Really? Most people I hear of using it do so because they're used to Red Hat and want a free version of it, not to be on the "leading edge". I mean, most distros make claims like that; it's a marketing sort of statement. Doesn't mean they intend to release unstable/untested/unfinished software.
It was my impression that Fedora was primarily used by people seeking a "stable and low maintenance" RPM-based distro that they don't have to pay for. I've only used it a bit (intranet server at a former employer) so I'm not in on the distro's culture, but that's the impression I've gotten from reading comments by its users and paying (some) attention to its development over the years.
I'm sure it's the future. The features sound great. Doesn't goddamn work right yet, though.
That's why I said, "removed or fixed" rather than just "removed". I'll accept "fixed". Awesome. I'll also accept "change reverted until PulseAudio is beyond alpha (generously, beta) stages".
Personally, I stopped having trouble with audio in Linux at least a couple years ago, so suddenly breaking it with a half-finished implementation of a new audio server is very, very annoying, especially from the "Just Works" distros. It would have been one thing if PulseAudio actually added some kind of functionality that I wanted, but there were zero new features I needed from my existing system, so it didn't. Also would have been fine if they switched it but everything I used kept working fine, but that didn't happen.
Oh, man, that interview is funny. I notice that the last edit was June '08, so the interview took place before that.
I really liked this part:
The balkanization we have in Linux audio was the biggest obstacle in itself. Before we could think of moving everything to a new audio system we had to make sure that we have compatibility support with all that software that is out there right now (or at least the majority of it). There are so many audio systems and APIs around, some being very hard to virtualize, so this was a major amount of work. But I guess we tackled most now, and even have special support for closed source software like Adobe Flash.
Hahah, nope. At least not in the version that was shipped (and made default!) with Ubuntu 8.10. From what I've heard, Fedora's version isn't any better off. Either the distros are fucking things up big time, or this dude's vastly overestimating the completeness of his software. Or both.
This was funny, too, but for different reasons:
- If you run two Totems side-by-side, the one that is active should have 100% volume, the other one 20%. And if you change focus with your window manager, the two volumes should slide to the inverse. I think this would be very, very useful. Especially for things like Flash: if a flash video is running in your web browser, the system should automatically slide down the volume of everything else and slide it up again when the Flash clip finished to play.
It really sucked when most of the users could never have more than one application using audio simultaneously. Also controlling the devices could not be offered via unified user interface.
Yeah, I remember those days--a couple years ago, if not more. Audio was finally working great out of the box, and even not-that-bad to configure manually in Gentoo.
Now, it's all screwed up again in the distros that switched to PulseAudio. We got alpha-quality software pushed on us.
If you have a problem with pulseaudio, please consider filing bug reports.
Seriously. I expected this shit when I was on Gentoo, but c'mon, a release from one of the major "user friendly" distros that breaks about half my audio applications--and not just on an upgrade, but on a new installation--and requires me to dick around in settings to get applications to work or not crash? When audio had been working great in Linux for the last couple years, with most of its major problems finally sorted out?
PulseAudio: the answer to a question no one asked.
I'm sure there are features it has that I don't know about and would never use that are nice. Fine. Switch to it when it's mature. It clearly isn't. The switch was made way too early, and, as I understand it, Fedora led that dumb-assed charge into brokenness.
Hell, I've been planning to build a MythTV box some time this year, but if this thing goes a couple months past release without a large number of users seeing hardware failures and such, I may just get this instead. Doubt I'll buy a single game for it (though I will certainly put some on there--mmm, emulators) but the machine itself looks perfect for my needs (desires, rather).
If it's fairly quiet I think I might put one under my TV, install MythTV on it, load it with emulators+games and Stepmania, and have a good damn time for $380.
Set up some NFS drives on a remote fileserver and it'll be good for playing movies/TV shows, too.
Oh, god, PulseAudio... the reason I've stopped using Linux for the time being (Firefox crashing every time I view a Flash file with sound is not acceptable, and having to dick with settings to get media apps to play sound is a slap in the face--I have to occasionally boot to Windows for Adobe CS3 anyway, so I just stay there now)
What the fuck? Just when I think they've finally got audio Just Working(tm) they change the audio system again, and way before the new system is mature.
If that dude's being harsh about it, it's because it was a boneheaded move that needs to be fixed by reversion until PulseAudio can be made non-worse-than-useless by whoever wants to take on that responsibility.
Implemtation costs of those tecnhical measures ARE the costs of taking advantage of the global market. What other costs of global markets would you have them assume?
Uh, that of the market being global. You know, the whole market, not just the supplier's part of it.
I still can't figure out why they didn't add the (at most) 5 lines of code it would have taken to tell it to re-do the exact same search on an error like that.
I can't wait until evolution as the origin of life is proven wrong so all of the current "scientists" are embarrassed as well. Currently, there is more proof that evolution isn't the origin of life than is. That will never change.
You're railing against the wrong thing here, buddy.
Asimov wrote an essay called "The Relativity of Wrong" that addresses this. The thrust of it is that scientists make errors and that perfect, absolute truth may be unattainable, but by and large each generation will come up with ideas and theories that are closer and closer to the truth.
A geocentric model of the solar system that involves orbiting bodies is a tad closer to the truth than "it's all painted on a big dome in the sky", and a heliocentric model is closer still. Explain its mechanics like Newton did and you're getting closer. Find out about Relativity and you're really getting somewhere.
Each one is "wrong", but each is less wrong than the one before it.
"Are you too stupid to use a blanket? Were you born in the darkest jungle and have therefore never heard of a robe? If you said yes to both of those questions, boy do I have a product for you! CALL NOW!"
Languages are easy. Once you understand what they do and have used a couple, writing programs in a new one should be a snap.
Libraries and codebases? Learning those is hard. That's where the work is, and knowing a major library that's applicable to your current problem is very often more helpful than knowing any language.
Hell, I find that I can grasp the basic idea of most languages that are remotely similar to the ones I'm used to after looking over just a couple of moderately-complex examples. Give me some sort of ability to search for built-in functions and I can start writing working, clean code on day one.
The libraries? Oh, man, that's where all the work is. A large and specialized library--say, the GTK lib--takes way longer to learn than most languages, and is vastly more important for getting serious work done. Figuring that out was a big "ah ha" moment for me.
Example: someone who doesn't know Perl but who's used GTK in, say, Python will be light-years ahead of a person who knows Perl but has never used GTK, if they're both tasked with writing a GTK app in Perl.
OK, I'll post the results of something I just tried out the other day:
We'll consider three systems: the cheapest Mac Pro, the Psystar Open7 (nearly identical to the Mac Pro but a tiny bit better, designed to run OSX), and the cost of parts to build a system approximately the same as the Psystar Open7 (including a very, very nice case).
I'll skip the details, since it's not that hard to verify the numbers yourself. Here are the results:
Self-built machine using retail prices - ~$1,400 Psystar Open7 - $1,777 Mac Pro - $2,499
There's no way anyone who's really taken the time to check prices can say that Mac hardware isn't overpriced. This is just one example, but it's egregious. There are some systems they sell that are on par with or (very) slightly cheaper than their competitors, but there are loads of examples like this where they're not even in the same ballpark. In fact, I just noticed that if you take out $130 for OSX from the price, the difference between their system and the almost-identical-but-slightly-better Psystar system is about $500. Huh, maybe Ballmer didn't pull that number from his ass after all.
Was this pre-OSX? 'Cuz OS9 was a total piece of shit. I understand Mac fanboys now--I'm not one, but I understand them--but back then they were totally ridiculous. They had an OS at least as bad as Win98 (certainly worse than Win2K) and underpowered machines (oh, they'd claim otherwise, but they were so wrong, as was obvious to anyone who worked regularly on both) that cost way more than a superior PC.
OSX made being a voluntary Mac user a sane option for the first time in years. Their move to x86 has made it even better (especially if you take advantage of their use of common hardware to buy your machines from another manufacturer, so you don't pay the Apple coolness tax)
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Really? Most people I hear of using it do so because they're used to Red Hat and want a free version of it, not to be on the "leading edge". I mean, most distros make claims like that; it's a marketing sort of statement. Doesn't mean they intend to release unstable/untested/unfinished software.
It was my impression that Fedora was primarily used by people seeking a "stable and low maintenance" RPM-based distro that they don't have to pay for. I've only used it a bit (intranet server at a former employer) so I'm not in on the distro's culture, but that's the impression I've gotten from reading comments by its users and paying (some) attention to its development over the years.
I'm sure it's the future. The features sound great. Doesn't goddamn work right yet, though.
That's why I said, "removed or fixed" rather than just "removed". I'll accept "fixed". Awesome. I'll also accept "change reverted until PulseAudio is beyond alpha (generously, beta) stages".
Personally, I stopped having trouble with audio in Linux at least a couple years ago, so suddenly breaking it with a half-finished implementation of a new audio server is very, very annoying, especially from the "Just Works" distros. It would have been one thing if PulseAudio actually added some kind of functionality that I wanted, but there were zero new features I needed from my existing system, so it didn't. Also would have been fine if they switched it but everything I used kept working fine, but that didn't happen.
Oh, man, that interview is funny. I notice that the last edit was June '08, so the interview took place before that.
I really liked this part:
Hahah, nope. At least not in the version that was shipped (and made default!) with Ubuntu 8.10. From what I've heard, Fedora's version isn't any better off. Either the distros are fucking things up big time, or this dude's vastly overestimating the completeness of his software. Or both.
This was funny, too, but for different reasons:
Yeah, I remember those days--a couple years ago, if not more. Audio was finally working great out of the box, and even not-that-bad to configure manually in Gentoo.
Now, it's all screwed up again in the distros that switched to PulseAudio. We got alpha-quality software pushed on us.
I assure you, there are plenty already.
Seriously. I expected this shit when I was on Gentoo, but c'mon, a release from one of the major "user friendly" distros that breaks about half my audio applications--and not just on an upgrade, but on a new installation--and requires me to dick around in settings to get applications to work or not crash? When audio had been working great in Linux for the last couple years, with most of its major problems finally sorted out?
PulseAudio: the answer to a question no one asked.
I'm sure there are features it has that I don't know about and would never use that are nice. Fine. Switch to it when it's mature. It clearly isn't. The switch was made way too early, and, as I understand it, Fedora led that dumb-assed charge into brokenness.
Has PulseAudio been either removed or fixed?
I'm off Linux until that crap gets sorted out. It infected Ubuntu too, for some reason.
Hell, I've been planning to build a MythTV box some time this year, but if this thing goes a couple months past release without a large number of users seeing hardware failures and such, I may just get this instead. Doubt I'll buy a single game for it (though I will certainly put some on there--mmm, emulators) but the machine itself looks perfect for my needs (desires, rather).
If it's fairly quiet I think I might put one under my TV, install MythTV on it, load it with emulators+games and Stepmania, and have a good damn time for $380.
Set up some NFS drives on a remote fileserver and it'll be good for playing movies/TV shows, too.
It is amazingly helpful for house-shopping, especially if you're moving from somewhere far away and your time in the target city is limited.
Oh, god, PulseAudio... the reason I've stopped using Linux for the time being (Firefox crashing every time I view a Flash file with sound is not acceptable, and having to dick with settings to get media apps to play sound is a slap in the face--I have to occasionally boot to Windows for Adobe CS3 anyway, so I just stay there now)
What the fuck? Just when I think they've finally got audio Just Working(tm) they change the audio system again, and way before the new system is mature.
If that dude's being harsh about it, it's because it was a boneheaded move that needs to be fixed by reversion until PulseAudio can be made non-worse-than-useless by whoever wants to take on that responsibility.
It'll be ASCII art.
hahaha, awesome reference.
Will the Slashdot version be called "Slash of Dot"?
The world just wasn't ready for something so awesome.
Truly, a god among operating systems.
*sniff* we miss you, BeOS
Ah, shit. Haven't seen the movie in so long, and I was just doing it from memory. Figured I'd missed something.
God creates dinosaurs
God destroys dinosaurs
God creates man
Man creates dinosaurs
Dinosaurs eat man
Woman inherits the Earth
Uh, that of the market being global. You know, the whole market, not just the supplier's part of it.
I still can't figure out why they didn't add the (at most) 5 lines of code it would have taken to tell it to re-do the exact same search on an error like that.
"error--game is full"
Well then find me another one! WTF?
I can't wait until evolution as the origin of life is proven wrong so all of the current "scientists" are embarrassed as well. Currently, there is more proof that evolution isn't the origin of life than is. That will never change.
You're railing against the wrong thing here, buddy.
You're looking for abiogenesis.
I have yet to see proof that Evolution explains how life began.
It's not supposed to.
That would be abiogenesis, down the hall to your right.
Asimov wrote an essay called "The Relativity of Wrong" that addresses this. The thrust of it is that scientists make errors and that perfect, absolute truth may be unattainable, but by and large each generation will come up with ideas and theories that are closer and closer to the truth.
A geocentric model of the solar system that involves orbiting bodies is a tad closer to the truth than "it's all painted on a big dome in the sky", and a heliocentric model is closer still. Explain its mechanics like Newton did and you're getting closer. Find out about Relativity and you're really getting somewhere.
Each one is "wrong", but each is less wrong than the one before it.
"Are you too stupid to use a blanket? Were you born in the darkest jungle and have therefore never heard of a robe? If you said yes to both of those questions, boy do I have a product for you! CALL NOW!"
I'll paraphrase what I said upthread:
Languages are easy. Once you understand what they do and have used a couple, writing programs in a new one should be a snap.
Libraries and codebases? Learning those is hard. That's where the work is, and knowing a major library that's applicable to your current problem is very often more helpful than knowing any language.
Hell, I find that I can grasp the basic idea of most languages that are remotely similar to the ones I'm used to after looking over just a couple of moderately-complex examples. Give me some sort of ability to search for built-in functions and I can start writing working, clean code on day one.
The libraries? Oh, man, that's where all the work is. A large and specialized library--say, the GTK lib--takes way longer to learn than most languages, and is vastly more important for getting serious work done. Figuring that out was a big "ah ha" moment for me.
Example: someone who doesn't know Perl but who's used GTK in, say, Python will be light-years ahead of a person who knows Perl but has never used GTK, if they're both tasked with writing a GTK app in Perl.
OK, I'll post the results of something I just tried out the other day:
We'll consider three systems: the cheapest Mac Pro, the Psystar Open7 (nearly identical to the Mac Pro but a tiny bit better, designed to run OSX), and the cost of parts to build a system approximately the same as the Psystar Open7 (including a very, very nice case).
I'll skip the details, since it's not that hard to verify the numbers yourself. Here are the results:
Self-built machine using retail prices - ~$1,400
Psystar Open7 - $1,777
Mac Pro - $2,499
There's no way anyone who's really taken the time to check prices can say that Mac hardware isn't overpriced. This is just one example, but it's egregious. There are some systems they sell that are on par with or (very) slightly cheaper than their competitors, but there are loads of examples like this where they're not even in the same ballpark. In fact, I just noticed that if you take out $130 for OSX from the price, the difference between their system and the almost-identical-but-slightly-better Psystar system is about $500. Huh, maybe Ballmer didn't pull that number from his ass after all.
Was this pre-OSX? 'Cuz OS9 was a total piece of shit. I understand Mac fanboys now--I'm not one, but I understand them--but back then they were totally ridiculous. They had an OS at least as bad as Win98 (certainly worse than Win2K) and underpowered machines (oh, they'd claim otherwise, but they were so wrong, as was obvious to anyone who worked regularly on both) that cost way more than a superior PC.
OSX made being a voluntary Mac user a sane option for the first time in years. Their move to x86 has made it even better (especially if you take advantage of their use of common hardware to buy your machines from another manufacturer, so you don't pay the Apple coolness tax)