in the PC community will steal the idea, come up with an "open standard" for it, and make PC and Mac versions of it, that will cover college campuses and offices, and it will userp the glory from Apple. And I'll use it because Apple was too stuborn to open their technology.
It was not my intention to knock RIT in general, I have several friends there majoring in Computer Engineering and Computer Science. I am just saying that the IT program there is characteristic of IT progams elsewhere, and there are alot of people with these degrees that just learn NT and TCP/IP and not Unix or much real meat behind computing and technology. You have to hand it to Microsoft, teach the kids NT and they will stick with it even if it is buggy and unstable in the workplace.
I live in Buffalo, NY and I am a freshman at SUNY Buffalo majoring in Computer Engineering. Last year I was horrified when I visited what is supposed to be one of the best technology schools in the region, RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), teaching a corse in IT. They were just teaching them Oracle and NT. 5 years at a top notch college to be an NT drone. I see people with less knowledge than I, who have such degrees, making top notch salaries as system administrators. I think that you are correct, a shortage will come to an end, and it will be the shortage in such people. Those that will survive the shortage will be those who have unix and linux expertiece and will be able make the transition from NT to Unix when Windows 2000 isn't what everybody thinks that it will be. I think that Unix people, that real programmers who know their stuff, Web designers, and engineers taking computers and finding new and provocative ways of using them to make the work of industry and commerce easier will still be in short suppy as long as colleges keep churning out glorified MSCEs. Then again that is just my opinion and I could be wrong.
Writing this on a new Dell Inspiron 3500
on
On Linux Laptops
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· Score: 1
I got a Dell Inspiron 3500 about a month ago and it runs linux quite well. The only problem is the damned winmodem they put in it... The sound works, my Linksys 10/100 PCCard ethernet also works and is how I am connected to slashdot. I love it, and would recomend it to anybody interested in a nice linux laptop with all the trimmings for just over $2000
Just one distro is a bad thing, especially in regards to linux. Here we have a platform where distros can compete and leapfrog each other because they have access to the source to their opponents improvements. This is great. Not only that but all the other little things that differentiate them and give you choice while still enabling you to run the same programs and window manager. I recently switched from RedHat to Mandrake because I could download the.iso and burn the cd. Maybe when RedHat offers an.iso and has a little better kde integration (like having qt-devel install by default when I choose X development instead of just gtk) I will go back. Mandrake is great in that it is the same as redhat in all the important ways, but has differences and additions that I like. And if X RedHat based distro comes out tommarow that has the redhat base I know and love and some additions I like I'll use that too... It is called the GPL and it and competition inside the community is a "good thing". And for all you people who are going to Debian flame me I am used to the redhat file tree and package management, and it offers me no reason to learn a new one, however effortless it may be, right now. And when it does my fav RedHat based dist will grab it and incorperate it. And to give my $.02 on the flame way up there debian, redhat, slackware are all linux, they have pretty much the same programs and libraries, and if you can't figurure out how to download and install new/different versions of those libraries than you deserve to be confined to windows and install shield IMHO.
RedHat is using ProFTPD for their ftp server. I realize why and I have been using it for a long time as well, it is just a better, faster, more configurable server. They obviously think so, that is why their ftp site runs it. Why isn't it in their distribution. I even emailed them with this question but got no reply.....
Many of the other posters are right, one of the main things that Linux needs is real accelerated video support. From games to rendering this is one feature that the system really needs to gain user and professional acceptance. I had a voodoo II card in my other machine, and I took such hardware opengl support, and being able to play games like quake II for granted, until I got my PII 350 and Riva TNT card. Now I am a little annoyed at the lack of any support for this extremely common card, and appreciative that 3dfx took it upon themselves to write the support. I was relieved that there was even an X server for the TNT when I got it. It is my understanding that NVidia wrote the X server, they also wrote the opengl ICD and drivers for windows, so is it not feasible for them to write an opengl accelerated X server like 3dfx. Is there some licensing issues standing in the way here? But, even beyond my particular case with the TNT, there are many manufacturers who don t even make X servers. I believe thatmuch of the problem here is the manufacturers perception that the specs to their cards, and the information that people need to make such drivers are trade secrets and useful to their competitors. This shouldn t be the case, but I think that forthe time being we need to be the bigger party here and get some people to sign NDAs and goto the manufacturers and write these drivers. This should be a top priority for the community to get this done. We will be in a much better position to ask for open source once we prove that there is a large demand and that we let them in on a new platform for free:) We have to go about it the opposite way of microsoft. We have to prove our platform sabilities, speed, and demand, before apps and drivers will be written instead of the other way around. Maybe we could get some of our new buddies at IBM or SGI to goto the manufactures and plead the case to get us the specs, companies might be more receptive to SGI people than some college students and IT guys. We can t complain about a lack of 3dStudio and Unreal unlesswe offer them the kind of APIs and base framework they expect from the operating system. I would really like to see SGI step up and help out with the manufacturer negotiations in this regard, I would gladly pay for their distribution if they provided this kind of support. Having linux run fantastically on their Intel systems and allowing people to ditch NT can only make them better. Everybody else, focus on building the framework instead of bitching about how there are no apps. I am going to look into learning how to contribute to such efforts myself, if anybody has any advice on howto go about that I would also be appreciative. If it is over my head I will see about contributing to the other things that I see as critical to the success of the platform whomping on NT, kde and linuxconf.
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Yes, but they know that the political basklash would be severe. People here have never had a prevelent $1 coin currency and like the $1 bill. I am amoung them. I live in Buffalo, NY about 20 minutes from Niagara Falls, ON and I personally dispise the Canadian $1 and $2 coins. It is quite the pain, they do not go in a walet and I personally don't like pockets full of change. I have friends who worked as cashiers during the introduction of the last $1 coin here and people would go out of their way to request bills instead of them as change. It might be better for the government because of their longevity but as far as I can see that is the only upside, and it isn't one that I personally care about, nor do many other Americans.
You mean just as liberal Canadians post about topics and criticize forien leaders that they are outright wrong and uninformed about? We will get back to some of your outright flame worthy yet 2 moderated comments in a minute.
Really, though, Echelon is there just as customs booths are there at borders, to monitor communications as they travel from nation to nation to make sure that it is not abused in such a way as to harm any of it's affiliates. Just as the customs officials have the right to pratically rip apart my car looking for contraband when I go into Canada or even return to the United States looking for such things. At the very least I have to answer questions about why I am going there and what I am brining in and out. When you are sending a package internationally you need to fill out a customs form detailing the contents, their dollar value, and sign it. It is then placed on the top of your package for all to see. Even still the other nation has the option to open it and examine it's contents if they wish. It should be no different for electronic communications internationally. However, where I draw the line is domestic communications. Those should not be monitored by our government in the same way by an international system, but much the same as other domestic communications are monitored by court ordered wire taps and search warrents. And, having another nation do the monitoring for you should not be a way around that.
By the way, somewhat unrelated, the popular vote is not what elects a president in the United States, it is the electoral college. It was designed as a comprimise to help give a bit more weight to the people who reside in smaller states so that a few states with large populations cannot elect a president if the vast majority of the states want somebody else. And what was undemocratic was a certain candidate trying to change the rules of the election after the fact, in court, rather than just admit that he lost. And a certain treaty about that makes missle defense "illegal" was signed by a certain Soviet Union that no longer exists.
I have been using Key Bank's Online Banking and have been quite happy with it. It is really nice and well designed and it works with Netscape and IE in both windows and linux. The only problem I have been having is I have been using Mozilla more and more and I installed the 128-bit encyption add on the other night. Every other secure web page I goto, smithbarney.com and mbnanetaccess.com etc all work just fine but Key's crashes Mozilla. I am not sure whether this is a Mozilla problem or a Key problem, though, so I don't hold it against them. Has anybody else had problems with secure sites using Mozilla M18 with the Netscape Personal Security Manager addon?
I read the article and the howto and other referenced material but they don't answer one question. Is it possible to put CE back on after you install linux? I love linux, use it the majority of the time on my home machine, but I am not sure that it is what I would be loading on my handheld. Speaking from experience myself and my friends who have palm pilots use it to keep a schedule and take notes and do basic things but important things. These things can be done on CE but I am not sure there is software on linux to do them as adequatly yet. Not to mention that CE comes with pocket word and excel, and the ability to change a bit of data in a spreadsheet on the fly to get some updated data is something that might come in REALLY handy. Also, CE is quite a bit more stable than any of the other windows counterparts, which isn't saying much but means that it should be reliable enough for day to day use. I guess the point of this entire thing is that if I had one I probably would put linux on it to just see what it ran like, but ONLY if I could go back to CE to do day to day work until some linux software could provide me with a comparable functionality. I find it strange that nowhere does it answer this obvious question...
I work at as a computer consultant and I find UserFriendly very funny. After reading this guy's article I think that he is completely missing the point. The purpose of this and other strips is not to ridicule new users, it is as an outlet for professionals in the field. As somebody who actually works as a tech support person it is nice after a hard day to read a strip like UF and laugh about what I go through. I can understand and laugh at the humorous situations in this strip. Does this mean that I am taking a sick satisfaction out of making fun of new users? No, it is meerly stepping back and laughing at my job. I would wager that just about all professions have inside jokes and do the same thing. The form that ours takes is these online strips because their target audience is usually online and able to read them while they work. Man, you are taking these strips and yourself too seriously. If you don't like them don't read them, but for god's sakes don't give me this holier than thou bullshit about how I should not read and enjoy them.
Well, SGI designed their systems for Content Creation and they used X. Now they are sharing their knowledge with linux in this and other areas to bring that sort of ability to linux. People like to knock X but there is also something to be said for standards and networkability. Especially in todays age, X's underlying architecture is a godscend. I have X windows open from about 3 different machines right now, two of which are sgi machines and one is a x86/linux machine. Let me see you do that in Be. If you add a direct rendering architecture too that so I can run my apps remotely, and run games and do content creation as well then that is the best of both worlds. As for having to recompile constantly... I load modules compiled for 2.1 kernels from time to time, and you certainly don't have to recompile to change preferences unless they are very low level. Also, linux makes old pentiums and 486s fly. And it is more likely that you are going to see Adobe and Metacreations port to linux before Be, because linux has the support and the hype, and Adobe at least already has unix versions which are easy to port. Linux is well on it's way and it is a far more standards compliant and robust solution that Be.
I just wanted to point out to all of the people who on every Be related post point out that Be is the multimedia OS. Well, I think it is going to be a much different situation when we get the SGI direct rendering in X and/or XFree86-4 out in a few months. Also, the SMP support in linux is going to improve considerably with the 2.4 version of linux, which is also forthcoming. KDE 2.0 promises to be better than ever, with KOffice moving right along. We already have the support and development interest of the two best gaming companies on the planet. Figure in that linux is being backed by corporations like SGI, IBM, Intel, Compaq, and RedHat (now with enough money to make things happen), it is free, and that we have a large and rather annoying user base who is forcing the hardware vendors to write drivers as well.... This seems like the recipe for a serious desktop OS in the immediate future. For the time being Be has a great architecture which is unmatched, but it does not have the support and momentum that linux has. OS/2 had the same thing and look where that is today. This is the thing about linux, not only does it rock now but it's development methodolgy, userbase, and recent wall street and media success mean it is going to really fucking rock later. That is why linux is a competitor on the desktop... It is a revolution... It never stops coming back around and getting in Microsoft's face.
I am sorry about the lack of paragraphs, I did have them when I wrote that one in the word processor, and they disapeared in the cut and paste... I won't let it happen again :)
I am writing this on a Dell Inspiron 3500 (Which does run linux quite well actually) and I really really love this machine. There are three things that annoy me about it, however. First, it gets awfully hot, second it chugs batteries, and third I have to plug in a network cord or a phone cord to use the internet at home (which arn't in the places I would prefer to use it). These are pretty standard gripes with all of the IBM Compatible laptops out there. Leave it to Apple to actually do something about these obvious and common complaints in all of their laptops. I owe much of how this beautifal Inspiron laptop looks and feels to Apple, believe it or not. If you look at the older PC laptops they ended at the keyboard, and the ergonomics and feel of them were terrible. If I am not mistaken the Powerbook was one of the first black laptops, and one of the first to sport an extended wristwrest with a touchpad and a great keyboard. I am a PC person, and I am a linux person, but I would buy a Powerbook. They are pretty nice looking, pretty fast, and they have great battery power. I know several people that feel the same way. The Powerbook appeals to me and my friends because that is it's target market, techies. It even fixes my first two gripes. This is owed to the very low power and cool running PowerPC chip. The iBook appeals to the average home buyer, not be a techie. So the way that I see it apple has their bases covered. If you are a techie you have the Powerbook, if you are not you have the bit more trendy less substance iBook. The only thing about the iBook besides the less than appealing to me design is the AirPort. This is something that anybody with a laptop has wanted, and once again it takes Apple to release such an innovation. I may not be a Mac person, but I do recognize that many developments on my laptop and PC have come from Apple, and I surely don't want them to stop innovating and go out of buisiness. Kudos to Apple, you have a sound product line and you have really come up with some great innocations, keep up the good work. Maybe we will see the PC world do what it does best and copy your AirPort and it'll be in my laptop soon :) I really do wish they would be more open with their specs and such so that those of us who would like to run linux on their machines can do so. That is what Apple's problem has always been, trying to keep all of these innvoations and products soo closed that it actually turns companies and people away from buying and developing for them. If I could buy an AirPort for my machine, I would. I would pay the hommage to Apple for coming up with it. It would catch on like wildfire, you would see Campuses completely covered by Airport so you could you a laptop anywhere, it would be a new standard lead by Apple. Sure, those without iBooks would have to stick an antenna on their laptop, but I am sure one could be designed to attatch most laptops. Hell, the iBook people would have the advantage of not having the funny antennas on the back of their laptops. But they won't, they will make you buy and iBook for it, and it will not gain acceptance. Somebody in the PC community will steal the idea, come up with an "open standard" for it, and make PC and Mac versions of it, that will cover college campuses and offices, and it will userp the glory from Apple. And I'll use it because Apple was too stuborn to open their technology.
It was not my intention to knock RIT in general, I have several friends there majoring in Computer Engineering and Computer Science. I am just saying that the IT program there is characteristic of IT progams elsewhere, and there are alot of people with these degrees that just learn NT and TCP/IP and not Unix or much real meat behind computing and technology. You have to hand it to Microsoft, teach the kids NT and they will stick with it even if it is buggy and unstable in the workplace.
I live in Buffalo, NY and I am a freshman at SUNY Buffalo majoring in Computer Engineering. Last year I was horrified when I visited what is supposed to be one of the best technology schools in the region, RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), teaching a corse in IT. They were just teaching them Oracle and NT. 5 years at a top notch college to be an NT drone. I see people with less knowledge than I, who have such degrees, making top notch salaries as system administrators. I think that you are correct, a shortage will come to an end, and it will be the shortage in such people. Those that will survive the shortage will be those who have unix and linux expertiece and will be able make the transition from NT to Unix when Windows 2000 isn't what everybody thinks that it will be. I think that Unix people, that real programmers who know their stuff, Web designers, and engineers taking computers and finding new and provocative ways of using them to make the work of industry and commerce easier will still be in short suppy as long as colleges keep churning out glorified MSCEs. Then again that is just my opinion and I could be wrong.
I got a Dell Inspiron 3500 about a month ago and it runs linux quite well. The only problem is the damned winmodem they put in it... The sound works, my Linksys 10/100 PCCard ethernet also works and is how I am connected to slashdot. I love it, and would recomend it to anybody interested in a nice linux laptop with all the trimmings for just over $2000
Just one distro is a bad thing, especially in regards to linux. Here we have a platform where distros can compete and leapfrog each other because they have access to the source to their opponents improvements. This is great. Not only that but all the other little things that differentiate them and give you choice while still enabling you to run the same programs and window manager. I recently switched from RedHat to Mandrake because I could download the .iso and burn the cd. Maybe when RedHat offers an .iso and has a little better kde integration (like having qt-devel install by default when I choose X development instead of just gtk) I will go back. Mandrake is great in that it is the same as redhat in all the important ways, but has differences and additions that I like. And if X RedHat based distro comes out tommarow that has the redhat base I know and love and some additions I like I'll use that too... It is called the GPL and it and competition inside the community is a "good thing". And for all you people who are going to Debian flame me I am used to the redhat file tree and package management, and it offers me no reason to learn a new one, however effortless it may be, right now. And when it does my fav RedHat based dist will grab it and incorperate it. And to give my $.02 on the flame way up there debian, redhat, slackware are all linux, they have pretty much the same programs and libraries, and if you can't figurure out how to download and install new/different versions of those libraries than you deserve to be confined to windows and install shield IMHO.
RedHat is using ProFTPD for their ftp server. I realize why and I have been using it for a long time as well, it is just a better, faster, more configurable server. They obviously think so, that is why their ftp site runs it. Why isn't it in their distribution. I even emailed them with this question but got no reply.....
Many of the other posters are right, one of the main things :) We have to go about it the
that Linux needs is real accelerated video support. From games
to rendering this is one feature that the system really needs to
gain user and professional acceptance.
I had a voodoo II card in my other machine, and I took such
hardware opengl support, and being able to play games like quake
II for granted, until I got my PII 350 and Riva TNT card. Now I
am a little annoyed at the lack of any support for this extremely
common card, and appreciative that 3dfx took it upon themselves
to write the support. I was relieved that there was even an X
server for the TNT when I got it. It is my understanding that
NVidia wrote the X server, they also wrote the opengl ICD and
drivers for windows, so is it not feasible for them to write an
opengl accelerated X server like 3dfx. Is there some licensing
issues standing in the way here?
But, even beyond my particular case with the TNT, there are
many manufacturers who don t even make X servers. I believe thatmuch of the problem here is the manufacturers perception that the
specs to their cards, and the information that people need to
make such drivers are trade secrets and useful to their
competitors. This shouldn t be the case, but I think that forthe time being we need to be the bigger party here and get some
people to sign NDAs and goto the manufacturers and write these
drivers. This should be a top priority for the community to get
this done. We will be in a much better position to ask for open
source once we prove that there is a large demand and that we let
them in on a new platform for free
opposite way of microsoft. We have to prove our platform sabilities, speed, and demand, before apps and drivers will be
written instead of the other way around. Maybe we could get some
of our new buddies at IBM or SGI to goto the manufactures and
plead the case to get us the specs, companies might be more
receptive to SGI people than some college students and IT guys.
We can t complain about a lack of 3dStudio and Unreal unlesswe offer them the kind of APIs and base framework they expect
from the operating system. I would really like to see SGI step
up and help out with the manufacturer negotiations in this
regard, I would gladly pay for their distribution if they
provided this kind of support. Having linux run fantastically on
their Intel systems and allowing people to ditch NT can only make
them better. Everybody else, focus on building the framework
instead of bitching about how there are no apps. I am going to
look into learning how to contribute to such efforts myself, if
anybody has any advice on howto go about that I would also be
appreciative. If it is over my head I will see about
contributing to the other things that I see as critical to the
success of the platform whomping on NT, kde and linuxconf.