OK, 3 non-GPL libs needed. Set projects up with GNU/GPL basis.
As a long time (10+ years IRIX) UNIX, and short time (5+ years) Linux user. Give us the OPTION of hiring/contracting/investing in Open Source!
Every single time have the option of laying out $100 to $2,000 US for software, I _always_ look for a contractor how has _almost_ done it GPL and am ready to write them a check to finish the job. Mo other option is PAYING FOR SOFTWARE, and I know the more GPL I pay to get done, and more people like me, the less software OVERALL I will have to buy.
So, my comment is simply, put up or shut up!
Sadly, this project doesn't affect me, so I can't offer money for it. But I have offered GPL coders SOO MUCH in the past that hasn't been taken up on, I am SICK TO DEATH of hearing the "closed commercial is better now" arguement.
"it does indeed look like they've done a good job producing the "anti-geek" Linux distro."
But, is it REALLY better than Mandrake (or RedHat) for the end user in the long run?
Reguardless of the answer (I say No, Mandrake ROCKS, RedHat is Slick, and are desktop OS's now) you may say yes. Even still...
This is a company Mandrake (or Red Hat) should get a VC to finance the buyout of now for 2 reasons:
They obviously have good marketing or connections to get a good revew from MSNBC, and Marketing for a Linux distro is more imprtant now than it has EVER been. And we all know this is key.
If they really (I haven't tried the distro) are slicker in ANY way... That work should be folded into the work of a big established distro. There is no reason "Redmond Linux" should be slicker than Mandrake, and Mandrake not take that away (if it's GPL, but the right thing to do is NOT take the GPL code, but BUY the GPL coders who had the talent to do it!).
There is definitely a difference in having multiple focus groups tell you what they like and don't like about a commercial. Subtle nuances that some people might glaze over might really tweak off a bunch of other people. Can a 1-10 "hot or not" scale duplicate this? No.
exactly how much are you willing to wager on that? Your company CAN do better than a 1-10 "is this hot or not" online rating scale? Are you REALLY willing to take that gamble with your money? With your companies reputation? If so, then, contact me to layout the conditions... I'm sure there are 1000's of "skript kitties" that will do set it up for free.... gimme a legit chance to put in the bandwidth and promotion it deserves (say 1 month, and $25,000 which is a fraction of the time and money an ad firm will charge), and we'll test your theory!
_IF_ you were in advertising, you broke so many rules here by exposing what a "racket" it is, and how much empty BS is really involved to justify the money.
Oh, BTW, if any of this guy's client's are out there, your welcome to contact me to try this "experiment" as well!
"my clients' pay upwards of $10M a pop to get people to comment on their commercials."
You get that much "a pop," either your raking in BOATLOADS of cash, or the "suckers" are about a year apart in frequency. JUST TO TELL YOU IF THE AD IS INTERESTING? Yet 90% of the TV ads SUCK?
If that's all true, well then here is my resume! I'm well educated and extremely critical by nature!
With all due respect, I'll listen to you guys when it comes to tech stuff
Oh, BTW, for you, that's going to cost "10M a pop" from now on. Consider each Slashdot page load "a pop." My lawyers will contact you shortly.
PS: VMS is an OS, and an old one... Good luck trying to call it!
I'm really suprised everyone is saying VNC (about 80%) or Xterminal (terminal server, LTSP, etc.. about 20%).
I do think both are very cool, but when I'm away from my personal computer, I find stuff like phpGroupWare and TWIG to be most helpful. Basically, both are still in the useable but not yet completely polished phases of development. When phpGroupWare is done, I have fairly high hopes for it.
In addition to allowing me to keep working when I don't have my own laptop with me or it's out for repair, I find the whole idea of Web Gateways much better for real "remote" work.
XTerminals are best (IMHO) if your looking for a single server, multiple user points on a fast network. But on a slower network, or more remote, I think web gateways would be better.
I guess I'm missing why VNC is the ultimate solution here....
ok, I KNOW this is off topic, and going to get mod'ed to -1. Please, my karma doesn't need 400 seprate -1 votes (even thought I know this will get them, I'm doing it anyway and NOT posting as an AC).
Why are submitted stories ALWAYs in italics? Is it starting to give anyone else a headache tilting their head to the right to read EVER STORY on./?
We all know no one from SlashDot hardly ever (like 0.01% of the time) writes their own stories. Why must EVER story be in italics? IT'S LIKE TRYING TO READ USENET WHEN EVERYONE POSTS IN CAPS AND IS TO LAZY TO TURN THE CAP LOCKS OFF BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW ANY BETTER.
When quoting someone, italics is nice, but when you _know_ everything will be a quote, does EVERYTHING have to be in italics?
"This project was rejected by SF, due to lack of merit... HUH?
Special thanks to the folks at PostNuke.com, Mandrake, LTSP, and of course, Linus."
Pretty sad. Considering the number of projects on SF that don't even have any code to look at or anything at all to download, it's hard to understand this.
Genghis Troll wrote " get right to the point. This is a problem long overdue for debate.....blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....
&*(&$*(!&#@*!(#!@ Get to your frigging point! point to the exact things MandrakeSoft did, dates, specifics.
All you have done is rant about "how evil they are" and to justify you say "because they did bad stuff." Yet you don't define evil, or what bad stuff is...
This is a TOTAL TROLL. Redeem yourself, POST SOME ACTUAL INFORMATION rather than your ranting opinions. PLEASE. Or your will fall into an all time looser troll catagory.
GET TO SOME POINT. PROVIDE SOME EVIDENCE. (sorry, my cap lock is not stuck, I am yelling!).
WTF are you talking about. If your accusations are true, please provide simple, clear, examples without the longwinded rant.
What did they do? Give Dates, Give Details, and reserve your long winded opinions...... Let us judge them on the evidence. If what you say is true, SHOW US!!!
Unfortunately, the Rio Car (formerly empeg) has been EOL'ed by SonicBlue
Your KIDDING? For a company that constantly reported being backordered on the Rio Car, that's sooo stupid.
If they gave the Rio Car ANY marketing, it would have done well.... Look at XFM, everyone want's MP3 in their car or a new Cell Phone, and XFM is marketed out the ass... The ONLY reason XFM is being sold is marketing. If Sonic Blue had a marketing division worth a shit, they would have owned that market.
I always wondered why they never cut a deal with Circut City or Best Buy, I guess now I know, because they are MORONS who don't know MARKETING. Good product, bad marketing, sad loss to the Linux World (so, what's new?)
Blatent Flame Follows, please don't take it personally asv108, you obvisouly DO know more about this than me, but I had doubts about what you said
What I would like to see is a complete car package that offers:
* Large Capacity with standard drives
Car Rio will take up to two standard laptop drives. That's up to 120G of storage using easily avalible IBM Travelstar or Fujitsu drives.
* Radio and CD player
Car Rio offers an radio tuner option (might want to get an antenna signal booster, reception is "average" and if your in a remote location, it can matter, most people it doesn't). As for the CD player, if your so sad you have your 40G to 120G full and STILL don't have the songs you want, CD player isn't going to help you.
* The CD player doubles as a ripper
Why? I'd rather rip and sort at home, FOR the drive, not WHILE driving. And at what speed? 16x laptop CDROM speed? I'd prefer my home 56x CDROM and Athlon XP 1700 for ripping than a 16x CDROM with a Strong Arm processer, thanks anyway. Your thinking of tech that's 5 years off (to be avaliable at a reasonable price commercially). I'll take the real, today alternitive thanks...
* Wireless Access
Abso-frigging-lutely! But I see hacking a 802.11b USB device into a Car Rio much more likely than a commercial head unit that has integreted wireless. War Driving anyone?
* Car 2 Car IM
And you thought talking on a Cell phone made for bad driving!!!! Shit, I would RATHER see this on a cell phone than in a car stereo ANY DAY. Yes it's there, sort of.... So why bother? In the US, it's lame, and we need to cetch up to the EU. But, anyway...
If you really want it, at LEAST on a Cell phone, you can hold the phone in your hand while doing it, and still sort of hold on to the steering wheel. NO WAY do I want people to be trying to IM people from their stereo head unit! KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD. And as long as it's already in the phone, what's the point?!?!?
* Easily Navigable
Any unit is easy once you get use to it. There are no "standard ways" to navigate 60G's of MP3's in your car anyway... so it's more practice than progress... If I can simply have 10-20 play lists to pick from, that's MORE than enough. That's all I need for navigation.
Now, I don't OWN a Car Rio (yet), and I sure don't work for them. But, given that it's Linux based, hackable, and been around longer, I'm strongly leaning towards that.
...that there are only about 2 of such things out now, this one listed, and the indash CD player
with a by SonicBlue [sonicblue.com] which is Linux based, the...
Should be
...that there are only about 2 of such things out now, this one listed, and the indash MP3 player
with a by SonicBlue [sonicblue.com] which is Linux based, the...
I don't find the review very useful. It would seem to me, and I could be wrong, that there are only about 2 of such things out now, this one listed, and the indash CD player
with a by SonicBlue which is Linux based, the
Rio Car unit.
They have a nice developer/user.org
site too.
Between the two, I'd pick the hackable Linux one, for several reasons.
It's been around longer.
It's hackable.
There is a community support forum
Looks way cooler
Basically, since the above mentioned review of the Dension DMP3 MP3 doesn't make ANY comparison, it doesn't help 99% of the people in the GENERAL consumer electronics market, because there is no frame of referance at all. Maybe someone could write a useful review comparing the two?
The Nokia 8390 has been announced as "comming soon in the US" for what, 6 months? And the release date has been pushed back month by month since at least December according to cnet.
Not only are these phones going to probably have the wait you mention, they are probably not going to hit US shores for a long long time (if ever).
IMHO, Samsung and Sanyo actually release phones that are cool without too much hype. Nokia has become a "designer brand" that people in the US pay for just to have, even if the technology is outdated by the time they get to the US.
Since you won't probably see that in the US for YEARS, you could consider getting a color screen Ericson unlocked that will work in the US now, even if the bells and whistle midlets don't work on it.
I think cell phones have computer beat for disposable.
Interesting perspective... However, not the public one.
In the case of uptime, you have shown the BSD's to be running longer without reboot. However, that does not prove they are more widly excepted in any way.
According to your logic, no one at all is running Windows, so why bother even mentioning it? Problem is, you haven't proved that, you only proved FreeBSD users (and *BSD users in general) less likely to reboot. It does not naturally follow that there are more users overall.
Many may disagree, but there are a lot of people out there that prefer the BSD licence to the GNU/GPL license scheme.
So, they built a (arguably) better OS based on BSD license, and called it FreeBSD. Then it forked and we have NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD.
Despite the great beauty of FreeBSD, and the vastly developed environment (countless ports that work flawlessly, providing users with easy to install and run applications), FreeBSD is not doing as well as Linux.
Why? Buzzword Bingo. It's hard enough to compete with Microsoft to get a persons attention, and convince them to try a new OS. And, when the average person looks for a "alternative" Linux is the most obvious choice. FreeBSD gets only a small fraction of that attention, even if it is technically equivalent (or better in some people's opinion).
IMHO, this is why HURD may fail. It's not because it won't be a good alternative, or because it will be technically inferior, because those will likely be untrue. Hurd will probably be competitive, but how will it get a market share?
Linux will make vast roads to having a real-time kernel, embedded, etc... (QNX like), long before Hurd is ready. So, add the lack of press, lack of interest, and slow development, I can't help but think it will not see much success. How can you not see it in a similar light to the BSDs, even if the licensing is different?
Look at the artical, it criticizes decisions made, but it's not criticizing KDE itself, or any release of KDE. It's critical of the _process_ not the _release_!
It's a failing of leadership (if the criticism is true). I think it's important to remember 2 things here:
KDE releases are important to the acceptance of Linux on the desktop. More judgement of the FINAL PRODUCT should be focused on, not just some little pain in the ass details about getting it ready.
OK, thousands of programmers coding for you, for free can't be a bad thing, ever.
In light of this lack of management discovery, maybe a couple programers will start to see all the recent criticizm's of software managers (as in recent stories here) may be not as useful as trying to actually support managers of projects (espically OSS ones) a little more.
Anyhow, I guess I just assumed everyone would understand what I was trying to say, but knowing/. lately, that won't happen.
With ACPI enabled on Dell Laptops in the kernel, they will lock up on switching from battery to wall power or vice versa. Aparently (I could be wrong) at least in Linux you can disable it, reguardless of the BIOS... HOWEVER, if you are unaware of how to compile your own kernel WITHOUT APIC, or pass the option through LILO, your screwed. But, if you could disable it in the BIOS, that wouldn't be an issue.
According to Juan Quintela, the Linux Kernel maintainer for Mandrake Linux "Humm, but the owners of new ASUS boards & similar that have a Promise controller for IDE RAID on board (up machines) will not work without ioapic (the BIOS is also buggy, only that the other way around that the dell laptops). Will try to get noapic kernel option to just work."
Bottom line... Don't assume this is just a Windows XP problem with ACPI, it's just a problem.
For Dell Laptops, most Linux distributions will lock up when you pull the power cord out or plug it in (switch from wall to battery).
ACPI is not fully developed. Hardware is slightly head of software, but both don't seem to be totally standardized as far as I have heard (some multiprocesser boards need it, some laptops choke on it in Linux).
So, judging by the artical title,/. is shocked that XP is not ahead of Linux? That's an odd turn of events.
is there? If you had a phone, couldn't you dial up? I suppose of the TelCo is responsible for your bandwidth, the phone could be out too....
Then, I guess, you might consider a cell phone, which I suppose is a telephone. And you can use that for data too in some cases (VoiceStream's iStream for one, any others?).
http://www.ltsp.org/LTSP has the most complete source of info now days. Back a few years back a friend Rich and I started to develop a Debian based distribution to do this, but it ended up with this: "people who care, figure out to do it themselfs, people who don't care, don't care anyway."
Anyway, I've been doing this since the moment I owned more than one computer. Everything networked (local, 192.168.x.x) was either fast and running xdm, or slow and just running "X -indirect hostname" so it was only an Xterminal for the faster boxes.
Today, I am rewiring my house with CAT 6 everywhere and a few wireless access points (big house, 3 story, full basement, so lot's of space to cover. As far as Comcast knows, I have 1 computer. In fact, I have a Linksys BEFW11S4 on the cable modem. Result? 2 fast computers, and a lot of slow old boxes around the house, but even the slow ones have a good vid card and monitor, so it doesn't matter. I added a couple cheap laptops to the mix with wireless cards, and there isn't ANYWHERE (including the neighbor's back yard at a BBQ) that I can't go, and have the fastest box ever...
May sound odd, but now I grab a cheap laptop insted of a magizine when I go into the bathroom for a, well.... Anyhow, I can read slashdot insted of TV Guide in there now, and, if I want, there's always tvguide.com!
This is old school UNIX stuff. It's always been terminals on a server. Now, a cheap P200 laptop with a decent display and wireless for $250 total will get you access to your killer linux box, from anywhere, any way... And, you can show how easy KDE is and convince people to try Linux at the neighbors BBQ (even though I use BlackBox myself....).
Re:Problem with the Netwinder
on
Netwinder is Back
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The mistake is that it's not a desktop
There were 2. Desktop, and server versions.
And, x86 would be soo much cheaper, with better preformace, for both. Same points apply to the server versions.
If you want a gateway/firewall, you could use something like the ThinkNIC and it would actually be safer (boot only off CD) and log to any other system (for security).
I don't know about you, but the hundreds of dollars in price diffrence does not justify the only 2 advantages I know of the NetWinder (low power requirement, less space). It would take a long time to make up the diffrence in power (per unit, remember, having 100's of them saves 100x more power, but cost 100x more also!). And, if I recall correctly, they were 2 per 1U rack, _NOT_ 4 as I saw someone earlier post.
Slashdot Mirror
As a long time (10+ years IRIX) UNIX, and short time (5+ years) Linux user. Give us the OPTION of hiring/contracting/investing in Open Source!
Every single time have the option of laying out $100 to $2,000 US for software, I _always_ look for a contractor how has _almost_ done it GPL and am ready to write them a check to finish the job. Mo other option is PAYING FOR SOFTWARE, and I know the more GPL I pay to get done, and more people like me, the less software OVERALL I will have to buy.
So, my comment is simply, put up or shut up!
Sadly, this project doesn't affect me, so I can't offer money for it. But I have offered GPL coders SOO MUCH in the past that hasn't been taken up on, I am SICK TO DEATH of hearing the "closed commercial is better now" arguement.
But, is it REALLY better than Mandrake (or RedHat) for the end user in the long run?
Reguardless of the answer (I say No, Mandrake ROCKS, RedHat is Slick, and are desktop OS's now) you may say yes. Even still...
This is a company Mandrake (or Red Hat) should get a VC to finance the buyout of now for 2 reasons:
Seems like it'd be an obvious addition.
exactly how much are you willing to wager on that? Your company CAN do better than a 1-10 "is this hot or not" online rating scale? Are you REALLY willing to take that gamble with your money? With your companies reputation? If so, then, contact me to layout the conditions... I'm sure there are 1000's of "skript kitties" that will do set it up for free.... gimme a legit chance to put in the bandwidth and promotion it deserves (say 1 month, and $25,000 which is a fraction of the time and money an ad firm will charge), and we'll test your theory!
_IF_ you were in advertising, you broke so many rules here by exposing what a "racket" it is, and how much empty BS is really involved to justify the money.
Oh, BTW, if any of this guy's client's are out there, your welcome to contact me to try this "experiment" as well!
You get that much "a pop," either your raking in BOATLOADS of cash, or the "suckers" are about a year apart in frequency. JUST TO TELL YOU IF THE AD IS INTERESTING? Yet 90% of the TV ads SUCK?
If that's all true, well then here is my resume! I'm well educated and extremely critical by nature!
With all due respect, I'll listen to you guys when it comes to tech stuff
Oh, BTW, for you, that's going to cost "10M a pop" from now on. Consider each Slashdot page load "a pop." My lawyers will contact you shortly.
PS: VMS is an OS, and an old one... Good luck trying to call it!
I do think both are very cool, but when I'm away from my personal computer, I find stuff like phpGroupWare and TWIG to be most helpful. Basically, both are still in the useable but not yet completely polished phases of development. When phpGroupWare is done, I have fairly high hopes for it.
In addition to allowing me to keep working when I don't have my own laptop with me or it's out for repair, I find the whole idea of Web Gateways much better for real "remote" work.
XTerminals are best (IMHO) if your looking for a single server, multiple user points on a fast network. But on a slower network, or more remote, I think web gateways would be better.
I guess I'm missing why VNC is the ultimate solution here....
We all know no one from SlashDot hardly ever (like 0.01% of the time) writes their own stories. Why must EVER story be in italics? IT'S LIKE TRYING TO READ USENET WHEN EVERYONE POSTS IN CAPS AND IS TO LAZY TO TURN THE CAP LOCKS OFF BECAUSE THEY DON'T KNOW ANY BETTER.
When quoting someone, italics is nice, but when you _know_ everything will be a quote, does EVERYTHING have to be in italics?
Pretty sad. Considering the number of projects on SF that don't even have any code to look at or anything at all to download, it's hard to understand this.
&*(&$*(!&#@*!(#!@ Get to your frigging point! point to the exact things MandrakeSoft did, dates, specifics.
All you have done is rant about "how evil they are" and to justify you say "because they did bad stuff." Yet you don't define evil, or what bad stuff is...
This is a TOTAL TROLL. Redeem yourself, POST SOME ACTUAL INFORMATION rather than your ranting opinions. PLEASE. Or your will fall into an all time looser troll catagory.
WTF are you talking about. If your accusations are true, please provide simple, clear, examples without the longwinded rant.
What did they do? Give Dates, Give Details, and reserve your long winded opinions...... Let us judge them on the evidence. If what you say is true, SHOW US!!!
Your KIDDING? For a company that constantly reported being backordered on the Rio Car, that's sooo stupid.
If they gave the Rio Car ANY marketing, it would have done well.... Look at XFM, everyone want's MP3 in their car or a new Cell Phone, and XFM is marketed out the ass... The ONLY reason XFM is being sold is marketing. If Sonic Blue had a marketing division worth a shit, they would have owned that market.
I always wondered why they never cut a deal with Circut City or Best Buy, I guess now I know, because they are MORONS who don't know MARKETING. Good product, bad marketing, sad loss to the Linux World (so, what's new?)
What I would like to see is a complete car package that offers:
* Large Capacity with standard drives
Car Rio will take up to two standard laptop drives. That's up to 120G of storage using easily avalible IBM Travelstar or Fujitsu drives.
* Radio and CD player
Car Rio offers an radio tuner option (might want to get an antenna signal booster, reception is "average" and if your in a remote location, it can matter, most people it doesn't). As for the CD player, if your so sad you have your 40G to 120G full and STILL don't have the songs you want, CD player isn't going to help you.
* The CD player doubles as a ripper
Why? I'd rather rip and sort at home, FOR the drive, not WHILE driving. And at what speed? 16x laptop CDROM speed? I'd prefer my home 56x CDROM and Athlon XP 1700 for ripping than a 16x CDROM with a Strong Arm processer, thanks anyway. Your thinking of tech that's 5 years off (to be avaliable at a reasonable price commercially). I'll take the real, today alternitive thanks...
* Wireless Access
Abso-frigging-lutely! But I see hacking a 802.11b USB device into a Car Rio much more likely than a commercial head unit that has integreted wireless. War Driving anyone?
* Car 2 Car IM
And you thought talking on a Cell phone made for bad driving!!!! Shit, I would RATHER see this on a cell phone than in a car stereo ANY DAY. Yes it's there, sort of.... So why bother? In the US, it's lame, and we need to cetch up to the EU. But, anyway...
If you really want it, at LEAST on a Cell phone, you can hold the phone in your hand while doing it, and still sort of hold on to the steering wheel. NO WAY do I want people to be trying to IM people from their stereo head unit! KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD. And as long as it's already in the phone, what's the point?!?!?
* Easily Navigable
Any unit is easy once you get use to it. There are no "standard ways" to navigate 60G's of MP3's in your car anyway... so it's more practice than progress... If I can simply have 10-20 play lists to pick from, that's MORE than enough. That's all I need for navigation.
Now, I don't OWN a Car Rio (yet), and I sure don't work for them. But, given that it's Linux based, hackable, and been around longer, I'm strongly leaning towards that.
Should be
Between the two, I'd pick the hackable Linux one, for several reasons.
It's been around longer.
It's hackable.
There is a community support forum
Looks way cooler
Basically, since the above mentioned review of the Dension DMP3 MP3 doesn't make ANY comparison, it doesn't help 99% of the people in the GENERAL consumer electronics market, because there is no frame of referance at all. Maybe someone could write a useful review comparing the two?
Not only are these phones going to probably have the wait you mention, they are probably not going to hit US shores for a long long time (if ever).
IMHO, Samsung and Sanyo actually release phones that are cool without too much hype. Nokia has become a "designer brand" that people in the US pay for just to have, even if the technology is outdated by the time they get to the US.
I think cell phones have computer beat for disposable.
In the case of uptime, you have shown the BSD's to be running longer without reboot. However, that does not prove they are more widly excepted in any way.
According to your logic, no one at all is running Windows, so why bother even mentioning it? Problem is, you haven't proved that, you only proved FreeBSD users (and *BSD users in general) less likely to reboot. It does not naturally follow that there are more users overall.
So, they built a (arguably) better OS based on BSD license, and called it FreeBSD. Then it forked and we have NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD.
Despite the great beauty of FreeBSD, and the vastly developed environment (countless ports that work flawlessly, providing users with easy to install and run applications), FreeBSD is not doing as well as Linux.
Why? Buzzword Bingo. It's hard enough to compete with Microsoft to get a persons attention, and convince them to try a new OS. And, when the average person looks for a "alternative" Linux is the most obvious choice. FreeBSD gets only a small fraction of that attention, even if it is technically equivalent (or better in some people's opinion).
IMHO, this is why HURD may fail. It's not because it won't be a good alternative, or because it will be technically inferior, because those will likely be untrue. Hurd will probably be competitive, but how will it get a market share?
Linux will make vast roads to having a real-time kernel, embedded, etc... (QNX like), long before Hurd is ready. So, add the lack of press, lack of interest, and slow development, I can't help but think it will not see much success. How can you not see it in a similar light to the BSDs, even if the licensing is different?
It's a failing of leadership (if the criticism is true). I think it's important to remember 2 things here:
In light of this lack of management discovery, maybe a couple programers will start to see all the recent criticizm's of software managers (as in recent stories here) may be not as useful as trying to actually support managers of projects (espically OSS ones) a little more.
Search the archives of the dell-linux-laptop mailing list ;-)
With ACPI enabled on Dell Laptops in the kernel, they will lock up on switching from battery to wall power or vice versa. Aparently (I could be wrong) at least in Linux you can disable it, reguardless of the BIOS... HOWEVER, if you are unaware of how to compile your own kernel WITHOUT APIC, or pass the option through LILO, your screwed. But, if you could disable it in the BIOS, that wouldn't be an issue.
According to Juan Quintela, the Linux Kernel maintainer for Mandrake Linux "Humm, but the owners of new ASUS boards & similar that have a Promise controller for IDE RAID on board (up machines) will not work without ioapic (the BIOS is also buggy, only that the other way around that the dell laptops). Will try to get noapic kernel option to just work."
Bottom line... Don't assume this is just a Windows XP problem with ACPI, it's just a problem.
ACPI is not fully developed. Hardware is slightly head of software, but both don't seem to be totally standardized as far as I have heard (some multiprocesser boards need it, some laptops choke on it in Linux).
So, judging by the artical title, /. is shocked that XP is not ahead of Linux? That's an odd turn of events.
is there? If you had a phone, couldn't you dial up? I suppose of the TelCo is responsible for your bandwidth, the phone could be out too....
Then, I guess, you might consider a cell phone, which I suppose is a telephone. And you can use that for data too in some cases (VoiceStream's iStream for one, any others?).
Anyway, I've been doing this since the moment I owned more than one computer. Everything networked (local, 192.168.x.x) was either fast and running xdm, or slow and just running "X -indirect hostname" so it was only an Xterminal for the faster boxes.
Today, I am rewiring my house with CAT 6 everywhere and a few wireless access points (big house, 3 story, full basement, so lot's of space to cover. As far as Comcast knows, I have 1 computer. In fact, I have a Linksys BEFW11S4 on the cable modem. Result? 2 fast computers, and a lot of slow old boxes around the house, but even the slow ones have a good vid card and monitor, so it doesn't matter. I added a couple cheap laptops to the mix with wireless cards, and there isn't ANYWHERE (including the neighbor's back yard at a BBQ) that I can't go, and have the fastest box ever...
May sound odd, but now I grab a cheap laptop insted of a magizine when I go into the bathroom for a, well.... Anyhow, I can read slashdot insted of TV Guide in there now, and, if I want, there's always tvguide.com!
This is old school UNIX stuff. It's always been terminals on a server. Now, a cheap P200 laptop with a decent display and wireless for $250 total will get you access to your killer linux box, from anywhere, any way... And, you can show how easy KDE is and convince people to try Linux at the neighbors BBQ (even though I use BlackBox myself....).
There were 2. Desktop, and server versions.
And, x86 would be soo much cheaper, with better preformace, for both. Same points apply to the server versions.
If you want a gateway/firewall, you could use something like the ThinkNIC and it would actually be safer (boot only off CD) and log to any other system (for security).
I don't know about you, but the hundreds of dollars in price diffrence does not justify the only 2 advantages I know of the NetWinder (low power requirement, less space). It would take a long time to make up the diffrence in power (per unit, remember, having 100's of them saves 100x more power, but cost 100x more also!). And, if I recall correctly, they were 2 per 1U rack, _NOT_ 4 as I saw someone earlier post.