'You don't need to back down about elitism, you need to save it for the proper place. "
Point taken.
"I get tired of Bible thumpers on Burbon Street, but I always smile for them and pay some respect. They are out there doing things and might do some good. What good does it do to call them names?"
"...but to state that I believe that it is contradictory to endorse prprietary software whilst using Free Software."
Where did I do that? Ok, fine, if you dig around on my scratchpad (it's on my site), you'll find I gave a positive reference to Pegasus Mail, which is apparently closed-source, but it's free, and it's the best mail client I've ever used, bar none.
However, in my first post I has pine in mind, which is not free-as-in-beer, but is included in every distro that I've ever loaded, except Debian, and also NetBSD. Pine is free-as-in-speech AFAIK, it's what I've always used for shell mail, and when I put up a box I always install it.
The way I parsed the story headlines made me wonder if, since it's possible that pine would no longer be required in future releases of Debian (yes, I know you have to specify your acceptance of non-free licenses when you try to install pine and like-burdened apps, so technically pine isn't bundled with Debian), and therefore also conceivable that I would have to jump through hoops to get it to install or compile. I know this is reaching, but it's possible that something like that could happen, down the road. What if things forked to the extent that pine couldn't even compile on a Debian box? Or some other app that's non-free?
It may not be much of a big deal for you or other die-hard Debian users, but if I'm going to put up a boxr, I'm going to have to read root mail, and I really don't want to migrate to mutt. If it came down to this scenario, I would find some other distro to run.
Ok, I guess I should have explained more of my reasoning in my first post. Sorry.
I write GPL software (check my projects page if you doubt me). I believe in free software. I don't cotton to RMS-style rants, though. I also refuse to append "GNU/" to anything. I run Linux, and will always claim to run Linux, not "GNU/".
I'm not opposed to the freedom to run only free-as-in-speech software --- I never said that. I am opposed to anyone looking down on me because I run non-Debian distro (SuSE has been my main distro for 4 years now, though I also like NetBSD). I'm not saying every Debian user has an attitude, but I've run into far too many elitists over the years, and quite honestly I don't need elitism, not from Debian users, not from RMS, and not from the BSD crowd.
I'm not alone in my opinion, and everyone here on slashdot has heard both sides of this issue many times. Why am I labelled a troll for speaking up?
I'm willing to admit I'm oversensitive about this issue. I didn't mean to offend anyone by my remarks. I won't back down from my statements regarding elitism, however.
Honestly, though, I'm tired of all this "we hate software if it's not free", and "GNU/"-everything cr4p. To each his own, I guess, but it gets kinda old after a while.
Hmm... and what happens when all of their existing customers demand (or switch to, same thing) the lower monthly rate? I think I can hear the sound of AOL's revenue being cut in half...
This happened to me at LSU back in the 80's, when I was living in Pentagon A.
I was the prankster, terrorizing my buddies in my stairwell (that dorm didn't have halls, but stairwells), but one of the guys (a gung-ho ROTC army guy, in the program, and who eventually joined up regular army to drive tanks when he flunked out of school during his senior year) never made the first move to get even with me. This went on for a couple of months. I'd put BBs in his boots, a brick under his pillow, etc., but no retaliation. It never dawned on me that he was saving up for a blowout of a prank to get me back.
I went to take a shower late one afternoon, and he proceeded to dump a wastebasket full of cold water from the water fountain over the top of the shower stall, freezing me quite well. No biggie, though, as I managed to dodge most of the water. I finished my shower, stepped out of the stall, and found that my bathrobe had been taken. I exited the bathroom to find him and a couple of our neighbors leaning up against the wall, grinning at me. I walked to my door and found it locked. He then informed me that my keys were duct taped to the ceiling of the landing (remember, this is a stairwell). I climbed up on the water fountain and pulled myself up to the ceiling via the exposed water pipe, and hand-walked the pipe to the center of the ceiling and grabbed my keys.
At some point my towel fell from around my waist, so I'm hanging from a 9-foot ceiling buck naked. Also during my climb, a guy from the third floor started coming down the stairs, girlfriend in tow. She turned around and went back up the stairs when she saw me and Ralph dangling from the ceiling. At any rate, once I snatched my keys, I let go of the pipe and dropped to the floor, landing on my feet. I unlocked my door, grabbed my robe, and began apologizing furiously to my buddy for all the pranks I pulled on him all semester. Needless to say, that cured me of pulling pranks on him, but good.
...at the old Sickly's Pizza at the north gates of LSU on Highland Road. The manager at that time was a guy named Mohammed, if I remember right. He sent one of the new drivers to Pizza Hut in Tigerland for a dough repair kit. The new guy took it well; meanwhile we laughed our butts off.
Duh, all the questions and their answers are printed for anyone to read already. The tests select from the published pool.
Yes, people should have to learn to become hams, but honestly it can't get any easier than getting the questions beforehand.
FYI, I never learned morse code... I had a no-code technicians's license, while those existed. I need to get off my rear and renew it (it expired a year ago).
... shame I'm not one of them. It's nice to hear than we've got another competitor to Outlook and Novell Ximian Evolution that will keep development nice and fresh.
The problem with Evolution (yes, I've used it, as my main client at my last job) is that it won't interact with the Kolab server --- unless some third party writes a free connector for it (there exists one already, I think, but it's a non-free per-seat license).
My main gig right now is Linux integration, and Kolab seems to be the best way to replace Exchange. If I (or my clients) want to pay for software, that's fine, and I'll even use SuSE's OpenExchange Server, but as I see it, one of OSS's main sellling points is that companies can keep their thousands of dollars that they would have spent on Exchange or Notes/Domino, and only pay me the labor to set everything up, and I'll maintain it later if they desire.
Star Trek NG ended its run with 3 ships focusing a tachyon beam at a particular point, causing a vortex or some other event that threatened to destroy the universe.
A couple of errors:
They claimed that the beams were identical because they all came from the same type of ship --- never mind that one of the ships was a hospital ship, a totally different class of vessel from a warship
They claimed that the reason they pointed their beam at the spot was that one of the other ships had apparently pointed their beam first... yet all three claimed to be second.
Honestly, I hated that show. There were horrible holes in practically every episode I watched.
Isn't SCO claiming that the 2.4 kernel and anything later than 2.4 infringes their stuff? But Caldera released this ancient code under a BSD license right after they bought it. Could it be that they're claiming the 2.4 and later kernels on the basis of the released code? Is the time frame right?
The whole premise behind global warming is a lie. It's bogus. It's not science, and neither does the rest of the environmental bill of goods have anything to do with actual science.
I'll leave it to others to explain the politics (leftist) and religion (gaia) behind the environmentalist scam.
Capacitors in the power supply take a little while to discharge, perhaps as long as 5 or 10 seconds. Conceivably, cycling the power button too quickly might not give the chips a good reset pulse, required for a good reboot. I remember from my electronic tech days that a microproccessor needs three things: a stable power supply, a clock pulse, and a reset pulse, in order to function correctly.
Better yet, my dad somehow ended up having to explain how to the tech how she used ping.
This is no lie... here in New Orleans, there's a tech by the name of Tuan that works for Network Telephone doing DSL installs. Aside from not being able to strip wire without nicking it (I watched him cut the end off a cat5 run over and over again because he kept whacking it), he can't stop "ping -t $IP". Someone taught him the "-t" flag, but not "^C", so to stop a ping, he would reboot his windows laptop.
Sadly, I'm not making this up. And this guy's done installs all over the metro area.
I get depressed every time I think about the time I spent in tech support at an ISP. We got calls from people like Grandpa, whose daughter gave him a PC so they could email back and forth and save on long distance charges. Grandpa knew zilch about computers. He signed up for an account, and called us to help him get connected (this was standard practice --- sales would enter new customers into the database and refer them to the techs to get connected).
We had to instruct Gramps on the construction of his mouse, and how to right-click on icons. The call took 45-minutes, but we were finally able to get him set up. The old guy called practically every night for 2 weeks, needing help with this or that aspect of operating a computer (how to use IE, what email was and how to send and receive it, etc).
Unfortunately, we had quite a few customers like that. I don't remember how many times I was on the phone with complete newbies with absolutely no experience with computers for 30 minutes or more.
I have a client that called me last week, complaining that some random tech she had in her office was ragging me because the box I sold her a year ago had win98 instead of ME or XP (what kind of a dope is this guy? Who needs XP bloatware, and what fool would run ME?).
She complained about a few other items, then all of a sudden she realized that the PC I sold her gave her much less trouble than her box and home, and the most noticable on her work PC was the absence of popups/popunders. She finally calmed down after that, and thanked me for installing Mozilla (well, Netscape, same thing) and forcing her to use that for web and email instead of the twin Exploders.
Yeah, that's the cheap way to go... and while the onboard NIC is probably ok (I'll bet it's a realtek), and possibly the sound card, you are shooting yourself in the foot with onboard video and that modem riser piece of junk.
The problem is this: the video card robs your ram sticks. If you have 32MB onboard video ram, take a look at your system ram once you have the thing booted. You'll notice that your available ram is missing 32 MB.
And by all means, don't use a modem riser. First off, that's the worst modem hardware out there. Secondly, it's a winmodem-type modem, or software modem. Dealing with software modems is bad enough (ask your dialup ISP about them... I used to work at one, and we had nonstop trouble with them --- visit 808hi.com to see what I'm talking about). Add in the riser as opposed to a PCI setup, and you're asking for trouble. I've found that Creative Modem Blasters are pretty good, plus they are supported under Linux, and you can pick them up for under $25.
I saw instructions on how to change the colors somewhere once... anyone know how to do this? I thought it was in the registry.
On a related note, there is a book called "windows 95 annoyances" that gives instructions on how to change the "start" button text. I found that flipping through the book at a bookstore once.
It may be as you say, I don't doubt it. but for one, the future is Linux, at least for a while to come. While I also use NetBSD (and windows, ugh), my eggs are pretty much going to stay in the linux basket for now. We aren't fighting SCO and Micros~1 for nothing, you know!
The other reason for my not wanting to use HURD is the whole elitist attitude ("no, no, don't say "Linux", you gotta call it "GNU/Linux". I use RMS's stuff, i.e. I write code and GPL it, but the whole "GNU" prefix thing really turns me off. Similarly, while I respect Debian, and know quite a few sysadmins who run it, I won't do much with it due to many Debian users who insist on the term "GNU/Linux".
Sorry, that's just how I feel. If you want to use HURD, more power to you. LIkewise if someone uses the term "GNU/Linux". I won't be playing, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Point taken.
"I get tired of Bible thumpers on Burbon Street, but I always smile for them and pay some respect. They are out there doing things and might do some good. What good does it do to call them names?"
Touche.
Where did I do that? Ok, fine, if you dig around on my scratchpad (it's on my site), you'll find I gave a positive reference to Pegasus Mail, which is apparently closed-source, but it's free, and it's the best mail client I've ever used, bar none.
However, in my first post I has pine in mind, which is not free-as-in-beer, but is included in every distro that I've ever loaded, except Debian, and also NetBSD. Pine is free-as-in-speech AFAIK, it's what I've always used for shell mail, and when I put up a box I always install it.
The way I parsed the story headlines made me wonder if, since it's possible that pine would no longer be required in future releases of Debian (yes, I know you have to specify your acceptance of non-free licenses when you try to install pine and like-burdened apps, so technically pine isn't bundled with Debian), and therefore also conceivable that I would have to jump through hoops to get it to install or compile. I know this is reaching, but it's possible that something like that could happen, down the road. What if things forked to the extent that pine couldn't even compile on a Debian box? Or some other app that's non-free?
It may not be much of a big deal for you or other die-hard Debian users, but if I'm going to put up a boxr, I'm going to have to read root mail, and I really don't want to migrate to mutt. If it came down to this scenario, I would find some other distro to run.
Ok, I guess I should have explained more of my reasoning in my first post. Sorry.
Thanks.
You're kidding, right? I own a Linux company. I'm the active leader of a Linux Users Group. I write free software.
Your need to see a doctor about your knee... it jerks too much, don't you think?
I think your post exemplifies my complaints about elitism.
I'm not opposed to the freedom to run only free-as-in-speech software --- I never said that. I am opposed to anyone looking down on me because I run non-Debian distro (SuSE has been my main distro for 4 years now, though I also like NetBSD). I'm not saying every Debian user has an attitude, but I've run into far too many elitists over the years, and quite honestly I don't need elitism, not from Debian users, not from RMS, and not from the BSD crowd.
I'm not alone in my opinion, and everyone here on slashdot has heard both sides of this issue many times. Why am I labelled a troll for speaking up?
I'm willing to admit I'm oversensitive about this issue. I didn't mean to offend anyone by my remarks. I won't back down from my statements regarding elitism, however.
Honestly, though, I'm tired of all this "we hate software if it's not free", and "GNU/"-everything cr4p. To each his own, I guess, but it gets kinda old after a while.
Um, we just pulled out of a recession, like last month. It started during the middle of your posted time span (9/11/2001).
Hmm... and what happens when all of their existing customers demand (or switch to, same thing) the lower monthly rate? I think I can hear the sound of AOL's revenue being cut in half...
I was the prankster, terrorizing my buddies in my stairwell (that dorm didn't have halls, but stairwells), but one of the guys (a gung-ho ROTC army guy, in the program, and who eventually joined up regular army to drive tanks when he flunked out of school during his senior year) never made the first move to get even with me. This went on for a couple of months. I'd put BBs in his boots, a brick under his pillow, etc., but no retaliation. It never dawned on me that he was saving up for a blowout of a prank to get me back.
I went to take a shower late one afternoon, and he proceeded to dump a wastebasket full of cold water from the water fountain over the top of the shower stall, freezing me quite well. No biggie, though, as I managed to dodge most of the water. I finished my shower, stepped out of the stall, and found that my bathrobe had been taken. I exited the bathroom to find him and a couple of our neighbors leaning up against the wall, grinning at me. I walked to my door and found it locked. He then informed me that my keys were duct taped to the ceiling of the landing (remember, this is a stairwell). I climbed up on the water fountain and pulled myself up to the ceiling via the exposed water pipe, and hand-walked the pipe to the center of the ceiling and grabbed my keys.
At some point my towel fell from around my waist, so I'm hanging from a 9-foot ceiling buck naked. Also during my climb, a guy from the third floor started coming down the stairs, girlfriend in tow. She turned around and went back up the stairs when she saw me and Ralph dangling from the ceiling. At any rate, once I snatched my keys, I let go of the pipe and dropped to the floor, landing on my feet. I unlocked my door, grabbed my robe, and began apologizing furiously to my buddy for all the pranks I pulled on him all semester. Needless to say, that cured me of pulling pranks on him, but good.
...at the old Sickly's Pizza at the north gates of LSU on Highland Road. The manager at that time was a guy named Mohammed, if I remember right. He sent one of the new drivers to Pizza Hut in Tigerland for a dough repair kit. The new guy took it well; meanwhile we laughed our butts off.
Yes, people should have to learn to become hams, but honestly it can't get any easier than getting the questions beforehand.
FYI, I never learned morse code... I had a no-code technicians's license, while those existed. I need to get off my rear and renew it (it expired a year ago).
The problem with Evolution (yes, I've used it, as my main client at my last job) is that it won't interact with the Kolab server --- unless some third party writes a free connector for it (there exists one already, I think, but it's a non-free per-seat license).
My main gig right now is Linux integration, and Kolab seems to be the best way to replace Exchange. If I (or my clients) want to pay for software, that's fine, and I'll even use SuSE's OpenExchange Server, but as I see it, one of OSS's main sellling points is that companies can keep their thousands of dollars that they would have spent on Exchange or Notes/Domino, and only pay me the labor to set everything up, and I'll maintain it later if they desire.
A couple of errors:
- They claimed that the beams were identical because they all came from the same type of ship --- never mind that one of the ships was a hospital ship, a totally different class of vessel from a warship
- They claimed that the reason they pointed their beam at the spot was that one of the other ships had apparently pointed their beam first... yet all three claimed to be second.
Honestly, I hated that show. There were horrible holes in practically every episode I watched.Isn't SCO claiming that the 2.4 kernel and anything later than 2.4 infringes their stuff? But Caldera released this ancient code under a BSD license right after they bought it. Could it be that they're claiming the 2.4 and later kernels on the basis of the released code? Is the time frame right?
I'll leave it to others to explain the politics (leftist) and religion (gaia) behind the environmentalist scam.
Capacitors in the power supply take a little while to discharge, perhaps as long as 5 or 10 seconds. Conceivably, cycling the power button too quickly might not give the chips a good reset pulse, required for a good reboot. I remember from my electronic tech days that a microproccessor needs three things: a stable power supply, a clock pulse, and a reset pulse, in order to function correctly.
This is no lie... here in New Orleans, there's a tech by the name of Tuan that works for Network Telephone doing DSL installs. Aside from not being able to strip wire without nicking it (I watched him cut the end off a cat5 run over and over again because he kept whacking it), he can't stop "ping -t $IP". Someone taught him the "-t" flag, but not "^C", so to stop a ping, he would reboot his windows laptop.
Sadly, I'm not making this up. And this guy's done installs all over the metro area.
I get depressed every time I think about the time I spent in tech support at an ISP. We got calls from people like Grandpa, whose daughter gave him a PC so they could email back and forth and save on long distance charges. Grandpa knew zilch about computers. He signed up for an account, and called us to help him get connected (this was standard practice --- sales would enter new customers into the database and refer them to the techs to get connected).
We had to instruct Gramps on the construction of his mouse, and how to right-click on icons. The call took 45-minutes, but we were finally able to get him set up. The old guy called practically every night for 2 weeks, needing help with this or that aspect of operating a computer (how to use IE, what email was and how to send and receive it, etc).
Unfortunately, we had quite a few customers like that. I don't remember how many times I was on the phone with complete newbies with absolutely no experience with computers for 30 minutes or more.
Um, we did that already. We call it the United States of America. Google for it.
And if they require a phone number, use 867-5309 # ask for Jenny
She complained about a few other items, then all of a sudden she realized that the PC I sold her gave her much less trouble than her box and home, and the most noticable on her work PC was the absence of popups/popunders. She finally calmed down after that, and thanked me for installing Mozilla (well, Netscape, same thing) and forcing her to use that for web and email instead of the twin Exploders.
Duh.
The problem is this: the video card robs your ram sticks. If you have 32MB onboard video ram, take a look at your system ram once you have the thing booted. You'll notice that your available ram is missing 32 MB.
And by all means, don't use a modem riser. First off, that's the worst modem hardware out there. Secondly, it's a winmodem-type modem, or software modem. Dealing with software modems is bad enough (ask your dialup ISP about them... I used to work at one, and we had nonstop trouble with them --- visit 808hi.com to see what I'm talking about). Add in the riser as opposed to a PCI setup, and you're asking for trouble. I've found that Creative Modem Blasters are pretty good, plus they are supported under Linux, and you can pick them up for under $25.
On a related note, there is a book called "windows 95 annoyances" that gives instructions on how to change the "start" button text. I found that flipping through the book at a bookstore once.
The other reason for my not wanting to use HURD is the whole elitist attitude ("no, no, don't say "Linux", you gotta call it "GNU/Linux". I use RMS's stuff, i.e. I write code and GPL it, but the whole "GNU" prefix thing really turns me off. Similarly, while I respect Debian, and know quite a few sysadmins who run it, I won't do much with it due to many Debian users who insist on the term "GNU/Linux".
Sorry, that's just how I feel. If you want to use HURD, more power to you. LIkewise if someone uses the term "GNU/Linux". I won't be playing, though.
Wanna bet?
^C
Sorry, I couldn't resist. However, I have absolutely no interest in ever running GNU/HURD or whatever it's called.