He doesn't need "Linux from scratch" to set up one fucking server and some workstations. He's not a distro producer, he's an admin.
No, he might not be a distro producer, but a couple of points: a) His life is likely to be a LOT easier as an admin if he has an intimate knowledge of the system he's using...where everything is, how it's set up, and so on. LFS will give someone that.
b) Having at least some kind of knowledge of shell scripting is not only a prerequisite for LFS, but also definitely for being a sysadmin, last I heard. Again, he can pick that up in preparation for building LFS.
c) If it is for only a single server machine we're talking about, then I'll grant you he might well be able to get by with SuSE etc...but the whole point of me advocating him learning what I did is because that knowledge in conjunction with say, what's on infrastructures.org will enable him to set up and handle a LAN on any size, whether we're talking one machine or a hundred. Granted, his current job doesn't require him to deploy a hundred machines...but for all we know, his next very well could.
Saying that RPM means Red Hat or SUSE or Mandrake are unusable is just fucking stupid.
I didn't say that they were unusable for an end user. Not all of them are unusable for development, either...I built my last LFS on Mandrake 10, simply because I'm on dialup where I am and am unfortunate enough not to live near Linux vendors, and Mandrake 10 Community was available on a magazine cover. A number of RPM-based systems have shown major problems for not only building LFS, but also often for building tarballs in general in my experience. If you know that the system you're on is sane because you've spent time looking at it, fine. What I primarily meant was though that all other things being equal, in my experience RPM-based systems genuinely do have a lot more problems for development use than non-RPM based do.
My point on replicating his Windows system was not to make Linux look like Windows, but to enable the office to continue doing what they're currently doing on Windows but in the Linux manner. Stop knee-jerking and understand that.
That's why I advocated that he initially only use Linux server side, and leave Windows on the desktop completely. Chances are that his users will want to use Office anyway.
Most organizations use these three main Linux distros as servers for a reason.
Organisations use Red Hat or Mandrake for the same reason that they used Microsoft before them; purely because all three companies are able to offer support contracts. Ass-covering and handholding are the most important things as far as the majority of organisations are concerned; actual technical quality generally has nothing to do with it. If quality had anything to do with what organisations use, Microsoft wouldn't have made anywhere near the amount of money they have.
Give...it...up. You just sound like a fool or a fanatic. You're an example of why people coming from Windows can't stand Linux people. You give Linux users a bad name.
No...In my observation anyway, the main reason why Windows migrants (or anyone else for that matter) can have issues with Linux users is RMS/the GNU crowd, which (despite what you might be thinking, given my tone in these two posts) I am most assuredly NOT a member of. I think it's a very safe bet that (as one example) pretty much every single one of the death threats or other forms of intimidation Laura Didio received a bit back came from people on the GNU side of the ideological/factional divide. RMS has the attitude that anybody using Linux is somehow therefore on his turf by default, and therefore compelled to adhere to whatever he decrees. His army of zombies (many of which I've seen on Slashdot) also try and enforce this. Considering that the main thing that a Windows migrant might be trying to get away from is feeling that they
I'd say he doesn't need any of that "Linux from scratch" stuff.
Why not? Because it isn't what all the other lemmings are doing?
As he bangs along replicating the existing Windows system on Linux, he'll learn enough about Linux - and it will be knowledge he can apply directly to his work.
Ah. Here we come to the central premise of your (well, actually I suspect it isn't *yours*, but anyway) argument. Heaven forfend that we simply allow Linux to be Linux. As we all know, the only legitimate, allowable use for Linux is to find ways to turn it into a Windows clone...and never mind that in our groupthink befogged trance, we don't think of the concept that turning Linux into Windows will very likely also cause Linux to inherit a good many of Windows' problems.
He could install Knoppix, but it would be better to start with something like Mandrake, or better yet one of the distros likely to end up being used as the server, like SUSE or Red Hat, either in their server versions or workstation versions.
No, it wouldn't. Have you ever seen the degree to which RPM can mutilate a system? Are you aware of the truly appalling standard of rpm spec authorship that exists among Mandrake developers? Even more...have you ever tried to install anything with dependencies straight from a source tarball on an RPM-based system? I suspect not.
If he simply wanted to be an end-user with OpenOffice, I might agree with you. However, for anything more serious (especially involving any development or software compilation at all) rpm is rodenticide *unless* you're writing your own spec files, and have been doing so from the beginning. But even then, the spec format is an abomination...in a whole heap of different ways.
Try using your own brain for a change, every now and then. You might even enjoy it.
Hi Charlie, 1. First of all, grab Knoppix, burn it to a CD, and spend a few days (or a few weeks, whatever you feel comfortable with) playing with it. The base CD doesn't install anything to the hard drive, so you can't harm anything. This is a completely safe, non-intimidating way for you to initially get your feet wet.
2. While you're exploring Knoppix, there are a few things to read which will really help you. This will give you a very good introduction to Linux, in terms of a little history of the system, how to begin using it, and how some basic things work. Here is another in-depth document about using Linux, leading on from the previous one.
3. Once you've gone through those two, (take as much time as you need) this, written by the same man as the introduction, will introduce you to the Bash shell, the textual command interpreter where as a sysadmin in particular you'll likely be spending a lot of your time. This will ease you into scripting in what I think will be a very non-intimidating way. You will be able to try out all of these exercises with the Knoppix CD, and again, because the CD doesn't install anything to the hard drive, you needn't worry about destroying your existing system's contents while you learn. This is another book on Bash scripting which to a degree follows on from that one, and will go into somewhat greater depth. Both of these should lead to you feeling very comfortable writing shell scripts and moving around to a degree on the system.
4. Here is where we get to some meat. This document goes into compiling and installing generic Linux/UNIX software, and offers some basic applications and examples. Once you've gone through this, coupled with the material above, you should now have sufficient understanding to be able to compile and install at least a basic application yourself.
5. The Pocket Linux Guide will take you step by step through the process of learning to make a small, bootable Linux system on two floppy disks. Although compiling a basic custom kernel is part of this process, the Guide contains a link to another document which explains very clearly how to do this, and given the background you will have received from the previous documents, this should not be difficult.
6. Once you have completed the Pocket Linux Guide, you will then be ready to proceed to this site, which is the homepage of the Linux From Scratch Project. Here you will be able to read an HTML-formatted book which will give you the necessary information to successfully build an entire base Linux system of your own, and a more pure boot CD than Knoppix to initially build it upon. The Linux From Scratch Project also has a sequel book, Beyond Linux From Scratch, which describes how to install, among other things, a full graphical user interface with the X Windows system.
7. After you have completed all of this, although it is not crucial, I thoroughly recommend reading this book during idle moments. (It's still a good mealtime accompaniment for me) It will give you a detailed knowledge of the history and philosophy behind the UNIX operating system in general, which I am sure you will find enormously useful.
(Slashdot flamers, start your engines. I'm aware I'm likely to get a ton of abuse from corporate droids in particular about how I'm not telling him to find hand-holding tech support/this isn't practical advice, blah blah blah. For anyone considering res
...I've been seeing this kind of thing popping up all over the Web in the last week or so, with one of the main proponents apparently being this guy, a particularly sophisticated crackpot who I remember having read about a few years back.
The online kook population seem to be going into a feeding frenzy with regards to Katrina, even moreso than usual. FEMA's recent screwups in New Orleans are also apparently being seen by the Lone Gunmen demographic as validation of the schizoid claims they've been making over the past 15 years, namely that FEMA have been busily carpeting the US with concentration camps, presumably for a time when Shrub will grow tired of all the criticism he's been receiving, throw some giant switch, and have said critics (and most of the rest of the population along with them, apparently) rounded up.
I won't be seeing movies based on any of the properties listed. Captain America in particular is nothing more than a walking American flag, a la Superman, and thus is these days likely to simply be offensive outside the US itself.
I'm not going to name the one act of specific American heroism that the rest of the planet is now eagerly awaiting the performance of...I'm sure Slashdot's readers know what I'm talking about, here. Until that particular act is performed, however, any other attempts at making anything or anyone American appear heroic will ring hollow.
Communism and capitalism are as bad as each other and are based on the same flawed idea: that people want to to the right thing.
No, that idea itself isn't flawed; I believe that the majority of people genuinely do want to do the right thing. However, what's lacking in both political ideologies is the perception that the people who *don't* want to do the right thing, while a minority, are generally considerably more proactive and passionate than the majority who do. That's why they get into power...Not because the majority wish to do wrong, but because they are not as proactive as the people who consciously do have bad intentions.
people always want the same things - security, power, money, sex - in some combination.
I don't believe that the majority genuinely do want power. If that's the case, why do most people work in a dead end job for eight hours a day? That's not a way to get anything other than maintaining your current position, and the truth of that doesn't require rocket science to be able to see, either.
The majority want what Man as a hunting, gathering animal has always wanted; to survive. To eat, to have a mate, to have children. Basic biological stuff.
Megalomania and sociopathy are distortions which do not occur in the majority. They occur in a minority of individuals who, for whatever reason, are defective in some way. Normal, healthy people who are getting a majority of their basic needs met don't want to take over the world; that's the desire of an extremely fearful, unhappy person who percieves the world to be so completely full of threats that s/he can never be entirely secure unless they have complete control of it. The reason why these people rise to the top is because the majority are, as I said, focused on basic survival needs. They're not focused on, or accustomed to being focused on, having to defend their larger society from such people. It's true, however, that there have been that many of such types in the last century or so, that eventually (it can be hoped, at least) over a period of several hundred or possibly several thousand years, if we live that long, we can eventually learn to detect and act on the signs of such an individual appearing in our midst. These people don't appear, or gain power, overnight. It is generally a process spanning several years.
I think you're right when you say that the answer isn't in broad political ideologies...but maybe there is one in continuing to study sociopathy, and political history, and learning to identify the factors involved in how these individuals develop.
I admitted to having switched to Postgres above, but as I said then, that was primarily due to concerns about MySQL remaining open source, since as I also said there they seem to have become a company with primarily commercially oriented priorities.
However, that said, the main reason why I switched was because I'm working on something which other people are going to be able to use. If we were talking about a database app that was purely for my own use, then so long as I was reasonably confident that I could get a GPL-licensed version of MySQL, I probably would have stayed with it until they discontinued that.
I also criticised the company in my earlier comment on this article however, and I now regret having done so. A lot of Linux users (Europeans in particular, I've noticed) seem to have difficulty with the concept that software companies do not (and should not, IMHO) have to run purely according to our approval. I think part of the problem is the fact that in terms of thinking of the "Linux community" as opposed to "Linux users", we end up seeing ourselves as some sort of small, fairly closed group who for some reason feel that we have the bizarre right to expect the rest of the world to conform to our decrees. Which, of course, was the precise aim of the author of this particular concept, Richard Stallman. Stallman and his followers have succeeded in making the word "community" a swearword in my vocabulary.
If MySQL AB (or any other vendor company, for that matter) make a decision to do what we consider to be shooting themselves in the foot, then not only is that entirely their perogative, but we need to have more faith in the idea that market forces will ensure that their decision meets with predictable consequences.
We can, of course, vote with our feet and choose another database application, as I have done, and as several others in this thread appear to have done or advocated doing. However, what I think we should refrain from doing is scolding companies in an arrogant, autocratic, and whining manner when they take an action which is at odds with the expectations or Marxist ideology of the user in question.
Stallman himself might not be a Communist, but to me there's a fair amount of evidence to suggest that a number of European Linux users in particular are. It's obnoxious, it's anachronistic, it's unnecessary, and it doesn't do Linux's credibility any favours, especially in the US.
...is the reason why I switched from MySQL a while back to Postgres. At the time, although MySQL still had a version licensed under the GPL, the link to it was buried in the site. What was a lot easier to find was the commercially licensed version, which they had links to/info about slathered all over the site. This caused me to worry that eventually the GPL licensed version would disappear entirely.
Although Postgres is unfortunately a bit bigger, (the elephant isn't its mascot for nothing;-)) it's a fantastic db and is enormously scalable. The best part is that legally it also uses open source's underdog, the BSD license.
It is unfortunate that MySQL AB have shown such lack of vision in the past couple of years...but methinks they're probably about to find out that commercialistic shortsightedness carries its' own reward:- Eventual irrelevance.
That I'm with Blizzard on this one. If a company chooses to make their software open source, that is great, and we should applaud them for it. If however they choose to keep it proprietary, that is also their right and it should be honoured.
This again can be attributed to Stallman's pernicious influence, methinks. His attitude of "my way is the only correct/acceptable way," has been replicated by his followers...to the degree where it is believed in cases like this one that if a company does not license their software under the GPL by default, they are automatically fair game.
I can only hope that some people eventually come to realise that genuine freedom also includes the freedom to hold an opinion different from theirs, and also that if Stallman in particular cannot accept that idea, that he will eventually be rendered irrelevant.
At the application level, this, and this are two possible answers, or at least workarounds. On the filesystem level, this could be a possible workaround as well.
I agree however that it would seem people have been caught with their pants down in regards to WinFS though. The usual sentiment about it among Linux peeps from what I've seen is that it either isn't doable, or that it is, but that it'd be horribly slow.
Methinks a change in attitude is called for, however. This could very well be Bill's answer to the One Ring if he gets it out, which is presumably why Microsoft are trying to get a working release ASAP. Forget the coder bias for a minute here, and think about what the implications of this could be from the perspective of ease-of-use...and then think about what a battle we'd have converting people to Linux if we still don't have it when Microsoft does.
Longhorn was intended to be a Linux killer...but of all the elements I've seen, WinFS is the only one which could truly cause us problems...Especially when you consider how difficult back-engineering compatibility with such an FS would probably be.
As I said, I'm aware WinFS hasn't been taken seriously around here so far...but somebody needs to start to.
...why people continue to have any respect for this man.
a) He doesn't own the trademark, so I have no idea why his opinion/statement would be asked for regarding it. His statement certainly does not hold any legal weight.
b) As someone else pointed out, he is hypocritical here, and this isn't the first time. He has insisted earlier that people use the term "GNU/Linux", and yet here he says that what a program is called is a side issue.
The second point in particular demonstrates the validity of an opinion which I have held about RMS for some time now. Namely, that he isn't anywhere near as principled as he claims, but is fairly simply a narcissist whose only genuine interest is in maintaining popularity and feeling that he has a group of people who will listen to his decrees.
I don't argue that he was a great programmer, once...but he needs to stop making public statements, as all they do is continue to damage his credibility and erode the goodwill/respect/relevance that he earned with his programming achievements.
That precludes the BSD license as having any use for his problem. If he used the BSD license anyone could take his code, package it up, rename it and release it. As long as they then attributed that portions of the code are copyright by the original author (and include the list of disclaimers) they would be A.OK. and my programmer here would have no recourse.
They'd be doing that with what in essence would be a *fork*, though...or a derived work. This is what people don't understand. He'd still have his original code. He also would still have the option of selling it. Putting his code under the GPL won't stop other people from selling copies of it, either.
There seems to be an erroneous perception (although I know exactly where/who it comes from) that when someone uses a non-GPL license, they immediately lose any and all right to their work, or to what happens to it. This is quite simply not true. They don't govern what happens to derivative works, sure...but they can still control what happens to the parent.
Stop relying on Stallman's brain, and try using your own.
What about using (*lowers voice to a whisper*) the BSD license? (*hears gasps of horror coming from the audience*)
Before the GPL zealots come screaming out of the woodwork on this one, there's something they (and you) should know. The BSD license actually includes a copyright notice. Have a look at it and see. For FreeBSD as an example, the copyright is held by the CSRG.
That means that in using it as a license, you don't actually surrender your copyright. (Unlike certain FUD which is spread by individuals who remain nameless states) You don't get a patent, no...but you *do* get copyright, in the originally intended sense of the word. This to me is a demonstration of why the GPL *is* both unnecessary and repressive, despite claims to the contrary.
What you get the copyright to is your own work; what you're giving other people is the right to make *derivative* works. They get copyright on derivative works, yes...but they don't get the copyright on your work itself. So if you wanted to, you could use a non-viral license (the BSD license is only one option...www.opensource.org lists many) without having to assume that you're automatically putting your work in the public domain.
My single biggest objection to Richard Stallman is that I believe that *his* philosophy is the only acceptable one. To me the use of the phrase "GPL compatible" in particular sounds a lot like the campaign Microsoft had a number of years back where they were certifying things as "Windows compatible" or "made for Windows 95."
Stallman claims to be about freedom...but look closer. What he's really about is forming a cultural/social movement with himself at the head. That isn't anywhere near as much about freedom as it is about agreeing with whatever he decrees.
I've noticed for a while that the term "hacker" is generally considered a vague, legendary and elusive title which supposedly only a very few godlike souls are ever able to attain or become worthy of. ESR seems to have led the charge in perpetuating this pretentious tripe, but it is a belief which sadly a great many people seem to be afflicted with.
How do I define a hacker myself? Someone who:-
(a) Has sufficient knowledge of a particular system/topic (and although use of the term normally applies to computer related areas, it has been colloquially lent to other fields) that they are able to employ a degree of intuition when solving problems in said area.
(b) Performs said problem solving in an improvisatory, rather than formal, manner.
(c) Has a tendency to develop solutions to problems which involve surrealistic associations. By that I mean that their solutions will involve combining objects, ideas, or processes which would not ordinarily go together.
Contrary to the common belief, this doesn't require being a god, either. It generally doesn't require too much more than at least a basic level of intelligence and familiarity with the area in question. So given that, yes, pretty much anyone who has any level of proficiency in anything could call themselves a hacker if they wished to do so.
ESR's claim of, "you're not a hacker until somebody else calls you one," implies to me that *he* anyway is somebody who forms his self-perception on the basis of other people's assessments...a rather questionable idea, to my mind.
Blogging IMHO has probably never been a pastime of the genuinely intelligent. (And before I get flamed as a hypocrite, yes, I have a blog, but I haven't regularly updated it since March or so, and it was an effort back then)
I probably only really got a Blogger account at all out of some vague, misguided desire to "stay current," but the main reason why I've virtually never used it is because I generally try and fill my time with far more productive things...like, say, working.;)
Blogging IMHO is probably the single most utterly useless convention to have appeared online so far. It seems to have primarily caught on in the US where, presumably because of the current fascist dictatorship which is euphemistically referred to as a democratic government, the population are enthusiastic about blogging as their only form of even partially genuine democratic expression. As for the rest of us, who live in countries where the system still actually works, (if only to a minor degree) we either engage in offline (read: effective) forms of activism, or devote our lives to far more constructive persuits.
Agreed. This could be an issue for me in the near future (the licensing thing) but I've already had prior experience of Perthies' idiosyncracies. If this guy writes me a letter, I'll respond by saying that: a) My intent is fair use and fair use ONLY; i.e., Linus wrote the kernel, Linus owns the kernel, and I make no claim to the contrary. I'm interested purely in marketing a distribution.
b) Ergo, the only lawyer I'll respond to positively will be one acting verifiably on behalf of Linus himself. This guy can consider himself formally invited (to use highly precise legal terminology) to take a fucking hike.;)
How long until someone opens a reality/virtual border duty-free shop?
I doubt that will happen in that sense, as the analogy of borders won't scale. However, what you could have is a case of both vendors that do tax (say, like Sony's recent trading facility for it's games) and those that don't. (Ebay currently, IGN possibly) Thus, the ones that don't tax or that don't take a per-transaction cut will be analogous to real-world duty free shops, perhaps.
For example, do these companies that sell virtual gold and items have to pay taxes on their sales?
It will depend on whether they feel they need to in order to remain competitive, I think. For example, since Sony's new service charges a per-transaction fee on item sales, it could be argued that Ebay are more attractive for players to use, at least from a monetary point of view, as they do not have that fee AFAIK. Although I'm also assuming that Sony will give players additional incentives to offset the transaction fee. (Exclusive items for its games which wouldn't be available via Ebay/IGN, etc.) Being the company which runs a given game means that they can control the supply of commodities/items within each game.
If so, is their product considered a good or a service?
Running the game or the virtual environment itself would be considered a service...the gold itself within the game could thus be considered a product. What you are then doing, when you buy gold for a particular character, is buying a virtual product, (the gold) for use in conjunction with a service. (the particular game)
If I review games for a living and I buy a virtual item to review, can I claim it as a business expense? If I resell it, do I have to claim the profit as business income?
I don't think this will emerge for a while, but it definitely could, yes. It would be more likely, in terms of something that could be claimed as a business expense, for that to be in the case of a non-game oriented virtual environment. I can envision virtual environments of various kinds being developed for people with physical disabilities (quadraplegics, etc) which cause immobility, for instance. These kinds of environments would not necessarily be oriented towards games, nor would they have to have a single particular theme. I could see them attempting to recreate the conditions of certain real-world outdoor environments for those who would normally be physically incapable of travelling to such, or possibly such things as places where people could engage in simulations of real-world hobbies, such as pottery or gardening.
If I play an MMORPG in my free time, am I building wealth that I can later use for retirement?
It would depend on the politics and purpose of the environment in question. Say for example we're talking about a virtual nursery. In that type of scenario, you could possibly have an occupation as a tourguide or, in the case of a virtual zoo, a park ranger, as the animals there could have forms of limited artificial intelligence, and thus require semi-realistic handling. Given those types of scenarios, I think you could definitely get superannuation for the work you do, in much the same way as you currently can get super for offline work now.
But as virtual marketplaces become more common and prevalent, I could see a big black market in stolen game account information.
That could happen to a degree, yes...certainly in the case of well-known or famous figures within a given environment. Security for such things generally isn't all that difficult however, so I can't see that as being an epidemic. AFAIK, account theft isn't a major problem with contemporary MMORPGs.
1. What we now call MMORPGs are going to become fully-fledged virtual societies. Some will be themed along the lines of gaming; others won't be, and will in fact be merely stylised mirrors of places in the real world, where people work and do various other things.
2. The overlap between offline and online currencies will increase, and will again extend beyond the current MMORPGs.
3. The ultimate logical extension of this is that eventually, something similar to what we now call an MMORPG will be recognised as an entirely legitimate geopolitical entity, though for some reason I don't see that happening before 2020.
Basically, the Internet and online environments are going to increasingly supplement physical world existence...I don't think they will supplant offline life, but they will be a very real alternative for a lot of people.
My sources for this belief are such books as The Sovereign Individual, and also the belief systems espoused by such websites as Afterlife Knowledge.
Basically I believe that the Internet is going to become a fully fledged mechanical facsimile of astral space, but with some vestigial physical world elements.
>Isn't that point that both are examples of amateurs >successfully providing product that traditionally >comes only from professional organizations? That >seems like a valid point to me.
That entirely depends on whether you consider the majority of blogs to actually create professional-quality reading material. I'd call that a very dangerous assumption in most cases.
...that they still haven't solved the telemere/age problem; i.e., that if the original animal is an adult, the clone will be born with the same amount of time left to live as the adult original. I hope they solve that problem before they start seriously trying to clone humans...the result could be exactly the same problem that Rutger Hauer's character in Blade Runner had if they don't.
Is it remotely possible for a single question to be submitted to this site without juvenile morons like yourself making comments like this?
The person asking the question wanted serious replies...not idiotic crap like this. If you don't have anything mature to contribute, then do the rest of us a favour, and STFU.
I had hoped that reading with a threshold of +2 would be enough to filter out this sort of crap...but obviously it's bubbling up even to the +2 level now as well. *sigh*
While suspicion is admittedly the kneejerk reaction, I'm assuming that Mozilla.org, like any other organisation, needs to find ways to pay the bills.
What will be most interesting will be seeing if they can resist the instinctive corporate urge to commit gradual financial and PR suicide via the usual scorched-earth tactics. A turn to the Dark Side probably is not inevitable, but given the usual nature of corporations, it probably would not come as a surprise.
As a developer, you probably wouldn't. However a non-developer or computer layperson would/will probably be interested in Vista for a few different reasons.
File cataloging grouped by relevance. This probably won't be as good as it would have been if they'd fully developed WinFS, but from what I've heard they're still planning on having it to some degree.
Games. Cedega still lags behind Windows for support of DirectX at times, and even when Cedega supports the current version, it's not always easy to get games running with it. Games are still probably the main reason why a residential user would stick with Windows.
USB device support. I've seen it mentioned on Slashdot a lot recently about how Linux's USB support still apparently isn't that great.
People will probably consider it weird that from what it sounds like here, I'm advocating Windows. I'm not exactly, but I thought it was a good opportunity to demonstrate that I *can* be balanced, and can also argue from either side of the fence.
Slashdot Mirror
He doesn't need "Linux from scratch" to set up one fucking server and some workstations. He's not a distro producer, he's an admin.
No, he might not be a distro producer, but a couple of points:
a) His life is likely to be a LOT easier as an admin if he has an intimate knowledge of the system he's using...where everything is, how it's set up, and so on. LFS will give someone that.
b) Having at least some kind of knowledge of shell scripting is not only a prerequisite for LFS, but also definitely for being a sysadmin, last I heard. Again, he can pick that up in preparation for building LFS.
c) If it is for only a single server machine we're talking about, then I'll grant you he might well be able to get by with SuSE etc...but the whole point of me advocating him learning what I did is because that knowledge in conjunction with say, what's on infrastructures.org will enable him to set up and handle a LAN on any size, whether we're talking one machine or a hundred. Granted, his current job doesn't require him to deploy a hundred machines...but for all we know, his next very well could.
Saying that RPM means Red Hat or SUSE or Mandrake are unusable is just fucking stupid.
I didn't say that they were unusable for an end user. Not all of them are unusable for development, either...I built my last LFS on Mandrake 10, simply because I'm on dialup where I am and am unfortunate enough not to live near Linux vendors, and Mandrake 10 Community was available on a magazine cover. A number of RPM-based systems have shown major problems for not only building LFS, but also often for building tarballs in general in my experience. If you know that the system you're on is sane because you've spent time looking at it, fine. What I primarily meant was though that all other things being equal, in my experience RPM-based systems genuinely do have a lot more problems for development use than non-RPM based do.
My point on replicating his Windows system was not to make Linux look like Windows, but to enable the office to continue doing what they're currently doing on Windows but in the Linux manner. Stop knee-jerking and understand that.
That's why I advocated that he initially only use Linux server side, and leave Windows on the desktop completely. Chances are that his users will want to use Office anyway.
Most organizations use these three main Linux distros as servers for a reason.
Organisations use Red Hat or Mandrake for the same reason that they used Microsoft before them; purely because all three companies are able to offer support contracts. Ass-covering and handholding are the most important things as far as the majority of organisations are concerned; actual technical quality generally has nothing to do with it. If quality had anything to do with what organisations use, Microsoft wouldn't have made anywhere near the amount of money they have.
Give...it...up. You just sound like a fool or a fanatic. You're an example of why people coming from Windows can't stand Linux people. You give Linux users a bad name.
No...In my observation anyway, the main reason why Windows migrants (or anyone else for that matter) can have issues with Linux users is RMS/the GNU crowd, which (despite what you might be thinking, given my tone in these two posts) I am most assuredly NOT a member of. I think it's a very safe bet that (as one example) pretty much every single one of the death threats or other forms of intimidation Laura Didio received a bit back came from people on the GNU side of the ideological/factional divide. RMS has the attitude that anybody using Linux is somehow therefore on his turf by default, and therefore compelled to adhere to whatever he decrees. His army of zombies (many of which I've seen on Slashdot) also try and enforce this. Considering that the main thing that a Windows migrant might be trying to get away from is feeling that they
I'd say he doesn't need any of that "Linux from scratch" stuff.
Why not? Because it isn't what all the other lemmings are doing?
As he bangs along replicating the existing Windows system on Linux, he'll learn enough about Linux - and it will be knowledge he can apply directly to his work.
Ah. Here we come to the central premise of your (well, actually I suspect it isn't *yours*, but anyway) argument. Heaven forfend that we simply allow Linux to be Linux. As we all know, the only legitimate, allowable use for Linux is to find ways to turn it into a Windows clone...and never mind that in our groupthink befogged trance, we don't think of the concept that turning Linux into Windows will very likely also cause Linux to inherit a good many of Windows' problems.
He could install Knoppix, but it would be better to start with something like Mandrake, or better yet one of the distros likely to end up being used as the server, like SUSE or Red Hat, either in their server versions or workstation versions.
No, it wouldn't. Have you ever seen the degree to which RPM can mutilate a system? Are you aware of the truly appalling standard of rpm spec authorship that exists among Mandrake developers? Even more...have you ever tried to install anything with dependencies straight from a source tarball on an RPM-based system? I suspect not.
If he simply wanted to be an end-user with OpenOffice, I might agree with you. However, for anything more serious (especially involving any development or software compilation at all) rpm is rodenticide *unless* you're writing your own spec files, and have been doing so from the beginning. But even then, the spec format is an abomination...in a whole heap of different ways.
Try using your own brain for a change, every now and then. You might even enjoy it.
Hi Charlie,
1. First of all, grab Knoppix, burn it to a CD, and spend a few days (or a few weeks, whatever you feel comfortable with) playing with it. The base CD doesn't install anything to the hard drive, so you can't harm anything. This is a completely safe, non-intimidating way for you to initially get your feet wet.
2. While you're exploring Knoppix, there are a few things to read which will really help you. This will give you a very good introduction to Linux, in terms of a little history of the system, how to begin using it, and how some basic things work. Here is another in-depth document about using Linux, leading on from the previous one.
3. Once you've gone through those two, (take as much time as you need) this, written by the same man as the introduction, will introduce you to the Bash shell, the textual command interpreter where as a sysadmin in particular you'll likely be spending a lot of your time. This will ease you into scripting in what I think will be a very non-intimidating way. You will be able to try out all of these exercises with the Knoppix CD, and again, because the CD doesn't install anything to the hard drive, you needn't worry about destroying your existing system's contents while you learn. This is another book on Bash scripting which to a degree follows on from that one, and will go into somewhat greater depth. Both of these should lead to you feeling very comfortable writing shell scripts and moving around to a degree on the system.
4. Here is where we get to some meat. This document goes into compiling and installing generic Linux/UNIX software, and offers some basic applications and examples. Once you've gone through this, coupled with the material above, you should now have sufficient understanding to be able to compile and install at least a basic application yourself.
5. The Pocket Linux Guide will take you step by step through the process of learning to make a small, bootable Linux system on two floppy disks. Although compiling a basic custom kernel is part of this process, the Guide contains a link to another document which explains very clearly how to do this, and given the background you will have received from the previous documents, this should not be difficult.
6. Once you have completed the Pocket Linux Guide, you will then be ready to proceed to this site, which is the homepage of the Linux From Scratch Project. Here you will be able to read an HTML-formatted book which will give you the necessary information to successfully build an entire base Linux system of your own, and a more pure boot CD than Knoppix to initially build it upon. The Linux From Scratch Project also has a sequel book, Beyond Linux From Scratch, which describes how to install, among other things, a full graphical user interface with the X Windows system.
7. After you have completed all of this, although it is not crucial, I thoroughly recommend reading this book during idle moments. (It's still a good mealtime accompaniment for me) It will give you a detailed knowledge of the history and philosophy behind the UNIX operating system in general, which I am sure you will find enormously useful.
(Slashdot flamers, start your engines. I'm aware I'm likely to get a ton of abuse from corporate droids in particular about how I'm not telling him to find hand-holding tech support/this isn't practical advice, blah blah blah. For anyone considering res
...I've been seeing this kind of thing popping up all over the Web in the last week or so, with one of the main proponents apparently being this guy, a particularly sophisticated crackpot who I remember having read about a few years back.
;-)
The online kook population seem to be going into a feeding frenzy with regards to Katrina, even moreso than usual. FEMA's recent screwups in New Orleans are also apparently being seen by the Lone Gunmen demographic as validation of the schizoid claims they've been making over the past 15 years, namely that FEMA have been busily carpeting the US with concentration camps, presumably for a time when Shrub will grow tired of all the criticism he's been receiving, throw some giant switch, and have said critics (and most of the rest of the population along with them, apparently) rounded up.
We can only hope they're wrong.
I won't be seeing movies based on any of the properties listed. Captain America in particular is nothing more than a walking American flag, a la Superman, and thus is these days likely to simply be offensive outside the US itself.
I'm not going to name the one act of specific American heroism that the rest of the planet is now eagerly awaiting the performance of...I'm sure Slashdot's readers know what I'm talking about, here. Until that particular act is performed, however, any other attempts at making anything or anyone American appear heroic will ring hollow.
Communism and capitalism are as bad as each other and are based on the same flawed idea: that people want to to the right thing.
No, that idea itself isn't flawed; I believe that the majority of people genuinely do want to do the right thing. However, what's lacking in both political ideologies is the perception that the people who *don't* want to do the right thing, while a minority, are generally considerably more proactive and passionate than the majority who do. That's why they get into power...Not because the majority wish to do wrong, but because they are not as proactive as the people who consciously do have bad intentions.
people always want the same things - security, power, money, sex - in some combination.
I don't believe that the majority genuinely do want power. If that's the case, why do most people work in a dead end job for eight hours a day? That's not a way to get anything other than maintaining your current position, and the truth of that doesn't require rocket science to be able to see, either.
The majority want what Man as a hunting, gathering animal has always wanted; to survive. To eat, to have a mate, to have children. Basic biological stuff.
Megalomania and sociopathy are distortions which do not occur in the majority. They occur in a minority of individuals who, for whatever reason, are defective in some way. Normal, healthy people who are getting a majority of their basic needs met don't want to take over the world; that's the desire of an extremely fearful, unhappy person who percieves the world to be so completely full of threats that s/he can never be entirely secure unless they have complete control of it. The reason why these people rise to the top is because the majority are, as I said, focused on basic survival needs. They're not focused on, or accustomed to being focused on, having to defend their larger society from such people. It's true, however, that there have been that many of such types in the last century or so, that eventually (it can be hoped, at least) over a period of several hundred or possibly several thousand years, if we live that long, we can eventually learn to detect and act on the signs of such an individual appearing in our midst. These people don't appear, or gain power, overnight. It is generally a process spanning several years.
I think you're right when you say that the answer isn't in broad political ideologies...but maybe there is one in continuing to study sociopathy, and political history, and learning to identify the factors involved in how these individuals develop.
I admitted to having switched to Postgres above, but as I said then, that was primarily due to concerns about MySQL remaining open source, since as I also said there they seem to have become a company with primarily commercially oriented priorities.
However, that said, the main reason why I switched was because I'm working on something which other people are going to be able to use. If we were talking about a database app that was purely for my own use, then so long as I was reasonably confident that I could get a GPL-licensed version of MySQL, I probably would have stayed with it until they discontinued that.
I also criticised the company in my earlier comment on this article however, and I now regret having done so. A lot of Linux users (Europeans in particular, I've noticed) seem to have difficulty with the concept that software companies do not (and should not, IMHO) have to run purely according to our approval. I think part of the problem is the fact that in terms of thinking of the "Linux community" as opposed to "Linux users", we end up seeing ourselves as some sort of small, fairly closed group who for some reason feel that we have the bizarre right to expect the rest of the world to conform to our decrees. Which, of course, was the precise aim of the author of this particular concept, Richard Stallman. Stallman and his followers have succeeded in making the word "community" a swearword in my vocabulary.
If MySQL AB (or any other vendor company, for that matter) make a decision to do what we consider to be shooting themselves in the foot, then not only is that entirely their perogative, but we need to have more faith in the idea that market forces will ensure that their decision meets with predictable consequences.
We can, of course, vote with our feet and choose another database application, as I have done, and as several others in this thread appear to have done or advocated doing. However, what I think we should refrain from doing is scolding companies in an arrogant, autocratic, and whining manner when they take an action which is at odds with the expectations or Marxist ideology of the user in question.
Stallman himself might not be a Communist, but to me there's a fair amount of evidence to suggest that a number of European Linux users in particular are. It's obnoxious, it's anachronistic, it's unnecessary, and it doesn't do Linux's credibility any favours, especially in the US.
...is the reason why I switched from MySQL a while back to Postgres. At the time, although MySQL still had a version licensed under the GPL, the link to it was buried in the site. What was a lot easier to find was the commercially licensed version, which they had links to/info about slathered all over the site. This caused me to worry that eventually the GPL licensed version would disappear entirely.
;-)) it's a fantastic db and is enormously scalable. The best part is that legally it also uses open source's underdog, the BSD license.
Although Postgres is unfortunately a bit bigger, (the elephant isn't its mascot for nothing
It is unfortunate that MySQL AB have shown such lack of vision in the past couple of years...but methinks they're probably about to find out that commercialistic shortsightedness carries its' own reward:- Eventual irrelevance.
That I'm with Blizzard on this one. If a company chooses to make their software open source, that is great, and we should applaud them for it. If however they choose to keep it proprietary, that is also their right and it should be honoured.
This again can be attributed to Stallman's pernicious influence, methinks. His attitude of "my way is the only correct/acceptable way," has been replicated by his followers...to the degree where it is believed in cases like this one that if a company does not license their software under the GPL by default, they are automatically fair game.
I can only hope that some people eventually come to realise that genuine freedom also includes the freedom to hold an opinion different from theirs, and also that if Stallman in particular cannot accept that idea, that he will eventually be rendered irrelevant.
At the application level, this, and this are two possible answers, or at least workarounds. On the filesystem level, this could be a possible workaround as well.
I agree however that it would seem people have been caught with their pants down in regards to WinFS though. The usual sentiment about it among Linux peeps from what I've seen is that it either isn't doable, or that it is, but that it'd be horribly slow.
Methinks a change in attitude is called for, however. This could very well be Bill's answer to the One Ring if he gets it out, which is presumably why Microsoft are trying to get a working release ASAP. Forget the coder bias for a minute here, and think about what the implications of this could be from the perspective of ease-of-use...and then think about what a battle we'd have converting people to Linux if we still don't have it when Microsoft does.
Longhorn was intended to be a Linux killer...but of all the elements I've seen, WinFS is the only one which could truly cause us problems...Especially when you consider how difficult back-engineering compatibility with such an FS would probably be.
As I said, I'm aware WinFS hasn't been taken seriously around here so far...but somebody needs to start to.
...why people continue to have any respect for this man.
a) He doesn't own the trademark, so I have no idea why his opinion/statement would be asked for regarding it. His statement certainly does not hold any legal weight.
b) As someone else pointed out, he is hypocritical here, and this isn't the first time. He has insisted earlier that people use the term "GNU/Linux", and yet here he says that what a program is called is a side issue.
The second point in particular demonstrates the validity of an opinion which I have held about RMS for some time now. Namely, that he isn't anywhere near as principled as he claims, but is fairly simply a narcissist whose only genuine interest is in maintaining popularity and feeling that he has a group of people who will listen to his decrees.
I don't argue that he was a great programmer, once...but he needs to stop making public statements, as all they do is continue to damage his credibility and erode the goodwill/respect/relevance that he earned with his programming achievements.
That precludes the BSD license as having any use for his problem. If he used the BSD license anyone could take his code, package it up, rename it and release it. As long as they then attributed that portions of the code are copyright by the original author (and include the list of disclaimers) they would be A.OK. and my programmer here would have no recourse.
They'd be doing that with what in essence would be a *fork*, though...or a derived work. This is what people don't understand. He'd still have his original code. He also would still have the option of selling it. Putting his code under the GPL won't stop other people from selling copies of it, either.
There seems to be an erroneous perception (although I know exactly where/who it comes from) that when someone uses a non-GPL license, they immediately lose any and all right to their work, or to what happens to it. This is quite simply not true. They don't govern what happens to derivative works, sure...but they can still control what happens to the parent.
Stop relying on Stallman's brain, and try using your own.
>My single biggest objection to Richard Stallman is >that I believe that *his* philosophy is the only >acceptable one.
swap "I believe" with "I believe he thinks"
What about using (*lowers voice to a whisper*) the BSD license? (*hears gasps of horror coming from the audience*)
Before the GPL zealots come screaming out of the woodwork on this one, there's something they (and you) should know. The BSD license actually includes a copyright notice. Have a look at it and see. For FreeBSD as an example, the copyright is held by the CSRG.
That means that in using it as a license, you don't actually surrender your copyright. (Unlike certain FUD which is spread by individuals who remain nameless states) You don't get a patent, no...but you *do* get copyright, in the originally intended sense of the word. This to me is a demonstration of why the GPL *is* both unnecessary and repressive, despite claims to the contrary.
What you get the copyright to is your own work; what you're giving other people is the right to make *derivative* works. They get copyright on derivative works, yes...but they don't get the copyright on your work itself. So if you wanted to, you could use a non-viral license (the BSD license is only one option...www.opensource.org lists many) without having to assume that you're automatically putting your work in the public domain.
My single biggest objection to Richard Stallman is that I believe that *his* philosophy is the only acceptable one. To me the use of the phrase "GPL compatible" in particular sounds a lot like the campaign Microsoft had a number of years back where they were certifying things as "Windows compatible" or "made for Windows 95."
Stallman claims to be about freedom...but look closer. What he's really about is forming a cultural/social movement with himself at the head. That isn't anywhere near as much about freedom as it is about agreeing with whatever he decrees.
I've noticed for a while that the term "hacker" is generally considered a vague, legendary and elusive title which supposedly only a very few godlike souls are ever able to attain or become worthy of. ESR seems to have led the charge in perpetuating this pretentious tripe, but it is a belief which sadly a great many people seem to be afflicted with.
How do I define a hacker myself? Someone who:-
(a) Has sufficient knowledge of a particular system/topic (and although use of the term normally applies to computer related areas, it has been colloquially lent to other fields) that they are able to employ a degree of intuition when solving problems in said area.
(b) Performs said problem solving in an improvisatory, rather than formal, manner.
(c) Has a tendency to develop solutions to problems which involve surrealistic associations. By that I mean that their solutions will involve combining objects, ideas, or processes which would not ordinarily go together.
Contrary to the common belief, this doesn't require being a god, either. It generally doesn't require too much more than at least a basic level of intelligence and familiarity with the area in question. So given that, yes, pretty much anyone who has any level of proficiency in anything could call themselves a hacker if they wished to do so.
ESR's claim of, "you're not a hacker until somebody else calls you one," implies to me that *he* anyway is somebody who forms his self-perception on the basis of other people's assessments...a rather questionable idea, to my mind.
Blogging IMHO has probably never been a pastime of the genuinely intelligent. (And before I get flamed as a hypocrite, yes, I have a blog, but I haven't regularly updated it since March or so, and it was an effort back then)
;)
I probably only really got a Blogger account at all out of some vague, misguided desire to "stay current," but the main reason why I've virtually never used it is because I generally try and fill my time with far more productive things...like, say, working.
Blogging IMHO is probably the single most utterly useless convention to have appeared online so far. It seems to have primarily caught on in the US where, presumably because of the current fascist dictatorship which is euphemistically referred to as a democratic government, the population are enthusiastic about blogging as their only form of even partially genuine democratic expression. As for the rest of us, who live in countries where the system still actually works, (if only to a minor degree) we either engage in offline (read: effective) forms of activism, or devote our lives to far more constructive persuits.
Agreed. This could be an issue for me in the near future (the licensing thing) but I've already had prior experience of Perthies' idiosyncracies. If this guy writes me a letter, I'll respond by saying that:
;)
a) My intent is fair use and fair use ONLY; i.e., Linus wrote the kernel, Linus owns the kernel, and I make no claim to the contrary. I'm interested purely in marketing a distribution.
b) Ergo, the only lawyer I'll respond to positively will be one acting verifiably on behalf of Linus himself. This guy can consider himself formally invited (to use highly precise legal terminology) to take a fucking hike.
How long until someone opens a reality/virtual border duty-free shop?
I doubt that will happen in that sense, as the analogy of borders won't scale. However, what you could have is a case of both vendors that do tax (say, like Sony's recent trading facility for it's games) and those that don't. (Ebay currently, IGN possibly) Thus, the ones that don't tax or that don't take a per-transaction cut will be analogous to real-world duty free shops, perhaps.
For example, do these companies that sell virtual gold and items have to pay taxes on their sales?
It will depend on whether they feel they need to in order to remain competitive, I think. For example, since Sony's new service charges a per-transaction fee on item sales, it could be argued that Ebay are more attractive for players to use, at least from a monetary point of view, as they do not have that fee AFAIK. Although I'm also assuming that Sony will give players additional incentives to offset the transaction fee. (Exclusive items for its games which wouldn't be available via Ebay/IGN, etc.) Being the company which runs a given game means that they can control the supply of commodities/items within each game.
If so, is their product considered a good or a service?
Running the game or the virtual environment itself would be considered a service...the gold itself within the game could thus be considered a product. What you are then doing, when you buy gold for a particular character, is buying a virtual product, (the gold) for use in conjunction with a service. (the particular game)
If I review games for a living and I buy a virtual item to review, can I claim it as a business expense? If I resell it, do I have to claim the profit as business income?
I don't think this will emerge for a while, but it definitely could, yes. It would be more likely, in terms of something that could be claimed as a business expense, for that to be in the case of a non-game oriented virtual environment. I can envision virtual environments of various kinds being developed for people with physical disabilities (quadraplegics, etc) which cause immobility, for instance. These kinds of environments would not necessarily be oriented towards games, nor would they have to have a single particular theme. I could see them attempting to recreate the conditions of certain real-world outdoor environments for those who would normally be physically incapable of travelling to such, or possibly such things as places where people could engage in simulations of real-world hobbies, such as pottery or gardening.
If I play an MMORPG in my free time, am I building wealth that I can later use for retirement?
It would depend on the politics and purpose of the environment in question. Say for example we're talking about a virtual nursery. In that type of scenario, you could possibly have an occupation as a tourguide or, in the case of a virtual zoo, a park ranger, as the animals there could have forms of limited artificial intelligence, and thus require semi-realistic handling. Given those types of scenarios, I think you could definitely get superannuation for the work you do, in much the same way as you currently can get super for offline work now.
But as virtual marketplaces become more common and prevalent, I could see a big black market in stolen game account information.
That could happen to a degree, yes...certainly in the case of well-known or famous figures within a given environment. Security for such things generally isn't all that difficult however, so I can't see that as being an epidemic. AFAIK, account theft isn't a major problem with contemporary MMORPGs.
My own predictions:-
1. What we now call MMORPGs are going to become fully-fledged virtual societies. Some will be themed along the lines of gaming; others won't be, and will in fact be merely stylised mirrors of places in the real world, where people work and do various other things.
2. The overlap between offline and online currencies will increase, and will again extend beyond the current MMORPGs.
3. The ultimate logical extension of this is that eventually, something similar to what we now call an MMORPG will be recognised as an entirely legitimate geopolitical entity, though for some reason I don't see that happening before 2020.
Basically, the Internet and online environments are going to increasingly supplement physical world existence...I don't think they will supplant offline life, but they will be a very real alternative for a lot of people.
My sources for this belief are such books as The Sovereign Individual, and also the belief systems espoused by such websites as Afterlife Knowledge.
Basically I believe that the Internet is going to become a fully fledged mechanical facsimile of astral space, but with some vestigial physical world elements.
Yes, except they're generally things which would be advocated by the sorts of morons who are protesting this...like the war in Iraq, for instance.
>Isn't that point that both are examples of amateurs
>successfully providing product that traditionally
>comes only from professional organizations? That
>seems like a valid point to me.
That entirely depends on whether you consider the majority of blogs to actually create professional-quality reading material. I'd call that a very dangerous assumption in most cases.
...that they still haven't solved the telemere/age problem; i.e., that if the original animal is an adult, the clone will be born with the same amount of time left to live as the adult original. I hope they solve that problem before they start seriously trying to clone humans...the result could be exactly the same problem that Rutger Hauer's character in Blade Runner had if they don't.
Is it remotely possible for a single question to be submitted to this site without juvenile morons like yourself making comments like this?
The person asking the question wanted serious replies...not idiotic crap like this. If you don't have anything mature to contribute, then do the rest of us a favour, and STFU.
I had hoped that reading with a threshold of +2 would be enough to filter out this sort of crap...but obviously it's bubbling up even to the +2 level now as well. *sigh*
While suspicion is admittedly the kneejerk reaction, I'm assuming that Mozilla.org, like any other organisation, needs to find ways to pay the bills.
What will be most interesting will be seeing if they can resist the instinctive corporate urge to commit gradual financial and PR suicide via the usual scorched-earth tactics. A turn to the Dark Side probably is not inevitable, but given the usual nature of corporations, it probably would not come as a surprise.
People will probably consider it weird that from what it sounds like here, I'm advocating Windows. I'm not exactly, but I thought it was a good opportunity to demonstrate that I *can* be balanced, and can also argue from either side of the fence.