Google is violating it if the SDK includes any Linux, Freetype, or other gpl software. Last I checked the emulators run Linux and other software GPL software. They can't put additional restrictions on it as they do not own it.
Yes that is a violation of the GPL. I have no idea who modded me down to 0, but it is a fact you can't make Linux non GPL. Yes, you can include non GPL software with a Linux distro but you can't make the whole thing including linux non GPL.
If it includes the kernel then there needs to be 2 seperate licenses or Google needs to use another kernel.
Still a violation of GPL. You may not change the license. Google is in hot water regardless if it is more free. There is a reason Apple choose Freebsd over Linux. It was for situations like this.
I had such a contract shoved in front of me from a company in Atlanta. Crazy shit
I couldn't leave period for 2 years and I was not guaranteed a job either! The deal was they put me in an apartment and paid me minimium wage between jobs while they put me out at $150/hr to clients and pay me maybe $27hr while on the job. I needed the work and was kind of desperate.
In the end I didn't sign it and told them to fuck off. I figured such a ripoff to clients would not mind screwing me over as well?
In the end be very very carefull who you let in consulting. They have fake resumes, and references, and if someone who has +10 years experience working at Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Intel, NYSE, and is just 24... then RUN! These later scams are becoming very popular as HR and CIOs demand the world and other slimy subscontractors are pimping these hurting those who are honest but just have 8 years experience and not 10.
But yes I was technically an indentured servant if I signed it. They owned my ass for 10 years and even trademarked my name and resume so I could not make a competing resume in the contract.
Ahh, the summary was less clear. I've seen plenty of contracts like that, and am under one currently. Really, I consider that a fairly reasonable clause (assuming it has a sane time-limit). I don't know if it's been tested in court in the US, but my gut feel is that the employees are screwed. When you sign a contract, you really need to read it, and live with the consequences if you break it.
That said, all the signs show that HP is pretty desperate, quite possibly as screwed as the employees it's suing, and even if it wins these cases, it's not likely to make a difference.
Unfortunately, when your bill collectors call, your landlord is ready to send your butt to the curb, your car is 48 hours from being repossed, and your wife is ready to leave and is flriting with other guys to replace you, all because you have been unemployed for 6 months, then what are you going to do?
Say No! I will stand by my principles! In this economy there are computer science grads working at geek squad and call centers making $10/hr. They will be happy to take your job and HP knows this. You get to go what you got to do and not everyone has 10 years experience, a masters degree, and solid work experience with no gaps during the great recession.
You know employers all sing and dance how it is freedom to right to work and fire at will. These same guys then get all pissed off when you leave and whine how unfair it is! Worse, I do not get a 2 weeks notice.
Most of it goes... hmmm lets set him up so we can fire him in secret. Document everything but do not email this conversation ever happened. Wait for I.T. to show up, then make up a meeting out of nowhere while IT quickly disables the account on a friday. Then hands a box and says GET OUT.
But if we want to leave... oh no it has to be 2 weeks and why are you such a dick for leaving it will take a month to fill this!! I paid over $35,000 a year coding and only required 10 years experience etc.
It is hyppcritical and one way as the employer always has the bargaining power. But if I owened a business you bet your ass I would want a right to fire whoever and forever reason if I am a small business as one bad employee could cost me everything.
Well I noticed it is smooth now in games with the beta last month when I have good FPS so AMD is doing something. I can see it with my own eyes.
The 5xxx are the last cards supported with the latest drivers so it appears they are backporting the fixes to my card but no earlier ones as they are stuck on 12.3 I believe.
I have noticed this issue on my ATI 5750 dedicated card last year.
The CPUs are so-so unless you are looking for a cheap multicore system with virtual machines. Intels are better for single tasking and also multitasking if you have a large budget. Unfortunately, this is no market for cheap multicore heavy multitasking users except for a few geeks.
Thew new beta drivers work for me and it is a big improvement.
My el cheapo laptop from 2007 has WDDM 1.1 support for Windows 7 accelerated. I was impressed with that as this box was designed for Vista not 7. Also the driver version is from last March so ATI supported it for well over 5 years.
I have the latest beta cataylst drivers from December 3rd and SWTOR is now fluid when I turn. Also video seems better too. Also worth mentioning is this and the last stable released fix the massive security hole by disabling protected mode in Vista/7 with ASLR.
I highly recommend ATI users upgrade their drivers as I found the beta more stable than the stable one.
Maybe she should pick a new name, possibly a business name to work through and notify her current circle of contacts of the change.
The problem is every job application I have ever went through demands former names listed so they can do a credit and internet check on your name. She will still get blacklisted after the reporting agency mentions the other sites. They no longer just do criminal background checks anymore.
There are one or two sites where for a monthly fee an employer types a name and everything about you including lawsuits, blogs, facebook, myspace, livejournal, divorces, and loans pop up that employers use for hiring decisions.
Suing is bad too as HR feels you may sue them next if they have to fire you. They want a clean record for any position and it is insane as a simple suit agaisnt someone who wrongs you is now a liability.
EA totally ruined it and forced free to play. They could have made the expansion bigger and let more money come in as now it is turning into a loss. The update is digital only which sucks.
This means browsers, java, flash, and PDFs, and sometimes even Office!
Create a standard user account for day to day computing and setup your less techy friends the same way and explain that. Uninstall Java and disable Java scripting in IE in the internet zone and disable add-on for it you must use Java like myself. This will help use the crappy insecure garbage at work in the intranet zone yet still protect them on the WWW.
Do not use Adobe PDF. Use Foxit or summutra (Foxit is my preference). Use adblock and the very latest flash that auto-updates, or better yet use Chrome. Chrome is sandboxed and takes care of that for you! Disable Office document cache in IE 9 if you use.
DO NOT USE OUTDATED BROWSERS! No I am not just referring to IE 6,7,and 8. I am looking at the user reading this on Firefox 3.6 which has 40 EXPLOITS right now and will never be patched! IE 8 is at least patched but still not a wise choice in this day and age.
IT managers? Get off your ass and tell the beancounters it is a liability to keep their ancient web apps! If you have confidential data your business can be sued and is a virus writer goldmine where they can stall all sorts of stuff like SSNs and credit card numbers. Put the cost up there and ask them if it is worth it? Same with Firefox 3.6. It is time to move on.
Stop using XP!... Read my section above with browsers and IT managers. Same applies to obsolete operating systems.
Do all the above and you have a very secure setup. Nothing is ever safe, but that and a AV software package will limit the amount of holes a virus can infect. Less vulnerabilities = less infections.
I have had luck with AVAST. Yes, you should run it. They are not 100% useless. Just not 100% effective with newer 0 day exploits.
The best way to mitigate it is to have 2 different accounts. One admin, one user. Use Foxit or Summutra for PDFs, Do not use Firefox because without sandboxie, or better yet use Chrome which is sandboxed. Use adblock on Chrome or Firefox as flash is another vector attack. Do not use YahooIM and use Trillian if you need to chat with your buddies on yahoo.
Uninstall Java, or if you use it disable it in Firefox and Java under add-ons. In IE you can go to zone security and disable Java scripting. This and a good up to date AV and common sense can provide HUGE protection.... oh and STOP USING OUT OF DATE BROWSERS! Firefox 3.6 is even more insecure than IE 8 at the moment as at least that one is being patched. IT managers need to stand up to the bean counters at work who know nothing about security. Yes, your craplet web apps require it so upgrade as losing confidential customer data is a much bigger problem.
Not perfect I may add but can hugely increase the mathematical odds of infection.
The rise of the HUTS expansion is coming out! I know those who played it just for 24 hours dumped it because it didn't have 7 years of updates like Wow, but it has improved and I actually like it and consider it a success regardless of everyone trying to make it a failure.
I look forward to playing it. FYI I have flashpoints, dungeon finders, and other things to do after I cap now. I think it got shafted by Wow users and management at EA before it hit the light of day.
One thing XP did that Windows 7 does not is use that extra ram to store the filesystem in its ram for quicker access. I do not know where the bottleneck is. Vista got bashed for being a bloated pig and MS replaced the old n^0 algorithm for buffers and swap to make 7 look faster in lower end systems. It is possible it is optimized to look quicker on such systems. Mine only has 8 gigs of ram and unless I run alot of VMs I never need more.
Also DDR ram needs to be in pairs for ultimate bandwidth. 2x means odd bits are one simm and even on the other. I think some higher end chipsets use 4x so you can get even higher performance. Is your box setup like this?
XP is not well designed with security and it suffers from Windows ROT, and weird memory issues compared to WIndows 7. Reinstalling XP after 2 years seems to be the normal during my XP SP 2 days if I remember before leaving it. I like 7 much better. I would rather run out of date Solaris or Linux than XP these days.
You admit you are not the norm and perhaps Windows Server would be better on such a beast? I use Linux on a VM still. I was a FreeBSD zealot for years and only went back to MS when my exwife asked my why I obsess over Linux and it never works as well as her Vista laptop where she never has to change anything or mess with something. Ouch...
She has a point. Windows just works and is MUCH better than in the past.
One thing Apple and MS do is make sure what you print is what you see on the screen. CUPS does not have postscript or Windowsscript integration. I believe Apple uses PDF so the printing and graphics calibration look excellent. Not for the average geek but for someone printing office documents or designing marketing materials that is a definite plus.
I think Windows 7, while not perfect is great for 96% of users and I am curious why you need that much ram? But for an average Joe who browses the web Windows 7 is fine and a good OS or even the moderate user at this point who runs autocad or VS.NET and run his or her Excel apps.
It has improved remarkably.
CentOS and FreeBSD do have its uses for fun and profit and I run them on VMs. But I would not do that on my desktop in 2013. Maybe in 2001 where I dual booted and discovered XP.
I read a comment here from a Biology PHD candidate. He ran Open Solaris and was upset about Oracle canning it. Why? He had software from 1992 that he has the source code and binaries and wont compile/run on anything but that. Oddly it will compile on a modern gcc compiler. Just only on Solaris with some flags for older compatibility.
It is not just business that has old apps and code. Academia has unix based ones and frankly that Fortran was designed probably for the Digital PDP-11 or a Vax. It may compile on another platform but it was certainly not designed otherwise.
I am not a CS major, but my guess is that old solaris program used api calls that a stable abi that non linux operating systems provided so it could run. The linux kernel was rewritten so many times that I doubt much code from 96 remains. Most of the old crud is in other operating systems like Solaris and Windows.
There is no reason to use Linux for non technical users in 2013.
There are lots of apps professionals use that Linux users don't, stuff for document scanning and formatting, engineering apps, etc.
Also, Windows protects your investment in expansive proprietary applications. Say, if you buy Matlab, you know you're going to keep it for a few years in your Windows, because Windows 7 has a 10 year life cycle. If you purchase one of these things for Linux, it'll break within 6 months when the developers change ABIs, move libraries around, or do any other of those thoughtful acts they always do. Besides, usually things work in a distro, but not in another, because they have no standard.
Proper library version isn't even an issue Linux distro developers worry about. If you complain, they'll tell you to fuck off and stop using proprietary software.
That my friend is the travesty of what happened and is a shame as Linux had such potential. Unix used to run 10 year old software fine when you used FreeBSD or Solaris that uses abis. You can install them under.sysinstall in FreeBSD and you are done. As you can tell I prefered over Linux last decade. As a result things worked... well not counting FBSD 5.x:-)
Linux has its uses still in the server room or rack farm where you control the image and send it out to each node. But Linus fucked up without that abi. I wonder if Redhat has one as I imagine a lot of its customers run Unix ERP and java software? I do find them much more stable on my AMD hardware than debian derivatives.
I find Linux unsuitable due to X crashing or some errors. Windows used to be that way too as DOS limitations and programs fighting for ram took each other out. Windows 7 today is rock solid and I dare say consumer focused. I do not see a response from the linux community other than Windows S$cks from memories of the 1990s where they are out of touch.
I think that the kde desktop is much easier then any windows in the past or current. There's a reason.
And what reason would that be?
I am still waiting.
Is it so much easier that people in the office can gain more productivity that they didn't do before? Does KDE had Ksap that beats the real SAP ERP suite they use? Is it as rock solid as Windows with a stable abi that doesn't change between kernels causing shit to break during an upgrade? How is the power management? Can it save electricity costs?
11 years ago I would be on your side. Linux had software power management where it can boast battery life by 40%! It was the Firefox 1.5 of the OS wars. Fast, secure, stable, and had a ton of shit! Great for website development too.
Today it is an inferior OS. It uses more power, is more bloated, has no abi so my ATI drivers get all funky between distros, it just blows as a desktop TERRIBLY. Windows has succeeded it and became what Linux once was. I now have perl, C++, and many apis that I can get on Linux, plus Adobe dreamweaver and IE support to test shit out.
IE 6 really hurt Linux as 70% of the effort was just for that browser and the only way to test it was to run Windows anyway. Today IE is a great browser again if you are not lazy and run the latest versions.
Point is there is no reason to change. The sooner linux users come to terms of what happened the sooner you all can respond. Google's Android is the only serious solution I see for mass adoption and even then it can't run business apps.
I got XP opening nite excited we can leave that abomination DOS/win3.1 legacy behind. It was just as stable as NT 4 on my machine. It was fast, reliable, and sweet. I used that OS for many years most of last decade.
Compared to Windows 98SE XP even before patches was fucking solid! I never had any problems iwth it.
UEFI replaces a 30 year old bios made for machines that can't support more than 640k of ram. Many and many hacks and bugs were added over the decades.
EFI is a breathe of fresh air and just because it supports secureBoot doesn't mean you have to use it. I want change and geeks should too. Windows 7 is a decent upgrade from XP as well. Very stable.
I love Windows 7 and do not understand why anyone would want XP today in this day and age that is unless you have old out of date hardware.
But to go through the hassle of putting XP on a new rig that would require many hours of backporting drivers, hacking.ini files, and not having USB 3, thunderbolt, uEFI, power management, and other things I have to ASK WHY??
I can do everything and more with Windows 7 than XP. I do not want to go back. It think the fact that the little button to sort in Explorer is gone and means you have to click on date manually or the other mouse button is too much for people. Instant search and aero peak and aero snap make life easier for me and I feel castrated on XP as I can't just type Windows Key CM.... enter for cmd in 1/4th of a second! Nope I have to browse to find command prompt.
There is no reason to use Linux for non technical users in 2013.
I personally think the reason so many linux zealots are that way is because they have not run Windows since Windows Me/98 with IE 5.5, and Office 97.
Windows sucked back then! It bluescreened and many neophytes simply did not sneeze or install software at all because of what it might do leaving the job to us. Word sucked terrible. I like to use tables for special formatting and I wonder if IE 6 used the word bugs and reproduced them as MS was serious about using.doc files to replace.htm back then? Things would break all the fucking time. It was terrible as I remeber spending 2x of my time on my resume fixing formatting bugs which then re-appeared when posting them on www.monster.com.
Shit crashed, you had limits of dos still in there, everyone ran admin, and I do not need to go further as I assume you were quite knowledgable in those days. I created billly gates as I hated MS for such terrible software.... fastforward today
Windows XP and Windows 7 are rock solid, do not bluescreen, have an industrial VMS like kernel, are real operating systems. They just work. XP still has some issues with memory management and rebooting is required and occasional Windows rot, but Windows 7 suceeds Linux in many areas.
Office 2010 formatting is much better. Things just work today and Linux they do not. I can't just point and click, install and have it work out of the box. I also have to say IE is a darn good browser now! IE 10 has a HTML 5 score that is about 90% of Firefox so even if the corp has an IE acitiveX applet you can still have a worldclass browser. That was not surely the case a half decade ago.
Wake up. Windows is no longer the pice of crap it once was and unless you are a programmer why change from what works? 12 years ago I would have reasons to use Unix as wordperfect was still supported and it came with stuff and was stable. Today I tried Linux mint on my ATI raedon and it was unstable.
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Google is violating it if the SDK includes any Linux, Freetype, or other gpl software. Last I checked the emulators run Linux and other software GPL software. They can't put additional restrictions on it as they do not own it.
Yes that is a violation of the GPL. I have no idea who modded me down to 0, but it is a fact you can't make Linux non GPL. Yes, you can include non GPL software with a Linux distro but you can't make the whole thing including linux non GPL.
If it includes the kernel then there needs to be 2 seperate licenses or Google needs to use another kernel.
Still a violation of GPL. You may not change the license. Google is in hot water regardless if it is more free. There is a reason Apple choose Freebsd over Linux. It was for situations like this.
I had such a contract shoved in front of me from a company in Atlanta. Crazy shit
I couldn't leave period for 2 years and I was not guaranteed a job either! The deal was they put me in an apartment and paid me minimium wage between jobs while they put me out at $150/hr to clients and pay me maybe $27hr while on the job. I needed the work and was kind of desperate.
In the end I didn't sign it and told them to fuck off. I figured such a ripoff to clients would not mind screwing me over as well?
In the end be very very carefull who you let in consulting. They have fake resumes, and references, and if someone who has +10 years experience working at Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Intel, NYSE, and is just 24 ... then RUN! These later scams are becoming very popular as HR and CIOs demand the world and other slimy subscontractors are pimping these hurting those who are honest but just have 8 years experience and not 10.
But yes I was technically an indentured servant if I signed it. They owned my ass for 10 years and even trademarked my name and resume so I could not make a competing resume in the contract.
Ahh, the summary was less clear. I've seen plenty of contracts like that, and am under one currently. Really, I consider that a fairly reasonable clause (assuming it has a sane time-limit). I don't know if it's been tested in court in the US, but my gut feel is that the employees are screwed. When you sign a contract, you really need to read it, and live with the consequences if you break it.
That said, all the signs show that HP is pretty desperate, quite possibly as screwed as the employees it's suing, and even if it wins these cases, it's not likely to make a difference.
Unfortunately, when your bill collectors call, your landlord is ready to send your butt to the curb, your car is 48 hours from being repossed, and your wife is ready to leave and is flriting with other guys to replace you, all because you have been unemployed for 6 months, then what are you going to do?
Say No! I will stand by my principles! In this economy there are computer science grads working at geek squad and call centers making $10/hr. They will be happy to take your job and HP knows this. You get to go what you got to do and not everyone has 10 years experience, a masters degree, and solid work experience with no gaps during the great recession.
You know employers all sing and dance how it is freedom to right to work and fire at will. These same guys then get all pissed off when you leave and whine how unfair it is! Worse, I do not get a 2 weeks notice.
Most of it goes ... hmmm lets set him up so we can fire him in secret. Document everything but do not email this conversation ever happened. Wait for I.T. to show up, then make up a meeting out of nowhere while IT quickly disables the account on a friday. Then hands a box and says GET OUT.
But if we want to leave ... oh no it has to be 2 weeks and why are you such a dick for leaving it will take a month to fill this!! I paid over $35,000 a year coding and only required 10 years experience etc.
It is hyppcritical and one way as the employer always has the bargaining power. But if I owened a business you bet your ass I would want a right to fire whoever and forever reason if I am a small business as one bad employee could cost me everything.
Well I noticed it is smooth now in games with the beta last month when I have good FPS so AMD is doing something. I can see it with my own eyes.
The 5xxx are the last cards supported with the latest drivers so it appears they are backporting the fixes to my card but no earlier ones as they are stuck on 12.3 I believe.
They make great dedicated video cards.
I have noticed this issue on my ATI 5750 dedicated card last year.
The CPUs are so-so unless you are looking for a cheap multicore system with virtual machines. Intels are better for single tasking and also multitasking if you have a large budget. Unfortunately, this is no market for cheap multicore heavy multitasking users except for a few geeks.
Thew new beta drivers work for me and it is a big improvement.
My el cheapo laptop from 2007 has WDDM 1.1 support for Windows 7 accelerated. I was impressed with that as this box was designed for Vista not 7. Also the driver version is from last March so ATI supported it for well over 5 years.
I have the latest beta cataylst drivers from December 3rd and SWTOR is now fluid when I turn. Also video seems better too. Also worth mentioning is this and the last stable released fix the massive security hole by disabling protected mode in Vista/7 with ASLR.
I highly recommend ATI users upgrade their drivers as I found the beta more stable than the stable one.
Maybe she should pick a new name, possibly a business name to work through and notify her current circle of contacts of the change.
The problem is every job application I have ever went through demands former names listed so they can do a credit and internet check on your name. She will still get blacklisted after the reporting agency mentions the other sites. They no longer just do criminal background checks anymore.
There are one or two sites where for a monthly fee an employer types a name and everything about you including lawsuits, blogs, facebook, myspace, livejournal, divorces, and loans pop up that employers use for hiring decisions.
Suing is bad too as HR feels you may sue them next if they have to fire you. They want a clean record for any position and it is insane as a simple suit agaisnt someone who wrongs you is now a liability.
But your old fasioned DB isn't "Web Scale": http://highscalability.com/blog/2010/9/5/hilarious-video-relational-database-vs-nosql-fanbois.html
Sorry, I love this video..
Unfortunately, it didn't work out that well for Hitler either.
But noSQL supports webscale!
EA totally ruined it and forced free to play. They could have made the expansion bigger and let more money come in as now it is turning into a loss. The update is digital only which sucks.
Vulnerabilities are not just the OS anymore.
This means browsers, java, flash, and PDFs, and sometimes even Office!
Create a standard user account for day to day computing and setup your less techy friends the same way and explain that. Uninstall Java and disable Java scripting in IE in the internet zone and disable add-on for it you must use Java like myself. This will help use the crappy insecure garbage at work in the intranet zone yet still protect them on the WWW.
Do not use Adobe PDF. Use Foxit or summutra (Foxit is my preference). Use adblock and the very latest flash that auto-updates, or better yet use Chrome. Chrome is sandboxed and takes care of that for you! Disable Office document cache in IE 9 if you use.
DO NOT USE OUTDATED BROWSERS! No I am not just referring to IE 6,7,and 8. I am looking at the user reading this on Firefox 3.6 which has 40 EXPLOITS right now and will never be patched! IE 8 is at least patched but still not a wise choice in this day and age.
IT managers? Get off your ass and tell the beancounters it is a liability to keep their ancient web apps! If you have confidential data your business can be sued and is a virus writer goldmine where they can stall all sorts of stuff like SSNs and credit card numbers. Put the cost up there and ask them if it is worth it? Same with Firefox 3.6. It is time to move on.
Stop using XP! ... Read my section above with browsers and IT managers. Same applies to obsolete operating systems.
Do all the above and you have a very secure setup. Nothing is ever safe, but that and a AV software package will limit the amount of holes a virus can infect. Less vulnerabilities = less infections.
I have had luck with AVAST. Yes, you should run it. They are not 100% useless. Just not 100% effective with newer 0 day exploits.
The best way to mitigate it is to have 2 different accounts. One admin, one user. Use Foxit or Summutra for PDFs, Do not use Firefox because without sandboxie, or better yet use Chrome which is sandboxed. Use adblock on Chrome or Firefox as flash is another vector attack. Do not use YahooIM and use Trillian if you need to chat with your buddies on yahoo.
Uninstall Java, or if you use it disable it in Firefox and Java under add-ons. In IE you can go to zone security and disable Java scripting. This and a good up to date AV and common sense can provide HUGE protection. ... oh and STOP USING OUT OF DATE BROWSERS! Firefox 3.6 is even more insecure than IE 8 at the moment as at least that one is being patched. IT managers need to stand up to the bean counters at work who know nothing about security. Yes, your craplet web apps require it so upgrade as losing confidential customer data is a much bigger problem.
Not perfect I may add but can hugely increase the mathematical odds of infection.
The rise of the HUTS expansion is coming out! I know those who played it just for 24 hours dumped it because it didn't have 7 years of updates like Wow, but it has improved and I actually like it and consider it a success regardless of everyone trying to make it a failure.
I look forward to playing it. FYI I have flashpoints, dungeon finders, and other things to do after I cap now. I think it got shafted by Wow users and management at EA before it hit the light of day.
That is interesting and I am curious?
One thing XP did that Windows 7 does not is use that extra ram to store the filesystem in its ram for quicker access. I do not know where the bottleneck is. Vista got bashed for being a bloated pig and MS replaced the old n^0 algorithm for buffers and swap to make 7 look faster in lower end systems. It is possible it is optimized to look quicker on such systems. Mine only has 8 gigs of ram and unless I run alot of VMs I never need more.
Also DDR ram needs to be in pairs for ultimate bandwidth. 2x means odd bits are one simm and even on the other. I think some higher end chipsets use 4x so you can get even higher performance. Is your box setup like this?
XP is not well designed with security and it suffers from Windows ROT, and weird memory issues compared to WIndows 7. Reinstalling XP after 2 years seems to be the normal during my XP SP 2 days if I remember before leaving it. I like 7 much better. I would rather run out of date Solaris or Linux than XP these days.
You admit you are not the norm and perhaps Windows Server would be better on such a beast? I use Linux on a VM still. I was a FreeBSD zealot for years and only went back to MS when my exwife asked my why I obsess over Linux and it never works as well as her Vista laptop where she never has to change anything or mess with something. Ouch ...
She has a point. Windows just works and is MUCH better than in the past.
One thing Apple and MS do is make sure what you print is what you see on the screen. CUPS does not have postscript or Windowsscript integration. I believe Apple uses PDF so the printing and graphics calibration look excellent. Not for the average geek but for someone printing office documents or designing marketing materials that is a definite plus.
I think Windows 7, while not perfect is great for 96% of users and I am curious why you need that much ram? But for an average Joe who browses the web Windows 7 is fine and a good OS or even the moderate user at this point who runs autocad or VS.NET and run his or her Excel apps.
It has improved remarkably.
CentOS and FreeBSD do have its uses for fun and profit and I run them on VMs. But I would not do that on my desktop in 2013. Maybe in 2001 where I dual booted and discovered XP.
Not the cause is the FED printing cheap money where the banks use that extra cash to buy oil and speculate the prices.
This is the first signs of inflation due to high debt and the printing of extra money to pay for it.
I read a comment here from a Biology PHD candidate. He ran Open Solaris and was upset about Oracle canning it. Why? He had software from 1992 that he has the source code and binaries and wont compile/run on anything but that. Oddly it will compile on a modern gcc compiler. Just only on Solaris with some flags for older compatibility.
It is not just business that has old apps and code. Academia has unix based ones and frankly that Fortran was designed probably for the Digital PDP-11 or a Vax. It may compile on another platform but it was certainly not designed otherwise.
I am not a CS major, but my guess is that old solaris program used api calls that a stable abi that non linux operating systems provided so it could run. The linux kernel was rewritten so many times that I doubt much code from 96 remains. Most of the old crud is in other operating systems like Solaris and Windows.
There is no reason to use Linux for non technical users in 2013.
There are lots of apps professionals use that Linux users don't, stuff for document scanning and formatting, engineering apps, etc.
Also, Windows protects your investment in expansive proprietary applications. Say, if you buy Matlab, you know you're going to keep it for a few years in your Windows, because Windows 7 has a 10 year life cycle. If you purchase one of these things for Linux, it'll break within 6 months when the developers change ABIs, move libraries around, or do any other of those thoughtful acts they always do. Besides, usually things work in a distro, but not in another, because they have no standard.
Proper library version isn't even an issue Linux distro developers worry about. If you complain, they'll tell you to fuck off and stop using proprietary software.
That my friend is the travesty of what happened and is a shame as Linux had such potential. Unix used to run 10 year old software fine when you used FreeBSD or Solaris that uses abis. You can install them under .sysinstall in FreeBSD and you are done. As you can tell I prefered over Linux last decade. As a result things worked ... well not counting FBSD 5.x :-)
Linux has its uses still in the server room or rack farm where you control the image and send it out to each node. But Linus fucked up without that abi. I wonder if Redhat has one as I imagine a lot of its customers run Unix ERP and java software? I do find them much more stable on my AMD hardware than debian derivatives.
I find Linux unsuitable due to X crashing or some errors. Windows used to be that way too as DOS limitations and programs fighting for ram took each other out. Windows 7 today is rock solid and I dare say consumer focused. I do not see a response from the linux community other than Windows S$cks from memories of the 1990s where they are out of touch.
I think that the kde desktop is much easier then any windows in the past or current. There's a reason.
And what reason would that be?
I am still waiting.
Is it so much easier that people in the office can gain more productivity that they didn't do before? Does KDE had Ksap that beats the real SAP ERP suite they use? Is it as rock solid as Windows with a stable abi that doesn't change between kernels causing shit to break during an upgrade? How is the power management? Can it save electricity costs?
11 years ago I would be on your side. Linux had software power management where it can boast battery life by 40%! It was the Firefox 1.5 of the OS wars. Fast, secure, stable, and had a ton of shit! Great for website development too.
Today it is an inferior OS. It uses more power, is more bloated, has no abi so my ATI drivers get all funky between distros, it just blows as a desktop TERRIBLY. Windows has succeeded it and became what Linux once was. I now have perl, C++, and many apis that I can get on Linux, plus Adobe dreamweaver and IE support to test shit out.
IE 6 really hurt Linux as 70% of the effort was just for that browser and the only way to test it was to run Windows anyway. Today IE is a great browser again if you are not lazy and run the latest versions.
Point is there is no reason to change. The sooner linux users come to terms of what happened the sooner you all can respond. Google's Android is the only serious solution I see for mass adoption and even then it can't run business apps.
I got XP opening nite excited we can leave that abomination DOS/win3.1 legacy behind. It was just as stable as NT 4 on my machine. It was fast, reliable, and sweet. I used that OS for many years most of last decade.
Compared to Windows 98SE XP even before patches was fucking solid! I never had any problems iwth it.
UEFI replaces a 30 year old bios made for machines that can't support more than 640k of ram. Many and many hacks and bugs were added over the decades.
EFI is a breathe of fresh air and just because it supports secureBoot doesn't mean you have to use it. I want change and geeks should too. Windows 7 is a decent upgrade from XP as well. Very stable.
I love Windows 7 and do not understand why anyone would want XP today in this day and age that is unless you have old out of date hardware.
But to go through the hassle of putting XP on a new rig that would require many hours of backporting drivers, hacking .ini files, and not having USB 3, thunderbolt, uEFI, power management, and other things I have to ASK WHY??
I can do everything and more with Windows 7 than XP. I do not want to go back. It think the fact that the little button to sort in Explorer is gone and means you have to click on date manually or the other mouse button is too much for people. Instant search and aero peak and aero snap make life easier for me and I feel castrated on XP as I can't just type Windows Key CM.... enter for cmd in 1/4th of a second! Nope I have to browse to find command prompt.
But that is just my preference.
There is no reason to use Linux for non technical users in 2013.
I personally think the reason so many linux zealots are that way is because they have not run Windows since Windows Me/98 with IE 5.5, and Office 97.
Windows sucked back then! It bluescreened and many neophytes simply did not sneeze or install software at all because of what it might do leaving the job to us. Word sucked terrible. I like to use tables for special formatting and I wonder if IE 6 used the word bugs and reproduced them as MS was serious about using .doc files to replace .htm back then? Things would break all the fucking time. It was terrible as I remeber spending 2x of my time on my resume fixing formatting bugs which then re-appeared when posting them on www.monster.com.
Shit crashed, you had limits of dos still in there, everyone ran admin, and I do not need to go further as I assume you were quite knowledgable in those days. I created billly gates as I hated MS for such terrible software. ... fastforward today
Windows XP and Windows 7 are rock solid, do not bluescreen, have an industrial VMS like kernel, are real operating systems. They just work. XP still has some issues with memory management and rebooting is required and occasional Windows rot, but Windows 7 suceeds Linux in many areas.
Office 2010 formatting is much better. Things just work today and Linux they do not. I can't just point and click, install and have it work out of the box. I also have to say IE is a darn good browser now! IE 10 has a HTML 5 score that is about 90% of Firefox so even if the corp has an IE acitiveX applet you can still have a worldclass browser. That was not surely the case a half decade ago.
Wake up. Windows is no longer the pice of crap it once was and unless you are a programmer why change from what works? 12 years ago I would have reasons to use Unix as wordperfect was still supported and it came with stuff and was stable. Today I tried Linux mint on my ATI raedon and it was unstable.