Look, sorry about all the flames, I just got a little heated in defending my choice of operating systems.
I've not used UNIX systems all my life. In fact, most of my computing life has been spent in the Windows95 and earlier Microsoft world. It's not that I "realize there is a better way," but that the better way, in terms of stability and configurability, happens to be Linux.
I had no trouble downloading slackware from ftp.slackware.com. I got Redhat from the biggest mirror I saw, valinux.com. Debian came from ftp.debian.org. I had no troubles.
Paying a UNIX administrator does not count as software cost, because you'd be paying a Windows admin just the same. This common cost can be eliminated in the comparison.
The vast majority of the linux community is helpful. It is those assholes who spit at you, that you remember, and hold against the entire group. They are NOT the majority.
I'm not a professional programmer, nor am I a good programmer. I wouldn't dream of modifying anything big or important. And yet, the openness of software is still convenient for me.
If software is meant to interact with other software, the maintainer has most likely tested it with that other software. But, of course, my window manager isn't tested to work with BIND 9, because the two programs don't interact. Open software is tested in the environment it was meant to behave in. Furthermore, it is tested by everybody who downloads it. Word does get around about bad software.
I'm not going to argue that putting UNIX on the average user's desktop won't make support more expensive. UNIX isn't for the average computer user, since the average computer user is an idiot, and his IQ goes down the more computers are sold. But UNIX in an office, serving files, printers, and the like, makes a better, cheaper alternative to Windows. Particularly a Free UNIX, like linux.
You don't think install difficulties arise in commercial platforms? The term "DLL Hell" wasn't invented for nothing, you know. Many programs interact poorly with others who use different versions of the same libraries. Don't forget the "System Requirements" on the sides of commercial software packages, which list other software that must be present for the application to run. At least open software gives the skilled a chance to fix things. And editing makefiles is a good thing; it allows me to move libraries and such where I want them. I have seen far too many windows apps that won't install because libraries or other programs aren't in a default location.
The rest of your arguments are gui-vs.-command-line arguments. This is only a matter of preference. As you left the UNIX world for Windows, you are undoubtedly biased against the old command-line setups that UNIX offers. As I have left the Windows world for Linux, I am obviously biased in the opposite direction. We can't win, because it's all an opinion from this point on. But I will say this: I prefer a bash shell because touch-typing is more efficient than hunting and clicking on little buttons. You can type faster than you can place a little black arrow on a tiny gray button using a pointing device.
Jesus H. Christ, you must be a fucking idiot, to post something like this without first looking into it. Let's see why you're wrong.
Of course, the first reason, is that "free" as applied to so-called "Free Software" has nothing to do with monetary cost, but the freedom to modify and redistribute code. Read the GPL if you like. It is perfectly acceptable to charge for Free Software, you simply need to provide source code on demand, and not restrict redistribution of modified source and binaries. If I'm not mistaken, I could even download the entire Redhat distribution, burn my own discs, and sell them on the street corner for $20 a piece.
Second, I've been through 3 linux distributions, and not paid a penny for any of them. Save for mathematica, a leftover from my Windows days, there is not a program on my machine that I've paid for, and everything is perfectly legal. On a cable modem, I downloaded the Redhat and Slackware current ISO images in just about 6 hours each. This was not wasted time, though, since I left my computer downloading the images while I attended classes, and came back to find them waiting for me.
Debian, on the other hand, did not even require an ISO image. I downloaded six floppy images (about ten minutes), rebooted, started the installation, and let it download basic packages necessary. The installation probably cost me an extra hour over what it would have taken with a premade CD, but that is hardly 10, as you suggest.
Furthermore, not once have I had to restart a download, and none of the servers have choked. Everything was limited only by the speed of my cable modem.
As far as TCO, a term I'm sure Microsoft has perverted far beyond comprehension, your statements are simply not true. You must consider the TCO when you are running Linux (or some other Free UNIX) in the hands of an experienced administrator. Microsoft, and you, expect to calculate TCO from a vantage point of a skilled Windows administrator. They include training and general "figuring-out-time" in the cost of setting up a Linux system. What about training and "figuring-out-time" for Microsoft systems? If you insist that the Linux admin knows nothing about Linux from the start, you must assume the same about the Microsoft admin. But if you assume your admins are skilled in UNIX, installing Linux is trivial. (I should hope any company would be cautious switching operating systems when their administrators don't know about the new OS.) No matter what UNIX-like operating system an admin comes from, it is trivial to become acquainted with another one.
Furthermore, in the hands of a skilled admin, installing software in Linux is trivial. Of course, most Free software is also free monetarily, which cuts the initial cost to 0. I never need to memorize manuals when installing software under Linux. I don't know why you expect this is necessary. The vast majority of software installation breaks down to little more than "./configure; make; make install", and often, the./configure part is not necessary. Don't forget about package systems, either. RPMs and debs make software installation trivial, especially with a package management utility like apt. Software installation with apt is no more difficult than "apt-get install <pkgname>", which automatically downloads packages, satisfies dependencies, sets up a default configuration, and drops you back at a shell.
Except for select few programs, installing software under Linux is easy enough for a monkey like you to figure out. This is also the case with Windows software.
I will admit I have had to hack some makefiles in my day, but any experienced UNIX admin will have no trouble doing that. Plus, the advantage of being able to modify code far outweighs any benefit (I consider it a drawback) of a nice, "keep-clicking-next" install interface. There is real control in UNIX software installation, and little added difficulty.
We haven't even considered support costs. Microsoft Windows, a closed system, often has problems which are unsolvable by anybody but Microsoft. This means you must call them, and wait on the phone, to talk to somebody who probably doesn't know what he's doing anyway. Often times, you must repeatedly call, talking to a differnt person each time. To top it off, Microsoft charges for support calls after you've exceeded a certain number of calls. This gets expensive.
An open system, like Linux, is much cheaper to troubleshoot. First, any good code warrior should be able to debug and fix problems that crop up. And if you're not a code warrior? Just get an IRC client, find some Linux-related channel, and look for someone who is. It's a system that doesn't work perfectly, but I've found it to be more effective than calling some so-called corporate help desk.
Attitudes are important in troubleshooting, too. Linux, being an open system, harbors a community phenomenon that Microsoft Windows just can't sustain. People who use linux feel like part of a tightly-nit, minority group, and are therefore much more willing to help, without expecting something in return.
I'd be willing to guess that your Linux experience stems from the single Redhat or Mandrake Linux CD you bought at Best Buy, tried to install, and failed. You clearly don't know what you're talking about, since all your complaints are invalid. From the looks of it, you got frustrated with your inability to figure out Linux, and so turned to the Microsoft website to backup your intuition that Linux is some impossible-to-use operating system that takes a genius of 180+ IQ to figure out.
You were right about it not being about money, though. Still, Linux can be totally monetarily free, and cheaper in man-hours than any Microsoft or Apple product.
Funny, I thought he was focusing his creative efforts on Linux development. My God, even in the post itself, he says, "Linux without Unix."
What he's doing is making a new nest for Linux to rest in. I don't see why you have a problem with that. If you don't like FullPliant, don't use it. But don't knock it, and especially don't knock it when you don't know what you're saying.
Linux and BeOS are made for different sorts of people. BeOS is to Unix (Linux in particular) what MacOS is to Windows, in terms of simplicity of interface. We won't get into superiority arguments between Windows and MacOS users.
BeOS does not follow standards that are close to anything in the Unix world. In fact, now that I think about it, MacOS X seems to be a lot like BeOS. People who use Linux want a free, light Unix to use on their hardware. People who use BeOS want MacOS with bash.
I don't think GPL'ing BeOS will change that. For most people, the attraction with BeOS is that it is so foreign... I have been quite curious about it. However, there is a cost-free version available for download, and it will even install itself in spare partitions if you please. Freedom to modify the code will improve userbase very little.
Of course, I'm talking only about workstations and servers here. Maybe it turns out that BeOS is remarkably scalable, and fits well in the embedded world. This will of course change the prospects of Linux making it into embedded electronics.
It's absolutely terrible that the Mir would go unfunded. It almost burned down when we had Americans up there, it's becoming overrun by fungus, we hear American reports of a horrible musty smell throughout the station.
It's so far beyond its expected service life, it isn't even funny. While once a testament to human ingenuity and engineering skills, it is now an example of pointless human nostalgia which is being carried out at dangerous levels. Certainly it is historic equipment. But the place for admiration is not where its inhabitants will die if they make a minor mistake, it is in a museum.
Of course, if put on display, it should be decontaminated and aired out.
As an American citizen, my opinion of the Russion space station means absolutely nothing. However, I do not think that Americans should be pushing to hold missions on that station. I do not want American lives put in danger, and as far as I'm concerned, the Mir is ready to come hurtling down.
The article spends a lot of effort talking about maintainability. However, the Linux kernel source is broken into drivers, so you only need to modify the driver thatis important. I don't see the Hurd as being any different. You just call them "servers" instead of "drivers", and when you're done modifying, the servers are built separately. But that's not the issue.
So if that's all the Hurd has, it's a bunch of bunk. The only truly appealing feature of the Hurd is the ability to plug in new kernels without rebooting. But for that one feature, I'm going to wait decades? Please.
I'd like to ask RMS to either turn out the Hurd very soon, or scrap it. I'm tired of hearing about all it's promise and seeing it's barely able to walk on its own. I think this has become some ego trip for RMS, and that's not what we need. Developer effort could be better spent on Linux, or whatever the next generation kernel is.
First, I'm beginning to get into TeX. I don't know what LaTeX offers that plain old TeX doesn't, or vice versa, but I feel I can discuss this with a bit of intelligence.
One of the biggest barriers to web-standardom is the complexity of the formatting language. I know HTML (I'm quite proficient in it--who isn't?), and I'm beginning to see TeX. TeX has more commands, and many of them are far less intuitive than HTML tags (<bold> is pretty obvious). Most webmasters, particularly busy commercial ones, won't want to take the time to learn TeX. Therefore, while it may be a published standard, it will never be the de facto standard.
The second problem is target applications. TeX is a formatting system. It gives the user fine-grained control of textual layout and appearance. HTML is a classification system. It gives the user the ability to group text according to form and function.
HTML assumes (correctly) that the user knows nothing about how documents appear at the viewing end. What looks excellent on letter-sized paper, for example, looks terrible on A4-sized paper--words run off the page, margins are too small, lines are pressed together. All HTML does is tell the viewer how text should be classified--letting the viewer decide how to display those words. After all, nobody better understands how this information is being viewed than the viewer himself (itself).
TeX, on the other hand, assumes (correctly) that the user knows exactly how documents appear at the viewing end. If you know that you are printing to letter-sized paper, it is very easy to tune the placement and appearance of text on your page to produce an optimal layout--one that is aesthetically and functionally pleasing. The problem with the World Wide Web is that we aren't all viewing things on letter-sized paper. My Netscape window dimensions are 845x960 pixels; I can't believe anybody else has exactly that size window. Even if they did, it is unlikely that their window widgets (borders, titles) are the same, so the viewing area is different. I can make things look great in my window, but in anybody else's window, the same document would not look optimal.
This is precisely why TeX will never make it as a web standard. Nobody likes to scroll in a weird fashion to read documents, or have small text which can't be enlarged (or which screws up formatting if enlarged). TeX is only good when the document producer controls how the viewers are presented the data. And that is impossible on the World Wide Web.
The US Supreme Court is not asking Florida for more information, and they have issued a final ruling. Read the decision yourself.
They didn't overturn the decision, that's true. They vacated it. What's the difference, you ask?
Overturning a judge is turning to him and saying, "You made the wrong decision. We're making the decision for you." The overturned judge gets no say in what's going on.
Vacating a decision, however, is turning to the judge (or in our case, the Florida Supreme Court) and saying, "You made the wrong decision. Make a new one that doesn't conflict with our opinion."
This is not a request for new information. This is not a "temporary" ruling pending further information. The US Supreme Court couldn't care less why the Floridians ruled the way they did.
What the Supreme Court said is that they don't understand why the Florida court made its decision, and that the decision is wrong. Therefore, the Florida Supreme Court must go back and correct its mistake.
That's the final ruling.
There are potential situations, however, where the Fla. Court makes a new decision which is inconsistent with the US Court ruling, whereby Bush or another party may take up the matter with the US Supreme Court. That isn't a reconsideration of the present opinion, though; that's a separate legal matter which deals with a court's noncompliance with the US Supreme Court order.
If you don't believe me, look at the bottom line of the ruling: "It is so ordered." If they were requesting more information, they wouldn't issue an order. The last line would be, "This decision is valid pending further information from the Florida Supreme Court."
First, I'd like to know what hardware the majority of OBSD users run. Is it a vast majority, or are people fairly evenly divided? Second, given the first part, what direction is OBSD headed? Are you going to keep the status-quo as long as that sufficient, are you going to work to put OBSD on larger-scale hardware, or will you try to scale it down like many are trying to do with Linux?
Sun thinks that Linux will be unusable because it will fragment. That's amazing, especially since they obviously didn't bother to look at their own history.
For 30 years, Unix has been the frontrunner in enterprise and network-related computing. The only real alternative is Windows, and no Windows product holds a candle to a mature Unix.
What does this have to do with the fragmentation of Linux? Quite simple, really. Take a look at Sun's own Unix product, Solaris. Solaris is not just repackaged AT&T Unix. It's a completely different product. As is BSDi, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, SysV Unix, and many others. All of these are fragmented, mostly-incompatible Unices. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, Solaris is based on SysV.
So now you see that Sun's own brainchild, perhaps their software nest egg, is a fragmented spin-off of Ritchie's original Unix from the 70s. I can't believe they would think that Linux will become unusable due to incompatibilities, when Solaris, as I'm sure they'll swear, is perfectly usable despite all the incompatibilities in the various Unices.
Don't get me wrong--Linux isn't our Saviour. We most likely won't be doing miraculous things with it, and it will probably fade into obscurity as new operating systems come into being. However, I refuse to believe that a fate which every Unix escaped is going to fall upon Linux.
You mean like the root nameservers? What are there, 12 nowadays? Hmm...
We all seem to forget that the whole commercial internet would come to a screeching halt if those twelve servers--including any backups that might be in place--all decided to crash at about the same time. Minimal chances, I suppose, but the number of root nameservers is a very tiny fraction of the number of hosts on the Internet.
Granted, the connectivity wouldn't be there, but I'm have no idea what the IP address for the Slashdot web server is, and I'm not going to look it up. If the nameservers went down tomorrow, I'd have connectivity to my school and my ISP, but that's about it. Most of the web would be absolutely useless to me.
Do we solve this by distributing DNS? I have no idea. I can't believe that distributed DNS works. This danger of putting all our Internet eggs into twelve root nameserver baskets may be a danger we just have to risk.
The only policy I would implement if I were ICANN has nothing to do with risk, but opening up TLDs to everybody. Why can't they sell TLDs like they sell subdomains now? I'd love to own the.commandant TLD. Plus you could be a lot more creative and natural in the naming of websites. For instance, you could go to staroffice.sun instead of sun.com/staroffice, or netscape.navigator to check the latest netscape browser.
That's my $0.02 about TLDs and root nameservers crashing.
Remember when PNG was supposed to be The Next Big Thing (TM)? PNG was billed as the greatest image format for the Internet, since it was compact, high-quality, supported interlacing, and (I think) animation.
When was the last time you saw a PNG image? I've never seen them, except when I've made a few. The fact is, the image formats that are ingrained into people's sites and minds are GIF and JPEG. Nowadays, even digital cameras store images in JPEG. I remember when they used to have proprietary formats, like KDC on the Kodak DC40. That thing was $1000 when we got one, now you can get better cameras that store JPEGs for a couple hundred at most. Amazing.
Just as well, about DjVu. What kind of stupid name is that for a file format? How do you even pronounce it? I also fail to see the advantage of compressing foreground and background separately, but hey, I'm no imaging expert.
New image format? I'll believe it when I see it. Everywhere.
Just so you know--Samba has nothing to do with DHCP. I don't see what you expect dhcpcd to do about that.
Domain names have little, if anything, to do with DHCP. The goal of DHCP is to automatically configure domain resolution (specifying name servers to use), routing (gateways and netmasks), and unique network identification (IP addresses). This does not depend on the domain you belong to. The fact is, Microsoft does not address this problem in their DHCP implementation, either. If you specify a domain you belong to, it is fixed, and you must specify name servers along with it. With dhcpcd, you can communicate with the outside world... That is all DHCP aims to do.
What are you talking about, IP changes? When do you expect your IP address to change? The dhcpcd program updates the IP address whenever it is run, and whenever a lease expires. I think this is the most you can ask for from any DHCP implementation on any platform. IP addresses should not change mid-lease. That's bad network configuration.
dhcpcd implements DHCP, not miracle-networking. It won't configure samba, it won't act as an FTP server, it won't do a lot of things. But as far as I'm concerned, dhcpcd implements DHCP as good as, or better than, any other program. What kind of hacking do you need to do to it?
First of all, it would seem that you have some desire to run Linux, since you've tried it and are now complaining about your bad experience. Obviously, though, you don't desire it enough to invest some time in learning the issues you point out. Just as well; people have no business running software they can't (or won't) figure out. The only legitimate software gripes, I believe, are gripes against lacking features, not gripes against a user's inability to figure things out. After all, many people here have figured out Linux, so it's not that Linux is impossible to use, it's that you aren't good enough with it.
If NVidia would release chip specs to open source programmers, you would have Geforce2 support almost immediately. This isn't a problem with Linux, or XFree86, but with NVidia. They are scared that, by releasing specs, competitors will copy their chips. And yet, I've not heard of this happening to anybody else that releases chip specs.
Most configuration files are located in/etc,/usr/etc, or/usr/local/etc. For the most part, you can specify this location at compile-time. You might think the Windows registry is superior to this, but I disagree. The registry is an oversized, all-inclusive jumbled mess of things that often are not obvious. In/etc, however, the relevant config files typically are named after their programs, as in/etc/inetd.conf or/usr/local/etc/sshd_config.conf. If you like, you can do what I did, and just softlink/usr/local/etc to/etc, so that just about every config file is in/etc (I don't have a/usr/etc directory). The only exceptions on my system are Samba (installed with a prefix of/usr/local/samba) and Enlightenment (/usr/local/enlightenment). But, as you can see, that was my choice.
I'm no programmer. My most complex C programs are under 500 lines of code, implement no GUI, and generally don't do things that aren't related to iterative numerical analysis. In other words, I'm not going to produce the next great windowing system in this lifetime. However, I have compiled most of the high-level programs on my system. If you'd just read the damn documentation, if wouldn't be frightening. Don't come whining to other people without doing your research first.
About DNS and gateways; that's called DHCP. Linux has DHCP support, so you don't need to enter that information manually. Check out dhcpcd or pump. Both are good DHCP clients. If you want a static IP, you need to enter that information, both in Windows and Linux.
Why would you want things to jump out at you? That's the reason so many people wind up reinstalling Windows so many times. With system-critical configuration options at any idiot's control, Windows has got to be the most often screwed-up operating system. Linux does not exactly make configuration options hidden, but it does implement a dual-control: access and intelligence. It takes some understanding of your system to make sense of config files and modify your system, and there are access controls to prevent anyone but root from changing them.
GNOME and KDE are both non-profit organizations, whether they're registered that way or not.
The purpose of KDE or GNOME is NOT to make money. In fact, they don't make money. They don't sell you anything. I challenge you to find even a shred of text that mentions anything remotely close to money.
Maybe it is that they solicit donations. But the links on the GNOME desktop are links to documentation, bug lists, and the main GNOME page. These are useful links to most people; they contain information about using GNOME, information on bugs, new releases of GNOME, and a listing of software created to run in GNOME. The links aren't there to make money, or to bring in donations. They are useful links.
You can tell when a link is there to make money, and when it's supposed to be useful... Last I checked, the default Netscape/IE start pages are commercial pieces of crap that offer more information you need, in a format designed to appeal to anybody but you, that serve no conceivable purpose in the electronic universe.
GNOME pages satisfy none of these conditions.
Regarding KDE, the last time I compiled v2.0, it only placed one link to a KDE site on my desktop, which is a link to the main page. Like the GNOME site, this page contains bug and release info, and documentation.
My problem with Netscape is not that they've cheesed up a fair browser to make a quick buck, but that they've turned out what is obviously untested code. The browser can't even display SSL pages without crashing. If you look in the about dialog, NS6 is really just Mozilla M18 with AOL Instant Messenger, and a splash screen on startup. Coming from a reputable company like Netscape, you would expect a well-tested browser that wasn't thrown together so hastily. At least they could have but some time into the widgets, to make them display faster--while not as bad as M12 and the like, these still work a lot slower than the old Motif ones did. They should use Qt, GTK, or stick with Motif.
Technically, I guess Netscape lost their respectablility when AOL took the reigns. In a software company that appeals to the masses, there is a tendency to produce shit for products. Still, there is no guarantee that Netscape would not have gone south without AOL... But this didn't help any.
Do you see the difference between Microsoft and AOL? Microsoft, at least up until pre-Whistler, put actual time into interface development, made their products look suitable for business use. AOL, however, stuffs bullshit down your throat to keep people happy who can barely power on their PC. Microsoft probably started out trying to do great things, and then became popular and so got sidetracked. AOL, however, started out hoping to grab the masses.
In my opinion, that makes Microsoft more venerable than AOL as a corporation.
I would have to disagree when you say that text is the most compressed, most precise form of communication. What about speech?
After all, what is text but transcribed speech? We learned to talk before we learned to write (both as individuals, and as a species), because speech is the more immediately necessary, easier and convenient form of communication. When I write this, it's not because writing is superior to speaking, but because you are too far away to talk to. In fact, I don't know about anybody else, but when I write things like this, I'm actually saying it in my head. If there are parts to revise, I say them aloud--because humans naturally communicate verbally. Writing is an imposed form of communication. Revision of writing, then, is processed by saying it to ourselves.
Even babies communicate by sound. When they get hungry, they cry. When they are wet, they cry. When they want comfort, they cry. They don't scribble on a piece of paper!
The problem with writing is threefold:
It is completely serial, whereas speech is only partially serial. Words are spoken at once (at the same time, they are transmitted), and processed at once. Words are written, however, letter by letter, transmitted, then processed letter by letter (although we are so good at reading it seems as though we read words, we actually read letters and then interpret them as words). This costs more time.
Although speech is built on a natural ability to make various noises (and therefore, it is not much more artificial than just groaning and growling), writing is completely manufactured--we don't intrinsically move our hands in motions similar to writing letters on a page. This means there is more processing overhead.
At least in modern man, the brain functions more in a verbal mode than a writing mode. We don't write to ourselves, we speak to ourselves. When we read, it is often done by saying the words inside our head. Therefore, in addition to the extra processing time required to communicate in writing, and the extra time due to serialism, we incur time when we write (by saying the words to ourselves), and when the receiver reads (by saying the words to himself). This is triple duplication of information.
Writing is useful only when it is desirable to repeat the same speech many times, at many different times, to many different people. It is also useful when the speaker is too far away from the listener, or needs to deliver a message at any time, but cannot wait for a listener to meet him; hence we have transcripts, letters (postal) and signs.
It is because of this, then, that I claim that speech, not text, is the most compresssed, precise form of communication. It is the most natural, and most immediate.
However, in the world of computers, there is little speech capability, and computers are often used to record data with the intention of producing and retaining multiple copies. Therefore, speech is useless. Here text makes the most sense.
This is a great idea. You and I should go into business, "Sferics's and Commandant's E-Z Geek Workout". We could make millions! Rather than atrophy, computer users can BUILD muscle mass in only days!
To perfect this, though, we'd need to develop a pair of force-feedback VR sleeves, which make you move your entire arm to move the files. What to you think, the equivalent of 2 pounds per 50kb? Most people don't use files larger than a few megabytes, so a two megabyte file would weigh 80 lbs. Good deal! The problem is, a file like the compressed Mozilla tarball would weigh about 800 lbs! You'd need friends to help you move that.
To take this further, what about untarring/ungzipping files? You could open the box and manually remove each component!
We could "fragilize" the files, too, so that if you handled them without much care, they would become corrupt.
NB: Quick calculations show that my MP3 directory would weigh 56000 pounds. Damn!
You make excellent points, plus you call an apartment a "flat" (I just had to ring you for that). However, I disagree with the extremity of your views.
I believe that a 3d file manager is a lousy thing simply because it is trying to convey two-dimensional text.
In the real world, though, people frequently use all three dimensions to organize objects. I'll give you a few examples:
Suppose you are sorting papers to be passed out to various groups of people. You lay them on your desk, and you organize them as follows:
From left to right, you establish columns according to whom the papers will go.
From front to back, you establish rows according to the subject matter of the papers.
From top to bottom (vertically), you stack the pages in order, so as to convey the appropriate information ("I do know" is not the same as "Do I know"--order matters).
On my own desk, I have various objects--a bookshelf stereo, a tape deck, a computer, a printer, a hub, a phone, and papers (including books). I have established the following organization:
According to how frequently I will need them, objects are ordered from the back to the front of the desk, so that frequently used objects are closest to the front, where I sit.
So that I don't have to reach all over the place when I'm turning on electronic equipment, I keep this equipment to the right, in one area. Papers and other things are kept to the left. Also, in accordance with number (1), I keep most frequently used objects toward the center of the desk.
I establish vertical stacks of books, with the book I've been through most recently at the top of the stack. General papers are organized in a similar fashion.
Since I keep a fair amount of books, I do in fact use three dimensions when placing them on bookshelves. First, they are ordered horizontally, roughly according to subject matter. Second, they are ordered vertically, with the most frequently used books in the center of the bookshelf, where I don't have to reach high up or down low to grab them. Finally, since bookshelf space is finite, and book-buying potential is less finite, I stack new books in front of old books when there is no more room on the shelf. These I keep horizontal, so I can still read the titles of the books behind them.
I do not think I am in the minority when organizing things in this fashion. We try to make the most of any space when organizing, and three dimensions allow us to keep things more logcal than we can in two dimensions.
Of course we can end up with something out of a bad movie. The phenomenon that would allow this is the same one that allows most politicians to be so dirty--the phenomenon of popular choice.
Why do you think Windows is mediocre at best? Because the public, on the whole, doesn't demand much. Those who demand more power, go to Unix. Those who demand simplicity, go to Mac OS. Microsoft is here to cater to the masses.
Similarly, polititians cater to the masses, and the masses don't demand much character in polititicians. Don't ask me why, that's just the way it works.
In computing right now, the masses demand mediocrity. They want pretty icons and widgets to click on, they want a desktop where they can stick their daughter's picutre, and a place to store icons for programs they run, because they don't know how to run them otherwise. To them, a file isn't a file... A file is a picture of a sheet of paper, overlaid with a stylized "W", that says, "Letter to Mom.doc" beneath the picture. Have you noticed how there are no more directories in Windows, and there never were in the Mac OS? There are only "folders", because nobody puts sheets of paper in a directory, they stick the paper in a folder.
In truth, directory is more accurate, because that's what it is--a directory of objects that are linked by whatever attribute the user decided to link them with. A directory isn't a special object, just a regular object containing the names of other objects. But people don't care; they want it to look like the office they've worked in for the past ten years.
When people begin introducing 3D file and window managers, users will latch onto them, because it is all that much more like an office, rather than a computer. People don't want to use computers--they want an extra room to work in. That doesn't mean that's the appropriate choice, it's just the mediocre choice made by the masses. And commercial organizations are here to appeal to the masses.
Many argue that the interface to a computer must become transparent. I fully agree--I should use my computer not with the skill I've developed throughout the years, but with an intrinsic understanding that comes with a near-perfect interface. That is when people no longer separate a computer from everyday life--when they are intrinsic.
People mistakenly associate a more office-like interface with transparency. That is not the case. There is always the glaring fact that this office, no matter how carefully designed, is digital, and therefore not a perfect replica. And while people may not realize it, that is the problem that keeps interfaces from becoming transparent. Interfaces are bad enough know that people are blatantly aware of the problems of computers today. But as time progress, and the workings are hidden from people, they will stop realizing why they feel the computer has a problem, but the problem will not go away. At a subconscious level, a user will be thinking, "It looks like an office... It really does... And yet, it's not quite the same."
Consider my example of a steering wheel in a car. It was totally unfamiliar when introduced. "What is this? I'm supposed to control this thing with that... circle?!?" Despite this, even babies understand how the steering wheel controls the care. It is based on logic that is built into our brains. A parent need only sit his three-year old in front of a video game, say, "Turn the wheel this way, and the car goes this way. Turn it the other way, and the car goes the other way." With no further explanation, the child has a full understanding of how to control the automobile. That is how intrinsic our understanding of a steering wheel is. (Not to say the three-year old is capable of actually controlling the car, but he understands.)
We need something like this to happen to computing. Something that lies very close to our intrinsic knowledge of raw data. Unfortunately, I'm not a psychologist, nor am I a GUI specialist. All I can say is there is something better out there, but I don't know what it is. And that it can't come today... We're still spending too much time in the real world to step away from it in the digital world.
But there is change for the better. I used to be a Windows user, and as such, I thought that the desktop-folder-icon GUI was the only way I could operate (nevermind the fact that I grew up in the DOS era). When switching to Linux, I first used KDE, and then GNOME. These most closely approximated the metaphors I was searching for. Later, I switched to WindowMaker for memory reasons (it bothers me to occupy 30M of RAM to display a panel in GNOME). WindowMaker was radically different, in that there was no real desktop, only a fixed area to hold program icons. Furthermore, I got rid of GMC, so I didn't have a file manager that built on my metaphors.
I slowly adjusted, and eventually switched to Enlightenment for theming and window handling features that WindowMaker doesn't have. This took away my all my icons. I've adjusted completely, and now mostly spend my time typing in an rxvt session. I use the enlightenment menu, but only to launch Mozilla and rxvt. While confusing to outsiders, I feel much more productive, and free... I don't treat files as little sheets of paper, I don't treat directories as folders that contain paper. Files have become abstract objects with certain attributes, and directories have simply become lists of files. I no longer rely on metaphors, only the names "file" and "directory", because I don't have better names.
The result? I don't sit there at the computer thinking (subconsciously or otherwise) that something is wrong with the interface. The computer interface has gone from external to intrinsic, based on my skill level. Although too complex for the average user, rxvt and Enlightenment have made my data its own object, not some bad copy of the real world.
It is this attitude that makes people think of me as some wacko computer geek who doesn't use Windows ME (how could that be?!?), but I am the one who uses a computer without hitches. I am not bound by some other guy's idea of how things should behave. I may curse when my software is buggy, but I never say that the computer is ass-backwards. (That is a common complaint of Windows: "Who the hell thought that should do this? It should do THIS!") Although I hate to say it this way, I am at harmony with my computer.
...and file managers have always, and will always, make lousy subjects in 3-space. A file manager relies on text to convey information, namely file names and attributes. This is intrinsic to the functioning of operating systems and file systems.
However, text is a two dimensional object--lines on paper, paint on a wall, or the facade of metal boxes that contain neon lights in them. You can't convey textual information in three dimensions, simply because there are many angles where your text will look like "|" or be otherwise illegible.
Nobody has yet figured out a viable way to handle electronic data other than by giving it a name and attributes. It will probably be a long time before we can manage data without text.
Until then, it pointless to display files in 3-space. Aside from the text rendering problems, likening unordered, unfamiliar electronic bits to objects we deal with every day, like boxes and pillars, is foolish. What possible advantage can one gain by viewing files not as a list of words, but as boxes in a room?
Don't get me wrong, the concept is cool to play with, but it is completely wrong for a computer user interface. We don't need more metaphors for data. We have enough in file, desktop, window, folder, directory, and countless others. Adding box, room, pillar to the mix doesn't do any good.
For now, the concept of file and directory is sufficiently abstract for data manipulation--when the file is perceived as a cluster of data belonging to an object with a name and set of attributes, it is easy to deal with data. Then you group these objects according to function, making a directory. So far, these are only names. But to make files look and behave like boxes, or pillars, is to set in stone a metaphor that is no good.
It will be a long time before we handle data on its own terms. As someone once explained, the automobile was originally controlled by a series of ropes that immitated a horse's reigns. It took a while to develop the unique (yet somehow appropriate) steering wheel. Until we do the same for electronic data, we should avoid casting it into more inappropriate types.
Someday people will look back and marvel at files and directories.
Well, as it were, there is even a statically linked version of Opera, so I don't need to keep Qt around. In truth, I've kept Qt 2.1.1 on my system since trying (and quickly deleting) KDE2. That was just my old reason.
Actually, I tried the statically linked version once, and it kept segfaulting. I thought I'd download the dynamically linked version today, and it was nice, but it's only a 30-day trial.
I have a motto that would make RMS roll over in his grave, if the bastard would crawl into one: "Never pay for software, if it is possible to get it free from the other guy." That's right, I'm just cheap, not idealogically minded when it comes to software.
The idea of actually paying for a browser has put a bad taste in my mouth ever since Netscape and IE became free for Windows users. I downloaded the latest Mozilla build, and it's not so bad--except it doesn't have any MIME types preconfigured. I think I'll stick to that. It's cheap, available, and works ad infinitum.
Amazing how one gets used to Netscape's lousy page rendering in Unix--I think Gecko makes the pages look like crap, since they now remind me of Windows. Oh well. At least my fonts aren't too small to read.
Well I'll give Netscape a try, since it's supposedly non-beta code. I won't go near Mozilla, though, and if Netscape sucks, I'll just stick with Netscape 4.76.
In my experience, Mozilla has been slow (the actual program, not the rendering), and crashes a lot. So have the Netscape preview releases.
What we really need in Linux is a good, stable browser which is light, fully standards compliant, and doesn't look bad. The only things I've found are Galeon and Opera, but Galeon is too new, Opera is beta quality (and it depeneds on Qt--I don't want to keep Qt around for just one program).
Well here I go--I'm going to try Netscape 6. Actually, although no less buggy (and sometimes more so) on the Windows platform, Intenet Explorer is a superior browser to Netscape Navigator. If nothing else, it would be nice if somebody ported IE to Linux.
I don't know about you, but I still prefer the feel of actual keys. It will take a LOT of adjustment to bound on a flat mat, which provides no feedback at all.
And that's the real problem, feedback. Suddenly, you can't type without looking at the screen, because you can't be certain if you hit the key. Now hunt-and-peck typers will double their time typing, since now they have to look at the screen after every peck.
The same thing happened when HP introduced the 49G graphic calculator, with rubberized keys that have no tactile feedback. While I think it's a great calculator, they really blew it by cheapening the keyboard. The old keyboards had substance--you knew when you hit the keys, even if you weren't paying attention. Now, when I use the 49G, I have to double-check everything I enter.
But not only the uncertainty of hitting keys, there's something deeper that comes along with getting no feedback. I can't pinpoint it, but things just feel wrong when you can't feel the keys going down.
I'm sure some people might like this. I can't actually see the keyboard, because of the Slashdot effect, but I would imagine it's flexible, and if not, it should be. If it isn't flexible, there's no point in using it. The flexibility might appeal to travelers--roll up a full-sized keyboard for your laptop, and jam it in a suitcase.
I really love my keyboard, a six-year-old job that came with a Compaq Presario CDS 526 (that's one of those all-in-one models). No Windows keys, it's not an "internet" keyboard (what the hell is that anyway?), nothing cheesed up. Just 101 keys, using capacitive (or inductive) key detection, and little rubber cups under the keys, to give them resistance that results in a little (barely detectable) "pop" when the key finally gives up all resistance and goes down. It just feels good. And you know it's a quality product (can we say that about Compaq anymore?), since it's spent 4+ years in service, and 2 years in a musty basement, and it still functions perfectly.
Sometimes I'd like a real tactile keyboard, the ones that click, but I don't know where to find those anymore. I actually have one in my basement, but many years ago I spilled a plastic bonding agent on the keys, and while the board still functions, the keys are all grimy.
Flat panel displays, DVD, gigabit ethernet--those are the real advances in computing. Contrary to the poster, I feel that keyboards are great--if they're older, when quality meant something. Making them keyless just estranges things even more.
Yeah, I guess OS/2 is the poor little operating system that everyone forgot.
Although it could be otherwise, I would imagine that, with Microsoft being a small, insignificant company at the time, and IBM being a giant, Microsoft probably did most of the coding for OS/2, which means they probably named the files as well. All the marketing stuff was probably left to IBM, and DLLs have nothing to do with marketing.
Even if IBM decided they should be called DLLs, if Microsoft was the first to code them, then they invented them.
But we'll never actually be sure if what Gates said is true. My whole argument is that it is much more likely to be true than people would immediately think, since they equate "DLL" with "dynamic linking". For all I know, he's pulling a Clinton and lying through his teeth.
To upgrade your Windows kernel, you need to reboot and run the upgrade from a CD, and then reboot after the upgrade to restart the operating system. Also, a Windows kernel upgrade wipes out the old one, so if something goes wrong, you've got real problems.
On Linux, you can rebuild your kernel without rebooting, and then reboot to reload the kernel. This saves one reboot, and a lot of downtime, if you are running mission-critical services (of course, I'm not, but that's beside the point). Also, I keep multiple copies of working kernels, so that if anything were to ever go wrong during a build (or otherwise), I can load a previous kernel.
If you really want to save yourself from rebooting, I imagine you could use the HURD, but that's a piece of shit anyway.
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Look, sorry about all the flames, I just got a little heated in defending my choice of operating systems.
I've not used UNIX systems all my life. In fact, most of my computing life has been spent in the Windows95 and earlier Microsoft world. It's not that I "realize there is a better way," but that the better way, in terms of stability and configurability, happens to be Linux.
I had no trouble downloading slackware from ftp.slackware.com. I got Redhat from the biggest mirror I saw, valinux.com. Debian came from ftp.debian.org. I had no troubles.
Paying a UNIX administrator does not count as software cost, because you'd be paying a Windows admin just the same. This common cost can be eliminated in the comparison.
The vast majority of the linux community is helpful. It is those assholes who spit at you, that you remember, and hold against the entire group. They are NOT the majority.
I'm not a professional programmer, nor am I a good programmer. I wouldn't dream of modifying anything big or important. And yet, the openness of software is still convenient for me.
If software is meant to interact with other software, the maintainer has most likely tested it with that other software. But, of course, my window manager isn't tested to work with BIND 9, because the two programs don't interact. Open software is tested in the environment it was meant to behave in. Furthermore, it is tested by everybody who downloads it. Word does get around about bad software.
I'm not going to argue that putting UNIX on the average user's desktop won't make support more expensive. UNIX isn't for the average computer user, since the average computer user is an idiot, and his IQ goes down the more computers are sold. But UNIX in an office, serving files, printers, and the like, makes a better, cheaper alternative to Windows. Particularly a Free UNIX, like linux.
You don't think install difficulties arise in commercial platforms? The term "DLL Hell" wasn't invented for nothing, you know. Many programs interact poorly with others who use different versions of the same libraries. Don't forget the "System Requirements" on the sides of commercial software packages, which list other software that must be present for the application to run. At least open software gives the skilled a chance to fix things. And editing makefiles is a good thing; it allows me to move libraries and such where I want them. I have seen far too many windows apps that won't install because libraries or other programs aren't in a default location.
The rest of your arguments are gui-vs.-command-line arguments. This is only a matter of preference. As you left the UNIX world for Windows, you are undoubtedly biased against the old command-line setups that UNIX offers. As I have left the Windows world for Linux, I am obviously biased in the opposite direction. We can't win, because it's all an opinion from this point on. But I will say this: I prefer a bash shell because touch-typing is more efficient than hunting and clicking on little buttons. You can type faster than you can place a little black arrow on a tiny gray button using a pointing device.
A new year calls for a new signature.
Jesus H. Christ, you must be a fucking idiot, to post something like this without first looking into it. Let's see why you're wrong.
Of course, the first reason, is that "free" as applied to so-called "Free Software" has nothing to do with monetary cost, but the freedom to modify and redistribute code. Read the GPL if you like. It is perfectly acceptable to charge for Free Software, you simply need to provide source code on demand, and not restrict redistribution of modified source and binaries. If I'm not mistaken, I could even download the entire Redhat distribution, burn my own discs, and sell them on the street corner for $20 a piece.
Second, I've been through 3 linux distributions, and not paid a penny for any of them. Save for mathematica, a leftover from my Windows days, there is not a program on my machine that I've paid for, and everything is perfectly legal. On a cable modem, I downloaded the Redhat and Slackware current ISO images in just about 6 hours each. This was not wasted time, though, since I left my computer downloading the images while I attended classes, and came back to find them waiting for me.
Debian, on the other hand, did not even require an ISO image. I downloaded six floppy images (about ten minutes), rebooted, started the installation, and let it download basic packages necessary. The installation probably cost me an extra hour over what it would have taken with a premade CD, but that is hardly 10, as you suggest.
Furthermore, not once have I had to restart a download, and none of the servers have choked. Everything was limited only by the speed of my cable modem.
As far as TCO, a term I'm sure Microsoft has perverted far beyond comprehension, your statements are simply not true. You must consider the TCO when you are running Linux (or some other Free UNIX) in the hands of an experienced administrator. Microsoft, and you, expect to calculate TCO from a vantage point of a skilled Windows administrator. They include training and general "figuring-out-time" in the cost of setting up a Linux system. What about training and "figuring-out-time" for Microsoft systems? If you insist that the Linux admin knows nothing about Linux from the start, you must assume the same about the Microsoft admin. But if you assume your admins are skilled in UNIX, installing Linux is trivial. (I should hope any company would be cautious switching operating systems when their administrators don't know about the new OS.) No matter what UNIX-like operating system an admin comes from, it is trivial to become acquainted with another one.
Furthermore, in the hands of a skilled admin, installing software in Linux is trivial. Of course, most Free software is also free monetarily, which cuts the initial cost to 0. I never need to memorize manuals when installing software under Linux. I don't know why you expect this is necessary. The vast majority of software installation breaks down to little more than "./configure; make; make install", and often, the ./configure part is not necessary. Don't forget about package systems, either. RPMs and debs make software installation trivial, especially with a package management utility like apt. Software installation with apt is no more difficult than "apt-get install <pkgname>", which automatically downloads packages, satisfies dependencies, sets up a default configuration, and drops you back at a shell.
Except for select few programs, installing software under Linux is easy enough for a monkey like you to figure out. This is also the case with Windows software.
I will admit I have had to hack some makefiles in my day, but any experienced UNIX admin will have no trouble doing that. Plus, the advantage of being able to modify code far outweighs any benefit (I consider it a drawback) of a nice, "keep-clicking-next" install interface. There is real control in UNIX software installation, and little added difficulty.
We haven't even considered support costs. Microsoft Windows, a closed system, often has problems which are unsolvable by anybody but Microsoft. This means you must call them, and wait on the phone, to talk to somebody who probably doesn't know what he's doing anyway. Often times, you must repeatedly call, talking to a differnt person each time. To top it off, Microsoft charges for support calls after you've exceeded a certain number of calls. This gets expensive.
An open system, like Linux, is much cheaper to troubleshoot. First, any good code warrior should be able to debug and fix problems that crop up. And if you're not a code warrior? Just get an IRC client, find some Linux-related channel, and look for someone who is. It's a system that doesn't work perfectly, but I've found it to be more effective than calling some so-called corporate help desk.
Attitudes are important in troubleshooting, too. Linux, being an open system, harbors a community phenomenon that Microsoft Windows just can't sustain. People who use linux feel like part of a tightly-nit, minority group, and are therefore much more willing to help, without expecting something in return.
I'd be willing to guess that your Linux experience stems from the single Redhat or Mandrake Linux CD you bought at Best Buy, tried to install, and failed. You clearly don't know what you're talking about, since all your complaints are invalid. From the looks of it, you got frustrated with your inability to figure out Linux, and so turned to the Microsoft website to backup your intuition that Linux is some impossible-to-use operating system that takes a genius of 180+ IQ to figure out.
You were right about it not being about money, though. Still, Linux can be totally monetarily free, and cheaper in man-hours than any Microsoft or Apple product.
A new year calls for a new signature.
Funny, I thought he was focusing his creative efforts on Linux development. My God, even in the post itself, he says, "Linux without Unix."
What he's doing is making a new nest for Linux to rest in. I don't see why you have a problem with that. If you don't like FullPliant, don't use it. But don't knock it, and especially don't knock it when you don't know what you're saying.
A new year calls for a new signature.
Linux and BeOS are made for different sorts of people. BeOS is to Unix (Linux in particular) what MacOS is to Windows, in terms of simplicity of interface. We won't get into superiority arguments between Windows and MacOS users.
BeOS does not follow standards that are close to anything in the Unix world. In fact, now that I think about it, MacOS X seems to be a lot like BeOS. People who use Linux want a free, light Unix to use on their hardware. People who use BeOS want MacOS with bash.
I don't think GPL'ing BeOS will change that. For most people, the attraction with BeOS is that it is so foreign... I have been quite curious about it. However, there is a cost-free version available for download, and it will even install itself in spare partitions if you please. Freedom to modify the code will improve userbase very little.
Of course, I'm talking only about workstations and servers here. Maybe it turns out that BeOS is remarkably scalable, and fits well in the embedded world. This will of course change the prospects of Linux making it into embedded electronics.
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It's absolutely terrible that the Mir would go unfunded. It almost burned down when we had Americans up there, it's becoming overrun by fungus, we hear American reports of a horrible musty smell throughout the station.
It's so far beyond its expected service life, it isn't even funny. While once a testament to human ingenuity and engineering skills, it is now an example of pointless human nostalgia which is being carried out at dangerous levels. Certainly it is historic equipment. But the place for admiration is not where its inhabitants will die if they make a minor mistake, it is in a museum.
Of course, if put on display, it should be decontaminated and aired out.
As an American citizen, my opinion of the Russion space station means absolutely nothing. However, I do not think that Americans should be pushing to hold missions on that station. I do not want American lives put in danger, and as far as I'm concerned, the Mir is ready to come hurtling down.
Thank you.
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The article spends a lot of effort talking about maintainability. However, the Linux kernel source is broken into drivers, so you only need to modify the driver thatis important. I don't see the Hurd as being any different. You just call them "servers" instead of "drivers", and when you're done modifying, the servers are built separately. But that's not the issue.
So if that's all the Hurd has, it's a bunch of bunk. The only truly appealing feature of the Hurd is the ability to plug in new kernels without rebooting. But for that one feature, I'm going to wait decades? Please.
I'd like to ask RMS to either turn out the Hurd very soon, or scrap it. I'm tired of hearing about all it's promise and seeing it's barely able to walk on its own. I think this has become some ego trip for RMS, and that's not what we need. Developer effort could be better spent on Linux, or whatever the next generation kernel is.
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First, I'm beginning to get into TeX. I don't know what LaTeX offers that plain old TeX doesn't, or vice versa, but I feel I can discuss this with a bit of intelligence.
One of the biggest barriers to web-standardom is the complexity of the formatting language. I know HTML (I'm quite proficient in it--who isn't?), and I'm beginning to see TeX. TeX has more commands, and many of them are far less intuitive than HTML tags (<bold> is pretty obvious). Most webmasters, particularly busy commercial ones, won't want to take the time to learn TeX. Therefore, while it may be a published standard, it will never be the de facto standard.
The second problem is target applications. TeX is a formatting system. It gives the user fine-grained control of textual layout and appearance. HTML is a classification system. It gives the user the ability to group text according to form and function.
HTML assumes (correctly) that the user knows nothing about how documents appear at the viewing end. What looks excellent on letter-sized paper, for example, looks terrible on A4-sized paper--words run off the page, margins are too small, lines are pressed together. All HTML does is tell the viewer how text should be classified--letting the viewer decide how to display those words. After all, nobody better understands how this information is being viewed than the viewer himself (itself).
TeX, on the other hand, assumes (correctly) that the user knows exactly how documents appear at the viewing end. If you know that you are printing to letter-sized paper, it is very easy to tune the placement and appearance of text on your page to produce an optimal layout--one that is aesthetically and functionally pleasing. The problem with the World Wide Web is that we aren't all viewing things on letter-sized paper. My Netscape window dimensions are 845x960 pixels; I can't believe anybody else has exactly that size window. Even if they did, it is unlikely that their window widgets (borders, titles) are the same, so the viewing area is different. I can make things look great in my window, but in anybody else's window, the same document would not look optimal.
This is precisely why TeX will never make it as a web standard. Nobody likes to scroll in a weird fashion to read documents, or have small text which can't be enlarged (or which screws up formatting if enlarged). TeX is only good when the document producer controls how the viewers are presented the data. And that is impossible on the World Wide Web.
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The US Supreme Court is not asking Florida for more information, and they have issued a final ruling. Read the decision yourself.
They didn't overturn the decision, that's true. They vacated it. What's the difference, you ask?
Overturning a judge is turning to him and saying, "You made the wrong decision. We're making the decision for you." The overturned judge gets no say in what's going on.
Vacating a decision, however, is turning to the judge (or in our case, the Florida Supreme Court) and saying, "You made the wrong decision. Make a new one that doesn't conflict with our opinion."
This is not a request for new information. This is not a "temporary" ruling pending further information. The US Supreme Court couldn't care less why the Floridians ruled the way they did.
What the Supreme Court said is that they don't understand why the Florida court made its decision, and that the decision is wrong. Therefore, the Florida Supreme Court must go back and correct its mistake.
That's the final ruling.
There are potential situations, however, where the Fla. Court makes a new decision which is inconsistent with the US Court ruling, whereby Bush or another party may take up the matter with the US Supreme Court. That isn't a reconsideration of the present opinion, though; that's a separate legal matter which deals with a court's noncompliance with the US Supreme Court order.
If you don't believe me, look at the bottom line of the ruling: "It is so ordered." If they were requesting more information, they wouldn't issue an order. The last line would be, "This decision is valid pending further information from the Florida Supreme Court."
Sheesh, get the damn news straight already.
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Sun thinks that Linux will be unusable because it will fragment. That's amazing, especially since they obviously didn't bother to look at their own history.
For 30 years, Unix has been the frontrunner in enterprise and network-related computing. The only real alternative is Windows, and no Windows product holds a candle to a mature Unix.
What does this have to do with the fragmentation of Linux? Quite simple, really. Take a look at Sun's own Unix product, Solaris. Solaris is not just repackaged AT&T Unix. It's a completely different product. As is BSDi, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, SysV Unix, and many others. All of these are fragmented, mostly-incompatible Unices. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, Solaris is based on SysV.
So now you see that Sun's own brainchild, perhaps their software nest egg, is a fragmented spin-off of Ritchie's original Unix from the 70s. I can't believe they would think that Linux will become unusable due to incompatibilities, when Solaris, as I'm sure they'll swear, is perfectly usable despite all the incompatibilities in the various Unices.
Don't get me wrong--Linux isn't our Saviour. We most likely won't be doing miraculous things with it, and it will probably fade into obscurity as new operating systems come into being. However, I refuse to believe that a fate which every Unix escaped is going to fall upon Linux.
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You mean like the root nameservers? What are there, 12 nowadays? Hmm...
We all seem to forget that the whole commercial internet would come to a screeching halt if those twelve servers--including any backups that might be in place--all decided to crash at about the same time. Minimal chances, I suppose, but the number of root nameservers is a very tiny fraction of the number of hosts on the Internet.
Granted, the connectivity wouldn't be there, but I'm have no idea what the IP address for the Slashdot web server is, and I'm not going to look it up. If the nameservers went down tomorrow, I'd have connectivity to my school and my ISP, but that's about it. Most of the web would be absolutely useless to me.
Do we solve this by distributing DNS? I have no idea. I can't believe that distributed DNS works. This danger of putting all our Internet eggs into twelve root nameserver baskets may be a danger we just have to risk.
The only policy I would implement if I were ICANN has nothing to do with risk, but opening up TLDs to everybody. Why can't they sell TLDs like they sell subdomains now? I'd love to own the .commandant TLD. Plus you could be a lot more creative and natural in the naming of websites. For instance, you could go to staroffice.sun instead of sun.com/staroffice, or netscape.navigator to check the latest netscape browser.
That's my $0.02 about TLDs and root nameservers crashing.
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Remember when PNG was supposed to be The Next Big Thing (TM)? PNG was billed as the greatest image format for the Internet, since it was compact, high-quality, supported interlacing, and (I think) animation.
When was the last time you saw a PNG image? I've never seen them, except when I've made a few. The fact is, the image formats that are ingrained into people's sites and minds are GIF and JPEG. Nowadays, even digital cameras store images in JPEG. I remember when they used to have proprietary formats, like KDC on the Kodak DC40. That thing was $1000 when we got one, now you can get better cameras that store JPEGs for a couple hundred at most. Amazing.
Just as well, about DjVu. What kind of stupid name is that for a file format? How do you even pronounce it? I also fail to see the advantage of compressing foreground and background separately, but hey, I'm no imaging expert.
New image format? I'll believe it when I see it. Everywhere.
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Just so you know--Samba has nothing to do with DHCP. I don't see what you expect dhcpcd to do about that.
Domain names have little, if anything, to do with DHCP. The goal of DHCP is to automatically configure domain resolution (specifying name servers to use), routing (gateways and netmasks), and unique network identification (IP addresses). This does not depend on the domain you belong to. The fact is, Microsoft does not address this problem in their DHCP implementation, either. If you specify a domain you belong to, it is fixed, and you must specify name servers along with it. With dhcpcd, you can communicate with the outside world... That is all DHCP aims to do.
What are you talking about, IP changes? When do you expect your IP address to change? The dhcpcd program updates the IP address whenever it is run, and whenever a lease expires. I think this is the most you can ask for from any DHCP implementation on any platform. IP addresses should not change mid-lease. That's bad network configuration.
dhcpcd implements DHCP, not miracle-networking. It won't configure samba, it won't act as an FTP server, it won't do a lot of things. But as far as I'm concerned, dhcpcd implements DHCP as good as, or better than, any other program. What kind of hacking do you need to do to it?
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First of all, it would seem that you have some desire to run Linux, since you've tried it and are now complaining about your bad experience. Obviously, though, you don't desire it enough to invest some time in learning the issues you point out. Just as well; people have no business running software they can't (or won't) figure out. The only legitimate software gripes, I believe, are gripes against lacking features, not gripes against a user's inability to figure things out. After all, many people here have figured out Linux, so it's not that Linux is impossible to use, it's that you aren't good enough with it.
If NVidia would release chip specs to open source programmers, you would have Geforce2 support almost immediately. This isn't a problem with Linux, or XFree86, but with NVidia. They are scared that, by releasing specs, competitors will copy their chips. And yet, I've not heard of this happening to anybody else that releases chip specs.
Most configuration files are located in /etc, /usr/etc, or /usr/local/etc. For the most part, you can specify this location at compile-time. You might think the Windows registry is superior to this, but I disagree. The registry is an oversized, all-inclusive jumbled mess of things that often are not obvious. In /etc, however, the relevant config files typically are named after their programs, as in /etc/inetd.conf or /usr/local/etc/sshd_config.conf. If you like, you can do what I did, and just softlink /usr/local/etc to /etc, so that just about every config file is in /etc (I don't have a /usr/etc directory). The only exceptions on my system are Samba (installed with a prefix of /usr/local/samba) and Enlightenment (/usr/local/enlightenment). But, as you can see, that was my choice.
I'm no programmer. My most complex C programs are under 500 lines of code, implement no GUI, and generally don't do things that aren't related to iterative numerical analysis. In other words, I'm not going to produce the next great windowing system in this lifetime. However, I have compiled most of the high-level programs on my system. If you'd just read the damn documentation, if wouldn't be frightening. Don't come whining to other people without doing your research first.
About DNS and gateways; that's called DHCP. Linux has DHCP support, so you don't need to enter that information manually. Check out dhcpcd or pump. Both are good DHCP clients. If you want a static IP, you need to enter that information, both in Windows and Linux.
Why would you want things to jump out at you? That's the reason so many people wind up reinstalling Windows so many times. With system-critical configuration options at any idiot's control, Windows has got to be the most often screwed-up operating system. Linux does not exactly make configuration options hidden, but it does implement a dual-control: access and intelligence. It takes some understanding of your system to make sense of config files and modify your system, and there are access controls to prevent anyone but root from changing them.
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GNOME and KDE are both non-profit organizations, whether they're registered that way or not.
The purpose of KDE or GNOME is NOT to make money. In fact, they don't make money. They don't sell you anything. I challenge you to find even a shred of text that mentions anything remotely close to money.
Maybe it is that they solicit donations. But the links on the GNOME desktop are links to documentation, bug lists, and the main GNOME page. These are useful links to most people; they contain information about using GNOME, information on bugs, new releases of GNOME, and a listing of software created to run in GNOME. The links aren't there to make money, or to bring in donations. They are useful links.
You can tell when a link is there to make money, and when it's supposed to be useful... Last I checked, the default Netscape/IE start pages are commercial pieces of crap that offer more information you need, in a format designed to appeal to anybody but you, that serve no conceivable purpose in the electronic universe.
GNOME pages satisfy none of these conditions.
Regarding KDE, the last time I compiled v2.0, it only placed one link to a KDE site on my desktop, which is a link to the main page. Like the GNOME site, this page contains bug and release info, and documentation.
My problem with Netscape is not that they've cheesed up a fair browser to make a quick buck, but that they've turned out what is obviously untested code. The browser can't even display SSL pages without crashing. If you look in the about dialog, NS6 is really just Mozilla M18 with AOL Instant Messenger, and a splash screen on startup. Coming from a reputable company like Netscape, you would expect a well-tested browser that wasn't thrown together so hastily. At least they could have but some time into the widgets, to make them display faster--while not as bad as M12 and the like, these still work a lot slower than the old Motif ones did. They should use Qt, GTK, or stick with Motif.
Technically, I guess Netscape lost their respectablility when AOL took the reigns. In a software company that appeals to the masses, there is a tendency to produce shit for products. Still, there is no guarantee that Netscape would not have gone south without AOL... But this didn't help any.
Do you see the difference between Microsoft and AOL? Microsoft, at least up until pre-Whistler, put actual time into interface development, made their products look suitable for business use. AOL, however, stuffs bullshit down your throat to keep people happy who can barely power on their PC. Microsoft probably started out trying to do great things, and then became popular and so got sidetracked. AOL, however, started out hoping to grab the masses.
In my opinion, that makes Microsoft more venerable than AOL as a corporation.
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I would have to disagree when you say that text is the most compressed, most precise form of communication. What about speech?
After all, what is text but transcribed speech? We learned to talk before we learned to write (both as individuals, and as a species), because speech is the more immediately necessary, easier and convenient form of communication. When I write this, it's not because writing is superior to speaking, but because you are too far away to talk to. In fact, I don't know about anybody else, but when I write things like this, I'm actually saying it in my head. If there are parts to revise, I say them aloud--because humans naturally communicate verbally. Writing is an imposed form of communication. Revision of writing, then, is processed by saying it to ourselves.
Even babies communicate by sound. When they get hungry, they cry. When they are wet, they cry. When they want comfort, they cry. They don't scribble on a piece of paper!
The problem with writing is threefold:
Writing is useful only when it is desirable to repeat the same speech many times, at many different times, to many different people. It is also useful when the speaker is too far away from the listener, or needs to deliver a message at any time, but cannot wait for a listener to meet him; hence we have transcripts, letters (postal) and signs.
It is because of this, then, that I claim that speech, not text, is the most compresssed, precise form of communication. It is the most natural, and most immediate.
However, in the world of computers, there is little speech capability, and computers are often used to record data with the intention of producing and retaining multiple copies. Therefore, speech is useless. Here text makes the most sense.
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This is a great idea. You and I should go into business, "Sferics's and Commandant's E-Z Geek Workout". We could make millions! Rather than atrophy, computer users can BUILD muscle mass in only days!
To perfect this, though, we'd need to develop a pair of force-feedback VR sleeves, which make you move your entire arm to move the files. What to you think, the equivalent of 2 pounds per 50kb? Most people don't use files larger than a few megabytes, so a two megabyte file would weigh 80 lbs. Good deal! The problem is, a file like the compressed Mozilla tarball would weigh about 800 lbs! You'd need friends to help you move that.
To take this further, what about untarring/ungzipping files? You could open the box and manually remove each component!
We could "fragilize" the files, too, so that if you handled them without much care, they would become corrupt.
NB: Quick calculations show that my MP3 directory would weigh 56000 pounds. Damn!
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You make excellent points, plus you call an apartment a "flat" (I just had to ring you for that). However, I disagree with the extremity of your views.
I believe that a 3d file manager is a lousy thing simply because it is trying to convey two-dimensional text.
In the real world, though, people frequently use all three dimensions to organize objects. I'll give you a few examples:
Suppose you are sorting papers to be passed out to various groups of people. You lay them on your desk, and you organize them as follows:
On my own desk, I have various objects--a bookshelf stereo, a tape deck, a computer, a printer, a hub, a phone, and papers (including books). I have established the following organization:
Since I keep a fair amount of books, I do in fact use three dimensions when placing them on bookshelves. First, they are ordered horizontally, roughly according to subject matter. Second, they are ordered vertically, with the most frequently used books in the center of the bookshelf, where I don't have to reach high up or down low to grab them. Finally, since bookshelf space is finite, and book-buying potential is less finite, I stack new books in front of old books when there is no more room on the shelf. These I keep horizontal, so I can still read the titles of the books behind them.
I do not think I am in the minority when organizing things in this fashion. We try to make the most of any space when organizing, and three dimensions allow us to keep things more logcal than we can in two dimensions.
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Of course we can end up with something out of a bad movie. The phenomenon that would allow this is the same one that allows most politicians to be so dirty--the phenomenon of popular choice.
Why do you think Windows is mediocre at best? Because the public, on the whole, doesn't demand much. Those who demand more power, go to Unix. Those who demand simplicity, go to Mac OS. Microsoft is here to cater to the masses.
Similarly, polititians cater to the masses, and the masses don't demand much character in polititicians. Don't ask me why, that's just the way it works.
In computing right now, the masses demand mediocrity. They want pretty icons and widgets to click on, they want a desktop where they can stick their daughter's picutre, and a place to store icons for programs they run, because they don't know how to run them otherwise. To them, a file isn't a file... A file is a picture of a sheet of paper, overlaid with a stylized "W", that says, "Letter to Mom.doc" beneath the picture. Have you noticed how there are no more directories in Windows, and there never were in the Mac OS? There are only "folders", because nobody puts sheets of paper in a directory, they stick the paper in a folder.
In truth, directory is more accurate, because that's what it is--a directory of objects that are linked by whatever attribute the user decided to link them with. A directory isn't a special object, just a regular object containing the names of other objects. But people don't care; they want it to look like the office they've worked in for the past ten years.
When people begin introducing 3D file and window managers, users will latch onto them, because it is all that much more like an office, rather than a computer. People don't want to use computers--they want an extra room to work in. That doesn't mean that's the appropriate choice, it's just the mediocre choice made by the masses. And commercial organizations are here to appeal to the masses.
Many argue that the interface to a computer must become transparent. I fully agree--I should use my computer not with the skill I've developed throughout the years, but with an intrinsic understanding that comes with a near-perfect interface. That is when people no longer separate a computer from everyday life--when they are intrinsic.
People mistakenly associate a more office-like interface with transparency. That is not the case. There is always the glaring fact that this office, no matter how carefully designed, is digital, and therefore not a perfect replica. And while people may not realize it, that is the problem that keeps interfaces from becoming transparent. Interfaces are bad enough know that people are blatantly aware of the problems of computers today. But as time progress, and the workings are hidden from people, they will stop realizing why they feel the computer has a problem, but the problem will not go away. At a subconscious level, a user will be thinking, "It looks like an office... It really does... And yet, it's not quite the same."
Consider my example of a steering wheel in a car. It was totally unfamiliar when introduced. "What is this? I'm supposed to control this thing with that... circle?!?" Despite this, even babies understand how the steering wheel controls the care. It is based on logic that is built into our brains. A parent need only sit his three-year old in front of a video game, say, "Turn the wheel this way, and the car goes this way. Turn it the other way, and the car goes the other way." With no further explanation, the child has a full understanding of how to control the automobile. That is how intrinsic our understanding of a steering wheel is. (Not to say the three-year old is capable of actually controlling the car, but he understands.)
We need something like this to happen to computing. Something that lies very close to our intrinsic knowledge of raw data. Unfortunately, I'm not a psychologist, nor am I a GUI specialist. All I can say is there is something better out there, but I don't know what it is. And that it can't come today... We're still spending too much time in the real world to step away from it in the digital world.
But there is change for the better. I used to be a Windows user, and as such, I thought that the desktop-folder-icon GUI was the only way I could operate (nevermind the fact that I grew up in the DOS era). When switching to Linux, I first used KDE, and then GNOME. These most closely approximated the metaphors I was searching for. Later, I switched to WindowMaker for memory reasons (it bothers me to occupy 30M of RAM to display a panel in GNOME). WindowMaker was radically different, in that there was no real desktop, only a fixed area to hold program icons. Furthermore, I got rid of GMC, so I didn't have a file manager that built on my metaphors.
I slowly adjusted, and eventually switched to Enlightenment for theming and window handling features that WindowMaker doesn't have. This took away my all my icons. I've adjusted completely, and now mostly spend my time typing in an rxvt session. I use the enlightenment menu, but only to launch Mozilla and rxvt. While confusing to outsiders, I feel much more productive, and free... I don't treat files as little sheets of paper, I don't treat directories as folders that contain paper. Files have become abstract objects with certain attributes, and directories have simply become lists of files. I no longer rely on metaphors, only the names "file" and "directory", because I don't have better names.
The result? I don't sit there at the computer thinking (subconsciously or otherwise) that something is wrong with the interface. The computer interface has gone from external to intrinsic, based on my skill level. Although too complex for the average user, rxvt and Enlightenment have made my data its own object, not some bad copy of the real world.
It is this attitude that makes people think of me as some wacko computer geek who doesn't use Windows ME (how could that be?!?), but I am the one who uses a computer without hitches. I am not bound by some other guy's idea of how things should behave. I may curse when my software is buggy, but I never say that the computer is ass-backwards. (That is a common complaint of Windows: "Who the hell thought that should do this? It should do THIS!") Although I hate to say it this way, I am at harmony with my computer.
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...and file managers have always, and will always, make lousy subjects in 3-space. A file manager relies on text to convey information, namely file names and attributes. This is intrinsic to the functioning of operating systems and file systems.
However, text is a two dimensional object--lines on paper, paint on a wall, or the facade of metal boxes that contain neon lights in them. You can't convey textual information in three dimensions, simply because there are many angles where your text will look like "|" or be otherwise illegible.
Nobody has yet figured out a viable way to handle electronic data other than by giving it a name and attributes. It will probably be a long time before we can manage data without text.
Until then, it pointless to display files in 3-space. Aside from the text rendering problems, likening unordered, unfamiliar electronic bits to objects we deal with every day, like boxes and pillars, is foolish. What possible advantage can one gain by viewing files not as a list of words, but as boxes in a room?
Don't get me wrong, the concept is cool to play with, but it is completely wrong for a computer user interface. We don't need more metaphors for data. We have enough in file, desktop, window, folder, directory, and countless others. Adding box, room, pillar to the mix doesn't do any good.
For now, the concept of file and directory is sufficiently abstract for data manipulation--when the file is perceived as a cluster of data belonging to an object with a name and set of attributes, it is easy to deal with data. Then you group these objects according to function, making a directory. So far, these are only names. But to make files look and behave like boxes, or pillars, is to set in stone a metaphor that is no good.
It will be a long time before we handle data on its own terms. As someone once explained, the automobile was originally controlled by a series of ropes that immitated a horse's reigns. It took a while to develop the unique (yet somehow appropriate) steering wheel. Until we do the same for electronic data, we should avoid casting it into more inappropriate types.
Someday people will look back and marvel at files and directories.
But not today.
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Well, as it were, there is even a statically linked version of Opera, so I don't need to keep Qt around. In truth, I've kept Qt 2.1.1 on my system since trying (and quickly deleting) KDE2. That was just my old reason.
Actually, I tried the statically linked version once, and it kept segfaulting. I thought I'd download the dynamically linked version today, and it was nice, but it's only a 30-day trial.
I have a motto that would make RMS roll over in his grave, if the bastard would crawl into one: "Never pay for software, if it is possible to get it free from the other guy." That's right, I'm just cheap, not idealogically minded when it comes to software.
The idea of actually paying for a browser has put a bad taste in my mouth ever since Netscape and IE became free for Windows users. I downloaded the latest Mozilla build, and it's not so bad--except it doesn't have any MIME types preconfigured. I think I'll stick to that. It's cheap, available, and works ad infinitum.
Amazing how one gets used to Netscape's lousy page rendering in Unix--I think Gecko makes the pages look like crap, since they now remind me of Windows. Oh well. At least my fonts aren't too small to read.
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Well I'll give Netscape a try, since it's supposedly non-beta code. I won't go near Mozilla, though, and if Netscape sucks, I'll just stick with Netscape 4.76.
In my experience, Mozilla has been slow (the actual program, not the rendering), and crashes a lot. So have the Netscape preview releases.
What we really need in Linux is a good, stable browser which is light, fully standards compliant, and doesn't look bad. The only things I've found are Galeon and Opera, but Galeon is too new, Opera is beta quality (and it depeneds on Qt--I don't want to keep Qt around for just one program).
Well here I go--I'm going to try Netscape 6. Actually, although no less buggy (and sometimes more so) on the Windows platform, Intenet Explorer is a superior browser to Netscape Navigator. If nothing else, it would be nice if somebody ported IE to Linux.
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I don't know about you, but I still prefer the feel of actual keys. It will take a LOT of adjustment to bound on a flat mat, which provides no feedback at all.
And that's the real problem, feedback. Suddenly, you can't type without looking at the screen, because you can't be certain if you hit the key. Now hunt-and-peck typers will double their time typing, since now they have to look at the screen after every peck.
The same thing happened when HP introduced the 49G graphic calculator, with rubberized keys that have no tactile feedback. While I think it's a great calculator, they really blew it by cheapening the keyboard. The old keyboards had substance--you knew when you hit the keys, even if you weren't paying attention. Now, when I use the 49G, I have to double-check everything I enter.
But not only the uncertainty of hitting keys, there's something deeper that comes along with getting no feedback. I can't pinpoint it, but things just feel wrong when you can't feel the keys going down.
I'm sure some people might like this. I can't actually see the keyboard, because of the Slashdot effect, but I would imagine it's flexible, and if not, it should be. If it isn't flexible, there's no point in using it. The flexibility might appeal to travelers--roll up a full-sized keyboard for your laptop, and jam it in a suitcase.
I really love my keyboard, a six-year-old job that came with a Compaq Presario CDS 526 (that's one of those all-in-one models). No Windows keys, it's not an "internet" keyboard (what the hell is that anyway?), nothing cheesed up. Just 101 keys, using capacitive (or inductive) key detection, and little rubber cups under the keys, to give them resistance that results in a little (barely detectable) "pop" when the key finally gives up all resistance and goes down. It just feels good. And you know it's a quality product (can we say that about Compaq anymore?), since it's spent 4+ years in service, and 2 years in a musty basement, and it still functions perfectly.
Sometimes I'd like a real tactile keyboard, the ones that click, but I don't know where to find those anymore. I actually have one in my basement, but many years ago I spilled a plastic bonding agent on the keys, and while the board still functions, the keys are all grimy.
Flat panel displays, DVD, gigabit ethernet--those are the real advances in computing. Contrary to the poster, I feel that keyboards are great--if they're older, when quality meant something. Making them keyless just estranges things even more.
Thank you.
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Yeah, I guess OS/2 is the poor little operating system that everyone forgot.
Although it could be otherwise, I would imagine that, with Microsoft being a small, insignificant company at the time, and IBM being a giant, Microsoft probably did most of the coding for OS/2, which means they probably named the files as well. All the marketing stuff was probably left to IBM, and DLLs have nothing to do with marketing.
Even if IBM decided they should be called DLLs, if Microsoft was the first to code them, then they invented them.
But we'll never actually be sure if what Gates said is true. My whole argument is that it is much more likely to be true than people would immediately think, since they equate "DLL" with "dynamic linking". For all I know, he's pulling a Clinton and lying through his teeth.
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I said upgrade my system without first rebooting.
To upgrade your Windows kernel, you need to reboot and run the upgrade from a CD, and then reboot after the upgrade to restart the operating system. Also, a Windows kernel upgrade wipes out the old one, so if something goes wrong, you've got real problems.
On Linux, you can rebuild your kernel without rebooting, and then reboot to reload the kernel. This saves one reboot, and a lot of downtime, if you are running mission-critical services (of course, I'm not, but that's beside the point). Also, I keep multiple copies of working kernels, so that if anything were to ever go wrong during a build (or otherwise), I can load a previous kernel.
If you really want to save yourself from rebooting, I imagine you could use the HURD, but that's a piece of shit anyway.
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