I can tell you have never installed a recent distro that is actually good. Sylpheed or Balsa all ask you the same wizard questions the first time you start them.
Besides, 99% of people don't know what to fill in to those "bare minimum" fields anyway.
I don't know where you get the idea that a clueless user should be able to install their own OS, configure their email, etc. You wouldn't replace the engine in your car and tweak the timing with no knowledge, why are computers any different? Computers are more complex machines than cars by far.
If we fix a lot of the "problems" with Linux -- for example, radically restructuring the security and filesystem models to be more Windows-like, migrating to non-PostScript-centric applications,
What out of his list would require these things? It seems the only thing you really addressed was X slowness, the rest was really pointless and not addressing what the original post was about.
Just click the sig, download the music, follow links to buy the CD. Probably 50% of what they have is electronica. I'm not affiliated in any way, I just like the site.
I think they are heard, and considered, where it matters. Slashdot was the first place I saw a big clamor for the "instant branching" that is proposed here.
Even if Cox or Linus isn't reading regularly, it helps ideas get mindshare with lots of smaller players, who can spin the debate threads on LKML toward one side or the other.
That doesn't mean Linus et al will agree, but his judgement in the past has usually been pretty good, which is a good thing, democracy is not a particularly good method of software engineering.
Technology has made basic sanitation easier though. Sure, it's not particularly new technology, but it wasn't around 100 years ago for the most part.
Technology has also made doing things the right way cheaper. There would be a lot more people living in substandard conditions if something like the PVC pipe was never invented, because the cost of indoor plumbing would be higher. That's just one example of many little ways that technology has gotten us to where we are today.
Another effect, more insidious, that you seem to be ignoring is that advanced knowledge of something gets rid of a lot of supersition and myths about the same. If we had never discovered the virus, and how it works, people might still attribute AIDS as punishment from God..
Hah, That was actually pretty funny. Taco should have stuck to comedy writing, the dry, sarcastic comments with each story are really starting to suck.
There are some simple problems that non-technical users might have with Linux, such as installing new software, or finding certain files that they need in the system. What's the solution to that?
Why do people keep insisting on asking kernel maintainers questions that only related to user level apps? What's the point? That's like asking the Gaim team about the newest block device code.
trying distribution after distribution in the hope of finding the holy grail of Linux desktops. Hmmmm.... I don't know about that...
Me either. I've found the people that constantly churn distros are either not skilled enough to use Linux, or don't want to put the time to learn how to do things properly, and hope that some other distro will let them get by without learning anything.
The key thing is, which distro you use doesn't really matter. Some make your life easier than others, but the skills you learn work for all of them.
If something is impossible for you to do in Red Hat (for example), it's going to be impossible for you to do in any distro.
The story of the classmate pusher is bullshit propaganda developed by the Drug Warriors. When I was in school, not so long ago, the kids that were selling, were selling because they had the contacts and wanted to make a little extra money.
No one ever "pushed" anything, people sought out the dealers if they wanted what they knew the dealers had. This whole argument that there are kids being pressured into doing drugs is total crap.
I never used drugs in grade school/high school, and I never felt pressured to either. One interesting survey was of elementary and middle school principals. IIRC, they were asked "Is there a drug problem in America's schools?" and something like 95% of them said yes. They were then asked if there was a drug problem at their school. Something like 95% of them said "no".
It's easy to sell such myths when it's always "not here", but it's really not anywhere, except in some very isolated cases perhaps.
Why is my 1.4G pentium 4 not even 10 time faster than my 33MHz 386 was in '92?
I don't know about you, but I remember running Windows 3.1 on a 486/33, it was slow as hell.
You may have forgotten after using fast computers for so long, but really, the times I have to actually wait for a program to load are few and far between, whereas the 486 had me waiting for up to 30 seconds if I tried to do anything even a little complex.
Really the only programs I use now with noticable load times are Mozilla and Nautilus, and things like that. I rarely use them anyway, I use Opera as my main browser, and the shell to manage files.
You know, the first time I played that, I had never seen the word "sux" before, at least that particular mispelling, since I had not been exposed to things like IRC idiots, and I didn't "get" what that was saying until the second or third time I read it.
I have to say, I was half expecting to get an ASCII chevron >> next to my name after my thousandth post on/.
And where do you think the proceeds from Liberty University go?
Exactly.
Since I live near Lynchburg I can attest to the way this guy is. Tune in almost any local station on Sunday morning to see him hawking "Save the Babies" credit cards, because God told him he needed to raise another 3 million dollars to build more stuff. This guy is in it for the money and power, period.
Slashdot Mirror
I can tell you have never installed a recent distro that is actually good. Sylpheed or Balsa all ask you the same wizard questions the first time you start them.
Besides, 99% of people don't know what to fill in to those "bare minimum" fields anyway.
I don't know where you get the idea that a clueless user should be able to install their own OS, configure their email, etc. You wouldn't replace the engine in your car and tweak the timing with no knowledge, why are computers any different? Computers are more complex machines than cars by far.
If we fix a lot of the "problems" with Linux -- for example, radically restructuring the security and filesystem models to be more Windows-like, migrating to non-PostScript-centric applications,
What out of his list would require these things? It seems the only thing you really addressed was X slowness, the rest was really pointless and not addressing what the original post was about.
Just click the sig, download the music, follow links to buy the CD. Probably 50% of what they have is electronica. I'm not affiliated in any way, I just like the site.
I think they are heard, and considered, where it matters. Slashdot was the first place I saw a big clamor for the "instant branching" that is proposed here.
Even if Cox or Linus isn't reading regularly, it helps ideas get mindshare with lots of smaller players, who can spin the debate threads on LKML toward one side or the other.
That doesn't mean Linus et al will agree, but his judgement in the past has usually been pretty good, which is a good thing, democracy is not a particularly good method of software engineering.
They've said that the core of it will be open source. Of course their idea of open source is a lot different from Liber Software open source.
BABE-lfish.
Like hotbabeswithpigs.com hotbabeswithfish.com, etc.
Likely they just block everything with "babe" in its domain name.
I've found that once I stopped checking my email, I stopped getting spam.
Ah, the Knuth method. Just hire a secretary to sort through your faxes every 3 months and filter your mail daily.
Technology has made basic sanitation easier though. Sure, it's not particularly new technology, but it wasn't around 100 years ago for the most part.
:)
Technology has also made doing things the right way cheaper. There would be a lot more people living in substandard conditions if something like the PVC pipe was never invented, because the cost of indoor plumbing would be higher. That's just one example of many little ways that technology has gotten us to where we are today.
Another effect, more insidious, that you seem to be ignoring is that advanced knowledge of something gets rid of a lot of supersition and myths about the same. If we had never discovered the virus, and how it works, people might still attribute AIDS as punishment from God..
Oh wait.
its colonialism backed up by lots of steel, and a period free of plagues and other epidemics on western soil.
Uh, technology is what has kept us free of plagues and allowed steel to flow freely and cheaply.
Hah, That was actually pretty funny. Taco should have stuck to comedy writing, the dry, sarcastic comments with each story are really starting to suck.
Well, thanks for clarifying. I just wrote based on what I saw, which apparently isn't accurate.
Did anyone bother to even check the wayback machine before jumping to conclusions? (You see it's a game, where you jump to conclusions, nevermind)
Link
Apparently they had some cheesy links up, and nothing up since 1998.
Guess what, they WERE squatters./B>
Go see the archive for yourself. If that isn't a squatted domain, I don't know what is.
There are some simple problems that non-technical users might have with Linux, such as installing new software, or finding certain files that they need in the system. What's the solution to that?
Why do people keep insisting on asking kernel maintainers questions that only related to user level apps? What's the point? That's like asking the Gaim team about the newest block device code.
When windows aren't moving fast, this is a problem of the driver and not of X.
Well, there's also the slight issue of good design.
Linux doesn't put a GUI in its kernel like certain other OS's do. There has been work to address this recently however, like the low latency patch.
trying distribution after distribution in the hope of finding the holy grail of Linux desktops.
Hmmmm.... I don't know about that...
Me either. I've found the people that constantly churn distros are either not skilled enough to use Linux, or don't want to put the time to learn how to do things properly, and hope that some other distro will let them get by without learning anything.
The key thing is, which distro you use doesn't really matter. Some make your life easier than others, but the skills you learn work for all of them.
If something is impossible for you to do in Red Hat (for example), it's going to be impossible for you to do in any distro.
Gnome is the sister you really were trying to go out with.
Why were you trying to go out with your sister?
They get kids to sell to other kids.
The story of the classmate pusher is bullshit propaganda developed by the Drug Warriors. When I was in school, not so long ago, the kids that were selling, were selling because they had the contacts and wanted to make a little extra money.
No one ever "pushed" anything, people sought out the dealers if they wanted what they knew the dealers had. This whole argument that there are kids being pressured into doing drugs is total crap.
I never used drugs in grade school/high school, and I never felt pressured to either.
One interesting survey was of elementary and middle school principals. IIRC, they were asked "Is there a drug problem in America's schools?" and something like 95% of them said yes. They were then asked if there was a drug problem at their school. Something like 95% of them said "no".
It's easy to sell such myths when it's always "not here", but it's really not anywhere, except in some very isolated cases perhaps.
Why is my 1.4G pentium 4 not even 10 time faster than my 33MHz 386 was in '92?
I don't know about you, but I remember running Windows 3.1 on a 486/33, it was slow as hell.
You may have forgotten after using fast computers for so long, but really, the times I have to actually wait for a program to load are few and far between, whereas the 486 had me waiting for up to 30 seconds if I tried to do anything even a little complex.
Really the only programs I use now with noticable load times are Mozilla and Nautilus, and things like that. I rarely use them anyway, I use Opera as my main browser, and the shell to manage files.
So you spend less money on hardware, and more money on software. Big gain. In games especially, programmers time is not free.
P.S. Gigs Sux.
/.
You know, the first time I played that, I had never seen the word "sux" before, at least that particular mispelling, since I had not been exposed to things like IRC idiots, and I didn't "get" what that was saying until the second or third time I read it.
I have to say, I was half expecting to get an ASCII chevron >> next to my name after my thousandth post on
No such luck.
Why is it assumed that if you don't work for a big company, you must be a "newbie" or not know as much?
That's bullshit, as I'm sure many people who consult or work for smaller companies can attest.
It looks more like a peep sight, like on a old military carbine. Hmmm.
The poor news and advance. I should have warned them. You might find the same story on their TV affiliated site www.wsls.com.
And where do you think the proceeds from Liberty University go?
Exactly.
Since I live near Lynchburg I can attest to the way this guy is. Tune in almost any local station on Sunday morning to see him hawking "Save the Babies" credit cards, because God told him he needed to raise another 3 million dollars to build more stuff. This guy is in it for the money and power, period.
Wouldn't something more quick to kill be more effective, assuming the conspiracy is as you suggest?