It's better than a company that had a product, fired the staff developing that product, and left everyone hanging and slave to a product like Internet Explorer. I'd say that what they did was commendable, and it only took a couple of years to fix the pile of crap that was the original Netscape code...
They were originally crafted when Xfree was deprecated on AMD64, but they apply to all architectures, and they're designed to give you a minimum of downtime. (And provide a just in case backup as well.)
why do linux distributions typically have PowerPC releases always up to a generation behind
This one's easy. The majority of people running PPC machines at home are using OS X. It's up to date, it's supported, and it's a very good desktop machine.
How many people at home who have an Alpha machine want to run Digital's unix on the desktop? The same goes for HP/PA Risc
Or Solaris for that matter. The effort to get a Solaris machine up to snuff for desktop use, with all patches, is phenomenal... I know, because I have a work machine running Solaris, with gnome, firebird, evolution, vim, gcc, cvs, ssh, etc., and it took me three full days of installation and patches to get this set up. I have another sparc machine at home that I installed gentoo on, completely from scratch (stage 1) that took less time than that to get going. And most of that time I left it to do it's own thing...
I think it's just a question of what the enthusiasts on a particular hardware base want to do with their machine. If you're unhappy with that, you are, of course, always welcome to join one of the teams to help them get it out sooner...
Couldn't they have just outfitted the fingertips with a vacuum just powerful enough to be able to pull the book so that safer, rubber fingertips could be used, instead of 'nail' fingertips?
Um... Yeah... Dark Fiber... That's a bunch of fiber optic lines running along railroads (mostly), that doesn't have equipment on either end. The backbone isn't the problem. If one of the major provider's is low on bandwidth, they can just upgrade the current equipment they've got. (Fiber has so much available capacity, that when you want to upgrade, you normally just replace the sender/receiver, and the repeaters, and you suddenly have more available.) It's cheaper to upgrade the equipment than to lay new lines/
As to the dark lines in place? Backbone isn't the problem. It's the fact that no one can afford more than a single twisted pair to the office/home since laying fiber is so expensive. I've got a friend who works at an office where the building is lit up (which means fiber is run to the building and in use), and each company has 100Mbit ethernet to the fiber equipment, and a guarantee that the company has at least that much bandwidth (per customer) to all of it's peering points.
That's the power available with fiber. Once everyone's got that kind of connection, we'll see a sudden leap, from 256Kbps or 1Mbit up to 15, 30, 50, 100. Look at how far we've stretched copper already, and we're at the extreme end of what it can do. We're only at the beginning of fiber, and once you get it to your home, the service levels will increase much faster than lines do today.
Kinda makes me want to move back to the U.S... (though not if I have to live in Texas...;)
I can see it now! Watch the overcrowding of orphanages begin as the newest trend in the name of beauty takes hold!
"Estelle, are you putting on a little wait?"
"Why, heavans no, Claire, I'm just going through a little procedure. I'll look ten years younger and live five more years after it's finished in nine months."
I must admit, this is one place that I see Nintendo taking the lead with the new DS. I've seen manny people pan it, because they can't think of a telling use for a game with a second touch-pad screen. Forget single-player games. If Nintendo does the dev kits right, since it's got wi-fi built into it, whether you're playing someone local, or over the net, it could be seemless.
And the touch pad? A perfect device for communication. Forget using the stylus to scribble notes, instead imagine certain regions for different messages, defined large enough so that you can use your thumb to pick one of four, or one of eight, responses. Or the ability to send an invite, a la Xbox-live to a friend no matter what game they're playing, to get them to join you. This is definitely where Microsoft got it right, and I hope Nintendo does as well, because while there are millions of people, from kids to adults who play video games, the number who sit in front of their computer with an IM window of some type open and chatting is even greater, and if you can mix those two markets together, than you will be riding a very powerful market force, indeed...
I've got to agree with this one. I develop multi-platform software, which means that, as of right now, I vary between working with three different OS's (OSX, Solaris, and various flavors of Linux) on four different architectures (ppc, x86, x86-64 and sparc), which isn't to brag, but to say that my current desktop at any time is more likely than not to be unable to play windows media.
Also, I think DRM is a bit silly, because it's a penny a song, and the people who are going to rip you off to save sixty cents weren't going to pay for it anyway. They'd just find someone online who has ripped it from a CD and copy that.
I've got a queasy feeling in my stomach, and it's got nothing to do with how much Mountain Dew I drink.:(
You know, I expect this sort of shit to be made (Target: Terror), because for all the shitty people you know, there's always gotta be someone worse, someone more willing to take advantage of the fear in a population to further their own selfish goals... But that it's doing so well, this bothers me. This does not bode well for the country I grew up loving.
I have this conversation with friends: Is this terrible little feeling the same that was felt by people championing civil rights, or women's suffrage? Is this the feeling our Founding Fathers had when they thought about what they could do? When we look around and see the stupid stuff being done in the name of what WE hold dear?
They tell me that I shouldn't get so worked up, that terrible shit has always happened in our world, and the only difference now is that it's more visible. (Thank you, CNN, Internet, NPR)
But when I speak my mind, I wonder about a knock on the door, and who might be on the other side. Does Abbie Hoffman have to go back into hiding, or they looking for someone new this time? Is a discussion enough to get a label applied to me? To be sentenced to an outcast life, for disagreeing with my older Brother? (Because let's face it, folks, it's happened before, and the proof is available for anyone who wants to go read about it.)
I feel like a castaway, floating on a raft of sanity, in a sea of fear and hate. I hope that by talking about it, we pull a little closer to shore, and I dream of a day when I can sleep witout fear of the sharks...
My aunt had her leg amputated. My father was ill in general, and died because he was lying in the wrong position. If I have to drink Gila semen to survive (my family has a history of Diabetes, and I'm doing everything to make sure I'm not trapped) I'LL DO IT. You'll find that a lot of our stupid little prejudices dissappear when your life is on the line... I just hope that a change in life practices means that I'm not subject to the same stupidities that did in my ancestores.
Not true! In order to do what the poster has described, you have to specifically write code to detect the language in use, then disable install based on the detected language.
In a single language install environment you'll never know about the language installed on the environment. In a multi-language install environment, you check the language in use and try to find an appropriate language.
What has been described above is language lockout plain and simple, and there's no excuse for it (other than import prevention and price fixing).
What a load of crap... The only reason they could possibly come to those conclusions is that Apple interfaces are notoriously difficult to use by the keyboard. The problem is easy to break down just by analysing the problem. To close a window: With a mouse, you have to find the current position of the cursor (possibly already known), the position of the closing icon (fairly easy if it's maximized), and then chart a path between the two before clicking. Each time this task is performed, that path is different. On a keyboard, the necessary keys are always in the same place, and a frequent user can rely upon muscle memory to locate the right combination.
If the system has an intelligent keycode/navigation mapping. Apple's OSes don't. If you've got keyboard navigation enable, it's one keystroke to access the menu, many to get to the correct menu, a keystroke to display the menu, many to get to the correct entry, and one to trigger it. The same task is accomplished with two keystrokes on any Windows or Linux machine (and many other Unices, though not all). Yes, they both have shortcuts (Like Alt-F4 as opposed to Apple-W), but every non-shortcut task is a waste of time. Hence the faulty conclusion
Maybe you should try using a real dictionary like Webster (Mirriam-Webster) Definition for documentary:of, relating to, or employing documentation in literature or art; Dictionary.com often gives back crap results.
Is it because you want to be able to tell other people that you use Linux? Try Xandros.
Is it because you're just sick and tired of Windows, and you're sure there is something better? Try Mandrake
Is it because you want to be sure that there is no closed source software on your system? Try Debian
Is it because you want to put something on your CV (resume) for a potential employer to see? Try RedHat/Fedora Core
Is it because you wish to learn all the deep internals of Unix systems? Try Gentoo
It really depends on your needs. Though I personally recommend Gentoo to all (yep, I'm a zealot:), because of it's great documentation, strong system control, and ease with which it teaches you Unix systems in general
It doesn't discourage research, it just discourages patents on research. In Japan, the patent process is very long, end exceedingly public, which gives other companies time to work on an idea, and improve it enough to make it different before the patent is granted. As such, patents have much less worth in Japan, but that doesn't stop the breakneck speed of research and development. What I'm talking about would still offer patent protection to independent developers, but would increase competition among large, established companies.
Patents aren't totally useless, but they way in which they're being used nowadays is kind of dangerous.
Personally, I think patents should only be issuable to people (individually, or groups), not companies or corporations (even though they have "person" status), and if licenses are offered, they should have to be same for every licensee.
This would still offer the protection and encouragment to independant inventors, which is why the patent system was designed. In fact, it would offer active discouragement to companies to seek patents on their research, as licensing would have to made available on equal terms.
Competition would be increased, as larger companies don't have to worry about lawyers or defensive patents, and would have the legal go ahead to emulate or improve their competitors.
This would also cut down on bogus patents, because, suddenly, all companies who wish to use a tech would have incentive to root out prior art for original ideas. In addition, patent submarining (like the whole JEDEC-RAMBUS fiasco), should be decreased, because the actual submission process for use would constitute prior art!
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It's better than a company that had a product, fired the staff developing that product, and left everyone hanging and slave to a product like Internet Explorer. I'd say that what they did was commendable, and it only took a couple of years to fix the pile of crap that was the original Netscape code...
Take at look at the instructions on the Gentoo forums, here:
Switch to XORG
They were originally crafted when Xfree was deprecated on AMD64, but they apply to all architectures, and they're designed to give you a minimum of downtime. (And provide a just in case backup as well.)
why do linux distributions typically have PowerPC releases always up to a generation behind
This one's easy. The majority of people running PPC machines at home are using OS X. It's up to date, it's supported, and it's a very good desktop machine.
How many people at home who have an Alpha machine want to run Digital's unix on the desktop? The same goes for HP/PA Risc
Or Solaris for that matter. The effort to get a Solaris machine up to snuff for desktop use, with all patches, is phenomenal... I know, because I have a work machine running Solaris, with gnome, firebird, evolution, vim, gcc, cvs, ssh, etc., and it took me three full days of installation and patches to get this set up. I have another sparc machine at home that I installed gentoo on, completely from scratch (stage 1) that took less time than that to get going. And most of that time I left it to do it's own thing...
I think it's just a question of what the enthusiasts on a particular hardware base want to do with their machine. If you're unhappy with that, you are, of course, always welcome to join one of the teams to help them get it out sooner...
Couldn't they have just outfitted the fingertips with a vacuum just powerful enough to be able to pull the book so that safer, rubber fingertips could be used, instead of 'nail' fingertips?
Um... Yeah... Dark Fiber... That's a bunch of fiber optic lines running along railroads (mostly), that doesn't have equipment on either end. The backbone isn't the problem. If one of the major provider's is low on bandwidth, they can just upgrade the current equipment they've got. (Fiber has so much available capacity, that when you want to upgrade, you normally just replace the sender/receiver, and the repeaters, and you suddenly have more available.) It's cheaper to upgrade the equipment than to lay new lines/
As to the dark lines in place? Backbone isn't the problem. It's the fact that no one can afford more than a single twisted pair to the office/home since laying fiber is so expensive. I've got a friend who works at an office where the building is lit up (which means fiber is run to the building and in use), and each company has 100Mbit ethernet to the fiber equipment, and a guarantee that the company has at least that much bandwidth (per customer) to all of it's peering points.
That's the power available with fiber. Once everyone's got that kind of connection, we'll see a sudden leap, from 256Kbps or 1Mbit up to 15, 30, 50, 100. Look at how far we've stretched copper already, and we're at the extreme end of what it can do. We're only at the beginning of fiber, and once you get it to your home, the service levels will increase much faster than lines do today.
Kinda makes me want to move back to the U.S... (though not if I have to live in Texas... ;)
Not before publishing the last Dark Tower novel, he didn't. Or I'd have to go and beat hime to a bloody pulp... Oh... Crap...
I can see it now! Watch the overcrowding of orphanages begin as the newest trend in the name of beauty takes hold!
"Estelle, are you putting on a little wait?"
"Why, heavans no, Claire, I'm just going through a little procedure. I'll look ten years younger and live five more years after it's finished in nine months."
"Is that true? What do I have to do?"
Buy fantastic used books!!! Just Like New(TM)
The "stone" is totally unknown in the US, by the way.
Someone's obviously never played an Ultima game. Thank you, Lord British, for teaching me that a stone is 14 pounds...
I'm thinking of the turnpike plazas along the DC-NYC corridor
For crissakes, it's got a name! The DC-NYC corridor? Have some respect, it's called New Jersey... ;) <ducks>
And the touch pad? A perfect device for communication. Forget using the stylus to scribble notes, instead imagine certain regions for different messages, defined large enough so that you can use your thumb to pick one of four, or one of eight, responses. Or the ability to send an invite, a la Xbox-live to a friend no matter what game they're playing, to get them to join you. This is definitely where Microsoft got it right, and I hope Nintendo does as well, because while there are millions of people, from kids to adults who play video games, the number who sit in front of their computer with an IM window of some type open and chatting is even greater, and if you can mix those two markets together, than you will be riding a very powerful market force, indeed...
I've got to agree with this one. I develop multi-platform software, which means that, as of right now, I vary between working with three different OS's (OSX, Solaris, and various flavors of Linux) on four different architectures (ppc, x86, x86-64 and sparc), which isn't to brag, but to say that my current desktop at any time is more likely than not to be unable to play windows media.
Also, I think DRM is a bit silly, because it's a penny a song, and the people who are going to rip you off to save sixty cents weren't going to pay for it anyway. They'd just find someone online who has ripped it from a CD and copy that.
I've got a queasy feeling in my stomach, and it's got nothing to do with how much Mountain Dew I drink. :(
You know, I expect this sort of shit to be made (Target: Terror), because for all the shitty people you know, there's always gotta be someone worse, someone more willing to take advantage of the fear in a population to further their own selfish goals... But that it's doing so well, this bothers me. This does not bode well for the country I grew up loving.
I have this conversation with friends: Is this terrible little feeling the same that was felt by people championing civil rights, or women's suffrage? Is this the feeling our Founding Fathers had when they thought about what they could do? When we look around and see the stupid stuff being done in the name of what WE hold dear?
They tell me that I shouldn't get so worked up, that terrible shit has always happened in our world, and the only difference now is that it's more visible. (Thank you, CNN, Internet, NPR)
But when I speak my mind, I wonder about a knock on the door, and who might be on the other side. Does Abbie Hoffman have to go back into hiding, or they looking for someone new this time? Is a discussion enough to get a label applied to me? To be sentenced to an outcast life, for disagreeing with my older Brother? (Because let's face it, folks, it's happened before, and the proof is available for anyone who wants to go read about it.)
I feel like a castaway, floating on a raft of sanity, in a sea of fear and hate. I hope that by talking about it, we pull a little closer to shore, and I dream of a day when I can sleep witout fear of the sharks...
My aunt had her leg amputated. My father was ill in general, and died because he was lying in the wrong position. If I have to drink Gila semen to survive (my family has a history of Diabetes, and I'm doing everything to make sure I'm not trapped) I'LL DO IT. You'll find that a lot of our stupid little prejudices dissappear when your life is on the line... I just hope that a change in life practices means that I'm not subject to the same stupidities that did in my ancestores.
Not true! In order to do what the poster has described, you have to specifically write code to detect the language in use, then disable install based on the detected language.
In a single language install environment you'll never know about the language installed on the environment. In a multi-language install environment, you check the language in use and try to find an appropriate language.
What has been described above is language lockout plain and simple, and there's no excuse for it (other than import prevention and price fixing).
Yeah, because it's obvious that there are no companies applying for stupid patents...
(Picture Beavis and Butthead)
Heh heh heh... Did he just say robotic servicing? Huh huh...
I've got to say, my favorite part about this card (from their website):
Linux , 2.2., 2.4. (Open Source available)
What a load of crap... The only reason they could possibly come to those conclusions is that Apple interfaces are notoriously difficult to use by the keyboard. The problem is easy to break down just by analysing the problem. To close a window: With a mouse, you have to find the current position of the cursor (possibly already known), the position of the closing icon (fairly easy if it's maximized), and then chart a path between the two before clicking. Each time this task is performed, that path is different. On a keyboard, the necessary keys are always in the same place, and a frequent user can rely upon muscle memory to locate the right combination.
If the system has an intelligent keycode/navigation mapping. Apple's OSes don't. If you've got keyboard navigation enable, it's one keystroke to access the menu, many to get to the correct menu, a keystroke to display the menu, many to get to the correct entry, and one to trigger it. The same task is accomplished with two keystrokes on any Windows or Linux machine (and many other Unices, though not all). Yes, they both have shortcuts (Like Alt-F4 as opposed to Apple-W), but every non-shortcut task is a waste of time. Hence the faulty conclusion
Step away from the car... This is a fusion research reactor, not a reactor to be used as a power source...
Maybe you should try using a real dictionary like Webster (Mirriam-Webster) Definition for documentary:of, relating to, or employing documentation in literature or art; Dictionary.com often gives back crap results.
Why do you want to switch to Linux?
It really depends on your needs. Though I personally recommend Gentoo to all (yep, I'm a zealot :), because of it's great documentation, strong system control, and ease with which it teaches you Unix systems in general
It doesn't discourage research, it just discourages patents on research. In Japan, the patent process is very long, end exceedingly public, which gives other companies time to work on an idea, and improve it enough to make it different before the patent is granted. As such, patents have much less worth in Japan, but that doesn't stop the breakneck speed of research and development. What I'm talking about would still offer patent protection to independent developers, but would increase competition among large, established companies.
Patents aren't totally useless, but they way in which they're being used nowadays is kind of dangerous.
Personally, I think patents should only be issuable to people (individually, or groups), not companies or corporations (even though they have "person" status), and if licenses are offered, they should have to be same for every licensee.
This would still offer the protection and encouragment to independant inventors, which is why the patent system was designed. In fact, it would offer active discouragement to companies to seek patents on their research, as licensing would have to made available on equal terms.
Competition would be increased, as larger companies don't have to worry about lawyers or defensive patents, and would have the legal go ahead to emulate or improve their competitors.
This would also cut down on bogus patents, because, suddenly, all companies who wish to use a tech would have incentive to root out prior art for original ideas. In addition, patent submarining (like the whole JEDEC-RAMBUS fiasco), should be decreased, because the actual submission process for use would constitute prior art!
I was under the impression that real for mplayer only works using the Real Player codec (from windows), which is x86. I don't use an x86 system...