It's as you said: Nokia N900, hands down. You get: 1. Fully unlocked phone, unlocked bootloader and real Linux. 2. Loads of "hacker" tools and apps. 3. Busybox ash(stock) or full Bash if you want. 4. The phone part is fully scriptable with dbus commands. There's even a dbus monitor daemon to run a script when a certain dbus signal is sent. 5. Hardware keyboard, decent specs(CPU's a bit weak, but greatly overclockable), and good screen. 6. Debian Chroot gives full LXDE system right on your phone if you need it. 7. Real web-browser functionality: tablet-friendly stock microB(FF based, renders like FF 3), Firefox Mobile, Chromium(desktop version basically), Opera
Really, it seems to be the only option. The N9 might also be doable, but there you have to enable developer mode, and have no hardware keyboard, screen's poorer(AMOLED vs LCD), and it's just more hassle.
Well, I would say it's not real linux, and I'm no anti-Linux person. I just can't see Android as Linux without native X11(or Wayland), thus it doesn't run "Linux" applications without some sort of translation layer or port. Now, Maemo... That's *real* linux. It runs X, Pulseaudio, Busybox, Bash(if you want), and a good number of OSS Linux apps will run natively with a recompile. It's only real lack is no HW-accellerated OpenGL(GLES isn't enough to play OpenGL desktop games etc.), but meh.
As far as I'm concerned, Android is a good start. It's better than iOS or WP7.. But it's only a start, and isn't really Linux(especially so when you have binary driver blobs and such that aren't portable to other kernel versions).
Erm... why, exactly, is OpenGL not up to the task? TF2 in DX9 mode on Wine looked* the same as it did on in Windows with native DirectX, though slightly slower... which is understandable due to the realtime translation being done.
That's entirely true. Personally, I've no care about what two(or more) concenting adults do on their own time. The only issue/should/ be how to handle tax breaks, child support and whatnot... which, in a sane world, should be trivial to do and be 100% fair to any and all parties involved.
But hey, that wouldn't be good for business(Just think how many people make money off having things the way they are) and so it won't happen.
I don't even think Disney would disappear - it might get smaller, and they might have to come up with more, higher-quality works(and lower profit margins), but I doubt it'd really affect them. It could hurt the Home DVD market(Because lots of people don't have broadband or internet at all... and BluRays are too expensive media-wise) as more companies make compilations and sell them dirt cheaply, but hey, that's good for the consumer.
But that's not really a "linux" problem - more a distro problem. And if it were used in the corporate environment, A, it wouldn't always be the latest and greatest, and B, IT would test versions before rollout... Like they do on Windows. Just setup a corp APT repo with tested/OKed software, and you're good to go.
Nah, the real problem with Linux is the same thing it's been for years - lack of critical applications. Sure, these days, any web-based applications will work like a charm... but it's things crucial to your business - in my case AutoCAD, MasterCAM and our Infor ERP system - that prevent Linux on anything but the most basic of machines. Once those apps get ported to Linux, I think we'd be running it within a couple of years, simply due to the lack of cost and stability(and excellent support for out-of-date hardware). Users, well, they'll learn whatever it takes to get the job done. CLI is great for some things, horrible for others. GUI is great for some, horrible for others. It shouldn't be one or the other - blend the two. Have a good gui with common options, and a CLI box that can be pulled up for access to the complex and arcane extra features(which perhaps only 100 people in the world use, but for them it's critical).
But this is exactly the problem the parent post was talking about - for multiarch, you need two sets of libraries. which *could* be different. Fortunately, debian keeps things clean, so it works amazingly well, but the problem could still arise.
Calibre's great - I use it in conjunction with my Nokia N900 and (open-source) FBReader app, which works perfectly(and strips all that crappy formatting included with some Ebooks, stripping it down to the level of a RTF).
I agree - My boss was quite excited when he heard about the X86 tablets - Being able to run AutoCAD, MasterCAM and the like on a (reasonable) portable device would be awesome; especially if it was fanless(and thus not prone to sucking up dust in the machine shop environment). Especially if you can simply drop it in a dock and continue work on a larger screen and keyboard.
FUD, as I'm sure you know(I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, so I'll assume not). Worst thing that can happen is you'll not be able to sell your product again and you may be open to a copyright-related lawsuit resulting in some money lost, but noone can force you to open your code.
Actually, you're wrong about that - the kernel interface part *is* open source, and *can* be modified(and needs to be recompiled for every kernel version) - I once needed to use a specific set of Nvidia drivers that did not yet support the latest X version I wanted to use. A little googling around netted me a patch someoned had made and instructions for extracting the kernel module from the.bin file, patching it, then getting it compiled and running. It worked surprisingly well, and I didn't have any major problems with that patched version either so...
Now, patching the userspace *driver* part... that's a different story. But for x86/amd64, the kernel interface is open, and it *should* be the same with Nvidia's ARM stuff as well, as it's a requirement of the GPL.
To be honest, I agree with it's choice to hardware mix/resample in software - Most cards(by volume) are just dumb DACs, and the few that aren't(like my audigy 2) have enough bugs to make it useless to try - Just use ALSA straight on those cards, or only use Pulse for that application(which works perfectly well when you have a hardware mixer).
Compelling reason for it? It makes my microphone work right in TF2 via Wine(likely because of resampling - Audigy 2 sound card). For everything else on that system, ALSA is fine with defaults due to the hardware mixer on that card.
On other systems however... I've had great luck with it on my laptop and it's crummy DAC, abd especially being able to hotplug a USB DAC and have the sound come out of there automatically. And I didn't even have to edit config files! Lag is still an issue, but there's a environment variable that can be set to limit the latency for Pulse, and it makes gaming doable with it(where the sound matches up with the picture...)
To be fair, giving out your OS encryption keys to "friendly" nation-states for signed malware basically means that your OS, no matter how securely designed, will always have such malware.
Yeah... MySQL, Sqlite, PostgreSQL... Anything but Access. I've used a number at work, connected to by PHP over ODBC... slow, the SQL varient isn't exactly the same as SQL server SQL, and no real security at all.
You're about right there, at least in the real world. I use MasterCam, $15k/seat software, to do my job. Only recently has it gotten any capibility to use more than one core for/anything/, and it's still single-threaded for most of what it does. I'm running a C2D with a 2.5ghz+ speed, 4GB of ram, and a low-end discrete video card that's enough to run Aero... and I rarely stress it, despite keeping a number of things running(often 2-3 mastercam windows, FF with 8 tabs, apache/mysql/php serving 30 computers with ~100k hits/day(auto-reloading pages, most)) and the only time I've noticibly stressed it was when I had a Debian VM running, and Gnash was locked up and eating up an entire core... and even then, the system was perfectly usable, just somewhat sluggish. So, at least for me, I see no reason to upgrade. If it failed, quad-core 3.x ghz obviously, but until then...
Obviously some people have different loads, but for me? Only upgrade that'd really help is a SSD.
Really, you want *both* - a GUI for being able to set standard options, config etc., and a command-line/config file you can use for setting all those odd little options that only 10 people in the world care about. Even windows has this, but they call it the registry and it's one heck of a mess.
That all being said, my view of GUI vs Command Line is that a GUI is best for new users and graphical manipulation of objects. A command line is best once it's been learned and people are trying to get/work/ done . Just look at Autocad for instance: Seems every user who isn't a complete newbie uses the command line in it for a lot of stuff... though you'd be hard pressed to find someone who uses it exclusively.
I agree. If Windows 7 was as customizable as KDE, I might actually use it more than I have to! I mean... After using KDE for over a year, using Windows 7 just feels like a step backwards in customizability and awesomeness.
Better yet, all it does is encourage people from other countries - If you eliminate all local "hacking", you've effecively removed a number of controllable break-ins that can be learned from(controllable as in if a US person copies a thousand CC numbers, there's a decent chance he can be found and the data removed from his hands. If the person is in china or russia, no way).
I'd argue there should be a national program rewarding kids for hacking into publicly-facing company systems, provided they follow certain rules(no DDOS or undue load, for example) and report it immediately -- The company targeted then gets fined proportionately to the data available to be copied - do that, and suddenly you have a lot of people who are out for the reward instead of the data's value, companies would invest a lot in decent security, and it'd make it signifigantly harder for people *outside* your sphere of influence to break in to the systems.
Couldn't you simply use groups for that? All users have a main group of "www-data", and so long as your PHP script makes sure that there's r/w group permissions, it'd be accessable as the user directly.
I'd bet that happens a fair bit - I seem to recall running into that sort of permission issue once, had to write a PHP script to change the permissions so I could overwrite it with FTP... but that was years ago(before I found ssh/scp/rsync), so...
Wait... what? I always thought it was done via Apache. Doesn't using mod-cgi require all your files to be in a folder like cgi-bin? All the free hosts I've used/seemed/ to use the Apache mod and PHP files would run anywhere inside your www directory.
I'd look at it exactly the opposite - people are defending it because they use it and know it's quirks, not because of the financial angle. I mean, any languag -- even Javascript -- becomes decent once you have written years of code in it. The underlying language may be crap, but it's what you make of it that matters.
Personally, I like PHP for the above reasons - I learned it early on, because it was available on free webhosts(running a LAMP stack) and found it worked for me. Now, I like it a bit more decently because of how/easy/ some things are - I recently did a project for my employer(Note: I/don't/ work in IT) creating some forms and displays off of a mixture of MS Access databases(via ODBC), MS SQL server databases(via ODBC), and some MySQL for caching. PHP worked surprisingly well, making it simple to handle all sorts of data and display nice, usable interfaces. Sure, there are better options on both the front and backend(MS Access for a DB? Really?), but the fact is that it/worked/ and was quick to prototype. And when you're building something to get the job done with minimal-to-none support from IT... That matters.
Slashdot Mirror
It's as you said: Nokia N900, hands down.
You get:
1. Fully unlocked phone, unlocked bootloader and real Linux.
2. Loads of "hacker" tools and apps.
3. Busybox ash(stock) or full Bash if you want.
4. The phone part is fully scriptable with dbus commands. There's even a dbus monitor daemon to run a script when a certain dbus signal is sent.
5. Hardware keyboard, decent specs(CPU's a bit weak, but greatly overclockable), and good screen.
6. Debian Chroot gives full LXDE system right on your phone if you need it.
7. Real web-browser functionality: tablet-friendly stock microB(FF based, renders like FF 3), Firefox Mobile, Chromium(desktop version basically), Opera
Really, it seems to be the only option.
The N9 might also be doable, but there you have to enable developer mode, and have no hardware keyboard, screen's poorer(AMOLED vs LCD), and it's just more hassle.
Well, I would say it's not real linux, and I'm no anti-Linux person. I just can't see Android as Linux without native X11(or Wayland), thus it doesn't run "Linux" applications without some sort of translation layer or port.
Now, Maemo... That's *real* linux. It runs X, Pulseaudio, Busybox, Bash(if you want), and a good number of OSS Linux apps will run natively with a recompile. It's only real lack is no HW-accellerated OpenGL(GLES isn't enough to play OpenGL desktop games etc.), but meh.
As far as I'm concerned, Android is a good start. It's better than iOS or WP7.. But it's only a start, and isn't really Linux(especially so when you have binary driver blobs and such that aren't portable to other kernel versions).
Erm... why, exactly, is OpenGL not up to the task? TF2 in DX9 mode on Wine looked* the same as it did on in Windows with native DirectX, though slightly slower... which is understandable due to the realtime translation being done.
(*Until the Pyromania update broke that feature)
That's entirely true. Personally, I've no care about what two(or more) concenting adults do on their own time. The only issue /should/ be how to handle tax breaks, child support and whatnot... which, in a sane world, should be trivial to do and be 100% fair to any and all parties involved.
But hey, that wouldn't be good for business(Just think how many people make money off having things the way they are) and so it won't happen.
I'd love that.
--Posted from my N900.
I don't even think Disney would disappear - it might get smaller, and they might have to come up with more, higher-quality works(and lower profit margins), but I doubt it'd really affect them. It could hurt the Home DVD market(Because lots of people don't have broadband or internet at all... and BluRays are too expensive media-wise) as more companies make compilations and sell them dirt cheaply, but hey, that's good for the consumer.
But that's not really a "linux" problem - more a distro problem. And if it were used in the corporate environment, A, it wouldn't always be the latest and greatest, and B, IT would test versions before rollout... Like they do on Windows. Just setup a corp APT repo with tested/OKed software, and you're good to go.
Nah, the real problem with Linux is the same thing it's been for years - lack of critical applications. Sure, these days, any web-based applications will work like a charm... but it's things crucial to your business - in my case AutoCAD, MasterCAM and our Infor ERP system - that prevent Linux on anything but the most basic of machines.
Once those apps get ported to Linux, I think we'd be running it within a couple of years, simply due to the lack of cost and stability(and excellent support for out-of-date hardware).
Users, well, they'll learn whatever it takes to get the job done. CLI is great for some things, horrible for others. GUI is great for some, horrible for others. It shouldn't be one or the other - blend the two. Have a good gui with common options, and a CLI box that can be pulled up for access to the complex and arcane extra features(which perhaps only 100 people in the world use, but for them it's critical).
But this is exactly the problem the parent post was talking about - for multiarch, you need two sets of libraries. which *could* be different. Fortunately, debian keeps things clean, so it works amazingly well, but the problem could still arise.
Calibre's great - I use it in conjunction with my Nokia N900 and (open-source) FBReader app, which works perfectly(and strips all that crappy formatting included with some Ebooks, stripping it down to the level of a RTF).
I agree - My boss was quite excited when he heard about the X86 tablets - Being able to run AutoCAD, MasterCAM and the like on a (reasonable) portable device would be awesome; especially if it was fanless(and thus not prone to sucking up dust in the machine shop environment). Especially if you can simply drop it in a dock and continue work on a larger screen and keyboard.
FUD, as I'm sure you know(I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, so I'll assume not). Worst thing that can happen is you'll not be able to sell your product again and you may be open to a copyright-related lawsuit resulting in some money lost, but noone can force you to open your code.
Actually, you're wrong about that - the kernel interface part *is* open source, and *can* be modified(and needs to be recompiled for every kernel version) - I once needed to use a specific set of Nvidia drivers that did not yet support the latest X version I wanted to use. A little googling around netted me a patch someoned had made and instructions for extracting the kernel module from the .bin file, patching it, then getting it compiled and running.
It worked surprisingly well, and I didn't have any major problems with that patched version either so...
Now, patching the userspace *driver* part... that's a different story. But for x86/amd64, the kernel interface is open, and it *should* be the same with Nvidia's ARM stuff as well, as it's a requirement of the GPL.
To be honest, I agree with it's choice to hardware mix/resample in software - Most cards(by volume) are just dumb DACs, and the few that aren't(like my audigy 2) have enough bugs to make it useless to try - Just use ALSA straight on those cards, or only use Pulse for that application(which works perfectly well when you have a hardware mixer).
Compelling reason for it? It makes my microphone work right in TF2 via Wine(likely because of resampling - Audigy 2 sound card).
For everything else on that system, ALSA is fine with defaults due to the hardware mixer on that card.
On other systems however... I've had great luck with it on my laptop and it's crummy DAC, abd especially being able to hotplug a USB DAC and have the sound come out of there automatically. And I didn't even have to edit config files!
Lag is still an issue, but there's a environment variable that can be set to limit the latency for Pulse, and it makes gaming doable with it(where the sound matches up with the picture...)
To be fair, giving out your OS encryption keys to "friendly" nation-states for signed malware basically means that your OS, no matter how securely designed, will always have such malware.
How about Geany, then? Lightweight, with syntax highlighting, and a decent GUI.
To be fair, I use VIM as well, but for most things, a GUI is quicker.
Yeah... MySQL, Sqlite, PostgreSQL... Anything but Access.
I've used a number at work, connected to by PHP over ODBC... slow, the SQL varient isn't exactly the same as SQL server SQL, and no real security at all.
You're about right there, at least in the real world. I use MasterCam, $15k/seat software, to do my job. Only recently has it gotten any capibility to use more than one core for /anything/, and it's still single-threaded for most of what it does. I'm running a C2D with a 2.5ghz+ speed, 4GB of ram, and a low-end discrete video card that's enough to run Aero... and I rarely stress it, despite keeping a number of things running(often 2-3 mastercam windows, FF with 8 tabs, apache/mysql/php serving 30 computers with ~100k hits/day(auto-reloading pages, most)) and the only time I've noticibly stressed it was when I had a Debian VM running, and Gnash was locked up and eating up an entire core... and even then, the system was perfectly usable, just somewhat sluggish.
So, at least for me, I see no reason to upgrade. If it failed, quad-core 3.x ghz obviously, but until then...
Obviously some people have different loads, but for me? Only upgrade that'd really help is a SSD.
Really, you want *both* - a GUI for being able to set standard options, config etc., and a command-line/config file you can use for setting all those odd little options that only 10 people in the world care about.
Even windows has this, but they call it the registry and it's one heck of a mess.
That all being said, my view of GUI vs Command Line is that a GUI is best for new users and graphical manipulation of objects. A command line is best once it's been learned and people are trying to get /work/ done . Just look at Autocad for instance: Seems every user who isn't a complete newbie uses the command line in it for a lot of stuff... though you'd be hard pressed to find someone who uses it exclusively.
I agree. If Windows 7 was as customizable as KDE, I might actually use it more than I have to! I mean... After using KDE for over a year, using Windows 7 just feels like a step backwards in customizability and awesomeness.
Better yet, all it does is encourage people from other countries - If you eliminate all local "hacking", you've effecively removed a number of controllable break-ins that can be learned from(controllable as in if a US person copies a thousand CC numbers, there's a decent chance he can be found and the data removed from his hands. If the person is in china or russia, no way).
I'd argue there should be a national program rewarding kids for hacking into publicly-facing company systems, provided they follow certain rules(no DDOS or undue load, for example) and report it immediately -- The company targeted then gets fined proportionately to the data available to be copied - do that, and suddenly you have a lot of people who are out for the reward instead of the data's value, companies would invest a lot in decent security, and it'd make it signifigantly harder for people *outside* your sphere of influence to break in to the systems.
Juat my 2c.
Couldn't you simply use groups for that? All users have a main group of "www-data", and so long as your PHP script makes sure that there's r/w group permissions, it'd be accessable as the user directly.
I'd bet that happens a fair bit - I seem to recall running into that sort of permission issue once, had to write a PHP script to change the permissions so I could overwrite it with FTP... but that was years ago(before I found ssh/scp/rsync), so...
Wait... what? I always thought it was done via Apache. Doesn't using mod-cgi require all your files to be in a folder like cgi-bin? All the free hosts I've used /seemed/ to use the Apache mod and PHP files would run anywhere inside your www directory.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you.
I'd look at it exactly the opposite - people are defending it because they use it and know it's quirks, not because of the financial angle.
I mean, any languag -- even Javascript -- becomes decent once you have written years of code in it. The underlying language may be crap, but it's what you make of it that matters.
Personally, I like PHP for the above reasons - I learned it early on, because it was available on free webhosts(running a LAMP stack) and found it worked for me. /easy/ some things are - I recently did a project for my employer(Note: I /don't/ work in IT) creating some forms and displays off of a mixture of MS Access databases(via ODBC), MS SQL server databases(via ODBC), and some MySQL for caching. PHP worked surprisingly well, making it simple to handle all sorts of data and display nice, usable interfaces. Sure, there are better options on both the front and backend(MS Access for a DB? Really?), but the fact is that it /worked/ and was quick to prototype. And when you're building something to get the job done with minimal-to-none support from IT... That matters.
Now, I like it a bit more decently because of how