Actually, IE5 for HP-UX/Solaris *is* a decent port. Having used both IE4 for HP-UX and solaris and recently IE5 for same, I must say that IE5 is a much better port than IE4 was. It's more stable, faster, and doesn't eat nearly as much disk space as IE4 did (a big concern if you have a quota'd account you use it on). So it's not quite as fast as Netscape is on the same machine, but it renders html much better and actually supports stuff like DHTML.
If IE5 were ported to linux (it should actually be almost as simple as recompiling on a linux box), it would be a good, and would finally give us linux users a decent browser (yes, I know mozilla is getting better, but it's not quite usable yet for most people).
They want the stability and the low hardware requirements...
The so-called "low hardware requirements" pretty much fly right out the window when attempting to appease the masses on the "ease-of-use" issue. To most people, "ease-of-use" means good looking gui tools. And good looking usually means lots of pixmaps, themeability, and so on. When was the last time you used a pixmap-intensive Enlightenment theme on a 486dx2-50 with 16M of RAM? The "low hardware requirements" of linux stem naturally from the fact that the GUI is not required. But for the "ease-of-use" people, the GUI is required.
I agree with the rest of your comments, but the hardware requirements are a red herring for this issue -- when you get Linux/X to look and fell like the "ease-of-use" people want so that they can easily move from MacOS or Windows, the hardware requirements are not going to be much different than those required for Windows (higher, oftentimes -- unless you're on a beefy machine, E+GNOME runs slower than windows, MacOS, or BeOS).
About the IRC server telnetting to your machine, more than just irc.home.com do so. They're scanning for open and insecure wingates and proxies which can cause major problems, due to the high percentage of script kiddies on IRC. I know from first hand experience that irc.core.com and several others do the same. In fact, it's common to be scanned upon joining high-profile channels (assuming you don't have identd running -- a telltale sign of possible wingate or proxy problems). If you don't like this, feel free to block the check.
It's unfortunate that spammers, skript kiddies, crackers, zealots, 1337 d00dz, and the other online riff-raff have to ruin such information sources as Usenet and IRC, but it's become a fact of life. A healthy firewall, a good IDS, and a little common sense will keep you well-protected, in my experiences.
Your best bet for now is to stay with Windows for games. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Ignore that, I forgot I need to uphold the perceived superiority of Linux in all things.
Seriously, though, if you want games, windows is the only way to go. There is nothing wrong or bad about admitting that Linux can't really handle games well, and may never be able to do so (is this really such a bad thing? IMHO, no, it's not). So, lose the anti-MS attitude and have fun with your games in win95, because if you take the holier-than-thou attitude and dump win95, but then complain about not having games on linux, you will have done nothing but screwed yourself.
BTW, don't waste your cash on a 3dfx card. For reasons I won't go into depth about here (16bpp max 3d rendering, 256x256 texture size, etc), 3dfx has dropped the ball. Sure, they support their mediocre products fairly well in Linux, but is that what linux really needs? You'll have to answer that for yourself
I'm sorry, but you need to pay a bit more attention. nVidia has had glx-enhanced support for the Riva 128 since last June, and generic 2D support has been in Xfree86 since at least 3.3.4 (in fact, it should've be in 3.3.3.0, which first had generic TNT1 support).
This anouncement should be nothing new to a Riva 128 owner. It's simply an update to 6 month old drivers.
So how does this affect other provdiers, such as CompuServe's $399 rebate at Circuit City and other stores? I haven't done my homework on these rebates/loans, but from the advertisements, Compuserve's seems to be an actual rebate and not a loan.
Personally, "saving" $400 isn't worth any amount of time with a bad service provider, but then again, I'm not your average Circuit City/Best Buy/CompUSA computer customer, either.
FYI, ports of IE4 exist for Sparc Solaris and PA-RISC HP-UX. I don't think an x86 port exists for Solaris. However, these ports are very subpar, and though IE is normal a superior browser, these ports don't hold a candle to Netscape, even with all of Netscape's problems.
When people switch from Microsoft to an alternative OS, like a BSD or Linux, isn't it, in part, to get away from Microsoft?
I have to disagree with that. To switch operating systems simply to "get away from Miscrosoft" seems a pretty poor reason to switch at all. If your current OS does everything you require and does it well, why switch? However, if there is an alternative out there that better fulfills your needs, then by all means switch. But don't do it for some superficial reason like "Microsoft sucks!" or "I hate Apple!" or whatever.
Granted, there are often better solutions than MS products for specific problems, but for many users, Windows provides everything they need and does it quite well.
In a perfect world, operating system choice would not rank on a level with religious choice, but unfortunately that's not this world.
I think the difference is because Linux tends to bring out a vocal minority of MS-haters. Saying that all Linux users hate Microsoft is just too broad, but unfortunately the few bad apples have given a bad impression about all of us. BSD users, on the other hand, tend to be less fanatical (at least, not vocally so), so while I would guess the same proportion of BSD users hate Windows/Microsoft as Linux users, BSD users haven't been tainted by extremely vocal zealots.
Perhaps I was reading a different article than you, but where did it say anything about "[preventing] a threat to its very existence"? Methinks you're the one who has it all wrong.
I agree, to a certain extent. Children should not be taught that cmoputers are toys. Instead, as you said, they should be taught that computers are tools. However, as soon as you impress on them that computers are expensive tools, you've just taught the to fear their machines. They will never tinker inside the computer, or even think about installing a different operating system, because they'll be too afraid of breaking that expensive tool.
Yes, I realize that computers aren't exactly cheap. But as soon as you live in fear of breaking your own computer, you've become shackled to it. It becomes your master, rather than the other way around. Yes, computers are tools. But computers are also for tinkering, for learning. If you're afraid of breaking that expensive computer, then you'll be too afraid to learn because you fear the consequences.
You cannot learn without making at least a few mistakes.
Hrm. "Slashdot: News for Nerds. Stuff that matters."
I don't see anything there saying "Slashdot: Linux and OSS only. Anything else doesn't matter."
If you have such a narrow world view that you can't see that "News for Nerds" and "Stuff that matters" encompasses more than just Linux, then you have other problems that need to be taken care of.
I agree here. MIT or Stanford will just burn you out. Besides, we have such notable things as NCSA, and the birthplace of graphical web browsing. And as was noted before, the grad school (and the CS department, in particular) are top-notch.
You do realize that this is precisely (well, not exactly, but a major reason) why other distributions exist, correct? So RedHat is pandering more to the newbie crowd, and making it hard to do something like install a system in less than 100MB of space, without X, etc. Big deal. Install Debian, or SuSE (even though it's aiming more towards beginners, the YaST tool is very powerful, and will let you fully customize your install). Or try some other distro, such as Stampede, or the several debian-based distros. Hell, why not roll your own if you're so macho? The point is, the choice is there.
And to adress another point not mentioned in this comment but mentioned elsewhere -- Linux is not about being Anti-Microsoft, or about Microsoft bashing, or anything like that. Linux is about providing a high quality, open source operating system. Everything else is secondary. Operating systems are tools. Use what's right for the job (and sometimes, what's right may be NT, not linux).
Talking to Everex for that information will get you nowhere. Microsoft defines how Windows CE machines talk to a desktop. All Everex can give you is hardware specs.
Woo!! An article from everybody's favorite Pinhead, Zippy!! (Check out the use of all-caps words)
Just adding to "the drooling gabber of thousands of Internet newbies re-hashing the same arguments that have been raging on Usenet since 1985."
Re:We'll do well in the long run but.....
on
NT vs. Linux: Again
·
· Score: 1
I think the real danger is that the community will feel pressured to "fix" the problems before the fixes are stable.
I really don't think that will be too much of a problem. After all, that's what the development kernels are for, anyway (and patches won't get ported back to 2.2.x until they're relatively stable). If a business insists on running a development kernel on a machine, let them reap the rewards as they may be.
And number 3) leads to 3a) You take your competitor's code, which he had to release as well since you used the GPL, and merge that with your own new innovations, thus creating an even better product than your competitor.
But not only that, if you read all of ESR's article you'd realize that he explained why this isn't really a problem to begin with, though it was in a bit of a round-about way. Re-read the part where he talks about knowing when to go open-source, and why beating a competitor to market with an open source product is a good thing (think mind-share, here). Not only that, but he also refutes the argument given by many hardware companies about making their drivers open source or providing specs w/out an NDA (think short product cycles for this one).
Anyway, the point is that if you've already got the market-share and the mind-share, most of your customers will be loyal to you (and if you don't have the market-share or mind-share yet, being the first to open-source in a market will help create at least mind-share).
First off, would you say that Netscape was also in the business of perverting standards for extensions they made to HTML? The rest of your examples are just as bogus. For example, MS Media Player is not a standard, but an application that just happens to play Real Media files and Quicktime files, as well as other files (.avi, mpeg's, etc). No standards subversion there. Chrome != OpenGL (as noted in another comment, the better view would be Direct3D vs OpenGL, but even that is not a case of standards perversion). By that rational, 3dfx is just as guilty for creating glide. In fact, with the exception of Java, all your "examples" don't relate to your argument. However, to refute you, let me provide you with a small sampling of standard protocols that Windows operating systems support that Microsoft *hasn't* attempted to pervert (to my knowledge, anyway -- please prove me wrong if you can).
PPP
TCP/IP
HTTP
FTP
IPX
etc
Yes, Microsoft implemented these standard protocols, but AFAIK, they did not attempt to subvert them in any way. In fact, the only standard that comes to mind besides Java or HTML (or perhaps Basic, if you want to go that route) that MS has or will prevert (besides their own formats and protocols, of course) is XML.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, IE5 for HP-UX/Solaris *is* a decent port. Having used both IE4 for HP-UX and solaris and recently IE5 for same, I must say that IE5 is a much better port than IE4 was. It's more stable, faster, and doesn't eat nearly as much disk space as IE4 did (a big concern if you have a quota'd account you use it on). So it's not quite as fast as Netscape is on the same machine, but it renders html much better and actually supports stuff like DHTML.
If IE5 were ported to linux (it should actually be almost as simple as recompiling on a linux box), it would be a good, and would finally give us linux users a decent browser (yes, I know mozilla is getting better, but it's not quite usable yet for most people).
uh ... The WB logo in the Matrix was green (as was pretty much most of the rest of the movie).
They want the stability and the low hardware requirements ...
The so-called "low hardware requirements" pretty much fly right out the window when attempting to appease the masses on the "ease-of-use" issue. To most people, "ease-of-use" means good looking gui tools. And good looking usually means lots of pixmaps, themeability, and so on. When was the last time you used a pixmap-intensive Enlightenment theme on a 486dx2-50 with 16M of RAM? The "low hardware requirements" of linux stem naturally from the fact that the GUI is not required. But for the "ease-of-use" people, the GUI is required.
I agree with the rest of your comments, but the hardware requirements are a red herring for this issue -- when you get Linux/X to look and fell like the "ease-of-use" people want so that they can easily move from MacOS or Windows, the hardware requirements are not going to be much different than those required for Windows (higher, oftentimes -- unless you're on a beefy machine, E+GNOME runs slower than windows, MacOS, or BeOS).
That was exactly his point. It happens often, yet it's rare that the AUP is enforced for these types of issues.
About the IRC server telnetting to your machine, more than just irc.home.com do so. They're scanning for open and insecure wingates and proxies which can cause major problems, due to the high percentage of script kiddies on IRC. I know from first hand experience that irc.core.com and several others do the same. In fact, it's common to be scanned upon joining high-profile channels (assuming you don't have identd running -- a telltale sign of possible wingate or proxy problems). If you don't like this, feel free to block the check.
It's unfortunate that spammers, skript kiddies, crackers, zealots, 1337 d00dz, and the other online riff-raff have to ruin such information sources as Usenet and IRC, but it's become a fact of life. A healthy firewall, a good IDS, and a little common sense will keep you well-protected, in my experiences.
Your best bet for now is to stay with Windows for games. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Ignore that, I forgot I need to uphold the perceived superiority of Linux in all things.
Seriously, though, if you want games, windows is the only way to go. There is nothing wrong or bad about admitting that Linux can't really handle games well, and may never be able to do so (is this really such a bad thing? IMHO, no, it's not). So, lose the anti-MS attitude and have fun with your games in win95, because if you take the holier-than-thou attitude and dump win95, but then complain about not having games on linux, you will have done nothing but screwed yourself.
BTW, don't waste your cash on a 3dfx card. For reasons I won't go into depth about here (16bpp max 3d rendering, 256x256 texture size, etc), 3dfx has dropped the ball. Sure, they support their mediocre products fairly well in Linux, but is that what linux really needs? You'll have to answer that for yourself
I'm sorry, but you need to pay a bit more attention. nVidia has had glx-enhanced support for the Riva 128 since last June, and generic 2D support has been in Xfree86 since at least 3.3.4 (in fact, it should've be in 3.3.3.0, which first had generic TNT1 support).
This anouncement should be nothing new to a Riva 128 owner. It's simply an update to 6 month old drivers.
I'm sorry, but what does nVidia's drivers have to do with buying an Athlon?
I just don't seem to get it.
So how does this affect other provdiers, such as CompuServe's $399 rebate at Circuit City and other stores? I haven't done my homework on these rebates/loans, but from the advertisements, Compuserve's seems to be an actual rebate and not a loan.
Personally, "saving" $400 isn't worth any amount of time with a bad service provider, but then again, I'm not your average Circuit City/Best Buy/CompUSA computer customer, either.
FYI, ports of IE4 exist for Sparc Solaris and PA-RISC HP-UX. I don't think an x86 port exists for Solaris. However, these ports are very subpar, and though IE is normal a superior browser, these ports don't hold a candle to Netscape, even with all of Netscape's problems.
When people switch from Microsoft to an alternative OS, like a BSD or Linux, isn't it, in part, to get away from Microsoft?
I have to disagree with that. To switch operating systems simply to "get away from Miscrosoft" seems a pretty poor reason to switch at all. If your current OS does everything you require and does it well, why switch? However, if there is an alternative out there that better fulfills your needs, then by all means switch. But don't do it for some superficial reason like "Microsoft sucks!" or "I hate Apple!" or whatever.
Granted, there are often better solutions than MS products for specific problems, but for many users, Windows provides everything they need and does it quite well.
In a perfect world, operating system choice would not rank on a level with religious choice, but unfortunately that's not this world.
I think the difference is because Linux tends to bring out a vocal minority of MS-haters. Saying that all Linux users hate Microsoft is just too broad, but unfortunately the few bad apples have given a bad impression about all of us. BSD users, on the other hand, tend to be less fanatical (at least, not vocally so), so while I would guess the same proportion of BSD users hate Windows/Microsoft as Linux users, BSD users haven't been tainted by extremely vocal zealots.
At least, that's my take on the situation.
Perhaps I was reading a different article than you, but where did it say anything about "[preventing] a threat to its very existence"? Methinks you're the one who has it all wrong.
I agree, to a certain extent. Children should not be taught that cmoputers are toys. Instead, as you said, they should be taught that computers are tools. However, as soon as you impress on them that computers are expensive tools, you've just taught the to fear their machines. They will never tinker inside the computer, or even think about installing a different operating system, because they'll be too afraid of breaking that expensive tool.
Yes, I realize that computers aren't exactly cheap. But as soon as you live in fear of breaking your own computer, you've become shackled to it. It becomes your master, rather than the other way around. Yes, computers are tools. But computers are also for tinkering, for learning. If you're afraid of breaking that expensive computer, then you'll be too afraid to learn because you fear the consequences.
You cannot learn without making at least a few mistakes.
The Barbie printer, at least, already exists. Take a trip to your local Best Buy.
By the way, the printer is crap.
Shoot. I didn't realize I was posting that as an AC.
Hrm. "Slashdot: News for Nerds. Stuff that matters."
I don't see anything there saying "Slashdot: Linux and OSS only. Anything else doesn't matter."
If you have such a narrow world view that you can't see that "News for Nerds" and "Stuff that matters" encompasses more than just Linux, then you have other problems that need to be taken care of.
I agree here. MIT or Stanford will just burn you out. Besides, we have such notable things as NCSA, and the birthplace of graphical web browsing. And as was noted before, the grad school (and the CS department, in particular) are top-notch.
You do realize that this is precisely (well, not exactly, but a major reason) why other distributions exist, correct? So RedHat is pandering more to the newbie crowd, and making it hard to do something like install a system in less than 100MB of space, without X, etc. Big deal. Install Debian, or SuSE (even though it's aiming more towards beginners, the YaST tool is very powerful, and will let you fully customize your install). Or try some other distro, such as Stampede, or the several debian-based distros. Hell, why not roll your own if you're so macho? The point is, the choice is there.
And to adress another point not mentioned in this comment but mentioned elsewhere -- Linux is not about being Anti-Microsoft, or about Microsoft bashing, or anything like that. Linux is about providing a high quality, open source operating system. Everything else is secondary. Operating systems are tools. Use what's right for the job (and sometimes, what's right may be NT, not linux).
Talking to Everex for that information will get you nowhere. Microsoft defines how Windows CE machines talk to a desktop. All Everex can give you is hardware specs.
Woo!! An article from everybody's favorite Pinhead, Zippy!! (Check out the use of all-caps words)
Just adding to "the drooling gabber of thousands of Internet newbies re-hashing the same arguments that have been raging on Usenet since 1985."
I think the real danger is that the community will feel pressured to "fix" the problems before the fixes are stable.
I really don't think that will be too much of a problem. After all, that's what the development kernels are for, anyway (and patches won't get ported back to 2.2.x until they're relatively stable). If a business insists on running a development kernel on a machine, let them reap the rewards as they may be.
And number 3) leads to 3a) You take your competitor's code, which he had to release as well since you used the GPL, and merge that with your own new innovations, thus creating an even better product than your competitor.
But not only that, if you read all of ESR's article you'd realize that he explained why this isn't really a problem to begin with, though it was in a bit of a round-about way. Re-read the part where he talks about knowing when to go open-source, and why beating a competitor to market with an open source product is a good thing (think mind-share, here). Not only that, but he also refutes the argument given by many hardware companies about making their drivers open source or providing specs w/out an NDA (think short product cycles for this one).
Anyway, the point is that if you've already got the market-share and the mind-share, most of your customers will be loyal to you (and if you don't have the market-share or mind-share yet, being the first to open-source in a market will help create at least mind-share).
The only thing wrong with a PCI modem is that very few work with operating systems other than Windows 9x/NT.
Give me a good external any day.
Yes, Microsoft implemented these standard protocols, but AFAIK, they did not attempt to subvert them in any way. In fact, the only standard that comes to mind besides Java or HTML (or perhaps Basic, if you want to go that route) that MS has or will prevert (besides their own formats and protocols, of course) is XML.