Thanks for the clarification - I'd kinda figured as much, but the only *BSD machines I come in contact with are web/ftp servers with no displays (at least none I can connect to).
Either you're just really tired because it's late where you are, or you're just stupid. My comment specifically stated that Konqueror was NOT the best browser. Sheesh...
Konqeuror, while perhaps not the best browser on the planet, DOES give you much better control over cookies than IE. The new IE6 privacy mgr stuff is, imo, just horrendous.
Their own project site says it's 'alpha'-level software. One of the guys in the office had played with Cygwin and Xfree86 running some stuff - nice idea, but seemed a bit kludgy at the time. Still, I suppose it can only get better.:)
To those who ask "why bother?", at this time you might be right. However, as KDE matures, it'd be nice to know you could write apps that would run on many more boxes than just native Linux boxes. (Haven't seen KDE run on anything but Linux - I assume it might run on Solaris? *BSD?) Yeah, it's an early hack right now - if it matures to become a good alternative, it certainly can't be a bad thing in any sense of the word (unless you were to argue that that time could have been better spent developing some other apps).
does anyone know of a URL for a well-written anti-microsoft screed that would be understood by my grandmother? something that intelligently synthesizes arguments against hailstorm/passport/closed source/key escrow/etc. and for the adoption of free software?
If you find one, let me know. My experience is there aren't any. Pretty much most documents I've read on the subject either fall WAY too heavy on the "FREE AS IN SPEECH" aspect of things (which I don't agree with - not *every* piece of software should be FREE like that imo), or it falls into the "micro$haft"-style of writing - making overly broad criticisms of MS and overpomising on the benefits on 'non-MS' stuff.
"My Lunix box has been up for 8 years without a reboot!" doesn't really mean jack-squat to most people, especially when they don't often experience downtimes with Windows. I can match every "WindoZe sux!" story with equally painful Linux experiences (X basically sucking, software crashing, etc.)
There does need to be some more good literature on this topic - the Cathedral and Bazaar wasn't bad, but I lost my copy and we need more anyway!:0
Does anyone in your house take any college courses? You should be able to get very low Office copies there - last verbal report I got from someone was that an 'educational' version of Office could be had for something like $50 (might be a slight exaggeration, but I don't think by much).
This XP stuff WILL NOT CUT DOWN ON PIRACY MUCH, IF AT ALL. I don't know too many people that copied Windows or Office from their friends - it was most often from their employer. Take home 2-3 CDs at night, bring them in in the morning, no one knows anything about it. And since they're not putting this 'activation' crap on copies for large businesses, I'm certain large scale piracy will continue virtually unabated.
What I would NOT do is mention that Apache has x% of the web server market. This is contrary to an earlier post, but that Netcraft survey can be invalidated by a quick "yeah, but a bunch of those web sites are academic, or college kids, or hobbyists, and aren't actually used to conduct commerce" comment, which is somewhat valid.
Two points on this:
1. If you look at the 'active' sites aspect of the netcraft stuff, http://www.netcraft.com/survey/index-200007.html#a ctive , you'll see that Linux and MS are pretty much tied, kinda laying to rest the "registrars just having 100,000 domain names on one server" accusations.
2. The "commerce" part - measured generally by what SSL servers are running, is somewhat skewed. I know I've seen a netcraft things before, but can't find it. http://www.netcraft.com/surveys/analysis/https/200 1/Jan/CMatch/oscnt_all.html is the closest I can find. Linux with 18% of SSL server's isn't bad, anyway. But more to the point, my recollection is that verisign, the only viable SSL certificate registrar for a long time, wouldn't issue certificates for Apache until some time in late 1998. Perhaps I'm wrong - someone please correct me on this if I am. If it IS true, factoring in inertia, it's surprising Linux has as much as it has, if NT had 2 years 'lead time' with SSL certificates.
Re: uptime and security - depending on who's listening, they may not feel the pain of getting up at 2am due to downtime, viruses, etc., but they see the bill for that at the end of the month. They still notice the imapct where it hits - at the bottom line. If someone could reduce their support costs 30% a month because of less server maintenance, they'd listen.
What's a "page"? A request for a URL? That might include graphic requests. What if the "page" is just one big graphic (linking to a JPG, for example)? Does that count as a "page"? Do we only count.html files? What about framed "pages"? There's too many weird situations in this scenario to think about. What makes more sense is to charge people low monthly subscriptions for unlimited content. (safari.oreiily.com comes to mind as a potentially good model for some things)
Most of the graphical software I see on free platforms seems to be written by people who hate graphical programs and want everyone else to hate them too
WOW! If I could mod that comment up, I would! I don't think I've seen a more concise, insightful observation on this topic in awhile...:)
And how many people do you talk to about this? How many people inside a distribution's circle of supporters will openly criticize that distribution?
For the record, I said the graphic tool. The command like URPMI is a little better, but not much. The main issue is pulling down package lists from other servers. There aren't many servers listed in the graphic tool that are anywhere NEAR me - I'm in Detroit. I think 2 are in the US, if that.
If/when you use the graphic 'software update' tool, and it says 'updating package list' or whatever it says, do you have a 'cancel' button? Do you have a progress bar? My Mandrake (7.2, 8.0 and 8.1) do not have those seemingly basic items. I just have a silver bar bouncing back and forth, supposedly indicating activity. I'd have thought a progress bar, or at least a cancel button, wouldn't have been too much to ask of a desktop app in 2001. I guess I was wrong.
Also for the record, I've purchased mandrake before, and given them money via their site. I like and generally support mandrake, but their software update thing has a long way to go before being as usable as 'apt-get' (I'm not a debian fan either).
Yeah, but updating the 'package list' is a bitch. The graphic front end gives you NO indication as to what it's doing or how long it'll take (or how much it's done). I've let my machine go for more than 45 minutes (128k connection) with nothing. The 'software update' stuff still has a ways to go on mandrake. They also need more than 1 mirror in the US. Every server I see in the default lists is in France or Germany or Japan or someplace else.
I tell a lie - I did get an package list to come down from a server in Japan in only 35 minutes. But it promptly crashed, so that was time simply wasted.
Did every news site return all the extra servers and bandwidth they acquired during the 9/11 attack? Suddenly I can't get to cnn, yahoo news, and many other sites. What happened to their extra capacity?
Would it useful to try to organize a one-day protest/boycott of the major stores selling this stuff? Or perhaps of one label?
If enough people could purposefully NOT buy any Sony music for one day in even just one geographic region (midwest, for example) would that not send enough of a message? I worked in a medium-sized music store in a mall years ago - we'd take $5000 on busy days (xmas season, etc). That was just one location - there would easily be 100 or so medium to large music shops in just SE michigan (where I'm located). If you took away $500/store x 100 stores just in Detroit area, that's $50k in 'lost' sales. Would that impact be big enough to get a point across?
Gotta agree on AHDN. Leave all the philosophy and all that behind (other post re: DSOTM). That first AHDN chord is just so FULL of anticipation/life/energy/whatever!
It's all the more funny when you realize that precisely BECAUSE people use MS products (IIS) they've put hundreds of thousands of credit cards at risk - nay, they've actually BEEN stolen. OK - not every credit card stolen is stolen from MS technology, but it *seems* an higher proportion are from MS-based systems than non-MS-based systems.
So if a higher proportion are stolen from MS systems, it's because MS security is worse. If not, then credit cards can be stolen from any system, and there's nothing special about MS security that would be compromised by a disclosure.
The UK, from the UK TV that I watch, isn't nearly as bad with having these logos all over the channels as US channels are. It's not just the "big 4" networks either - cnn, cnbc, msnbc, etc. My inlaws tape many UK programs and send them over here - I probably view more UK TV than US TV - definitely in longer bursts (I can't watch more than about an hour of any US program, but 2-3 hours of eastenders, frost, morse, etc. is no problems!)
What I find annoying is during msnbc (I think) they shrink the screen and put up ads and news around the talking heads. And during commercials they're running news text at the bottom. It's non-stop mixing of info - I'm sure the advertisers aren't happy that the station is broadcasting data OVER the commercial they paid money to put there (maybe they get a reduced rate?)
I know the history - the person I was replying to was comparing his current desktop against an apparently stock Windows 95, not MS' latest (currently XP). love it or hate it, XP has more intricate graphics than earlier versions.
For someone who wants to get into theming their desktop, yeah, there are options in linux. however, a stock redhat install with KDE is pretty bland - you have to do some work to theme it as you want it. Someone who's going to take the time to do that can do that with litestep as well under windows.
First off Windows lets you select various "appearances" - comparing a stock Win 9x screen with a customized Linux desktop is not apples to apples.
RegEdit really isn't meant for most end users.
Windows still has consistancy over any Linux desktop - Alt-F does pretty much the same in every app. That's not the case in KDE, or Gnome, or anything else. Nearly every program I run under Linux has a different file browsing mechanism for opening files in an app. GIMP is different than KWord, for example.
BTW, that non-repeating background looks just as stupid as the non-repeating "clouds" background in Win95 at resolutions higher than 640x480.
But I suppose once you're used to Linux, you take such basic functionality for granted.
I'll tell you what other basic functionality I take for granted - being able to copy something to a clipboard and paste it into other apps. ANY other app. OR - being able to highlight text and replace it with the clipboard contents. That seems to be an unheard of concept for many Linux users I talk to (one of them works here).
Start at the ground up. Get ahold of the source of a weak windowmanager like fvwm, that has all the basic guts you need to work from. Ask yourself what makes sense to you as a user, NOT what makes sense because you've seen the same thing in Windows. Give Linux its own look. Try to avoid imitating other platforms. Build it because it makes sense to build, not because "Windows has it". The sheer number of things that Windows has wrong with its UI would require a completely separate article to discuss them in detail. Think about how to represent things differently. Is there a better way to represent the same information? Do you really want an OS that resembles a browser? Think, ask, and move. Learn, modify, and repeat.
What if I want to put in a feature because it makes sense *AND* "Windows has it"? What kind of moral dilemma does that bring up? Refuse something sensible, because it's in Windows? Or implement an idea, and have people like you blast it because it's "copying"? Hmmm.... Really not sure which one I'd choose... Why not discuss those things "wrong" with the Windows UI then? Really - back it up - write an article - post a link to it here. I'd love to read it - because for as much as I think there are some screwy things with various versions of Windows, *every* Linux UI I've used has been worse by a huge margin, either in terms of speed, or refusal to have standard ways of doing things across all apps (copy/cut/paste/etc) or *UGLY* graphics and fonts. And I do mean ugly.
KDE and Gnome are both making strides in improving things, but each still have many improvements to make to be as usable as Windows is for everyday people doing everyday tasks. Some of it isn't their fault - building on X, for example, brings its own problems - but for goodness' sake, Windows is still, on the whole, more usable than pretty much every other effort out there.
Re:why is mozilla engine so slow?
on
Netscape 6.2
·
· Score: 2
Ahhh - gotcha. Netscape only had partial support of a protocal which IIS implemented more fully, causing their browsers to behave better. And somehow Netscape poor implementation in a product years out of date is MS' fault. So, MS is damned if they do, damned if they don't. I'm not a huge fan of ASP/IIS/MS, but people saying "ASP" pages are "optimized" for IE is just ridiculous...
Re:why is mozilla engine so slow?
on
Netscape 6.2
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
What the hell does ASP have to do with anything? ASP just spits out what the developer tells it - someone would still purposefully have to put in bad HTML to make a bad browser choke/slowdown.
Most of the networking libraries and stuff are already built in to the core. It's pretty damn small - something like 300k, with GUI support (widgets, etc). The biggest thing holding us back from having deployed this for a client is that there was no Mac GUi support when we checked (6 months ago or so). I think it's there now.
That's what's a bit misleading about this - 44 platforms, but not all have GUI support, which is where I'd think the big win would be. If I want to simply script stuff on multiple platforms and one set of code I can use Perl (although it's not 300k!)
The article points out that they tried to go up against AOL and Yahoo. Might they have lost viewers simply because they're name is too long to bother typing? google.com is easy to type, as is msn.com, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the clarification - I'd kinda figured as much, but the only *BSD machines I come in contact with are web/ftp servers with no displays (at least none I can connect to).
konqueror the best? ha tahts funny
Either you're just really tired because it's late where you are, or you're just stupid. My comment specifically stated that Konqueror was NOT the best browser. Sheesh...
Konqeuror, while perhaps not the best browser on the planet, DOES give you much better control over cookies than IE. The new IE6 privacy mgr stuff is, imo, just horrendous.
Their own project site says it's 'alpha'-level software. One of the guys in the office had played with Cygwin and Xfree86 running some stuff - nice idea, but seemed a bit kludgy at the time. Still, I suppose it can only get better. :)
To those who ask "why bother?", at this time you might be right. However, as KDE matures, it'd be nice to know you could write apps that would run on many more boxes than just native Linux boxes. (Haven't seen KDE run on anything but Linux - I assume it might run on Solaris? *BSD?) Yeah, it's an early hack right now - if it matures to become a good alternative, it certainly can't be a bad thing in any sense of the word (unless you were to argue that that time could have been better spent developing some other apps).
does anyone know of a URL for a well-written anti-microsoft screed that would be understood by my grandmother? something that intelligently synthesizes arguments against hailstorm/passport/closed source/key escrow/etc. and for the adoption of free software?
:0
If you find one, let me know. My experience is there aren't any. Pretty much most documents I've read on the subject either fall WAY too heavy on the "FREE AS IN SPEECH" aspect of things (which I don't agree with - not *every* piece of software should be FREE like that imo), or it falls into the "micro$haft"-style of writing - making overly broad criticisms of MS and overpomising on the benefits on 'non-MS' stuff.
"My Lunix box has been up for 8 years without a reboot!" doesn't really mean jack-squat to most people, especially when they don't often experience downtimes with Windows. I can match every "WindoZe sux!" story with equally painful Linux experiences (X basically sucking, software crashing, etc.)
There does need to be some more good literature on this topic - the Cathedral and Bazaar wasn't bad, but I lost my copy and we need more anyway!
Does anyone in your house take any college courses? You should be able to get very low Office copies there - last verbal report I got from someone was that an 'educational' version of Office could be had for something like $50 (might be a slight exaggeration, but I don't think by much).
This XP stuff WILL NOT CUT DOWN ON PIRACY MUCH, IF AT ALL. I don't know too many people that copied Windows or Office from their friends - it was most often from their employer. Take home 2-3 CDs at night, bring them in in the morning, no one knows anything about it. And since they're not putting this 'activation' crap on copies for large businesses, I'm certain large scale piracy will continue virtually unabated.
What I would NOT do is mention that Apache has x% of the web server market. This is contrary to an earlier post, but that Netcraft survey can be invalidated by a quick "yeah, but a bunch of those web sites are academic, or college kids, or hobbyists, and aren't actually used to conduct commerce" comment, which is somewhat valid.
a ctive , you'll see that Linux and MS are pretty much tied, kinda laying to rest the "registrars just having 100,000 domain names on one server" accusations.
0 1/Jan/CMatch/oscnt_all.html is the closest I can find. Linux with 18% of SSL server's isn't bad, anyway. But more to the point, my recollection is that verisign, the only viable SSL certificate registrar for a long time, wouldn't issue certificates for Apache until some time in late 1998. Perhaps I'm wrong - someone please correct me on this if I am. If it IS true, factoring in inertia, it's surprising Linux has as much as it has, if NT had 2 years 'lead time' with SSL certificates.
Two points on this:
1. If you look at the 'active' sites aspect of the netcraft stuff, http://www.netcraft.com/survey/index-200007.html#
2. The "commerce" part - measured generally by what SSL servers are running, is somewhat skewed. I know I've seen a netcraft things before, but can't find it. http://www.netcraft.com/surveys/analysis/https/20
Re: uptime and security - depending on who's listening, they may not feel the pain of getting up at 2am due to downtime, viruses, etc., but they see the bill for that at the end of the month. They still notice the imapct where it hits - at the bottom line. If someone could reduce their support costs 30% a month because of less server maintenance, they'd listen.
What's a "page"? A request for a URL? That might include graphic requests. What if the "page" is just one big graphic (linking to a JPG, for example)? Does that count as a "page"? Do we only count .html files? What about framed "pages"? There's too many weird situations in this scenario to think about. What makes more sense is to charge people low monthly subscriptions for unlimited content. (safari.oreiily.com comes to mind as a potentially good model for some things)
Most of the graphical software I see on free platforms seems to be written by people who hate graphical programs and want everyone else to hate them too
:)
WOW! If I could mod that comment up, I would! I don't think I've seen a more concise, insightful observation on this topic in awhile...
And how many people do you talk to about this? How many people inside a distribution's circle of supporters will openly criticize that distribution?
For the record, I said the graphic tool. The command like URPMI is a little better, but not much. The main issue is pulling down package lists from other servers. There aren't many servers listed in the graphic tool that are anywhere NEAR me - I'm in Detroit. I think 2 are in the US, if that.
If/when you use the graphic 'software update' tool, and it says 'updating package list' or whatever it says, do you have a 'cancel' button? Do you have a progress bar? My Mandrake (7.2, 8.0 and 8.1) do not have those seemingly basic items. I just have a silver bar bouncing back and forth, supposedly indicating activity. I'd have thought a progress bar, or at least a cancel button, wouldn't have been too much to ask of a desktop app in 2001. I guess I was wrong.
Also for the record, I've purchased mandrake before, and given them money via their site. I like and generally support mandrake, but their software update thing has a long way to go before being as usable as 'apt-get' (I'm not a debian fan either).
Yeah, but updating the 'package list' is a bitch. The graphic front end gives you NO indication as to what it's doing or how long it'll take (or how much it's done). I've let my machine go for more than 45 minutes (128k connection) with nothing. The 'software update' stuff still has a ways to go on mandrake. They also need more than 1 mirror in the US. Every server I see in the default lists is in France or Germany or Japan or someplace else.
I tell a lie - I did get an package list to come down from a server in Japan in only 35 minutes. But it promptly crashed, so that was time simply wasted.
Did every news site return all the extra servers and bandwidth they acquired during the 9/11 attack? Suddenly I can't get to cnn, yahoo news, and many other sites. What happened to their extra capacity?
Wouldn't you have to drive a specific speed to hear the words at the proper pitch?
Would it useful to try to organize a one-day protest/boycott of the major stores selling this stuff? Or perhaps of one label?
If enough people could purposefully NOT buy any Sony music for one day in even just one geographic region (midwest, for example) would that not send enough of a message? I worked in a medium-sized music store in a mall years ago - we'd take $5000 on busy days (xmas season, etc). That was just one location - there would easily be 100 or so medium to large music shops in just SE michigan (where I'm located). If you took away $500/store x 100 stores just in Detroit area, that's $50k in 'lost' sales. Would that impact be big enough to get a point across?
Just wonderin'...
Gotta agree on AHDN. Leave all the philosophy and all that behind (other post re: DSOTM). That first AHDN chord is just so FULL of anticipation/life/energy/whatever!
It's all the more funny when you realize that precisely BECAUSE people use MS products (IIS) they've put hundreds of thousands of credit cards at risk - nay, they've actually BEEN stolen. OK - not every credit card stolen is stolen from MS technology, but it *seems* an higher proportion are from MS-based systems than non-MS-based systems.
So if a higher proportion are stolen from MS systems, it's because MS security is worse. If not, then credit cards can be stolen from any system, and there's nothing special about MS security that would be compromised by a disclosure.
Yeah, but when 50+ of those apps are things like 'ls', 'df', 'mv', etc. it doesn't seem as impressive. :)
The UK, from the UK TV that I watch, isn't nearly as bad with having these logos all over the channels as US channels are. It's not just the "big 4" networks either - cnn, cnbc, msnbc, etc. My inlaws tape many UK programs and send them over here - I probably view more UK TV than US TV - definitely in longer bursts (I can't watch more than about an hour of any US program, but 2-3 hours of eastenders, frost, morse, etc. is no problems!)
What I find annoying is during msnbc (I think) they shrink the screen and put up ads and news around the talking heads. And during commercials they're running news text at the bottom. It's non-stop mixing of info - I'm sure the advertisers aren't happy that the station is broadcasting data OVER the commercial they paid money to put there (maybe they get a reduced rate?)
I know the history - the person I was replying to was comparing his current desktop against an apparently stock Windows 95, not MS' latest (currently XP). love it or hate it, XP has more intricate graphics than earlier versions.
For someone who wants to get into theming their desktop, yeah, there are options in linux. however, a stock redhat install with KDE is pretty bland - you have to do some work to theme it as you want it. Someone who's going to take the time to do that can do that with litestep as well under windows.
Holy cow - let's be disingenous, shall we?
First off Windows lets you select various "appearances" - comparing a stock Win 9x screen with a customized Linux desktop is not apples to apples.
RegEdit really isn't meant for most end users.
Windows still has consistancy over any Linux desktop - Alt-F does pretty much the same in every app. That's not the case in KDE, or Gnome, or anything else. Nearly every program I run under Linux has a different file browsing mechanism for opening files in an app. GIMP is different than KWord, for example.
Compare Windows95 with standard X - http://www.tapinternet.com/X.png. Now what looks better?
BTW, that non-repeating background looks just as stupid as the non-repeating "clouds" background in Win95 at resolutions higher than 640x480.
But I suppose once you're used to Linux, you take such basic functionality for granted.
I'll tell you what other basic functionality I take for granted - being able to copy something to a clipboard and paste it into other apps. ANY other app. OR - being able to highlight text and replace it with the clipboard contents. That seems to be an unheard of concept for many Linux users I talk to (one of them works here).
Start at the ground up. Get ahold of the source of a weak windowmanager like fvwm, that has all the basic guts you need to work from. Ask yourself what makes sense to you as a user, NOT what makes sense because you've seen the same thing in Windows. Give Linux its own look. Try to avoid imitating other platforms. Build it because it makes sense to build, not because "Windows has it". The sheer number of things that Windows has wrong with its UI would require a completely separate article to discuss them in detail. Think about how to represent things differently. Is there a better way to represent the same information? Do you really want an OS that resembles a browser? Think, ask, and move. Learn, modify, and repeat.
What if I want to put in a feature because it makes sense *AND* "Windows has it"? What kind of moral dilemma does that bring up? Refuse something sensible, because it's in Windows? Or implement an idea, and have people like you blast it because it's "copying"? Hmmm.... Really not sure which one I'd choose... Why not discuss those things "wrong" with the Windows UI then? Really - back it up - write an article - post a link to it here. I'd love to read it - because for as much as I think there are some screwy things with various versions of Windows, *every* Linux UI I've used has been worse by a huge margin, either in terms of speed, or refusal to have standard ways of doing things across all apps (copy/cut/paste/etc) or *UGLY* graphics and fonts. And I do mean ugly.
KDE and Gnome are both making strides in improving things, but each still have many improvements to make to be as usable as Windows is for everyday people doing everyday tasks. Some of it isn't their fault - building on X, for example, brings its own problems - but for goodness' sake, Windows is still, on the whole, more usable than pretty much every other effort out there.
Ahhh - gotcha. Netscape only had partial support of a protocal which IIS implemented more fully, causing their browsers to behave better. And somehow Netscape poor implementation in a product years out of date is MS' fault. So, MS is damned if they do, damned if they don't. I'm not a huge fan of ASP/IIS/MS, but people saying "ASP" pages are "optimized" for IE is just ridiculous...
What the hell does ASP have to do with anything? ASP just spits out what the developer tells it - someone would still purposefully have to put in bad HTML to make a bad browser choke/slowdown.
Most of the networking libraries and stuff are already built in to the core. It's pretty damn small - something like 300k, with GUI support (widgets, etc). The biggest thing holding us back from having deployed this for a client is that there was no Mac GUi support when we checked (6 months ago or so). I think it's there now.
That's what's a bit misleading about this - 44 platforms, but not all have GUI support, which is where I'd think the big win would be. If I want to simply script stuff on multiple platforms and one set of code I can use Perl (although it's not 300k!)
The article points out that they tried to go up against AOL and Yahoo. Might they have lost viewers simply because they're name is too long to bother typing? google.com is easy to type, as is msn.com, etc.