This article states "Linux and Unix users are, in fact, switching to Macs in droves" but does nothing to substantiate this claim and obviously oversimplifies what really happens.
Many linux users have indeed bought a Mac with OS X... however, very often they still have one or several linux machines as well, when performance matters especially server-side (OS X shines as a desktop/workstation OS especially with Altivec-optimized applications, but even its server variant is disappointing in almost all server tasks compared to the competition [see the recent benchmarks on anandtech on the subject]).
So what I've often seen are people who were Linux users buying a Mac for desktop usage and keeping linux (and/or Free/Net/OpenBSD) for servers, firewalls, tivo-like devices (hell, even tivo runs linux) or as a secondary desktop, a case of using the best tools for their specific needs instead of a simple switch.
In this article, benchmarks seem to show that performance problems seem to come from Mac OS X more than the G5 CPU: though with altivec-optimized applications, OS X + G5 do very well, the combination is just plain horrid compared to their rivals with almost anything else. There is also this older benchmark which showed OS X and Linux on the same G5 system, the upper hand going generally going to linux.
Bear in mind that the above only measure performance, not usability or software availability. However, if OS X does indeed have serious performance issues and that when it does well, it is often because of Altivec, would a change to an x86 CPU really help?
Before you say anything, I started using Macs in late 1984 (and Apple ]['s before then), so you can count me as someone who usually views Apple in a favourable light. However, I didn't drink the kool-aid, so I often question logic of certain decisions made in Cupertino. This one is just an example. We'll see, maybe it will be for the best.
Doesn't work either, since even many remote rural communities several hundred miles north from the border also have access to broadband. Not all of them do, but a majority of them have such access. So the "100 miles" limit doesn't come into play. Now, if you had said something like 500 miles, yes, your point would have merit, though it would be five times more than your initial estimate.
500 miles may not seem like much, but remember that Canada is very wide (about 3200 miles), and even the bigger islands off either coast boast broadband access to the great majority of their population, which means that almost all the population in that roughly 1.6 million square miles area does have access to a high-speed Internet connection. By the way, that's a larger area than all the countries of the European Union (EU, not Europe, the continent) put together and is larger than all countries except 6 of them (one of those being Canada, of course).
Couple all of that with a population of about 30 million in that specific surface area, you get a population density of 18.75 inhabitants/sq. mile. To give you an idea, the US has a population density of 79.36/sq. mile (or 7.3/km2 and 31/km2 respectively, 1sq mile = 2.56km2). So even with a much, much lower population density, broadband penetration is far greater.
Well, you could say the same about a small group of extremists making a whole religion look bad. They are, just as in the case above, a small minority of the whole group. A vocal, very loud (in actions or words) and very noticeable minority, but dwarfed by a majority of basically decent people.
I also used to do free tech support for family and close friends. When those friends started to tell their friends about this great, free tech support they were getting, I started to have calls. Since I had a full time job and part time classes, I really didn't have time for this. So I started charging and it got rid of those too cheap to pay for my services, which cost the following: - I-don't-know(or like)-you rate: $40/hour, 2 hours minimum - Distant relatives and friendly acquaintances rate: $30/hour, 2 hours minimum. - Immediate family and very close friends: For typical problems, free dinner/lunch (pizza and beer as a minimum, but I'd content myself with a filet mignon and a nice bordeaux, if I have to). Anything complex would be $20 per hour, 1 hour minimum.
True, I could have more "competitive" pricing, but my time is too important to me to spend much of it on tech support for not enough money.
One of the reasons why a lot of people who bought a PDA leave it behind after a few months of (mis)use is that they don't really know how to use it. Oh, they may know how to use the software on it, but they don't see how it makes any difference at all in their daily life, so they put it aside, considering it a waste of money.
I bought a Palm IIIx in 2000 and still use it to this day, multiple times every day. While the phone book is useful, my main usage is concentrated around two things: calendar and ebooks. Every day of the week, I enter the the time I get to and leave work and write a short summary of what I did that day; very useful if I need to know when I worked on a particular problem and *searchable*, so I can easily find that info later on. I also write my future appointments, meetings, grocery lists as well as notes about weights/reps/series, since I bring it to the gym.
But ebooks takes the lion's share of the time I spend using it. Baen's free library and Project Gutenberg provide me with a wide variety of free books (I also buy ebooks, but that's a different story). Even in the small amount of memory this beat up device has (4MB), I can cram 10 novels (assuming novels that would be 250-300 pages in a pocket edition). Since I travel a lot (half of the time via bus, 7-8 hours ride), having all these available to me is much more practical than carrying even one pocket edition, which would be bulkier anyway. So far, I wouldn't be surprised if I had read over a hundred books on it so far. I find I prefer reading on it than in a "regular" book, as I only need one hand to hold the book and "turn" the pages, without resorting to strange finger gymnastics, which is practical when I'm standing in the subway or on an exercise bike at the gym.
These days, the old workhorse is showing its age; I have to whack it once in a while when the display starts acting strangely. I'll have to find a replacement, but 5 years of constant use speaks well of how helpful this device has been to me.
I've read about The Open University; in fact, in the early 70s, its success served as the inspiration for the Tele-Universite (text in french), which started to offer distance-learning classes in 1974. Since it was a part of the "Universite du Quebec", it was fully accredited from the start. Now, they offer well over 300 different classes in 65 different programs, most of which geared towards working adults studying part-time.
Without it, I wouldn't have been able to go back to school and earn a degree ; I'm still taking classes to earn another, higher one. At only about 250CAD per 3 credit class (you need 90 credits if you want a bachelor's degree, for example), including books and fees, it's affordable enough for me, especially since I can deduct all my tuition fees on my income tax form.
The yum package manager comes with FC and you can easily add apt, if you prefer it to yum; both these tools take care of all dependencies and will download and install all necessary packages automatically (ex: if you tell yum to install packageA and this one needs packageB and packageC, yum will get and install all three for you). Using either from the command line is quite simple, once you've pointed to a repository in their config files (the one I use is freshrpms.net, which has apt and yum repositories which includes all the base files plus extra packages that are not included, such as DVD players, mp3 support, etc.; you will also find simple instructions to use all these goodies).
In the case of yum, you add this to/etc/yum.conf: (check on freshrpms.net for their sample yum.conf files)
The comparison is quite thorough and professional; they just point out strengths and weaknesses for both products without using geek/marketspeak, in the context of how they would be used in their organization, migrating from MS Office 97/2000. A refreshingly unbiased article which contrasts heavily with what we usually get from open source evangelism and corporate marketing departments.
I use it to write down whatever tasks I accomplish at work, I use it at the gym to write down weights/reps, I also take notes whenever I want to remember something (like an address, a list of hotel rates, etc), I keep my resume on it as well (I have beamed my resume to a potential employer once; note that I didn't plan to apply at that place, I was merely visiting a friend); of course, its phonebook is also useful (and can hold a lot of info and games are nice, but what really makes this old Palm IIIx useful to me is that it can hold about a dozen novels, so I can read during one of the many trips (bus, plane, train) I make each year. With sites like Project Gutenberg and the Baen free library, I always have books to read and carrying them around is a breeze.
I think you may have incorrect information; perhaps it is true that the very latest versions of Mandrake and Redhat will not install on a socket 5 Pentium (the 'normal' 75-200MHz pre-MMX pentiums) based machine (I would prefer having evidence before making that claim), but at home my gateway/webserver/firewall is a P-166 (not even MMX) happily running RH 7.3; the box it replaced was a P-90 which was running Mandrake 8.1. These are hardly ancient versions; both are still being patched/bugfixed actively. So even older machines like these can have the benefits that come with recent distributions.
I used red hat's floppy image for net installation recently. My gateway/firewall/sshd/etc. server has no CD drive of any sort, as it doesn't need it. Less is better.
Just one detail: Apache is released under the Apache license, not under the (modified) BSD license. Both are free software licenses, but not the same thing; for example, the modified BSD (not the original one) is compatible with the GPL, while the Apache license is not.
Although a form of paranoia and thrillseeking can be found in tournament chess players, I have also seen a different type of player: the ones who seek to make a thing of beauty happen during a game. I happen to be one of those players. Although my passion for quirky openings and strategies often caused me problems during tournaments (I often seek double-edge positions), I always hope to find THE move, the one leading to a superb combination, so pretty because of its subtlety. I don't often succeed, but that's what I wish to find in each of my tourney games; not to crush my opponent (I don't like easy victories), but to win a tight game because I saw one of those beautiful combinations.
Some might say if I kept playing that way, I wouldn't ever become a good chess player. To them I reply I got my 'expert' title from my chess federation anyway and I did it while having fun:)
But I don't have the drive to become a master; it takes serious effort and time that I cannot afford. I'll always continue to play, but regular tourney play is not something I'll be doing anymore.
There have been quite a few articles about watches that are mp3 players, can take pictures, run linux, etc... But they always had the traditional shape of a watch, which limits the size of the battery you can use. Perhaps if you changed the general shape (wider and longer, and using a wide wrist strap that would be able to contain more batteries or something like it), maybe you can get something more interesting, that can last a lot longer. Of course, materials that would not cause too much sweating would have to be chosen.
Ok, this is just an example of just wanting to get info out no matter the consequences. I could type why the gag is useful if annoying, but others in this discussion have explained it quite well.
The truth is the Canadian election system actually works and most people in Canada believe in it (and the concept of representative democracy); that's why there's a 70%+ participation rate to federal elections (80%+ for some provinces). It's not perfect, our politicians make us cringe during campaigning (big surprise), but on the whole it works for us. That belief also explains why the distrust towards the system is not as prevalent in Canadian society compared to the US, where more people think the system is too broken to be fixed.
You know, with all the problems Mir had, it's now evident that it was the perfect place to test out what might happen on very long space travel. We've seen the effects of people staying on much longer than expected, the effect of colliding with another craft and surviving it, fires, equipement failures, infiltration by hostile lifeforms (moss); we've also seen that with little ressources and a lot of ingenuity, it's possible to make extensive repairs even when it seems like a hopeless cause.
After witnessing all these things and learning a lot from them, we really are better prepared for say something like a jaunt to the red planet.
I disagree. I believe he meant that it was useless because no matter who is on that list, it changes nothing. It's about as useful as top 10 best dressed/worst dressed in entertainment magazines: it just reflects the opinion of the author and does nothing more than amuse the readers.
Slashdot Mirror
This article states "Linux and Unix users are, in fact, switching to Macs in droves" but does nothing to substantiate this claim and obviously oversimplifies what really happens.
Many linux users have indeed bought a Mac with OS X... however, very often they still have one or several linux machines as well, when performance matters especially server-side (OS X shines as a desktop/workstation OS especially with Altivec-optimized applications, but even its server variant is disappointing in almost all server tasks compared to the competition [see the recent benchmarks on anandtech on the subject]).
So what I've often seen are people who were Linux users buying a Mac for desktop usage and keeping linux (and/or Free/Net/OpenBSD) for servers, firewalls, tivo-like devices (hell, even tivo runs linux) or as a secondary desktop, a case of using the best tools for their specific needs instead of a simple switch.
In this article, benchmarks seem to show that performance problems seem to come from Mac OS X more than the G5 CPU: though with altivec-optimized applications, OS X + G5 do very well, the combination is just plain horrid compared to their rivals with almost anything else. There is also this older benchmark which showed OS X and Linux on the same G5 system, the upper hand going generally going to linux.
Bear in mind that the above only measure performance, not usability or software availability. However, if OS X does indeed have serious performance issues and that when it does well, it is often because of Altivec, would a change to an x86 CPU really help?
Before you say anything, I started using Macs in late 1984 (and Apple ]['s before then), so you can count me as someone who usually views Apple in a favourable light. However, I didn't drink the kool-aid, so I often question logic of certain decisions made in Cupertino. This one is just an example. We'll see, maybe it will be for the best.
I could have sworn it was Santa Claus Optimism. Just saying you believe doen't make it true.
Doesn't work either, since even many remote rural communities several hundred miles north from the border also have access to broadband. Not all of them do, but a majority of them have such access. So the "100 miles" limit doesn't come into play. Now, if you had said something like 500 miles, yes, your point would have merit, though it would be five times more than your initial estimate.
500 miles may not seem like much, but remember that Canada is very wide (about 3200 miles), and even the bigger islands off either coast boast broadband access to the great majority of their population, which means that almost all the population in that roughly 1.6 million square miles area does have access to a high-speed Internet connection. By the way, that's a larger area than all the countries of the European Union (EU, not Europe, the continent) put together and is larger than all countries except 6 of them (one of those being Canada, of course).
Couple all of that with a population of about 30 million in that specific surface area, you get a population density of 18.75 inhabitants/sq. mile. To give you an idea, the US has a population density of 79.36/sq. mile (or 7.3/km2 and 31/km2 respectively, 1sq mile = 2.56km2). So even with a much, much lower population density, broadband penetration is far greater.
Well, you could say the same about a small group of extremists making a whole religion look bad. They are, just as in the case above, a small minority of the whole group. A vocal, very loud (in actions or words) and very noticeable minority, but dwarfed by a majority of basically decent people.
I also used to do free tech support for family and close friends. When those friends started to tell their friends about this great, free tech support they were getting, I started to have calls. Since I had a full time job and part time classes, I really didn't have time for this. So I started charging and it got rid of those too cheap to pay for my services, which cost the following:
- I-don't-know(or like)-you rate:
$40/hour, 2 hours minimum
- Distant relatives and friendly acquaintances rate:
$30/hour, 2 hours minimum.
- Immediate family and very close friends:
For typical problems, free dinner/lunch (pizza and beer as a minimum, but I'd content myself with a filet mignon and a nice bordeaux, if I have to). Anything complex would be $20 per hour, 1 hour minimum.
True, I could have more "competitive" pricing, but my time is too important to me to spend much of it on tech support for not enough money.
One of the reasons why a lot of people who bought a PDA leave it behind after a few months of (mis)use is that they don't really know how to use it. Oh, they may know how to use the software on it, but they don't see how it makes any difference at all in their daily life, so they put it aside, considering it a waste of money.
I bought a Palm IIIx in 2000 and still use it to this day, multiple times every day. While the phone book is useful, my main usage is concentrated around two things: calendar and ebooks. Every day of the week, I enter the the time I get to and leave work and write a short summary of what I did that day; very useful if I need to know when I worked on a particular problem and *searchable*, so I can easily find that info later on. I also write my future appointments, meetings, grocery lists as well as notes about weights/reps/series, since I bring it to the gym.
But ebooks takes the lion's share of the time I spend using it. Baen's free library and Project Gutenberg provide me with a wide variety of free books (I also buy ebooks, but that's a different story). Even in the small amount of memory this beat up device has (4MB), I can cram 10 novels (assuming novels that would be 250-300 pages in a pocket edition). Since I travel a lot (half of the time via bus, 7-8 hours ride), having all these available to me is much more practical than carrying even one pocket edition, which would be bulkier anyway. So far, I wouldn't be surprised if I had read over a hundred books on it so far. I find I prefer reading on it than in a "regular" book, as I only need one hand to hold the book and "turn" the pages, without resorting to strange finger gymnastics, which is practical when I'm standing in the subway or on an exercise bike at the gym.
These days, the old workhorse is showing its age; I have to whack it once in a while when the display starts acting strangely. I'll have to find a replacement, but 5 years of constant use speaks well of how helpful this device has been to me.
I've read about The Open University; in fact, in the early 70s, its success served as the inspiration for the Tele-Universite (text in french), which started to offer distance-learning classes in 1974. Since it was a part of the "Universite du Quebec", it was fully accredited from the start. Now, they offer well over 300 different classes in 65 different programs, most of which geared towards working adults studying part-time.
Without it, I wouldn't have been able to go back to school and earn a degree ; I'm still taking classes to earn another, higher one. At only about 250CAD per 3 credit class (you need 90 credits if you want a bachelor's degree, for example), including books and fees, it's affordable enough for me, especially since I can deduct all my tuition fees on my income tax form.
The yum package manager comes with FC and you can easily add apt, if you prefer it to yum; both these tools take care of all dependencies and will download and install all necessary packages automatically (ex: if you tell yum to install packageA and this one needs packageB and packageC, yum will get and install all three for you). Using either from the command line is quite simple, once you've pointed to a repository in their config files (the one I use is freshrpms.net, which has apt and yum repositories which includes all the base files plus extra packages that are not included, such as DVD players, mp3 support, etc.; you will also find simple instructions to use all these goodies).
/etc/yum.conf:
u x/$rel easever/$basearch/core
l inux/$rel easever/$basearch/updates
a /linux/$rel easever/$basearch/freshrpms
In the case of yum, you add this to
(check on freshrpms.net for their sample yum.conf files)
[core]
name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - core
baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/lin
[updates]
name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - updates
baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/
[freshrpms]
name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - freshrpms
baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedor
To update all packages, you just type:
yum update
To install a new package:
yum install packagename
To install multiple packages starting with the same name:
yum install package*
To remove a package:
yum remove packagename
Hope this helps.
The comparison is quite thorough and professional; they just point out strengths and weaknesses for both products without using geek/marketspeak, in the context of how they would be used in their organization, migrating from MS Office 97/2000. A refreshingly unbiased article which contrasts heavily with what we usually get from open source evangelism and corporate marketing departments.
>> I know this is /., but how does this become "beating ATI's fastest by over 100% in almost every benchmark"??
It's called "lying".
I use it to write down whatever tasks I accomplish at work, I use it at the gym to write down weights/reps, I also take notes whenever I want to remember something (like an address, a list of hotel rates, etc), I keep my resume on it as well (I have beamed my resume to a potential employer once; note that I didn't plan to apply at that place, I was merely visiting a friend); of course, its phonebook is also useful (and can hold a lot of info and games are nice, but what really makes this old Palm IIIx useful to me is that it can hold about a dozen novels, so I can read during one of the many trips (bus, plane, train) I make each year. With sites like Project Gutenberg and the Baen free library, I always have books to read and carrying them around is a breeze.
In an IRC channel I hang out in, we had a bit of fun on the subject: behold The Matrix: Convolution.
There are no real spoilers in there, in case you were wondering.
I disagree.
:)
They created all of MS Bob, you know.
See? They did invent something.
I think you may have incorrect information; perhaps it is true that the very latest versions of Mandrake and Redhat will not install on a socket 5 Pentium (the 'normal' 75-200MHz pre-MMX pentiums) based machine (I would prefer having evidence before making that claim), but at home my gateway/webserver/firewall is a P-166 (not even MMX) happily running RH 7.3; the box it replaced was a P-90 which was running Mandrake 8.1. These are hardly ancient versions; both are still being patched/bugfixed actively. So even older machines like these can have the benefits that come with recent distributions.
It uses standard diesel fuel; you can see more information including equipment specs here, on Bombardier's website.
I used red hat's floppy image for net installation recently. My gateway/firewall/sshd/etc. server has no CD drive of any sort, as it doesn't need it. Less is better.
Just one detail: Apache is released under the Apache license, not under the (modified) BSD license. Both are free software licenses, but not the same thing; for example, the modified BSD (not the original one) is compatible with the GPL, while the Apache license is not.
Oh, that was done on purpose; they used a more poetic form of the verb. As we all know, Slashdot is the last best hope for litterature! ;)
Although a form of paranoia and thrillseeking can be found in tournament chess players, I have also seen a different type of player: the ones who seek to make a thing of beauty happen during a game. I happen to be one of those players. Although my passion for quirky openings and strategies often caused me problems during tournaments (I often seek double-edge positions), I always hope to find THE move, the one leading to a superb combination, so pretty because of its subtlety. I don't often succeed, but that's what I wish to find in each of my tourney games; not to crush my opponent (I don't like easy victories), but to win a tight game because I saw one of those beautiful combinations.
:)
Some might say if I kept playing that way, I wouldn't ever become a good chess player. To them I reply I got my 'expert' title from my chess federation anyway and I did it while having fun
But I don't have the drive to become a master; it takes serious effort and time that I cannot afford. I'll always continue to play, but regular tourney play is not something I'll be doing anymore.
There have been quite a few articles about watches that are mp3 players, can take pictures, run linux, etc... But they always had the traditional shape of a watch, which limits the size of the battery you can use. Perhaps if you changed the general shape (wider and longer, and using a wide wrist strap that would be able to contain more batteries or something like it), maybe you can get something more interesting, that can last a lot longer. Of course, materials that would not cause too much sweating would have to be chosen.
Ask anyone from BC about the provincial governement they have right now. Then you'll understand why they're disillusioned about it.
Ok, this is just an example of just wanting to get info out no matter the consequences. I could type why the gag is useful if annoying, but others in this discussion have explained it quite well.
The truth is the Canadian election system actually works and most people in Canada believe in it (and the concept of representative democracy); that's why there's a 70%+ participation rate to federal elections (80%+ for some provinces). It's not perfect, our politicians make us cringe during campaigning (big surprise), but on the whole it works for us. That belief also explains why the distrust towards the system is not as prevalent in Canadian society compared to the US, where more people think the system is too broken to be fixed.
You know, with all the problems Mir had, it's now evident that it was the perfect place to test out what might happen on very long space travel. We've seen the effects of people staying on much longer than expected, the effect of colliding with another craft and surviving it, fires, equipement failures, infiltration by hostile lifeforms (moss); we've also seen that with little ressources and a lot of ingenuity, it's possible to make extensive repairs even when it seems like a hopeless cause.
After witnessing all these things and learning a lot from them, we really are better prepared for say something like a jaunt to the red planet.
I disagree. I believe he meant that it was useless because no matter who is on that list, it changes nothing. It's about as useful as top 10 best dressed/worst dressed in entertainment magazines: it just reflects the opinion of the author and does nothing more than amuse the readers.