Re:they need updated docs for todays ram amounts
on
Is Swap Necessary?
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· Score: 1
Clearly you don't understand that there are more uses for your RAM than the working set of your applications. Please go study the subject before complaining. Specifically, pay attention to the fact that Windows is using that RAM as a cache, and as a result your disk accesses are orders of magnitude faster.
This is turning into the new 'X is slow because it runs over a socket interface' idea. People, your computer isn't stupid, it's using that RAM for good purposes, please either trust it or study the subject so you can discuss it sensibly.
Re:If You have enough RAM
on
Is Swap Necessary?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Adding RAM always helps. No one ever says that swap is BETTER than RAM. Having X+Y RAM is better than X RAM + Y swap. However, having X+Y RAM plus Z swap is better yet.
Sure, add more RAM. But swap will always be useful, because there's always some stuff which is better off on the disk, because it hasn't been used in forever, and until your RAM is larger than your HD, you'll get better milage out of that RAM if you use it as a cache.
This is when the Wine project wins: when people start to develop applications which can run on multiple platforms. It's not hard to do (with a tool such as Wine), it just requires some thought and extra testing.
The end result will be that the Win32 GUI API (like it or hate it) will become the de-facto standard for desktop applications, much in the same way that the Unix API became a 'standard'. When that happens, the creator of the API becomes irrelevant.
Doesn't this apply only if you include Microsoft's implementation in your GPL application? A license like this can't prevent you from implementing it from scratch. Patents can (and I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few dozen of those) but I don't think the license is an issue.
My hostname defaulted to a reverse-DNS lookup of the DHCP address, which is 'dhcp1.localdomain'. I hadn't seen this in other distros, and I'm looking for a way to change it. I don't consider reverse-DNS to be a good way to maintain hostnames, I set it up mostly for things like rexec which require it.
Is there a way to switch to the default Gnome theme I see in screenshots for reviews of Gnome 2.6? I like those better than Bluecurve, but Fedora Core 2 doesn't seem to give me a stock Gnome theme.
My impression overall was very good. I hadn't installed a desktop Linux distro in a year or so, and Fedora was light years ahead of what I expected.
Installation, printing, sound, video, network, mouse, all worked perfectly with no tweaking.
My digital camera would register as/dev/sda1 when I plug it in, though I have to mount it myself, and my webcam (Logitech QuickCam Messenger) doesn't work at all.
Installing Java and Flash wasn't hard, and Thunderbird / Firefox was trivial.
The desktop looks very nice, and shortcuts, panels, menus, preferences were all intuitive.
Utilities like the music player and CD ripper are well done.
I'm wondering if it's a spell-checker thing. Like someone hit 'Change all' with the wrong value selected.
Has anyone else noticed that misspellings in books are almost nonexistent nowadays except when the misspelling is another (correctly spelled) word? It's pretty funny to read sometimes.
Furthermore, other developers are more productive. It's very easy (assuming you can comply with the licensing terms) to set up your own tree and pull from Linus. In fact, the best way to work with BK is to use many trees, one for each (broad) set of changes you're working on. BK will gracefully handle merging them. Not only developer -> Linus, but also Linus -> developer: when Linus's tree is updated, it's easy for a developer to pull those changes down. It's better all around.
The other, very convincing, argument is that all of the previous 'functionality' is there, and then some. Linus still creates releases in the same way--you can just get stuff earlier with BK. The release notes are better, because they're generated from BK, and include the author's name and comments, not just Linus's summary. You can still send diff-style patches via email. Bitmover also added CVS gateways for those who want early changes without using BK. The LKML community was extremely skeptical to say the least, but pretty much everyone except the rabid zealots are convinced.
You might think that requiring people to distribute any modifications they make to your product to be an unenforceable license.
The logic goes, you wouldn't have a license at all if I didn't grant it to you somehow, so you can't complain about the terms. All you can do is reject the license and not use the product. I can require you to wear a heatsink on your forehead if I want to.
Do you really have to say "BZZT! WRONG!" when you correct someone? That has to be the most annoying Slashdot habit ever. Especially when the parent you corrected turns out to be right.
It's interesting that one of the features of BeFS is its metadata indexing capabilities (which are the beginnings of a relational model).
Clearly the BeOS designers agree with you.
It's also interesting that the author spends quite a while discussing how difficult it is to do well (particularly performance-wise) and how they almost left it out (IIRC) and/or had to limit its scope.
Clearly the BeOS developers think you're wrong.
And personally, I'll believe people who have actually tried to implement the technology in question over people who say others should do so.
WINE will have truly succeeded, not when everyone switches from Windows to Linux, but when software developers begin to:
1. Code their Windows apps in a way which makes it easy to run them on WINE 2. test / support WINE as a platform
If this happens, XAML and all future Microsoft dominance is doomed. What we will end up with is the common set of easy, sensible Win32 APIs usable across multiple implementations, and the crufty, proprietary, unnecessary crap being ignored.
Can you name a single Windows flaw that was in the kernel?
Do you actually know what a kernel is? Hint, Internet Explorer isn't in it.
There have been at least TWO Linux kernel security flaws in the past few months. Both were found by code auditing (not exploits) and both required local user access, but they were there nonetheless.
I don't think Microsoft has ever released a patch to the Windows kernel via Windows Update. Can anyone confirm this?
You can bash Microsoft's userland applications (RPC in particular!) as much as you want, but their kernel is extremely well-written.
Really? I have to agree with the grandparent, dselect is gawd-awful. I haven't used the Debian installer itself, I installed in a chroot under a previous Red Hat version. The apt tools are great, but deselect...I just can't cope.
The UW-IMAP server supports the IDLE command according to their documentation. Has anyone gotten it to work with Thunderbird 0.6? I don't know if there's something I have to configure, but when I send an email I don't get a notification in Thunderbird until the standard check-mail time expires.
When is Apple going to allow unlimited playing of iTMS songs (while connected through broadband) for a flat fee? That's what keeps me on Rhapsody. For a flat fee I can play just about anything through my computer. The drawbacks are that you can't play downloaded songs through its interface, and it's Windows-only. I would love to use iTunes but I've become addicted to infinite choice of music.
You seem to think that the only reason for technical support is a bug in the program. Far from it.
The main reason for technical support is user error, which is not something that freely-donated open-source support handles very well. When Joe User can't format his Word document the way he wants because a feature isn't working the way he expects, he doesn't want the person on the other end of the phone / email to tell him to RTFM. Paid support (through Microsoft, or as you mention, third-party paid support) is generally trained to handle this.
Moreover, I don't have a problem with your argument, but I dislike your disdainful attitude. If you think the software purchasing decisions made by the vast majority of American businesses are -5 Codswallop, then put your money where your mouth is and start your own fucking Fortune 500 company.
Your personal experience at using software (open source or otherwise) does not accurately predict other people's experiences.
"Gozer the Traveler! He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the Rectification of the Vuldronaii, the Traveler came as a large and moving Torb! Then, during the Third Reconciliation of the Last of the Meketrex Supplicants, they chose a new form for him, that of a giant Sloar! Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar that day, I can tell you!"
Limiting the hardware and the software is the only way they can provide real support. The combinations of hardware, software, and configurations which people label as "Linux" are staggering.
Obviously this isn't for anyone who is already comfortable running Linux distros. If you can do that successfully, would you really need support? When was the last time you contacted a company for software support?
Clearly this isn't for you (or me). That doesn't make it useless.
Apparently that's an old Unix tradition. I think some ancient line printer reported an error condition which indicated overheating or something. Perhaps someone else could provide more info? I couldn't find the historical story with a quick Google search.
Why do you think these two parties have these particular values? Could it be that these two parties have 'chosen' values which actually do manage to accurately represent the values of a majority of the people in this country?
Do you think that a political party would survive long if it DIDN'T match what people thought?
Slashdot Mirror
Or 'well-regulated militia'.
Clearly you don't understand that there are more uses for your RAM than the working set of your applications. Please go study the subject before complaining. Specifically, pay attention to the fact that Windows is using that RAM as a cache, and as a result your disk accesses are orders of magnitude faster.
This is turning into the new 'X is slow because it runs over a socket interface' idea. People, your computer isn't stupid, it's using that RAM for good purposes, please either trust it or study the subject so you can discuss it sensibly.
Adding RAM always helps. No one ever says that swap is BETTER than RAM. Having X+Y RAM is better than X RAM + Y swap. However, having X+Y RAM plus Z swap is better yet.
Sure, add more RAM. But swap will always be useful, because there's always some stuff which is better off on the disk, because it hasn't been used in forever, and until your RAM is larger than your HD, you'll get better milage out of that RAM if you use it as a cache.
This is when the Wine project wins: when people start to develop applications which can run on multiple platforms. It's not hard to do (with a tool such as Wine), it just requires some thought and extra testing.
The end result will be that the Win32 GUI API (like it or hate it) will become the de-facto standard for desktop applications, much in the same way that the Unix API became a 'standard'. When that happens, the creator of the API becomes irrelevant.
Doesn't this apply only if you include Microsoft's implementation in your GPL application? A license like this can't prevent you from implementing it from scratch. Patents can (and I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few dozen of those) but I don't think the license is an issue.
My hostname defaulted to a reverse-DNS lookup of the DHCP address, which is 'dhcp1.localdomain'. I hadn't seen this in other distros, and I'm looking for a way to change it. I don't consider reverse-DNS to be a good way to maintain hostnames, I set it up mostly for things like rexec which require it.
My impression overall was very good. I hadn't installed a desktop Linux distro in a year or so, and Fedora was light years ahead of what I expected.
Installation, printing, sound, video, network, mouse, all worked perfectly with no tweaking.
My digital camera would register as /dev/sda1 when I plug it in, though I have to mount it myself, and my webcam (Logitech QuickCam Messenger) doesn't work at all.
Installing Java and Flash wasn't hard, and Thunderbird / Firefox was trivial.
The desktop looks very nice, and shortcuts, panels, menus, preferences were all intuitive.
Utilities like the music player and CD ripper are well done.
Great work by the Gnome and Fedora teams!
I'm wondering if it's a spell-checker thing. Like someone hit 'Change all' with the wrong value selected.
Has anyone else noticed that misspellings in books are almost nonexistent nowadays except when the misspelling is another (correctly spelled) word? It's pretty funny to read sometimes.
Furthermore, other developers are more productive. It's very easy (assuming you can comply with the licensing terms) to set up your own tree and pull from Linus. In fact, the best way to work with BK is to use many trees, one for each (broad) set of changes you're working on. BK will gracefully handle merging them. Not only developer -> Linus, but also Linus -> developer: when Linus's tree is updated, it's easy for a developer to pull those changes down. It's better all around.
The other, very convincing, argument is that all of the previous 'functionality' is there, and then some. Linus still creates releases in the same way--you can just get stuff earlier with BK. The release notes are better, because they're generated from BK, and include the author's name and comments, not just Linus's summary. You can still send diff-style patches via email. Bitmover also added CVS gateways for those who want early changes without using BK. The LKML community was extremely skeptical to say the least, but pretty much everyone except the rabid zealots are convinced.
You might think that requiring people to distribute any modifications they make to your product to be an unenforceable license.
The logic goes, you wouldn't have a license at all if I didn't grant it to you somehow, so you can't complain about the terms. All you can do is reject the license and not use the product. I can require you to wear a heatsink on your forehead if I want to.
Do you really have to say "BZZT! WRONG!" when you correct someone? That has to be the most annoying Slashdot habit ever. Especially when the parent you corrected turns out to be right.
It's interesting that one of the features of BeFS is its metadata indexing capabilities (which are the beginnings of a relational model).
Clearly the BeOS designers agree with you.
It's also interesting that the author spends quite a while discussing how difficult it is to do well (particularly performance-wise) and how they almost left it out (IIRC) and/or had to limit its scope.
Clearly the BeOS developers think you're wrong.
And personally, I'll believe people who have actually tried to implement the technology in question over people who say others should do so.
WINE will have truly succeeded, not when everyone switches from Windows to Linux, but when software developers begin to:
1. Code their Windows apps in a way which makes it easy to run them on WINE
2. test / support WINE as a platform
If this happens, XAML and all future Microsoft dominance is doomed. What we will end up with is the common set of easy, sensible Win32 APIs usable across multiple implementations, and the crufty, proprietary, unnecessary crap being ignored.
Doesn't anyone remember the other proprietary OS this happened to?
Can you name a single Windows flaw that was in the kernel?
Do you actually know what a kernel is? Hint, Internet Explorer isn't in it.
There have been at least TWO Linux kernel security flaws in the past few months. Both were found by code auditing (not exploits) and both required local user access, but they were there nonetheless.
I don't think Microsoft has ever released a patch to the Windows kernel via Windows Update. Can anyone confirm this?
You can bash Microsoft's userland applications (RPC in particular!) as much as you want, but their kernel is extremely well-written.
Really? I have to agree with the grandparent, dselect is gawd-awful. I haven't used the Debian installer itself, I installed in a chroot under a previous Red Hat version. The apt tools are great, but deselect...I just can't cope.
The UW-IMAP server supports the IDLE command according to their documentation. Has anyone gotten it to work with Thunderbird 0.6? I don't know if there's something I have to configure, but when I send an email I don't get a notification in Thunderbird until the standard check-mail time expires.
I went to Debian, and I'm happy. I figure if anyone's going to support their (free) product for a long time, it's the Debian Project.
When is Apple going to allow unlimited playing of iTMS songs (while connected through broadband) for a flat fee? That's what keeps me on Rhapsody. For a flat fee I can play just about anything through my computer. The drawbacks are that you can't play downloaded songs through its interface, and it's Windows-only. I would love to use iTunes but I've become addicted to infinite choice of music.
I hope they don't start trying to circumcise anything else.
You seem to think that the only reason for technical support is a bug in the program. Far from it.
The main reason for technical support is user error, which is not something that freely-donated open-source support handles very well. When Joe User can't format his Word document the way he wants because a feature isn't working the way he expects, he doesn't want the person on the other end of the phone / email to tell him to RTFM. Paid support (through Microsoft, or as you mention, third-party paid support) is generally trained to handle this.
Moreover, I don't have a problem with your argument, but I dislike your disdainful attitude. If you think the software purchasing decisions made by the vast majority of American businesses are -5 Codswallop, then put your money where your mouth is and start your own fucking Fortune 500 company.
Your personal experience at using software (open source or otherwise) does not accurately predict other people's experiences.
"Gozer the Traveler! He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the Rectification of the Vuldronaii, the Traveler came as a large and moving Torb! Then, during the Third Reconciliation of the Last of the Meketrex Supplicants, they chose a new form for him, that of a giant Sloar! Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar that day, I can tell you!"
Seeing as Sedna has a 20,000 year orbit, it would cause some problems for horoscopes, wouldn't it?
"And Sedna is still in Cassiopeia...lovers will have to wait another 19,000 years for their ruling planet to move into Draco..."
Limiting the hardware and the software is the only way they can provide real support. The combinations of hardware, software, and configurations which people label as "Linux" are staggering.
Obviously this isn't for anyone who is already comfortable running Linux distros. If you can do that successfully, would you really need support? When was the last time you contacted a company for software support?
Clearly this isn't for you (or me). That doesn't make it useless.
Apparently that's an old Unix tradition. I think some ancient line printer reported an error condition which indicated overheating or something. Perhaps someone else could provide more info? I couldn't find the historical story with a quick Google search.
Why do you think these two parties have these particular values? Could it be that these two parties have 'chosen' values which actually do manage to accurately represent the values of a majority of the people in this country?
Do you think that a political party would survive long if it DIDN'T match what people thought?