We would also try to talk people out of the really expensive and over rated stuff. Guess what, folks? Kona is crap coffee, weak and flavorless. It's only expensive because it's from Hawaii and it has a mystique.
BULLSHIT! Coffee does NOT have to be some sort of test of intestinal fortitude. A mild, flavorful, but weaker coffee suits me just fine. I got really attached to Kona coffee when I was stationed at Pearl for 3 years.
25 years later I would far rather drink Kona than anything else. I just don't like paying for it since I moved back to the mainland.:( So, I go looking for milder brews. Then cut it by 75% with the best decaf coffee I'm willing to pay for.
JOH 14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
JOH 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
This leads for TONS of fascinating speculation that I don't think I've ever seen adequately addressed by anyone. Did Jesue mean that there were other ways for other people to get to Heaven? Did he mean that for those people who never heard the Word would be able to get to Heaven?
Did he mean that those other mansions were reserved for aliens? If so, is God so limiting as to only provide one mansion (one true way?) for each sentient species?
We can communicate with dolphins, btw. It's just very, very difficult as our points of reference have so little in common. Dolphins are more intelligent on average than humans. Do they also have souls? Do they therefore qualify for one or more of God's mansions?
Why on Earth does every branch of Christianity insist that each has the only right answer when Jesus himself puts the issue in question?
Thank Ghu I was raised to be a more open minded, critical thinker by parents who loved me. I thiink that background keeps me somewhat inocculated from all the self serving religious dogma.
Actually, it's more accurate to say that Nick dislikes what Gnome has become. He used to be a hardcore Gnome fan a few years ago. That's not to say that maybe he isn't a bit myopic at times....:)
I've been reading Petreley's opinion pieces for years. He's always liked GNOME, and for a long time used it as his primary desktop.
This opinion piece of his (NOT review. And yes, I read the print version before it got posted to/.) reads like it came from a truly disappointed fan who has just about given up hope that a favorite WM has drifted too far away from what he saw as its initial promise.
"You've just eliminated almost every journalism major out there with this qualifier."
Who cares? I'm not qualified to write about cars, even though I'm an excellent writer.
My point still stands, though. Just how many reviewers do you think exist with usability engineering background? If there are more than a handful working for the trade rags and Web sites I'd be very, very surprised. It's just not seen as a necessary requirement. Instead, journalists working for any trade rag are expected to be generalists. Their job is to be fair and at least reasonably impartial.
One example of a reviewer that I'm familiar with that sort of meets your qualifications is a guy by the name of Bruce Boardman who used to do some reviews of network equipment for Network Computing at the U of WI, Madison. He writes some pretty solid stuff.
Anyhow, he and I have exchanged emails on occasion when I challenged him on what I saw as missing or erroneous information in reviews. He always took a few minutes to courteously reply. The point that he made once was that reviewers are always operating under the gun, especially those (like himself) who do it as a sideline. He strove to do the best he could in the time available, knowing that there would be things he forgot or didn't know to do.
I think the only way you'd see that change is if you start your own trade rag or Web site and insist upon that qualification for your reviewers.
I didn't have any problems, and its telling that you think I did. I installed it just fine on the first try.
Gentoo has NO INSTALLER. It is a BAD SYSTEM.
Wow. These two statements just don't seem to add up. When I first read them I was really puzzled.
If I pulled a random guy off the street and made him install Gentoo, he'd probably try to kill me by the end, especially if I gave him Fedora or SuSE to install afterwards.
Ahhh, NOW I get it. You're comparing apples and oranges.
You're expecting to see a completely automated install process for a distro that's geared for those of us who really want to dive into the guts of Linux. No wonder Gentoo left you with such a bad impression.
Look, Gentoo is most emphatically not for everyone. If choosing to buy a pre-installed Linux desktop is like buying a car off the show room floor, then self-installing most distros is akin to ordering exactly the car that you want from the factory. To stretch the analogy to the breaking point, Gentoo is akin to buying a kit car. You get a huge box of parts and an instruction manual for how to put it together. If you're lucky, you've got someone to call if you get into trouble.
Gentoo succeeds admirably in hitting the target it's aiming at. I still contend that its documentation is second to none, and that the other distros could learn a lot from how they do document. Also, the Gentoo forums are an excellent resource for getting answers when your install does go astray. They fulfill that 'need to call' niche very well.
However, there is no way that I would recommend that someone who has never installed Linux to do his first install using Gentoo. Try pulling a random guy off the street and tell him that he has to build his next car from scratch. He'd probably try to kill you, too!:)
Distros should be reviewed on their OWN merits. That is all.
Side by side reviews are also known as "comparisons". I chose my language carefully.
OK. I'll buy that. So, next time you see a review of a distro, ask yourself it is truly reviwing it on its own merits. If the reviewer is looking at Red Hat's and is complaining about all the default choices its installer makes, ask yourself if the reviewer truly understands what market Red Hat is aiming at. Why isn't the reviewer looking at how effective Bluecurve is as a desktop?
Do the same thing if a reviewer is looks at Gentoo and doesn't look at the portage system.
But it's already been shown over and over and over again that the USPTO can't even do a simple Google search before granting a patent. Let alone have enough knowledge to dig through all of the various trade rags and papers published at all of the innumerable conferences that are held every year. Do you seriously believe that this kind of defensive action will keep you out of court if a big company wants to tie you up with constant legal entanglements?
Considering he said they were using Redhat boxes for that class, I'm inclined to think that the class is actually geared toward exploring the fundamentals of high end server tasks, clustering, etc.
What? You never heard of class title inflation?;)
Actually, some of the smartest teachers that I've ever seen were in high school, community, and junior colleges because they really liked teaching as opposed to dealing with the 'publish or die' treadmill so many professors are stuck on at the big 4 year institutions. I wouldn't be at all surprised if one such teacher with a passion for real HP computing didn't end up at a community college. I could see such a teacher slapping together an introductory curriculum on the subject.
1) Agreed. Limiting the scope and defining it in the first paragraph of a review are critical. All too often this is missed.
2) You've just eliminated almost every journalism major out there with this qualifier. Frankly, I think that while a usability engineering background would be nice to see on a reviewer's resume, I strongly doubt that there are more than a handful writing reviews. If they are truly qualified, there are FAR too many opportunities for them to be making a buck actually putting that degree to work (the old GIMP interface, anyone?):)
3) I'm torn on this one. For example, I've installed, used, and loved Redhat, Mandrake, Gentoo, and Debian. I've also installed, used, and hated Redhat, Mandrake, Gentoo, and Debian. I've also sampled Suse and Slackware. I'm not unusual in this regard. Are you saying that the mere fact that if a reviewer had actually put these distros through their paces for months and years at a time, it disqualifies someone like me as a reviewer? Wouldn't such a reviewer actually be in a better position to judge the various strengths and weaknesses of the various distributions?
Now, if instead you're thinking about someone who has only used one distribution, I would agree with you. But then, I personally would not regard that person as qualified to do a distro review in the first place.:)
BTW, sorry to hear about your Gentoo install problems. Personally, I found its installation procedure to be both the most challenging and the most rewarding of the four that I'm most familiar with. Challenging because I was on the bleeding edge (very early 2.6 release candidate). Rewarding because I learned so much about the system and the system is built exactly the way that I like. It's also by FAR the best documented of all the distros that I've looked at. Other distros would benefit by looking very carefully at not only what's documented by Gentoo, but how.
Would I recommend Gentoo for everyone? Absolutely not. Would I hesitate to build a system for someone else using Gentoo? As long as I could set up the initial configuration (including checking for updates), nope.
4) Absolutely agree. Reviewing distros without carefully analyzing what makes them different does no one any favors.
5) Again, I'm torn. Trade rag side by side reviews of networking tools typically do some sort of ranking. I used to love the "Reviewer won't give it back" badge when InfoWorld was a great resource.:) Anyhow, it's a useful tool as long as the review clearly defines how the final conclusion was reached.
6) Actually, IMO unless there are specific reasons for stepping away from the default installations, reviews shouldn't use the non-standard stuff.
7) Agreed.
8) Here again, it depends upon the situation. If it's a side by side review, comparisons are the whole point of the review.
I like this concept. It would be nice, wouldn't it?
Unfortunately, you won't see the third item on your list any time soon. Far, far too many different text config file formats out there; almost one for every single applet. No real consistency to get hold of.
IMO the second item is pretty much done. Virtually every app that I use and every system side tool that I use has a pretty robust set of command line switches. Only newer apps coming from developers who don't have an extensive Unix background don't do this well.
The good news is that we really do have some choice on the GUI side. The closest analog on the GUI side to what you're suggesting is probably Webmin. It does 80+ percent of what you're asking better than any other tool that is available cross distros. Next to that is probably Suse's YAST, then probably Mandrake's suite.
Hmmm. I wonder if IBM could be persuaded to release SMIT as an open source product? Best Unix sysadmin tool I ever came across.
A stage3 tarball (stage1, stage2, and stage3 tarballs are included in the Gentoo boot CDs) will get you a working system with X, KDE, OpenOffice, Mozilla, and I think Gnome and some of the lighter X distributions.
All you need to do is decide just how much customization you want. Want lots? Go for a barebones or stage1 machine. Want some? Go for a stage2 machine. Want only a little? Go for a stage3 machine.
The online Gentoo installation documentation describes all of this very clearly, and in a lot of detail. IMO their documentation is one of the most underplayed reasons that Gentoo is such a great distro. Well worth checking out if you're at all interested in this distribution.
Someone else has addressed the font question. As far as layout is concerned, how much time have you spent having to deal with all the changes in format between versions of MS Office apps? My personal experience hasn't been all that great.
Granted, I would love to see OOo get better for the current default format of Word (97/2000/XP). Except that the 'default' format is different depending upon which version of Word actually generated the document!
Also, you do know that OOo will generate very clean PDF files, right?
Wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG!! People, quit assuming that if it's not specifically listed we don't get it! The tenth amendment reserves all rights not enumerated:
"Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
Not necessarily. I prefer pickups to cars, myself. I've owned a new '87 Mazda 4x2 (187,000+ miles), a new '87 F150 4x2 (130,000+ miles) a used '84 Chevy Luv 4x4 (POS! I'll never buy an Isuzu again), and a used '97 F150 4x4 (bought at 12,000 miles, currently at 190,000 miles). All of those vehicles were manuals.
I put a lot of miles on my vehicles. I've got a long commute that combines freeway and city driving in about 50/50 portions. I also spend a fair number of weekends in the woods well over a hundred miles away from home. However, while I drive fairly fast, I rarely accelerate or brake hard. I limit maintenance to changing the oil and filter every 3,500 to 5,000 miles and hitting every second recommended maintenance cycle.
I sold every new vehicle with the same clutch it came with. My current truck still has the same clutch that came from the factory.
I had the '97 F150 in to the dealer at about 80,000 miles for some tranny work after an aftermarket chain overfilled the transaxles and transmission which in turn blew seals. The dealer mechanics had to drop the tranny to get to some of the seals. I told them as long as the tranny and engine were separated, go ahead and replace the clutch assembly. I figured that with that many miles on it, I might as well.
The lead mechanic called me back 3 times to convince me to NOT replace the clutch assembly. He finally told me that the clutch looked brand new. There was simply no point in doing it. He felt that charging me $1,800 for unnecessary work just wasn't right. You can bet that dealer now gets all of my maintenance work.:)
Now, I'm a big believer in preventive maintenance. My approach, however, is to go for complete replacement of major components before they reach their typical EOL. Anyhow, I had the truck in again at 150,000 miles for the major maintenance cycle. When I dropped it off, I told the lead mechanic to plan on a complete overhaul. I didn't want to have to bring it back in because of failing compression, water pump, or what have you. I also told him to plan on replacing the clutch assembly.
Again, the lead mechanic called me back to talk me out of what would have been a pretty large bill. He told me that compression was sound all the way around, and the clutch still was well within tolerances. It certainly feels pretty tight to me.
Anyhow, I started looking at new pickups and SUVs this year, thinking I'll want to replace the '97 with another 4x4 in a year or two when the truck hits 250,000 miles. The dealer that I use for maintenance sells Fords, Dodges, and GM vehicles. Not all that unusual an arrangement here in MN.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Ford no longer offers a manual transmission in ANY of their 1/2 ton pickup line. You CANNOT order a manual transmission. Period. They simply don't make them. If I want a manual tranny, I'll have to move up to a 3/4 ton truck, which is really more than I want or need. As far as SUVs go, forget it. Chevy, same thing. Dodge, same thing.
So, I'm really in a quandary. I've got a dealership whose service group is the most professional and customer oriented that I've ever seen (dealer or third party) that can't sell me the vehicle that I want! I'm either going to have to settle for an automatic transmission, buy more vehicle, or, since no one else sells a half ton pickup in the US, I'll have to (shudder) buy LESS vehicle from a different manufacturer and dealer, then put up with all the uncertainty that implies. Care to guess which way I'm currently leaning?
Sigh. I suppose I could at least take advantage of the opportunity to price a deisel. Now, if I can only find a manufacturer who makes a 3/4 ton with both a deisel AND a manual tranny. Who'da thought that would ever be an issue?
I wouldn't call my kids normal, necessarily. Like any parent, I think they're the best kids on the planet.:) However, I don't think they're abnormal users of computers. Both of my kids started out playing on a Linux computer keyboard when they were old enough to sit on my lap and see the screen, or about 2 years old. They generally banged away on the keys while I was trying to get something semi-useful done.:) My kids are 9 and 14 now, so they've suffered along with the rest of us as Linux usability has steadily improved.
I taught both my son and my daughter how to log in to Linux as soon as they could find their names on the keyboard, or about 5 or 6 years old. I just used their 4 letter family nickname as both their username and password. Both of them got the concept of their 'own' login right away. The fact that kids can be incredibly posessive probably helped.
The login that I set up for each of them fired up a standard KDE layout for them under their own user accounts. Once they were logged in, I spent maybe 20 minutes showing each of them how to open and close apps using their favorite games, then turned them loose.
For the first year or so for both of them, I spent a fair amount of time cleaning stuff up that they 'broke'. It was typically the kind of mistakes that you'd expect; messed up screen resolutions in games, files saved in odd places that they couldn't find, etc. I still have to do that occasionally, but it really doesn't happen all that often any longer.
That's kind of throwing someone in the deep end to see if they can swim, but it's a pretty graphic demonstration of what a complete newbie with no formal training can do. Both of them use Mozilla to access the Web regularly. Both have email accounts, although only my 14 year old bothers to check his regularly. Both play a few games. Both use OpenOffice and KWrite to write documents. Both spend some time exploring some of the oddball stuff that's loaded, just to see where and what it is.
My 9 year old has been playing around with the simpler drawing tools, and has been pestering me to replace our broken printer with another color printer so she can print out her artwork.
My 14 year old occasionally makes noises about exploring programming, but he doesn't really seem all that interested in diving into it hardcore. More of a, "wouldn't it be cool if..." kind of thing. I'm not a programmer myself, so I'm not really in a position to aid or abet him there. He's also beginning to explore the rest of Open Office.
I used to have a dual boot system for them so they could play some Windows games, but after it croaked for the third time I just left them with Linux. They are happy playing UT2K4 natively anyway. I'll occasionally dig up an old game like Warcraft II or Majesty and can get it running with Winex or Wine. Lately I haven't even bothered to do that.
Neither child cares about computers other than as a tool to do things. Neither child has expressed much interest in understanding how they work, except when our network connection is down and they want to know when it will be up again. (Living out in the boonies means they get to experience this particular joy far more often than any of us would like). All in all, typical computer users.
So, I would argue that any child CAN use Linux and enjoy it. However, that kid had better be backed up by a parent who knows the minimum for how to recover from stupid mistakes, or that kid needs to be closely supervised so they don't make too many stupid mistakes.
So, are most Linux distros kid ready? I'd say the answer is a qualified "Yes". Are most Linux distros family (consumer) ready? I'd say the answer is a qualified "No".
In my view, a distro can claim to be family ready when they can offer a support program with call-in support to a help desk that can walk people through recovering from the kinds of issues that I've seen. In order to do that successfully, a distro would be forced to choose a limited number of apps that would be covered by their support contract. Otherwise, that distro will never turn a profit.
I checked your journal for your OOo concerns. A year ago, your issues were real. Now, many (most?) of them are gone. I suggest that you look at it again.
Also, I agree that the GIMP's interface takes some getting used to. It is also improving quickly, however.
2 freaking hours a day??? Not hard to tell that you don't have kids.:)
Seriously, there's no way I can find even an hour a day to exercise. On a good day, my commute is an hour and 10 minutes one way. On a bad day it can be an hour and 30 minutes. I do this four days a week, and work from home on Fridays.
I'm a single dad. When I get home, I've got two kids (ages 9 and 14) to take care of. I have to give them the love and attention that they deserve. Then there's the household chores, two cats, and a dog that also need my attention. 2 hours a day for exercise? Puh-leaze!
I aim for 20 to 30 minutes 6 days a week. Generally, I actually manage to get that time period in 3 to 4 days a week. I alternate running and lifting weights, concentrating on the upper body. This lets my leg muscles recover when I weightlift, and my upper body recover when I run.
Even such a 'minimal' schedule will yield good results over time, though. I used to run and do basic calesthenics every day while I was in the Navy. When I got out, I got lazy and didn't work out for 20 years. That meant that when I started up again (with a stronger emphasis on weights) two years ago, I was essentially starting over from nothing. I'm now running 2 miles at a 9:30 min/mi pace (well off the 6:10 min/mi over 3 miles that I ran 20+ years ago) and bench pressing 95 lbs (more than I've ever lifted).
The point is; any exercise is better than none. Suggesting that a time commitment of an hour or two a day is necessary will only scare people off from even starting.
Is this really an issue for you? Since you mentioned Konsole, I assume you're running KDE. I haven't had a significant problem with copy and paste of text using the KDE clipboard since some time before 3.0. If you haven't done so already, I highly recommend upgrading to 3.2. The totality of all the little improvements is truly wonderful.:)
Nope, that's not right. I can tell you from personal experience that only registered traders are subject to the SEC regs. I worked on such a project a couple of years ago after our company got fined because we lost an email archive. Not one of our shining moments.
Then your lab's sysadmin should be fired for incompetence. You had a documented case of copyright infringement for a specific film from the copyright holder. It was his responsibility to comply with a legal cease and desist order to stop that ONE abuse.
What? It never even OCCURRED to this twit to shut off the port in the abuser's dorm room and contact the campus administration for further disciplinary action? Up to and including expulsion if the circumstances warranted it? That was the only proper response. Nothing else is warranted.
Your second paragraph shows a monumental ignorance of proper network administration. If you are typical of the knowledge base in universities nowadays, it's no wonder your networks are a mess.
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BULLSHIT! Coffee does NOT have to be some sort of test of intestinal fortitude. A mild, flavorful, but weaker coffee suits me just fine. I got really attached to Kona coffee when I was stationed at Pearl for 3 years.
25 years later I would far rather drink Kona than anything else. I just don't like paying for it since I moved back to the mainland.
The grandparent is confusing the Web with the Internet. Therefore, its:
TCP/IP, many protocols, the Internet itself: DARPA, US.
HTTP and HTML: CERN
This leads for TONS of fascinating speculation that I don't think I've ever seen adequately addressed by anyone. Did Jesue mean that there were other ways for other people to get to Heaven? Did he mean that for those people who never heard the Word would be able to get to Heaven?
Did he mean that those other mansions were reserved for aliens? If so, is God so limiting as to only provide one mansion (one true way?) for each sentient species?
We can communicate with dolphins, btw. It's just very, very difficult as our points of reference have so little in common. Dolphins are more intelligent on average than humans. Do they also have souls? Do they therefore qualify for one or more of God's mansions?
Why on Earth does every branch of Christianity insist that each has the only right answer when Jesus himself puts the issue in question?
Thank Ghu I was raised to be a more open minded, critical thinker by parents who loved me. I thiink that background keeps me somewhat inocculated from all the self serving religious dogma.
Actually, it's more accurate to say that Nick dislikes what Gnome has become. He used to be a hardcore Gnome fan a few years ago. That's not to say that maybe he isn't a bit myopic at times.... :)
I've been reading Petreley's opinion pieces for years. He's always liked GNOME, and for a long time used it as his primary desktop.
/.) reads like it came from a truly disappointed fan who has just about given up hope that a favorite WM has drifted too far away from what he saw as its initial promise.
This opinion piece of his (NOT review. And yes, I read the print version before it got posted to
OK. We're on the same wavelength on what makes a good review, then. We'll just have to agree to disagree about how good a system it is. :)
My point still stands, though. Just how many reviewers do you think exist with usability engineering background? If there are more than a handful working for the trade rags and Web sites I'd be very, very surprised. It's just not seen as a necessary requirement. Instead, journalists working for any trade rag are expected to be generalists. Their job is to be fair and at least reasonably impartial.
One example of a reviewer that I'm familiar with that sort of meets your qualifications is a guy by the name of Bruce Boardman who used to do some reviews of network equipment for Network Computing at the U of WI, Madison. He writes some pretty solid stuff.
Anyhow, he and I have exchanged emails on occasion when I challenged him on what I saw as missing or erroneous information in reviews. He always took a few minutes to courteously reply. The point that he made once was that reviewers are always operating under the gun, especially those (like himself) who do it as a sideline. He strove to do the best he could in the time available, knowing that there would be things he forgot or didn't know to do.
I think the only way you'd see that change is if you start your own trade rag or Web site and insist upon that qualification for your reviewers.
Wow. These two statements just don't seem to add up. When I first read them I was really puzzled.
Ahhh, NOW I get it. You're comparing apples and oranges.
You're expecting to see a completely automated install process for a distro that's geared for those of us who really want to dive into the guts of Linux. No wonder Gentoo left you with such a bad impression.
Look, Gentoo is most emphatically not for everyone. If choosing to buy a pre-installed Linux desktop is like buying a car off the show room floor, then self-installing most distros is akin to ordering exactly the car that you want from the factory. To stretch the analogy to the breaking point, Gentoo is akin to buying a kit car. You get a huge box of parts and an instruction manual for how to put it together. If you're lucky, you've got someone to call if you get into trouble.
Gentoo succeeds admirably in hitting the target it's aiming at. I still contend that its documentation is second to none, and that the other distros could learn a lot from how they do document. Also, the Gentoo forums are an excellent resource for getting answers when your install does go astray. They fulfill that 'need to call' niche very well.
However, there is no way that I would recommend that someone who has never installed Linux to do his first install using Gentoo. Try pulling a random guy off the street and tell him that he has to build his next car from scratch. He'd probably try to kill you, too!
OK. I'll buy that. So, next time you see a review of a distro, ask yourself it is truly reviwing it on its own merits. If the reviewer is looking at Red Hat's and is complaining about all the default choices its installer makes, ask yourself if the reviewer truly understands what market Red Hat is aiming at. Why isn't the reviewer looking at how effective Bluecurve is as a desktop?
Do the same thing if a reviewer is looks at Gentoo and doesn't look at the portage system.
But it's already been shown over and over and over again that the USPTO can't even do a simple Google search before granting a patent. Let alone have enough knowledge to dig through all of the various trade rags and papers published at all of the innumerable conferences that are held every year. Do you seriously believe that this kind of defensive action will keep you out of court if a big company wants to tie you up with constant legal entanglements?
Considering he said they were using Redhat boxes for that class, I'm inclined to think that the class is actually geared toward exploring the fundamentals of high end server tasks, clustering, etc.
;)
What? You never heard of class title inflation?
Actually, some of the smartest teachers that I've ever seen were in high school, community, and junior colleges because they really liked teaching as opposed to dealing with the 'publish or die' treadmill so many professors are stuck on at the big 4 year institutions. I wouldn't be at all surprised if one such teacher with a passion for real HP computing didn't end up at a community college. I could see such a teacher slapping together an introductory curriculum on the subject.
I think you may be overstating a few things.
:)
:)
:) Anyhow, it's a useful tool as long as the review clearly defines how the final conclusion was reached.
1) Agreed. Limiting the scope and defining it in the first paragraph of a review are critical. All too often this is missed.
2) You've just eliminated almost every journalism major out there with this qualifier. Frankly, I think that while a usability engineering background would be nice to see on a reviewer's resume, I strongly doubt that there are more than a handful writing reviews. If they are truly qualified, there are FAR too many opportunities for them to be making a buck actually putting that degree to work (the old GIMP interface, anyone?)
3) I'm torn on this one. For example, I've installed, used, and loved Redhat, Mandrake, Gentoo, and Debian. I've also installed, used, and hated Redhat, Mandrake, Gentoo, and Debian. I've also sampled Suse and Slackware. I'm not unusual in this regard. Are you saying that the mere fact that if a reviewer had actually put these distros through their paces for months and years at a time, it disqualifies someone like me as a reviewer? Wouldn't such a reviewer actually be in a better position to judge the various strengths and weaknesses of the various distributions?
Now, if instead you're thinking about someone who has only used one distribution, I would agree with you. But then, I personally would not regard that person as qualified to do a distro review in the first place.
BTW, sorry to hear about your Gentoo install problems. Personally, I found its installation procedure to be both the most challenging and the most rewarding of the four that I'm most familiar with. Challenging because I was on the bleeding edge (very early 2.6 release candidate). Rewarding because I learned so much about the system and the system is built exactly the way that I like. It's also by FAR the best documented of all the distros that I've looked at. Other distros would benefit by looking very carefully at not only what's documented by Gentoo, but how.
Would I recommend Gentoo for everyone? Absolutely not. Would I hesitate to build a system for someone else using Gentoo? As long as I could set up the initial configuration (including checking for updates), nope.
4) Absolutely agree. Reviewing distros without carefully analyzing what makes them different does no one any favors.
5) Again, I'm torn. Trade rag side by side reviews of networking tools typically do some sort of ranking. I used to love the "Reviewer won't give it back" badge when InfoWorld was a great resource.
6) Actually, IMO unless there are specific reasons for stepping away from the default installations, reviews shouldn't use the non-standard stuff.
7) Agreed.
8) Here again, it depends upon the situation. If it's a side by side review, comparisons are the whole point of the review.
Man, I wish I had mod points today!
I like this concept. It would be nice, wouldn't it?
Unfortunately, you won't see the third item on your list any time soon. Far, far too many different text config file formats out there; almost one for every single applet. No real consistency to get hold of.
IMO the second item is pretty much done. Virtually every app that I use and every system side tool that I use has a pretty robust set of command line switches. Only newer apps coming from developers who don't have an extensive Unix background don't do this well.
The good news is that we really do have some choice on the GUI side. The closest analog on the GUI side to what you're suggesting is probably Webmin. It does 80+ percent of what you're asking better than any other tool that is available cross distros. Next to that is probably Suse's YAST, then probably Mandrake's suite.
Hmmm. I wonder if IBM could be persuaded to release SMIT as an open source product? Best Unix sysadmin tool I ever came across.
A stage3 tarball (stage1, stage2, and stage3 tarballs are included in the Gentoo boot CDs) will get you a working system with X, KDE, OpenOffice, Mozilla, and I think Gnome and some of the lighter X distributions.
All you need to do is decide just how much customization you want. Want lots? Go for a barebones or stage1 machine. Want some? Go for a stage2 machine. Want only a little? Go for a stage3 machine.
The online Gentoo installation documentation describes all of this very clearly, and in a lot of detail. IMO their documentation is one of the most underplayed reasons that Gentoo is such a great distro. Well worth checking out if you're at all interested in this distribution.
Someone else has addressed the font question. As far as layout is concerned, how much time have you spent having to deal with all the changes in format between versions of MS Office apps? My personal experience hasn't been all that great.
Granted, I would love to see OOo get better for the current default format of Word (97/2000/XP). Except that the 'default' format is different depending upon which version of Word actually generated the document!
Also, you do know that OOo will generate very clean PDF files, right?
Wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG!! People, quit assuming that if it's not specifically listed we don't get it! The tenth amendment reserves all rights not enumerated:
"Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
Source:
Cornell Law College, Legal Information Institute
Yeah? Then tell us O wise one; how many actually support 'resume' properly? How come I consistently have to go to other clients to get the job done?
Not necessarily. I prefer pickups to cars, myself. I've owned a new '87 Mazda 4x2 (187,000+ miles), a new '87 F150 4x2 (130,000+ miles) a used '84 Chevy Luv 4x4 (POS! I'll never buy an Isuzu again), and a used '97 F150 4x4 (bought at 12,000 miles, currently at 190,000 miles). All of those vehicles were manuals.
:)
I put a lot of miles on my vehicles. I've got a long commute that combines freeway and city driving in about 50/50 portions. I also spend a fair number of weekends in the woods well over a hundred miles away from home. However, while I drive fairly fast, I rarely accelerate or brake hard. I limit maintenance to changing the oil and filter every 3,500 to 5,000 miles and hitting every second recommended maintenance cycle.
I sold every new vehicle with the same clutch it came with. My current truck still has the same clutch that came from the factory.
I had the '97 F150 in to the dealer at about 80,000 miles for some tranny work after an aftermarket chain overfilled the transaxles and transmission which in turn blew seals. The dealer mechanics had to drop the tranny to get to some of the seals. I told them as long as the tranny and engine were separated, go ahead and replace the clutch assembly. I figured that with that many miles on it, I might as well.
The lead mechanic called me back 3 times to convince me to NOT replace the clutch assembly. He finally told me that the clutch looked brand new. There was simply no point in doing it. He felt that charging me $1,800 for unnecessary work just wasn't right. You can bet that dealer now gets all of my maintenance work.
Now, I'm a big believer in preventive maintenance. My approach, however, is to go for complete replacement of major components before they reach their typical EOL. Anyhow, I had the truck in again at 150,000 miles for the major maintenance cycle. When I dropped it off, I told the lead mechanic to plan on a complete overhaul. I didn't want to have to bring it back in because of failing compression, water pump, or what have you. I also told him to plan on replacing the clutch assembly.
Again, the lead mechanic called me back to talk me out of what would have been a pretty large bill. He told me that compression was sound all the way around, and the clutch still was well within tolerances. It certainly feels pretty tight to me.
Anyhow, I started looking at new pickups and SUVs this year, thinking I'll want to replace the '97 with another 4x4 in a year or two when the truck hits 250,000 miles. The dealer that I use for maintenance sells Fords, Dodges, and GM vehicles. Not all that unusual an arrangement here in MN.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Ford no longer offers a manual transmission in ANY of their 1/2 ton pickup line. You CANNOT order a manual transmission. Period. They simply don't make them. If I want a manual tranny, I'll have to move up to a 3/4 ton truck, which is really more than I want or need. As far as SUVs go, forget it. Chevy, same thing. Dodge, same thing.
So, I'm really in a quandary. I've got a dealership whose service group is the most professional and customer oriented that I've ever seen (dealer or third party) that can't sell me the vehicle that I want! I'm either going to have to settle for an automatic transmission, buy more vehicle, or, since no one else sells a half ton pickup in the US, I'll have to (shudder) buy LESS vehicle from a different manufacturer and dealer, then put up with all the uncertainty that implies. Care to guess which way I'm currently leaning?
Sigh. I suppose I could at least take advantage of the opportunity to price a deisel. Now, if I can only find a manufacturer who makes a 3/4 ton with both a deisel AND a manual tranny. Who'da thought that would ever be an issue?
I wouldn't call my kids normal, necessarily. Like any parent, I think they're the best kids on the planet. :) However, I don't think they're abnormal users of computers. Both of my kids started out playing on a Linux computer keyboard when they were old enough to sit on my lap and see the screen, or about 2 years old. They generally banged away on the keys while I was trying to get something semi-useful done. :) My kids are 9 and 14 now, so they've suffered along with the rest of us as Linux usability has steadily improved.
I taught both my son and my daughter how to log in to Linux as soon as they could find their names on the keyboard, or about 5 or 6 years old. I just used their 4 letter family nickname as both their username and password. Both of them got the concept of their 'own' login right away. The fact that kids can be incredibly posessive probably helped.
The login that I set up for each of them fired up a standard KDE layout for them under their own user accounts. Once they were logged in, I spent maybe 20 minutes showing each of them how to open and close apps using their favorite games, then turned them loose.
For the first year or so for both of them, I spent a fair amount of time cleaning stuff up that they 'broke'. It was typically the kind of mistakes that you'd expect; messed up screen resolutions in games, files saved in odd places that they couldn't find, etc. I still have to do that occasionally, but it really doesn't happen all that often any longer.
That's kind of throwing someone in the deep end to see if they can swim, but it's a pretty graphic demonstration of what a complete newbie with no formal training can do. Both of them use Mozilla to access the Web regularly. Both have email accounts, although only my 14 year old bothers to check his regularly. Both play a few games. Both use OpenOffice and KWrite to write documents. Both spend some time exploring some of the oddball stuff that's loaded, just to see where and what it is.
My 9 year old has been playing around with the simpler drawing tools, and has been pestering me to replace our broken printer with another color printer so she can print out her artwork.
My 14 year old occasionally makes noises about exploring programming, but he doesn't really seem all that interested in diving into it hardcore. More of a, "wouldn't it be cool if..." kind of thing. I'm not a programmer myself, so I'm not really in a position to aid or abet him there. He's also beginning to explore the rest of Open Office.
I used to have a dual boot system for them so they could play some Windows games, but after it croaked for the third time I just left them with Linux. They are happy playing UT2K4 natively anyway. I'll occasionally dig up an old game like Warcraft II or Majesty and can get it running with Winex or Wine. Lately I haven't even bothered to do that.
Neither child cares about computers other than as a tool to do things. Neither child has expressed much interest in understanding how they work, except when our network connection is down and they want to know when it will be up again. (Living out in the boonies means they get to experience this particular joy far more often than any of us would like). All in all, typical computer users.
So, I would argue that any child CAN use Linux and enjoy it. However, that kid had better be backed up by a parent who knows the minimum for how to recover from stupid mistakes, or that kid needs to be closely supervised so they don't make too many stupid mistakes.
So, are most Linux distros kid ready? I'd say the answer is a qualified "Yes". Are most Linux distros family (consumer) ready? I'd say the answer is a qualified "No".
In my view, a distro can claim to be family ready when they can offer a support program with call-in support to a help desk that can walk people through recovering from the kinds of issues that I've seen. In order to do that successfully, a distro would be forced to choose a limited number of apps that would be covered by their support contract. Otherwise, that distro will never turn a profit.
I checked your journal for your OOo concerns. A year ago, your issues were real. Now, many (most?) of them are gone. I suggest that you look at it again.
:)
Also, I agree that the GIMP's interface takes some getting used to. It is also improving quickly, however.
Ain't FOSS grand?
2 freaking hours a day??? Not hard to tell that you don't have kids. :)
Seriously, there's no way I can find even an hour a day to exercise. On a good day, my commute is an hour and 10 minutes one way. On a bad day it can be an hour and 30 minutes. I do this four days a week, and work from home on Fridays.
I'm a single dad. When I get home, I've got two kids (ages 9 and 14) to take care of. I have to give them the love and attention that they deserve. Then there's the household chores, two cats, and a dog that also need my attention. 2 hours a day for exercise? Puh-leaze!
I aim for 20 to 30 minutes 6 days a week. Generally, I actually manage to get that time period in 3 to 4 days a week. I alternate running and lifting weights, concentrating on the upper body. This lets my leg muscles recover when I weightlift, and my upper body recover when I run.
Even such a 'minimal' schedule will yield good results over time, though. I used to run and do basic calesthenics every day while I was in the Navy. When I got out, I got lazy and didn't work out for 20 years. That meant that when I started up again (with a stronger emphasis on weights) two years ago, I was essentially starting over from nothing. I'm now running 2 miles at a 9:30 min/mi pace (well off the 6:10 min/mi over 3 miles that I ran 20+ years ago) and bench pressing 95 lbs (more than I've ever lifted).
The point is; any exercise is better than none. Suggesting that a time commitment of an hour or two a day is necessary will only scare people off from even starting.
Is this really an issue for you? Since you mentioned Konsole, I assume you're running KDE. I haven't had a significant problem with copy and paste of text using the KDE clipboard since some time before 3.0. If you haven't done so already, I highly recommend upgrading to 3.2. The totality of all the little improvements is truly wonderful. :)
Nope, that's not right. I can tell you from personal experience that only registered traders are subject to the SEC regs. I worked on such a project a couple of years ago after our company got fined because we lost an email archive. Not one of our shining moments.
Then your lab's sysadmin should be fired for incompetence. You had a documented case of copyright infringement for a specific film from the copyright holder. It was his responsibility to comply with a legal cease and desist order to stop that ONE abuse.
What? It never even OCCURRED to this twit to shut off the port in the abuser's dorm room and contact the campus administration for further disciplinary action? Up to and including expulsion if the circumstances warranted it? That was the only proper response. Nothing else is warranted.
Your second paragraph shows a monumental ignorance of proper network administration. If you are typical of the knowledge base in universities nowadays, it's no wonder your networks are a mess.
ROTFLMAO!
Obligatory HHTTG reference:
"With any luck," Ford Prefect muttered as he fell asleep, "The long distance charges will force them to go broke."
Anyone with kids with any inclination to print will tell you that color IS a necessity. :)
Seriously, I've got a daughter who loves all kinds of art. Gotta have color for her.