I think its more geared to permenantly getting rid of text that was never that public in the first place. Compared to something millions could read if they wanted to.
Yeah, but "public" is a relative term. A website might be intended to cater for needs of a smallish group, and when the message has got through, the admin should be able to just delete it and assume it is gone for good (except for those who saved it to their local computers for personal use, which doesn't violate copyrights).
Hmm, I guess this might be a case for another law proposal... but it might be easier to "slip it in" in the same package with the proposal being discussed. At least this topic must be subjected to big public discussion, before it's too late and all the unencypted emails are available to your mother at a public website.
This aspect of privacy is actually closer to the heart of the man on the street, with no major criminal inclinations... for whom embarrassment/social damage is a more serious concern than being sued by the feds.
This should also apply to outsiders (like google) that save pages (that have been removed by their authors) and present them to the outside world, while no offering the option of deleting them. Dejanews should also be prosecuted: they allow deletion of your own posts, but not replies to them.
For example, I should not be allowed to make my own public mirror of slashdot, completely disregarding Taco and all the poster. Neither should google. I could make a script that would collect the data "randomly" (with a surprising accuracy), but that should not be a concern.
Ignoring privacy should be a crime, not a business model.
Actually, I have seen only two free-unix WM's that work "right" out-of-the box. XFCe (on Mandrake) and IceWM (on FreeBSD). XFCe changes virtual desktops with C-F[1234...], IceWM with M-F[1234...]. And IceWM also pops up xterms with M-t (on FreeBSD). To achieve this kind of intuitivity with Gnome, you have to spend some considerable time tinkering it (but SawFish makes that possible, hooray to them).
Therefore, XFCe or IceWM might be good for default initial desktop (especially for root, which should not spend much time in X anyway)... especially since the most important use of X is still having multiple xterms & emacs simultanously visible, and being able to view "modern" web pages with graphics (and emacs in color).
IceWM also seems to be the only WM that correctly sets the initial size & pos for applications. Perhaps we will see this feature in Gnome 3.0...
Oh yeah, I forgot that KDE is also a viable option nowadays after the evil, oppressive reign of QPL.
I cant imagine that the disabled market is a huge one, especially with an OS like linux/unix where fast typing and the command line rule...
Actually, the "openness", scriptability & stuff that un*x apps tend to have are good things for accessibility. Basically, the only thing a disabled person would need is a fully speech-controlled emacs (w/ a package manager), and a web browser (Mozilla 1.0-pre-2?).
Who among the disabled would care about the gnome? Virtual desktops are the only necessary WM component, and MS will never be able to implement a functional virtual desktop. They have their motto, worst is better, after all.
Hm, don't you have any basic tools on your system? xmag tells me that color is 396CA3.
Yes, I don't have any basic tools. Here, it's just sh, cat, ed and telnet (which I use for http).
Seriously though, I don't have such tools on the system I'm on right now (work, Win32). And I was rather interested on the exact color they use to calm down lunatics (I suppose that would alleviate my stress a little bit), I'm not sure whether mikkkrosoft got it just right.
Then, I could just put my wife in front of computer to play zangband whenever she started to bring up the topic of who is going to wash the dishes.
What happened to a *NIX world in which (as long as you didn't care about X/Open:)) you got to choose the desktop/window manager you used?
For simple GUI tasks (n+1 xterms & emacs) you can still use any wm. For complicated GUI tasks (components, office apps), you need an environment with lots of work behind it (where would Linux be with Linus hacking with it alone?), and having less (moving) targets, the work is more concentrated. Nobody will force you to use Gnome (or KDE).
Another good thing about standardization: if/when X Window System is put to rest in favour of some other system, porting GTK will be enough to make apps compile for the NEW! IMPROVED! system.
HP/Sun backing one or the other will not change much, I think.
Wrong. It will make Gnome the "obvious" default alternative for corporate Linuxen. There is some strength in standardization, and lots of strength in FUD. I saw this coming, and many other people (and Red Hat) did too.
Obviously, there will still be a place for KDE. There is a place for fvwm, twm, IceWM, WindowMaker, blackbox, wm2... and QT will obviously be used, considering it's alleged excellence. But the license makes it dangerous for people with heaps of money involved (Sun).
Yes, XML should obviously be used. About the common namespace:
One could make 2 apps, one to send its stdin to a unix domain socket, and another to read from a unix domain socket and "print" it to stdout.
Window 1:
myapp | in2sock/tmp/mysock
Window 2:
sock2out/tmp/mysock | otherapp
And there you are, provided that you implement a sane stream handling in your applications (example: send 7 bytes to describe the message length, then send the message of that length, encoded in XML).
One "plus" in this when compared to traditional pipes is that you can confuse the end of the pipe by bombarding it from multiple apps.
So the question comes down to: why are they using Linux?
Because Indrema is not meant to be used only for gaming. It will be a set-top box, providing net access & the works. And being easy to program for, there will be heaps of interesting stuff coming out for it. And this includes Emulators of various other systems, ability to access proprietary, encrypted content (tv?) etc.
Doesn't make me feel any safer though. It just doesn't make sense that the GNOME team would need open sockets for these services... why not just use a local named pipe down/tmp, for instance (which they do use)?
I think Unix Domain Sockets would be preferable to pipes, since they would only require minimal amount of reimplementing.
Perhaps the use of inet-domain sockets is a part of some megalomanic netverk-transparent-gnome-anywhere - scheme.
Debian just like any other modern OS can install itself directly over the network. All you need is a couple of floppies. If you are a modem user you might have to use five floppies, but ISOs.. are just for morons...
And the speed of one's net access is proportional to one's intelligence?
I can't download a Debianese amount of stuff to my home computer (bandwidth = 0 bytes/s optimally). Does that mean that I shouldn't use Debian at all?
However, there is a point. Debian seems to be an inferior distro for people who want to try lots of stuff and can't simply download it all. It's annoying that the only distro that is not "broken" (Mandrake 7.1 is broken, Red Hat is broken) is the one with lowest amount of bundled software. I think this is one of the decisive factors in the distro-selection, Debian is not "harder" to use/install than any other distro (apart from the fact that Debian [2.1] automatically starts xdm on boot - removing that is not obvious for a newbie).
Using natural language on a local computer is a dumb idea (apart from searching information). On the net, however, it would be great. The content would just have to be marked up with some nifty XML-kinda thingie.
Find most popular GPL's XML libary, save to/usr/local/test
repeat until karma > 0 (Compose "+3, funny" message to slashdot (variety = (portman | grits)), if not moderated up, troll (login: anonymous))
If people commanded their local computers with natural language, they wouldn't understand what's going on there, which might be what Microsoft & friends really want (end of piratism, privacy and good will).
What's the point in all this? Win98 is good for game playing, so you simply burn yourself a copy of it. You don't have to access internet with it (except for internet play, of course) so there is no risk of getting caught. And when you want to access internet (or do something apart from playing games), you just dual-boot to the UN*X of your choice.
pkg_info will tell you what you need regarding all installed Ports (and Packages too, which are really just precompiled Ports ala 'make package'.) Since I've not used Debian (you should have said Debian, not "Linux") I'm not really sure what you're referring to regarding browsing.
Ah, I just meant having a nice curses/GUI - screen, with packets listed, and their descriptions in another window.
That's your fault, not FreeBSD's. Still, you should be able to compile GNOME 1.2 well enough on your own.
Ahem, I think OS's should not require net access for almost-full functionality. I only have a cellular phone and, being a student, I don't think I want to invest on "real" phone line for Internet. And mind you that I'm not campaigning against FreeBSD or anything, I'm just looking into it as a viable alternative for linux on my box. And, if I had an internet access, I think I might go for OpenBSD, considering my paranoia;-).
Anyway, I will try to optimize things as adviced in this thread... and yes, I will be using FreeBSD for at least some time. I abandoned the obsession of having gnome on it, I just tried out IceWM and it seems to fulfill all the needs I have for a GUI. The magical method I used to get the gnome sources was to have a friend burn them for me (the same way I used to get the FreeBSD in the first place, to burn the ISO image for the installation CD).
I've never seen rpm give a description of a package while I'm installing it. Granted, rpm has a switch that'll describe a given RPM for you, but pkg_info on FreeBSD can do the same.
I'm thinking dselect here. Just being able to browse around the packages quickly would be nice.
And RedHat 6.0 shipped with an obsolete GNOME too. So? 4.0 was -RELEASED 6 months ago, give it a break. If you update your Ports Collection, you can install the latest Helix GNOME 1.2. I just did.
Yes, and I don't use RedHat 6.0 (I use Mandrake 7.1). Upgrading my Ports collection is not an option for me, because of the lack of net access (I use my box mostly for programming & toying around, instead of net-related stuff).
I don't see how your points lead to the conclusion that Linux is better for the desktop.
I think being able to start programs quickly is quite essential for a desktop system, and this is my main problem with FreeBSD (I read from a PDF linked to from this thread that mentioned FreeBSD having inferior fork & exec performance when compared to Linux). OTOH, I've only used it for, what, 4 hours, so perhaps I might change my mind after prolonged use (and after R'ing TFM).
Ironically, someone wrote in a FreeBSD review a while ago that the kernel is blazingly fast, and loads programs quickly. Actually, this was one motivator for me to try it out.
Incidentally, I installed FreeBSD 4.0 over my Linux 2.2.15 yesterday, just to see what all the fuss is about. My box is PII-266/64MB. I made some observations:
Emacs starts much faster in Linux than in FreeBSD. This is true for the first time it starts, as well as for the subsequent loads (when it's on the cache, so no disk IO takes place). The startup time of FreeBSD is roughly the equivalent (probably slower) to that of 2.0 series of Linux kernels (ie. dog slow). Any ideas how to fix this?
Multitasking of FreeBSD seems to be "smoother" somehow. top comes up instantly, and shows lower CPU utilizations than with Linux.
Installation and package management of FreeBSD seems to be much cleaner & simpler (you get a better idea what ends up in your system, a lot like Slackware), whereas package management of Linux distros is much more user-friendly. With Linux you actually get a good description of what the package contains already at install time.
FreeBSD has to resort to Linux binary "emulation" to carry out some tasks, like run Netscape. I didn't try it out, but the idea just doesn't feel quite comfortable. Call me prejudiced.
FreeBSD 4.0 ships with Gnome 1.0, which is obsolete. I hope I can compile Gnome 1.2 with it (will try today after work).
The conclusions seems to be that FreeBSD is better for servers and "utility" systems that need to remain simple, while Linux is better for desktop. I didn't try any networking stuff, for the simple reason that I don't have network access.
Mandrake 7.1 (at least) has an utility called DrakFont that copies the fonts from your (eventual) Windows partition and installs them to be used in Linux. I have personally used Times New Roman for some purposes (it's much prettier than most of the default Linux fonts).
However, I think that there should be better fixed-width fonts (like Windows' fixedsys) to be used with Gnu Emacs on lousy monitors.
and we espically need a HOW-TO-Run-Linux-In-Black-Holes, as time slows down toward the inside of a black hole and not enough research has gone to how to use Linux in a timeless enviroment
Actually, black holes could be a great niche market for the Network Computer - concept (as well as centralized Unix server w/ remote clients). Servers could be running outside the black hole, while clients would be closer to the core. I bet the savings for this would easily cover the expenses caused by providing the life support setup within a black hole.
Direct financial support was for ActiveState, the folks that ported Perl to the Win32 platform, and continues to port Python for Win32 as well. In fact, it's noted that ActiveState will be in VStudio 7.0 on the front page.
This might explain the name ActivePerl (and ActiveState). Nobody likes the word "active" more than Microsoft.
But what really shocks me in your argument is that you state that: a) GNOME is a vastly inferior product. At least in terms of usability.
Now, I don't think it's a vastly inferior product. I just think it could be much better if they tweaked it a little bit. And made more apps for it. I myself use (& enjoy) the 1.1.9 (/whatever) version of gnome from the Mandrake distribution, and especially like the new Sawmill window manager (the ability to make a hotkey to launch xterm by pressing Win + t, and switch desktops by Win+1, Win+2 etc. is just great in one of these "modern" desktop environments - it was wasy to do with FVWM & the likes. Perhaps I just didn't examine the menus of older versions of gnome and KDE enough...). However, the gnome team seems to think that everyone likes to use the mouse, which is just against the traditional "feel" of linux anyway. They should make the applications easily usable with keyboard only (a good example is the Windows file manager), and I would have nothing to complain about. It's annoying to reach for the mouse and click somewhere, keep using the kbd for a while and then reach for the mouse again... Considering that fixing this would only require a trivial amount of coding! (Disclaimer: I'm not a GTK expert, but I just can't imagine that it would be broken in this respect).
Another annoying thing about Gnome is the lack of a simple HTML - viewer launchable from the command line with the name of the file. Contrast "gnome-help-viewer/home/foo/index.htm" to "kdehelp index.htm".
Obviously this is somewhat off-topic in a KDE thread, considering that KDE is the desktop environment that has done these things right in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but "public" is a relative term. A website might be intended to cater for needs of a smallish group, and when the message has got through, the admin should be able to just delete it and assume it is gone for good (except for those who saved it to their local computers for personal use, which doesn't violate copyrights).
Hmm, I guess this might be a case for another law proposal... but it might be easier to "slip it in" in the same package with the proposal being discussed. At least this topic must be subjected to big public discussion, before it's too late and all the unencypted emails are available to your mother at a public website.
This aspect of privacy is actually closer to the heart of the man on the street, with no major criminal inclinations... for whom embarrassment/social damage is a more serious concern than being sued by the feds.
For example, I should not be allowed to make my own public mirror of slashdot, completely disregarding Taco and all the poster. Neither should google. I could make a script that would collect the data "randomly" (with a surprising accuracy), but that should not be a concern.
Ignoring privacy should be a crime, not a business model.
Therefore, XFCe or IceWM might be good for default initial desktop (especially for root, which should not spend much time in X anyway)... especially since the most important use of X is still having multiple xterms & emacs simultanously visible, and being able to view "modern" web pages with graphics (and emacs in color).
IceWM also seems to be the only WM that correctly sets the initial size & pos for applications. Perhaps we will see this feature in Gnome 3.0...
Oh yeah, I forgot that KDE is also a viable option nowadays after the evil, oppressive reign of QPL.
Actually, the "openness", scriptability & stuff that un*x apps tend to have are good things for accessibility. Basically, the only thing a disabled person would need is a fully speech-controlled emacs (w/ a package manager), and a web browser (Mozilla 1.0-pre-2?).
Who among the disabled would care about the gnome? Virtual desktops are the only necessary WM component, and MS will never be able to implement a functional virtual desktop. They have their motto, worst is better, after all.
Yes, I don't have any basic tools. Here, it's just sh, cat, ed and telnet (which I use for http).
Seriously though, I don't have such tools on the system I'm on right now (work, Win32). And I was rather interested on the exact color they use to calm down lunatics (I suppose that would alleviate my stress a little bit), I'm not sure whether mikkkrosoft got it just right.
Then, I could just put my wife in front of computer to play zangband whenever she started to bring up the topic of who is going to wash the dishes.
Could you give the RGB values for that blue used in psychiatric institutions? That sounds like an ideal candidate for my new desktop background color.
Gnome, because GTK is LGPL, which is friendlier to corporate developers.
For simple GUI tasks (n+1 xterms & emacs) you can still use any wm. For complicated GUI tasks (components, office apps), you need an environment with lots of work behind it (where would Linux be with Linus hacking with it alone?), and having less (moving) targets, the work is more concentrated. Nobody will force you to use Gnome (or KDE).
Another good thing about standardization: if/when X Window System is put to rest in favour of some other system, porting GTK will be enough to make apps compile for the NEW! IMPROVED! system.
Wrong. It will make Gnome the "obvious" default alternative for corporate Linuxen. There is some strength in standardization, and lots of strength in FUD. I saw this coming, and many other people (and Red Hat) did too.
Obviously, there will still be a place for KDE. There is a place for fvwm, twm, IceWM, WindowMaker, blackbox, wm2... and QT will obviously be used, considering it's alleged excellence. But the license makes it dangerous for people with heaps of money involved (Sun).
G P L
One could make 2 apps, one to send its stdin to a unix domain socket, and another to read from a unix domain socket and "print" it to stdout.
Window 1:
myapp | in2sock /tmp/mysock
Window 2:
sock2out /tmp/mysock | otherapp
And there you are, provided that you implement a sane stream handling in your applications (example: send 7 bytes to describe the message length, then send the message of that length, encoded in XML).
One "plus" in this when compared to traditional pipes is that you can confuse the end of the pipe by bombarding it from multiple apps.
Ahh, the sockets are beautifull.
Because Indrema is not meant to be used only for gaming. It will be a set-top box, providing net access & the works. And being easy to program for, there will be heaps of interesting stuff coming out for it. And this includes Emulators of various other systems, ability to access proprietary, encrypted content (tv?) etc.
I think Unix Domain Sockets would be preferable to pipes, since they would only require minimal amount of reimplementing.
Perhaps the use of inet-domain sockets is a part of some megalomanic netverk-transparent-gnome-anywhere - scheme.
And the speed of one's net access is proportional to one's intelligence?
I can't download a Debianese amount of stuff to my home computer (bandwidth = 0 bytes/s optimally). Does that mean that I shouldn't use Debian at all?
However, there is a point. Debian seems to be an inferior distro for people who want to try lots of stuff and can't simply download it all. It's annoying that the only distro that is not "broken" (Mandrake 7.1 is broken, Red Hat is broken) is the one with lowest amount of bundled software. I think this is one of the decisive factors in the distro-selection, Debian is not "harder" to use/install than any other distro (apart from the fact that Debian [2.1] automatically starts xdm on boot - removing that is not obvious for a newbie).
Using natural language on a local computer is a dumb idea (apart from searching information). On the net, however, it would be great. The content would just have to be marked up with some nifty XML-kinda thingie.
Find most popular GPL's XML libary, save to /usr/local/test
repeat until karma > 0 (Compose "+3, funny" message to slashdot (variety = (portman | grits)), if not moderated up, troll (login: anonymous))
If people commanded their local computers with natural language, they wouldn't understand what's going on there, which might be what Microsoft & friends really want (end of piratism, privacy and good will).
What's the point in all this? Win98 is good for game playing, so you simply burn yourself a copy of it. You don't have to access internet with it (except for internet play, of course) so there is no risk of getting caught. And when you want to access internet (or do something apart from playing games), you just dual-boot to the UN*X of your choice.
Ah, I just meant having a nice curses/GUI - screen, with packets listed, and their descriptions in another window.
That's your fault, not FreeBSD's. Still, you should be able to compile GNOME 1.2 well enough on your own.
Ahem, I think OS's should not require net access for almost-full functionality. I only have a cellular phone and, being a student, I don't think I want to invest on "real" phone line for Internet. And mind you that I'm not campaigning against FreeBSD or anything, I'm just looking into it as a viable alternative for linux on my box. And, if I had an internet access, I think I might go for OpenBSD, considering my paranoia ;-).
Anyway, I will try to optimize things as adviced in this thread... and yes, I will be using FreeBSD for at least some time. I abandoned the obsession of having gnome on it, I just tried out IceWM and it seems to fulfill all the needs I have for a GUI. The magical method I used to get the gnome sources was to have a friend burn them for me (the same way I used to get the FreeBSD in the first place, to burn the ISO image for the installation CD).
Remember that open source administration software should allow the pupils to erase their permanent records when they see fit.
Actually, computers are "more" than just a tool. Various programs are tools - computer enables you to access those tools.
Why do people think that life itself is the only "thing", while things that "promote" life are just "tools"? That's quite [ego | anthropo]centric.
Life is life, things are things, and nothing is "just a tool".
I'm thinking dselect here. Just being able to browse around the packages quickly would be nice.
And RedHat 6.0 shipped with an obsolete GNOME too. So? 4.0 was -RELEASED 6 months ago, give it a break. If you update your Ports Collection, you can install the latest Helix GNOME 1.2. I just did.
Yes, and I don't use RedHat 6.0 (I use Mandrake 7.1). Upgrading my Ports collection is not an option for me, because of the lack of net access (I use my box mostly for programming & toying around, instead of net-related stuff).
I don't see how your points lead to the conclusion that Linux is better for the desktop.
I think being able to start programs quickly is quite essential for a desktop system, and this is my main problem with FreeBSD (I read from a PDF linked to from this thread that mentioned FreeBSD having inferior fork & exec performance when compared to Linux). OTOH, I've only used it for, what, 4 hours, so perhaps I might change my mind after prolonged use (and after R'ing TFM).
Ironically, someone wrote in a FreeBSD review a while ago that the kernel is blazingly fast, and loads programs quickly. Actually, this was one motivator for me to try it out.
Incidentally, I installed FreeBSD 4.0 over my Linux 2.2.15 yesterday, just to see what all the fuss is about. My box is PII-266/64MB. I made some observations:
The conclusions seems to be that FreeBSD is better for servers and "utility" systems that need to remain simple, while Linux is better for desktop. I didn't try any networking stuff, for the simple reason that I don't have network access.
Mandrake 7.1 (at least) has an utility called DrakFont that copies the fonts from your (eventual) Windows partition and installs them to be used in Linux. I have personally used Times New Roman for some purposes (it's much prettier than most of the default Linux fonts).
However, I think that there should be better fixed-width fonts (like Windows' fixedsys) to be used with Gnu Emacs on lousy monitors.
Actually, black holes could be a great niche market for the Network Computer - concept (as well as centralized Unix server w/ remote clients). Servers could be running outside the black hole, while clients would be closer to the core. I bet the savings for this would easily cover the expenses caused by providing the life support setup within a black hole.
This might explain the name ActivePerl (and ActiveState). Nobody likes the word "active" more than Microsoft.
Now, I don't think it's a vastly inferior product. I just think it could be much better if they tweaked it a little bit. And made more apps for it. I myself use (& enjoy) the 1.1.9 (/whatever) version of gnome from the Mandrake distribution, and especially like the new Sawmill window manager (the ability to make a hotkey to launch xterm by pressing Win + t, and switch desktops by Win+1, Win+2 etc. is just great in one of these "modern" desktop environments - it was wasy to do with FVWM & the likes. Perhaps I just didn't examine the menus of older versions of gnome and KDE enough...). However, the gnome team seems to think that everyone likes to use the mouse, which is just against the traditional "feel" of linux anyway. They should make the applications easily usable with keyboard only (a good example is the Windows file manager), and I would have nothing to complain about. It's annoying to reach for the mouse and click somewhere, keep using the kbd for a while and then reach for the mouse again... Considering that fixing this would only require a trivial amount of coding! (Disclaimer: I'm not a GTK expert, but I just can't imagine that it would be broken in this respect).
Another annoying thing about Gnome is the lack of a simple HTML - viewer launchable from the command line with the name of the file. Contrast "gnome-help-viewer /home/foo/index.htm" to "kdehelp index.htm".
Obviously this is somewhat off-topic in a KDE thread, considering that KDE is the desktop environment that has done these things right in the first place.