There are other ways of making Java programs platform-dependent. You can assume that the root filesystem is c:\, for example: a common beginner's mistake.
I suppose that's quite true, but this should be irrelevant in an applet, since it can't access the filesystem without being signed and given explicit permission.
People generally want to please you with gifts; kind hints as to Linux compatibility (e.g. listing scanners you'd prefer or providing a link to a page which lists linux-compatible scanners) will generally go off well. My family knows pretty well that I use Linux and that some hardware doesn't work with my OS, and that either money towards the hardware or checking compatibility (I usually provide a list of preferred devices) is required. Just like, if I have a Mac-using friend, I'll buy Mac-supporting hardware as a gift. I wouldn't buy a lawnmower for my friend with an apartment.
If you've already bought it, and you can't reasonably exchange it, you're stuck with it. You may have luck (the sane page says it's unknown), you may not; remember to check Linux compatibility next time, or buy a new scanner from a Linux-friendly company (imho, you'll generally get better hardware anyway, if you shop for Linux compatibility). You may write the company and tell them you'd like to use their hardware with Linux, so that they know there's some demand out there for Linux-compatible hardware.
Essentially, use the tools you have available as a consumer, if you care. If you want to blissfully keep using Windows, I'm not gonna stop you. But if you care, you can still be fully operational as a Linux desktop user. If you don't care, and end up caring later on down the road, remember that your actions now shape tomorrow.
I find it easier just to not use Windows Update. I use Automatic Updates to get all my critical updates. If you're paranoid about AU, use their RSS feed and Security Bulletin Search.
Hear, hear. There are much easier (not to mention better) ways to keep your computer up-to-date. My personal favorites are emerge, apt, or yum....;)
Java apps load and work to some extent, but the layout is so screwed up in a Firefox that the pages are essentially useless.
So the page layout is messed up, or the applet layout is messed up?
I thought Java was supposed to be platform independent?
Java is platform-independent. There are two issues: most likely, the sites are using Microsoft's bastard Windows-ized "java" implementation (remember the Sun-MSFT Java lawsuit? It was about precisely this). I know several "java" things that require MSVM, and tie in to things like Windows Media Player and Microsoft Office. The other, much less likely, way to break Java's platform independence is to implement some classes in native code, interfaced with the Java Native Interface.
Application look would also likely be broken due to MSVM (the bastardized Java) being stuck at Java version 1.1, before they went from the AWT (Abstract Windowing Toolkit; essentially using the platform-dependent drawing system (and widgets too, I think) in a platform-independent way; you can see where this would cause problems) to Swing, where Java now draws all of its own stuff and can optionally emulate each platform's look and feel (via the plugable look and feel system). With Swing and other maturing of the Java platform (roughly Java 1.2 or maybe 1.3), Java apps pretty much did become Sun's sale phrase "write once, run anywhere" as opposed to the earlier parody of it, "write once, debug everywhere".
Like I really need to run my CPU at 100% so word can lockup that much faster.
Well, the whole idea behind the scheme is to offload work from the CPU to the GPU. Note, however, that the GPU also draws quite a bit of power, and (iirc) has its own power management system.
All that said, Linux is headed in the same direction, for the same reasons.
3 or 4 hours of use, a couple of days on standby, tops. Less with WiFi.
Well, that's with the 2.x series Sharp ROMs. If you upgrade to the 3.1x ROM from Sharp (which brings it, from what I understand, to be about in-line with the SL-5600, it does nice things like turning off any cards when they're not being used, and battery life becomes quite nice (I've gone for a week or more with one charge, not using wi-fi). Additionally, the new MP3 player in the 3.10 ROM can turn off the screen; I've gotten a solid 8 hours of continuous MP3 playing time. Unfortunately, last I used it, The Kompany's OGG player does not turn off the screen, and is limited to 4-6 hours.
All that said, I've (in November) bought a PalmOne Tungsten T5, since it has builtin bluetooth (no WiFi, though.:() the DriveMode, and Linux syncs quite well with it and a few common apps. While I could never get my Zaurus to sync with Linux in the sharp 2.x ROM series, the 3.x ROMs out and out don't support Linux, and the protocol used is (yet) unknown. This, coupled with Sharp's withdrawal from the US market, caused my switch back to Palm. By no mistake, I still have my Zaurus as my sidekick, since it is truly a mobile computer (for instance, Calculon comes in quite handy in physics), and the OpenZaurus ROMs are quite impressive (though they definitely have lackings yet, esp. wrt. power management).
They'll detune the engine on the budget models. Would you call the budget models crippled?
Yes, I'd call, among other things,
A car with the exact same engine but with software to make the engine perform worse
A camera identical in hardware to the higher-end models, but with firmware to make it do less or be less accurate
An operating system identical to enterprise or server-class operating systems, save for a few programs having been removed and save for some registry keys which you may not change under the End User License Agreement
A graphics card identical to higher-end models but with a chip on it that clocks it slower
A phone that does Bluetooth OBEX transfers and DUN but which the cellphone network provider (e.g. sprint, Verizon) leaned on the phone vendor to remove OBEX or DUN capabilities from it
crippled.
Not saying the company is evil for crippling the hardware, but the item itself is, yes, crippled.
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This page is unreachable. Agents will arrive momentarily to take you to a re-education center. Please do not resist; it is much easier for you that way.
Going by the lack of Linux support for other such technologies (mini-PCI wifi on laptops), I have to wonder: is Intel going to release OSS drivers for these cards?
The sticking point isn't the mini-pci; Linux deals with that just fine. The sticking point is the chipset on the card itself, and how well the vendor does (or does not) support Linux or driver development for it.
To help remedy the situation, only buy cards that support Linux, or which let Linux support them. For additional mileage, send physical letters to the vendors you'd like to have support Linux.
Seeing that Intel is involved, I'm not too sure if they'll release the drivers anytime soon. But I guess we can wait and see.
Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I recall the drivers for the successors/alternatives to the ipw2100 chips (ipw2200 and some other, lesser-known one) being released fairly quickly after the chips' release. I have to say that I very much respect Intel, they actually did follow through with the ipw2100 driver (and successors), and they appear to be supporting Linux on other things (ACPI, for instance (THANKS, LEN!), and the Intel video chips they apparently provided specs for, if not wrote drivers for which got accepted into Linus' kernel). It definitely makes me more willing to buy and recommend Intel chips in the future.
template class Communism;
class FreeSoftware : public Communism
We'll have to agree to disagree with this one, I suspect.
The developer has a different point of view. GPL is specifically written to prevent programmers from making money from their work.
Incorrect here. If you read the preabmble of the GPL, it states
When we speak of free softare, we are referring to freedom, not
price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
That is, to rephrase, the GPL is designed to ensure that end-users are given the rights Stallman believes they should be given (namely, modification and redistribution).
When you make money from support, people pay you for the personal attention and for being the scapegoat for their troubles. They don't pay you for the program you are supporting.
Incorrect. Support houses, in all likelyhood, are also development houses. See, with the GPL, the line is very blurred between who is development and who is a user/helper. With commercial software, one company makes the software, and the others hope they have enough information to support that software. With the GPL, support houses are also likely to be development houses (since you have to be familiar with the program to support it), and all compete for support on equal footing--the original publisher has no more advantage (aside from name) than any other company.. Yes, this is both a benefit (all compete evenly and development is shared) as well as a drawback (makes it hard to make a 100% software development company). Note, however, that few software companies are only software companies--most software companies charge you for the software and then again for help with the software.
You didn't even have to write it in the first place; you can run a company creating custom frontends for Microsoft Access.
There is nothing precluding you from doing this for a FOSS application either. In fact, since the underlying system you depend on for your livelyhood if you build a program on top of another one, if the original developer wants to get into your market (as MSFT has been known to do), they have no more advantage in this new market than you (again, aside from name), since they can't put in "hooks" in the underlying program that you can't use!
Because of this, there really are no companies making money from free software.
Incorrect. At least Red Hat is turning a profit. Dell and IBM are certainly making a profit in FOSS. I believe SuSE/Novell are as well, and Mandrake is now prifitable, too.
For the rest of that quote, you're still locked in to the developer-as-a-monopoly model. While certainly a lone developer of a small project won't likely make much money, people do pay developers to work on Free software, just like they pay developers to work on commercial software, so you can get paid for writing your software! Note also that the exact same thing can be said for a small commercial developer--a small commercial developer won't generally make much money either!
There's nothing simplistic or naive about the philosophy of charity. That doesn't make it any less evil.
Umm, so you're saying charity is evil?!
To normal people, free software simply means that they don't have to pay for it; as a previous Slashdot article mentioned, users don't really care about modification. Because of this, it is largely irrelevant to them whether the software is under the
Your entire posting is factually incorrect, imho. The defaults for most things I see on my Linux desktop are correct and usable (e.g. by default, there is no WEP key or essid set; one can connect to any open AP). You sound like you either have little experience with Linux, or are very experienced with Windows and expected Linux to be just like Windows, which is next to impossible, and saw enough to convince you that your pre-concieved notions were right. From your postings below, I see that you're a former Microsoft employee, so that is quite likely the case.
So all Linux programs have their ugly text configuration files which require hundreds of manual pages to describe every possible configuration option without giving a single example of what should be the most common setup (a home user on a personal desktop).
This is also quite incorrect. Linux distributions aimed at non-geeks all feature highly usable graphical user interfaces for both installation and configuration, and should be usable with only a little help if the user is inexperienced in Linux. They do store the information you choose in a text-based configuration file, which you may use in lieu of the graphical interface if you so choose (similar to the Windows Registry, which you could also edit directly instead of dealing with the graphical user interface, if you had manual pages to guide you). Of course, if the user is coming from another operating system, it will likely take a little adjustment to get used to the new locations and phrasings, but this should have minimal impact, if the user is not hostile to the change.
"all Linux programs", "ugly text configuration files", "require hundres of manual pages to describe every possible configuration option". These are all phrasings which are not only incorrect, but which are hyperbolic, intended to distort perception and which are the hallmarks of either high emotion or trolls. Hopefully, you are the former, not the latter, and I may talk to you after you've calmed down a bit. But for now, for my own sanity, I wont' discuss things like this with someone who's hostile to them.
Communism is based on the "from each by ability, to each by his need" idea, and free software is simply a direct application of this idea.
First off, while both Communism and Free Software may be derived from the same base class (more on this in a sec), that does not imply that they are the same class, to put it in Object-oriented terms.:)
According to Stallman, each programmer should work on software for his own personal enjoyment and give it to the community.
Incorrect. Stallman simply claims that end-users should have the right to modify software as they need, and re-distribute the changes as they need. That is the basis of all other claims. You may be interested in borrowing Free Software, Free Society from your local library and reading it. While even I don't agree with everything he says (and you most certainly won't if I don't), some things may strike a chord with you, as it's definitely interesting thoughts, even if wrong. Simply discarding the other side as too simplistic/naiive (or fascistic, on the other side of the fence) is almost always a bad idea.
Then the community will pay him back with modifications and the rich people will pay him money, generously satisfying all his needs because he's just such a great and unselfish fellow.
Well, this is the way things work, your apparent cynicism aside (if I read things correctly; facial expressions and vocal tone is hard to read from html;). Well, only partially. The community does indeed provide bug reports, bug fixes, documentation, web site support, new code, and so forth. But not only rich people give money to the developers; companies do when they buy software from companies that employ FOSS developers, end-users do in gratitude or because they want to support the development, and so forth. Charity works; many people are employed and benefit from charity, without being forced to pony up. (This also apparently depends on your definition of "rich", as those with little or no money can still benefit from FOSS without having to pay up, or they can give two cents if they want (see also, the widow's two pennies). There's a lot more subtlety to the business model than you seem to be giving it credit for.
You have apparently drunken deep from the Microsoft Kool-Aid during your tenure at Redmond; it'd be well worth it to also take a draught from our pitcher as well (i.e. look at it with an open mind).
No insults, just friendship. Sorry the other guy offended.
I'm sorry Linux isn't working out for you as well as Windows. From what you've posted thus far, it sounds like it's really close; it's just hardware compatibility you're having a problem with.
Another day I get the fware, and follow a guide to config the card to (hopefully) connect to my home WIFI, no luck.
I don't know what to tell you here, due to lack of info. I use Linux to connect my cisco 802.11b card and the ipw2100 card to connect to my AP without issue; my guess is that you're missing a configuration detail. The folks at your lug may help you out here if you give them the details.
because FC3 makes it to much of a pain to connect to any of the 3 WIFI networks I need to use regularly.
I don't think this is FC3's fault here; sounds like you're missing some config detail that is keeping you from connecting.
XP OTOH remebers WEP keys for them all and connects right up.
FC3 remembers a variety wep keys as well, so I don't believe that XP is unique in this regard.
or the above, and several other reasons, it's far from ready for prime time for the small businesses I support.
Quite possibly, depending on your small businesses and their needs. OTOH, I think Linux is ready for a great many applications than it's currently given credit for (e.g. helpdesks, some secretaries (depending on the apps they need), etc.) I don't know your clients and their needs, however. Generally, I'd say that saying "Linux isn't ready for the desktop at all" is incorrect as a blanket statement; it highly depends on what the users need.
Well... mythtv records in this crazy format called NUV.
It's not really a crazy format. If I remember correctly, It's an information wrapper around some other media format (MPEG2, MPEG4, etc.) You can then export it to various other standard formats via nuvexport.
Amen to that. ATI, give us a usable binary driver, or give the community the specs!
At this time, my recommendation to those who want 3d gaming is either:
Get an old ATI card (if you care about Free drivers, this is the way to go; ATI gives great support to developers for their old cards)
Get an NVidia. While you will be completely dependent upon nvidia to provide drivers for the lifetime of your card, you get seriously butt-kicking graphics now, not several years down the road when ATI would have finally told developers the specifications.
Buy an off-brand (e.g. Intel) chip; some have great in-kernel support due to their vendors supporting Linux well. Only problem is that they have inferior speed compared to current nvidia or ati offerings. Though I'm not sure how they compare to ATI's old cards; this may be a wash.
I got bit hard by that when I got my laptop; I dropped the money for an ATI card, thinking the only problem was that they were a bit slower than the nvidia drivers. After kernel horkage and lockups and filesystem damage due to this driver, I've sworn off ati unless it's an old, well-supported card. I shoulda just given my money to NVidia instead. From what I've been reading, ATI is very ambivalent about making good Linux drivers, whereas NVidia seems to be bending over backwards to give us great support.
Re:Exactly the problem that a lot of people have
on
Does Linux Have Game?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
well, ut2k4 has a native linux version. Believe me, my crack is Diablo 2, and it runs great under cedega (wineX, from transgaming.com). HL2 is well supported (they even released an intermediate version for the sole purpose of working around some steam breakage). It looks like GR is not supported by Transgaming, but works well (the wiki node is a little out of date, though. I don't have it to report directly, thought).
Additionally, transgaming supports popular games pretty well, releasing versions to support them fairly quickly after (or even synchronously with) their release.
I'd say the biggest reason not to do that is that not everybody can afford to maintain a Wintendo.
I personally game on Linux exclusively despite having several copies of Windows around. This is simply because I use Linux all the time, and hated dual-booting (guess I'm just impatient like that. I also hate having to drop everything I'm doing; I usually have lots of stuff going on on-screen). I can't afford to maintain a whole nother box (especially one that has the same specs as my laptop, which is necessarily fast due to the work I do) to run the latest games.
Better, IMHO, just to pay for Linux games and maybe pick up a few on the discount rack that work via Cedega/Wine. I don't have to be annoyed or maintain two expensive machines, and I get my work done under Linux (I'm honestly much more productive under Linux than Windows), and I help support Linux games with my wallet. A win-win situation for me. Others' views may be different, but those are my reasons.
This memory is formatted with a standard FAT filesystem, and can be mounted on the desktop with no special tricks.
I own a T5, and this point needs to be more emphasized. When you activate "Drive Mode", the Palm and the SD card appear to the destkop as plain-jane USB Mass Storage devices (one for the Palm's internal Flash storage, one more for the SD card). As such, this works with Mac and Linux (and likely BSD and BeOS, and whatever else, since it's USB Mass Storage).
The only downside is that you can't sync while it's in Drive Mode.
They see that the device is running "Windows" and that that is what they are using on their PC, so they think that it is the device that they should get.
Indeed. I personally know several people (in fact, it could be 90% of those people I know running PocketPC!) who got it for precisely this reason. That, and because it integrates 100% with their Windows desktop. Shocker--MSFT works with MSFT better than non-MSFT! One person I know of bought it for the handwriting recognition, but he's a computer geek too.:)
I am using a Pentium II 400Mhz/512MB RAM with a Hauppauge PVR-350 and MythTV. I don't get any skips. It's slow changing screens, but I don't really have problems watching TV, recording TV, or watching recordings.
Linux users will rather buy a PC with no OS on it. Windows can be a bitch to exorcise.
Many linux users still do, although that number is rapidly diminishing as more OEMs start to offer OS-less or Linux PCs.
See, MSFT leans hard on OEMs to not offer OS-less machines, since they're "obviously going to install pirated Windows" (scare quotes intended; search for "Naked PC" articles from a few years back). Thus, it's MSFT or Another Very Minority OS Which Won't Give You Much Profit Due To Support Costs (as opposed to going OSless and just supporting the hardware, and the Windows profit margins are already tiny!).
Luckily, thanks to Linux's gaining popularity, it's less of an issue, but the MSFT Tax is still to be reckoned with, especially in the laptop market (unless you're willing to a) Pay a good chunk more for a limited subset of the same hardware (e.g. Emperor Linux which sells rebranded laptops) or b) risk someone who's not well known/trusted, and even with those who offer Linux laptops (e.g. Polywell), they can be more expensive than with Windows!).
The situation for desktop PCs is somewhat better, since the parts are so easy to come by and integrate together. Most Linux people I know of generally will build their own system or buy one from one of the many Linux workstation + server vendors.
Since MSFT's foray into the Tablet PC, the pickings for Linux tablets have gotten extremely thin. Whereas the (~30-50% Linux) tablets circa 2000-2001 were essentially large-screen PDAs; the new MSFT ones are essentially scaled-down laptops (with the expense that corresponds to that). And thanks to this new MSFT initiative, the Linux tablets one would actually be able to buy (e.g. VisionPlate, PepperPad, SonicBlue's offering, Siemen's SimPad, etc,; the large-screen PDAs) have been drowned out by the major OEMs and have either quit or been relegated to niches.
Thanks to Palm, you can still have a good chance of buying a Palm without being too inconvenienced, but it's hard to get a Linux PDA due to them coming late to market (and MSFT having been in the market a while).
Media Center PCs are almost universally MSFT, unless you build one yourself or buy a sealed one (e.g. TiVo).
[An aside: Anyone else notice how the Major OEMs are always on the latest MSFT bandwagon, be that Windows Media Center, Windows Version X, MSFT PDAs, Jukeboxes, Tablets, etc.? I wonder if this is part of their requirements to get a discount on Windows?]
So the MSFT tax is alive and kicking, and OS-less PCs aren't terribly easy to come by unless you build it yourself or go with a local shop (all of this is for the USA; I've not bought a PC elsewhere).
For the non-expert Linux user (e.g. those who've heard about it and want to get into it or just haven't gathered much PC experience yet), the pickings are even more slim, unless she wants to buy a workstation from an unknown (to her) third party or buy a very limited set of hardware (e.g. one HP laptop or the very-low-end Wal-Mart PCs).
Slashdot Mirror
If you've already bought it, and you can't reasonably exchange it, you're stuck with it. You may have luck (the sane page says it's unknown), you may not; remember to check Linux compatibility next time, or buy a new scanner from a Linux-friendly company (imho, you'll generally get better hardware anyway, if you shop for Linux compatibility). You may write the company and tell them you'd like to use their hardware with Linux, so that they know there's some demand out there for Linux-compatible hardware.
Essentially, use the tools you have available as a consumer, if you care. If you want to blissfully keep using Windows, I'm not gonna stop you. But if you care, you can still be fully operational as a Linux desktop user. If you don't care, and end up caring later on down the road, remember that your actions now shape tomorrow.
Conversely, tell me when Microtek supports Linux well, and I'll buy from them. Tis but a matter of perspective (and voting with your wallet).
Application look would also likely be broken due to MSVM (the bastardized Java) being stuck at Java version 1.1, before they went from the AWT (Abstract Windowing Toolkit; essentially using the platform-dependent drawing system (and widgets too, I think) in a platform-independent way; you can see where this would cause problems) to Swing, where Java now draws all of its own stuff and can optionally emulate each platform's look and feel (via the plugable look and feel system). With Swing and other maturing of the Java platform (roughly Java 1.2 or maybe 1.3), Java apps pretty much did become Sun's sale phrase "write once, run anywhere" as opposed to the earlier parody of it, "write once, debug everywhere".
All that said, Linux is headed in the same direction, for the same reasons.
All that said, I've (in November) bought a PalmOne Tungsten T5, since it has builtin bluetooth (no WiFi, though. :() the DriveMode, and Linux syncs quite well with it and a few common apps. While I could never get my Zaurus to sync with Linux in the sharp 2.x ROM series, the 3.x ROMs out and out don't support Linux, and the protocol used is (yet) unknown. This, coupled with Sharp's withdrawal from the US market, caused my switch back to Palm. By no mistake, I still have my Zaurus as my sidekick, since it is truly a mobile computer (for instance, Calculon comes in quite handy in physics), and the OpenZaurus ROMs are quite impressive (though they definitely have lackings yet, esp. wrt. power management).
- A car with the exact same engine but with software to make the engine perform worse
- A camera identical in hardware to the higher-end models, but with firmware to make it do less or be less accurate
- An operating system identical to enterprise or server-class operating systems, save for a few programs having been removed and save for some registry keys which you may not change under the End User License Agreement
- A graphics card identical to higher-end models but with a chip on it that clocks it slower
- A phone that does Bluetooth OBEX transfers and DUN but which the cellphone network provider (e.g. sprint, Verizon) leaned on the phone vendor to remove OBEX or DUN capabilities from it
crippled.Not saying the company is evil for crippling the hardware, but the item itself is, yes, crippled.
To help remedy the situation, only buy cards that support Linux, or which let Linux support them. For additional mileage, send physical letters to the vendors you'd like to have support Linux.
Pardon me if I'm wrong, but I recall the drivers for the successors/alternatives to the ipw2100 chips (ipw2200 and some other, lesser-known one) being released fairly quickly after the chips' release. I have to say that I very much respect Intel, they actually did follow through with the ipw2100 driver (and successors), and they appear to be supporting Linux on other things (ACPI, for instance (THANKS, LEN!), and the Intel video chips they apparently provided specs for, if not wrote drivers for which got accepted into Linus' kernel). It definitely makes me more willing to buy and recommend Intel chips in the future.We'll have to agree to disagree with this one, I suspect.
Incorrect here. If you read the preabmble of the GPL, it states
That is, to rephrase, the GPL is designed to ensure that end-users are given the rights Stallman believes they should be given (namely, modification and redistribution).
Incorrect. Support houses, in all likelyhood, are also development houses. See, with the GPL, the line is very blurred between who is development and who is a user/helper. With commercial software, one company makes the software, and the others hope they have enough information to support that software. With the GPL, support houses are also likely to be development houses (since you have to be familiar with the program to support it), and all compete for support on equal footing--the original publisher has no more advantage (aside from name) than any other company.. Yes, this is both a benefit (all compete evenly and development is shared) as well as a drawback (makes it hard to make a 100% software development company). Note, however, that few software companies are only software companies--most software companies charge you for the software and then again for help with the software.
There is nothing precluding you from doing this for a FOSS application either. In fact, since the underlying system you depend on for your livelyhood if you build a program on top of another one, if the original developer wants to get into your market (as MSFT has been known to do), they have no more advantage in this new market than you (again, aside from name), since they can't put in "hooks" in the underlying program that you can't use!
Incorrect. At least Red Hat is turning a profit. Dell and IBM are certainly making a profit in FOSS. I believe SuSE/Novell are as well, and Mandrake is now prifitable, too.
For the rest of that quote, you're still locked in to the developer-as-a-monopoly model. While certainly a lone developer of a small project won't likely make much money, people do pay developers to work on Free software, just like they pay developers to work on commercial software, so you can get paid for writing your software! Note also that the exact same thing can be said for a small commercial developer--a small commercial developer won't generally make much money either!
Umm, so you're saying charity is evil?!
"all Linux programs", "ugly text configuration files", "require hundres of manual pages to describe every possible configuration option". These are all phrasings which are not only incorrect, but which are hyperbolic, intended to distort perception and which are the hallmarks of either high emotion or trolls. Hopefully, you are the former, not the latter, and I may talk to you after you've calmed down a bit. But for now, for my own sanity, I wont' discuss things like this with someone who's hostile to them.
You have apparently drunken deep from the Microsoft Kool-Aid during your tenure at Redmond; it'd be well worth it to also take a draught from our pitcher as well (i.e. look at it with an open mind).
No insults, just friendship. Sorry the other guy offended.
Was this the binary nividia/ati drivers, or an X configuration issue? What distro?
It's not really a crazy format. If I remember correctly, It's an information wrapper around some other media format (MPEG2, MPEG4, etc.) You can then export it to various other standard formats via nuvexport.
Amen to that. ATI, give us a usable binary driver, or give the community the specs!
At this time, my recommendation to those who want 3d gaming is either:
I got bit hard by that when I got my laptop; I dropped the money for an ATI card, thinking the only problem was that they were a bit slower than the nvidia drivers. After kernel horkage and lockups and filesystem damage due to this driver, I've sworn off ati unless it's an old, well-supported card. I shoulda just given my money to NVidia instead. From what I've been reading, ATI is very ambivalent about making good Linux drivers, whereas NVidia seems to be bending over backwards to give us great support.
well, ut2k4 has a native linux version. Believe me, my crack is Diablo 2, and it runs great under cedega (wineX, from transgaming.com). HL2 is well supported (they even released an intermediate version for the sole purpose of working around some steam breakage). It looks like GR is not supported by Transgaming, but works well (the wiki node is a little out of date, though. I don't have it to report directly, thought).
Additionally, transgaming supports popular games pretty well, releasing versions to support them fairly quickly after (or even synchronously with) their release.
I personally game on Linux exclusively despite having several copies of Windows around. This is simply because I use Linux all the time, and hated dual-booting (guess I'm just impatient like that. I also hate having to drop everything I'm doing; I usually have lots of stuff going on on-screen). I can't afford to maintain a whole nother box (especially one that has the same specs as my laptop, which is necessarily fast due to the work I do) to run the latest games.
Better, IMHO, just to pay for Linux games and maybe pick up a few on the discount rack that work via Cedega/Wine. I don't have to be annoyed or maintain two expensive machines, and I get my work done under Linux (I'm honestly much more productive under Linux than Windows), and I help support Linux games with my wallet. A win-win situation for me. Others' views may be different, but those are my reasons.
I own a T5, and this point needs to be more emphasized. When you activate "Drive Mode", the Palm and the SD card appear to the destkop as plain-jane USB Mass Storage devices (one for the Palm's internal Flash storage, one more for the SD card). As such, this works with Mac and Linux (and likely BSD and BeOS, and whatever else, since it's USB Mass Storage).
The only downside is that you can't sync while it's in Drive Mode.
.Indeed. I personally know several people (in fact, it could be 90% of those people I know running PocketPC!) who got it for precisely this reason. That, and because it integrates 100% with their Windows desktop. Shocker--MSFT works with MSFT better than non-MSFT! One person I know of bought it for the handwriting recognition, but he's a computer geek too. :)
I am using a Pentium II 400Mhz/512MB RAM with a Hauppauge PVR-350 and MythTV. I don't get any skips. It's slow changing screens, but I don't really have problems watching TV, recording TV, or watching recordings.
Many linux users still do, although that number is rapidly diminishing as more OEMs start to offer OS-less or Linux PCs.
See, MSFT leans hard on OEMs to not offer OS-less machines, since they're "obviously going to install pirated Windows" (scare quotes intended; search for "Naked PC" articles from a few years back). Thus, it's MSFT or Another Very Minority OS Which Won't Give You Much Profit Due To Support Costs (as opposed to going OSless and just supporting the hardware, and the Windows profit margins are already tiny!).
Luckily, thanks to Linux's gaining popularity, it's less of an issue, but the MSFT Tax is still to be reckoned with, especially in the laptop market (unless you're willing to a) Pay a good chunk more for a limited subset of the same hardware (e.g. Emperor Linux which sells rebranded laptops) or b) risk someone who's not well known/trusted, and even with those who offer Linux laptops (e.g. Polywell), they can be more expensive than with Windows!).
The situation for desktop PCs is somewhat better, since the parts are so easy to come by and integrate together. Most Linux people I know of generally will build their own system or buy one from one of the many Linux workstation + server vendors.
Since MSFT's foray into the Tablet PC, the pickings for Linux tablets have gotten extremely thin. Whereas the (~30-50% Linux) tablets circa 2000-2001 were essentially large-screen PDAs; the new MSFT ones are essentially scaled-down laptops (with the expense that corresponds to that). And thanks to this new MSFT initiative, the Linux tablets one would actually be able to buy (e.g. VisionPlate, PepperPad, SonicBlue's offering, Siemen's SimPad, etc,; the large-screen PDAs) have been drowned out by the major OEMs and have either quit or been relegated to niches.
Thanks to Palm, you can still have a good chance of buying a Palm without being too inconvenienced, but it's hard to get a Linux PDA due to them coming late to market (and MSFT having been in the market a while).
Media Center PCs are almost universally MSFT, unless you build one yourself or buy a sealed one (e.g. TiVo).
[An aside: Anyone else notice how the Major OEMs are always on the latest MSFT bandwagon, be that Windows Media Center, Windows Version X, MSFT PDAs, Jukeboxes, Tablets, etc.? I wonder if this is part of their requirements to get a discount on Windows?]
So the MSFT tax is alive and kicking, and OS-less PCs aren't terribly easy to come by unless you build it yourself or go with a local shop (all of this is for the USA; I've not bought a PC elsewhere).
For the non-expert Linux user (e.g. those who've heard about it and want to get into it or just haven't gathered much PC experience yet), the pickings are even more slim, unless she wants to buy a workstation from an unknown (to her) third party or buy a very limited set of hardware (e.g. one HP laptop or the very-low-end Wal-Mart PCs).