First off, I'm going to say that I am both a Linux advocate and user. I also run FreeBSD on my home server and even have a MacMini running OS/X so please don't read this as a "windows is the answer" post.
Let's use your scenario --
Said user buys a brand new "bleeding edge" laptop. (I'm going to discount the fact that most major hardware manufacturers are going to have the O/S already installed, which makes me wonder why I have to reinstall it... Something that unforunately doesn't happen often enough with Linux.) Regardless...
User inserts Windows XP cd into CD rom drive and re-installs Windows. In my opinion the base install of both Linux and Windows XP is fairly straight-forward. That install eventually finishes and the system reboots to what we'll call the basic Windows install. The user realizes that many of his devices don't work as expected. Sound is non-existant, video only gives 640x480, etc etc.
I think we can assume that this user who bought this bleeding edge laptop bought it from a fairly well known supplier. (Dell, HP, IBM, etc) -- since we're talking about a fairly "non-techie" type. That user should be able to at least figure out where to get a driver from. They hit up said vendors web page, look for drivers, find their make and model and download the driver. I'll even venture to say that 99% of the Windows drivers are going to be an executable of some sort, whether self installing or self packing, with some sort of readme.txt or the such to steer the the right way. I may be trivializing this a bit and I apologize.
So since what I'm reading from the rest of the comments on this post, no one seems to be overly keen on binary type drivers, what would this user do in the Linux world? Hope his hardware works? Fiddle with it? Look around google for someone who has half managed to get said hardware to work. Just install this RPM, or tarball, edit this flat text configuration file, load this module, etc, etc?
Expecting that the average user is going to take that many steps, when they can see that their *friend's* computer works so nice and easily right out of the box? I think they are going to question the whole "Linux" thing.
You're clearly changing what *your* original point was. I never said it should work with $RANDOM_HARDWARE either. But, you did fault him for not spending the time or effort to get it working, his original issue.
You also fed him by stating how you got it to work with 3 bleeding edge Gateway laptops by "spending the time". That exact comment leads right back to his post as well.
As for asserting that you all have the same goals, perhaps that statement was poorly made. While not *all* Slashdot users are of the same mind set, the vast majority of them seem to say that 'everyone should use liunx' and completely defend it against anyone saying they 'couldn't get something working with ease'. Seems a little contradictory.
The typical comment of a Slashdot user. We should all buy new hardware and spend hours on top of hours getting things to work, rather than just "having" things work. Call this a troll if you want, but this is the exact reason that the masses AREN'T running Linux.
You people need to figure out exactly what you want, Linux for the masses (read: grandma, mom, etc) or an O/S where you have to spend valuable time just getting it to work with regular hardware. You bashed the poster for buying "random hardware" and expecting it to work even though you don't know what the hardware in question was, yet in your own message you bought 3 "bleeding edge" Gateway laptops (a fairly well known manufacturer) and you had to (in your words) "_try_ to make it work."
I was going to post this anonymously, but it would of course be modded a troll at that point. Let my karma burn for all I care.
Re:New SPAMmer to abuse
on
FTC vs Spammers
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Wow. If that part didn't look bogus, I would hope everyone would think an address of 12345 and a phone number (minus area code) of 123-4567 would give it away.
The stone part I think was looking past the even more obvious bits.
It wasn't hand holding, I can honestly say even at this point (several years later) the questions I had were legitimate questions that weren't covered by the basic RTFM. (Though I don't recall exactly what they were.) Ah well, it was just an example to show how I got about as much support from people as you did trying to go to #windows.
The long and the short of it was, there are qualified Windows people out there. Of course, in this place, there is no such thing. Tough crowd.
Ironically, I had the same experience when I used to IRC. Unfortunately, that was in #linux, and #freebsd. No one ever wanted to answer questions. It was just always RTFM. I think the is the standard, "I really have no clue, but I'll act like a god and tell you to find the answer yourself" answer. Oh well.
While I'm totally off topic, I might as well speak up to this nicely biased crowd. Believe it or not, there are NT people out there that know what they are doing. Unfortunately, there are also a billion "paper" NT 4.0 MCSE's that don't. Your chances of finding the latter are a lot more likely, which is what leaves the sour taste in everyone's mouth regarding qualified MCSE's.
I'm rather unbiased, considering I support Windows NT, 2000 and Solaris 2.7/2.8 at work, and I use FreeBSD at home. I'm an MCSE too, but the only reason I even bothered to get that cert, was the fact the place I worked at gave me $200 cash for each test I passed. So without studying, I took then all.
Just as a shot in the dark, I would suggest trying to upgrade the firmware on the drives first. At one of my old jobs, we used nothing but IBM drives, and we constantly had problems with the drives becoming marked as bad or off line, but simply pulling them and plugging them back in (hot swap) would bring them back. In our situation, we were using IBM Netfinity servers with IBM raid controllers. When we talked to IBM, they admitted there was a problem with the firmware on the drivers which would cause the drive to not spit out just one error whenever an event (even a simple read error) happened, but to spew them constantly, which made the raid controller mark the drive as bad. Seeing as it only takes a few minutes of downtime and is non-destructive, it might be worth a shot.
The Linksys box still plugs into your existing cable modem. You connect your cable modem into the Linksys box and it does the rest from there. Same deal as using a FreeBSD or Linux NAT solution. So it doesn't matter who your ISP is since your still using their equpiment.
This comment would almost be worth moderating as funny, as it has been, with the exception of the fact that Service Pack 6 did NOT stop people from accessing the TCP/IP stack, it prevented people from user ports above 1024. Granted, it's still a major error, but a little different from what the original posted implied.
How many times do we need to see the same information? I would just moderate as redundant, but it seems painfully obvious that no one realizes that the DNS has not been "compromised". None of the domains end in "microsoft.com" they start with it. If it was hacked, you would see something more like "blah.blah.blah.go.to.hell.microsoft.com"
Geez.
It's just as easy to make microsoft.com.slashdot.org
With linux ported over to mainframe, now they can use big iron technologies for things they never could before. They can take it and make web servers, emails servers, all kinds of crazy things that didn't exist in the mainframe world.
You can kind of understand how the media ends up using the word HACKED since there are MANY pages out there (see: attrition.org cracked pages archive), that specifically say "YOU HAVE BEEN HACKED BY" or just the ever rampant "hacked".gif (my apologies Unisys) staring you in the face when you look at it.
On an old school note, maybe its me, but I remember the commodore 64 days, when *games* were what was "cracked". (The infamous "cracked by eaglesoft, crack by the ball brothers," etc etc). Which at that time, it was the removal of copy protection. Maybe I'm just showing my age.
I have installed just about every variety of Linux that I have heard about. Mostly out of curiousity.
From my experience, Mandrake 7.0 seems to be what every newbie is looking for. The installation is GUI based and very straightforward. It also lets you tweak the X configuration and test it before committing to it in the installation. That way any one can test their resolutions and color depths.
After that, such things mentioned earlier such as DrakConf and Lothar make matters much easier for setting up thigns such as the sound card.
On the other hand, it might make things a little too simple and cause someone to get lazy and never learn any aspects of the CLI. But, nothings perfect.
On a side note, and off topic: Everyone seems to be pro linux, screw microsoft, but in the same sense, everyone also seems to have the "Why should we make things any easier" attitude. Either you want more linux advocates, or you don't. Pick a direction.
NetBSD - Portability - Made for a multitude of platforms including things like iMAC and Amiga, and a bunch of things you've probably never heard of before.
OpenBSD - Security - Ultra secure version, less platform support.
FreeBSD - the "original" version, with a variety of support for actual hardware/peripherials, etc. Also has the most options to it (software, libs, etc)
Um and that solves the issue how? Sure, the people with weak kernels get nailed out, but what about the people with open/exploitable/script kiddie loving ports?
Slashdot Mirror
Rescue Raiders
Great game.
I don't know who (or what) you are dating, but my women do not have 'junk'.
First off, I'm going to say that I am both a Linux advocate and user. I also run FreeBSD on my home server and even have a MacMini running OS/X so please don't read this as a "windows is the answer" post.
Let's use your scenario --
Said user buys a brand new "bleeding edge" laptop. (I'm going to discount the fact that most major hardware manufacturers are going to have the O/S already installed, which makes me wonder why I have to reinstall it... Something that unforunately doesn't happen often enough with Linux.) Regardless...
User inserts Windows XP cd into CD rom drive and re-installs Windows. In my opinion the base install of both Linux and Windows XP is fairly straight-forward. That install eventually finishes and the system reboots to what we'll call the basic Windows install. The user realizes that many of his devices don't work as expected. Sound is non-existant, video only gives 640x480, etc etc.
I think we can assume that this user who bought this bleeding edge laptop bought it from a fairly well known supplier. (Dell, HP, IBM, etc) -- since we're talking about a fairly "non-techie" type. That user should be able to at least figure out where to get a driver from. They hit up said vendors web page, look for drivers, find their make and model and download the driver. I'll even venture to say that 99% of the Windows drivers are going to be an executable of some sort, whether self installing or self packing, with some sort of readme.txt or the such to steer the the right way. I may be trivializing this a bit and I apologize.
So since what I'm reading from the rest of the comments on this post, no one seems to be overly keen on binary type drivers, what would this user do in the Linux world? Hope his hardware works? Fiddle with it? Look around google for someone who has half managed to get said hardware to work. Just install this RPM, or tarball, edit this flat text configuration file, load this module, etc, etc?
Expecting that the average user is going to take that many steps, when they can see that their *friend's* computer works so nice and easily right out of the box? I think they are going to question the whole "Linux" thing.
You're clearly changing what *your* original point was. I never said it should work with $RANDOM_HARDWARE either. But, you did fault him for not spending the time or effort to get it working, his original issue.
You also fed him by stating how you got it to work with 3 bleeding edge Gateway laptops by "spending the time". That exact comment leads right back to his post as well.
As for asserting that you all have the same goals, perhaps that statement was poorly made. While not *all* Slashdot users are of the same mind set, the vast majority of them seem to say that 'everyone should use liunx' and completely defend it against anyone saying they 'couldn't get something working with ease'. Seems a little contradictory.
The typical comment of a Slashdot user. We should all buy new hardware and spend hours on top of hours getting things to work, rather than just "having" things work. Call this a troll if you want, but this is the exact reason that the masses AREN'T running Linux.
You people need to figure out exactly what you want, Linux for the masses (read: grandma, mom, etc) or an O/S where you have to spend valuable time just getting it to work with regular hardware. You bashed the poster for buying "random hardware" and expecting it to work even though you don't know what the hardware in question was, yet in your own message you bought 3 "bleeding edge" Gateway laptops (a fairly well known manufacturer) and you had to (in your words) "_try_ to make it work."
I was going to post this anonymously, but it would of course be modded a troll at that point. Let my karma burn for all I care.
Wow. If that part didn't look bogus, I would hope everyone would think an address of 12345 and a phone number (minus area code) of 123-4567 would give it away.
The stone part I think was looking past the even more obvious bits.
It wasn't hand holding, I can honestly say even at this point (several years later) the questions I had were legitimate questions that weren't covered by the basic RTFM. (Though I don't recall exactly what they were.) Ah well, it was just an example to show how I got about as much support from people as you did trying to go to #windows.
The long and the short of it was, there are qualified Windows people out there. Of course, in this place, there is no such thing. Tough crowd.
Ironically, I had the same experience when I used to IRC. Unfortunately, that was in #linux, and #freebsd. No one ever wanted to answer questions. It was just always RTFM. I think the is the standard, "I really have no clue, but I'll act like a god and tell you to find the answer yourself" answer. Oh well.
While I'm totally off topic, I might as well speak up to this nicely biased crowd. Believe it or not, there are NT people out there that know what they are doing. Unfortunately, there are also a billion "paper" NT 4.0 MCSE's that don't. Your chances of finding the latter are a lot more likely, which is what leaves the sour taste in everyone's mouth regarding qualified MCSE's.
I'm rather unbiased, considering I support Windows NT, 2000 and Solaris 2.7/2.8 at work, and I use FreeBSD at home. I'm an MCSE too, but the only reason I even bothered to get that cert, was the fact the place I worked at gave me $200 cash for each test I passed. So without studying, I took then all.
Just as a shot in the dark, I would suggest trying to upgrade the firmware on the drives first. At one of my old jobs, we used nothing but IBM drives, and we constantly had problems with the drives becoming marked as bad or off line, but simply pulling them and plugging them back in (hot swap) would bring them back. In our situation, we were using IBM Netfinity servers with IBM raid controllers. When we talked to IBM, they admitted there was a problem with the firmware on the drivers which would cause the drive to not spit out just one error whenever an event (even a simple read error) happened, but to spew them constantly, which made the raid controller mark the drive as bad. Seeing as it only takes a few minutes of downtime and is non-destructive, it might be worth a shot.
The Linksys box still plugs into your existing cable modem. You connect your cable modem into the Linksys box and it does the rest from there. Same deal as using a FreeBSD or Linux NAT solution. So it doesn't matter who your ISP is since your still using their equpiment.
It's a good thing you suggested :( and not :-(
Simple game, she probably already knows the play, and it can be fun yet competitive.
Plus, it's got extremely low requirements, so you can put it on all the machines and invite some friends over.
This comment would almost be worth moderating as funny, as it has been, with the exception of the fact that Service Pack 6 did NOT stop people from accessing the TCP/IP stack, it prevented people from user ports above 1024. Granted, it's still a major error, but a little different from what the original posted implied.
Double click the message, so you have it open in it's own window, pull down View, select Options.
Headers will be located at the bottom.
Leave it to Microsoft to put it in the most unthought of place.
Um perfect for a 1U case? How exactly do you fit FIVE pci cards in a 1U case? Vertically none the less.
How many times do we need to see the same information? I would just moderate as redundant, but it seems painfully obvious that no one realizes that the DNS has not been "compromised". None of the domains end in "microsoft.com" they start with it. If it was hacked, you would see something more like "blah.blah.blah.go.to.hell.microsoft.com"
Geez.
It's just as easy to make microsoft.com.slashdot.org
I would check out www.freebsddiary.org
A lot of FreeBSD issues are documented in a format that is pretty easy for all to understand.
With linux ported over to mainframe, now they can use big iron technologies for things they never could before. They can take it and make web servers, emails servers, all kinds of crazy things that didn't exist in the mainframe world.
You can kind of understand how the media ends up using the word HACKED since there are MANY pages out there (see: attrition.org cracked pages archive), that specifically say "YOU HAVE BEEN HACKED BY" or just the ever rampant "hacked" .gif (my apologies Unisys) staring you in the face when you look at it.
On an old school note, maybe its me, but I remember the commodore 64 days, when *games* were what was "cracked". (The infamous "cracked by eaglesoft, crack by the ball brothers," etc etc). Which at that time, it was the removal of copy protection. Maybe I'm just showing my age.
Picture is a little jacked up, someone fix the horizontal.
heh
Throw them in #teens.
Bot #1: A/S/L
Bot #2: Where are you from?!@#!@?#
Bot #1: A/S/L
Bot #2: Where are you from?!@?#
etc
I have installed just about every variety of Linux that I have heard about. Mostly out of curiousity.
From my experience, Mandrake 7.0 seems to be what every newbie is looking for. The installation is GUI based and very straightforward. It also lets you tweak the X configuration and test it before committing to it in the installation. That way any one can test their resolutions and color depths.
After that, such things mentioned earlier such as DrakConf and Lothar make matters much easier for setting up thigns such as the sound card.
On the other hand, it might make things a little too simple and cause someone to get lazy and never learn any aspects of the CLI. But, nothings perfect.
On a side note, and off topic:
Everyone seems to be pro linux, screw microsoft, but in the same sense, everyone also seems to have the "Why should we make things any easier" attitude. Either you want more linux advocates, or you don't. Pick a direction.
NetBSD - Portability - Made for a multitude of platforms including things like iMAC and Amiga, and a bunch of things you've probably never heard of before.
OpenBSD - Security - Ultra secure version, less platform support.
FreeBSD - the "original" version, with a variety of support for actual hardware/peripherials, etc. Also has the most options to it (software, libs, etc)
Worse than that, There was no 386-DX266 either. 16/20/25/33/40, Thats all there was.
Um and that solves the issue how? Sure, the people with weak kernels get nailed out, but what about the people with open/exploitable/script kiddie loving ports?