That's one of the best written rants I've read in a long time. FWIW, I think you're wrong. Firstly, distros are similar but different to the old vendors. Secondly, freedesktop is strongly pushing convergence. Thirdly, linux is 'good enough' for a great many people already. Fourth, the big software houses are either porting their software to linux or else watching the OSS alternatives slowly mature to replace them.
Firstly, yeah, distros are remarkably similar to the different un*x vendors, but there are a few key differences. No 1. is probably that they get more of their software from the same places and so have compatability pushed down from upstream. They can introduce incompatabilities, perhaps in the name of consistancy, but every time a new upstream version comes out they become compatable again -- it is just too hard.
Secondly, freedesktop is actively addressing all of the major incompatabilities and systematically fixing them. KDE and Gnome don't work well together? They work better together than they did last year, and will work better still next year. Same for Fedora and Debian, same for fonts, X11, etc...
Thirdly, I run linux on my computer. When I go down to the local computer shop I can buy a machine sans OS without any strange looks. I can even pick up scanners and read on the back "Linux compatable", though I don't really have any assurance what that means yet -- last time it meant they'd copied the GPL source out of the linux kernel and dumped the.c files on the install CD where I proceeded to ignore them. Linux might not be the default, but it isn't hard to be a linux user any more. You might get laughed at by the gentoo haxors for using linspire, or by the debian croud for choosing gentoo, but you'll still be able to interact with them and get stuff done.
Fourth, have you used kword lately? It is pretty damn smooth -- and many people view it as second rate software compared to openoffice! Similarly, gimp is still a PITA to use, but compare it to the last version and it is a walk in the park. What do you think the next version will be like? About photoshop 3 level? Better? kpdf is already better than acrobat reader in most regards, though not all. Macromedia is much better than the OSS offerings currently, but less so than last year (was there an OSS flash creator last year? there is now). Last year to install windows software point-and-click you bought codeweavers but now you just install the free winetools.
Now, you're claiming linux will fall apart thanks to ego. Software will change to much or something. Isn't this exactly the sort of thing that any given distro works against? Say you pick, *shrug*, Xandros. Is Xandros consistant from release to release? Why, yes it is. Does it really matter for a xandros customer that ubuntu looks different? Especially if they play nicely together, it seems a moot point to me.
It is a little laggy, especially if you are in the habit of repositioning it. Not enough to be a problem for word processing, but I wouldn't want to try doom with it -- even in marble blast I get annoyed at it occasionally.
But I'm not much of a gamer. For normal (office) use, it works extremely well.
Right, and also the number and locations of computers has changed in five years. Previously, people had the family's computer in the shared living areas where a bit of noise didn't matter -- after all, the TV makes noise, the stereo makes noise, and the computer is usually making noise out of its speakers at the same time.
Now people are more likely to be putting machines in their bedrooms or the like. And business machines are being tightly integrated into the office so that when the computer is not in use it is supposed to visually disappear.
Loud, large, hot computers just don't fit with that image. For my last two computers I paid a significant premium to get a cooler (low power) machine. For my last one I also paid a premium for quiet (I learned that lesson the hard way). Now, I'm getting older and I guess this caring about the enviroment I live in is part of that, but as I look around I see more and more people making similar decisions.
Of course, the gamers haven't changed yet, and maybe they never will. But they never were more than about 10% of the market.
[Eolas winning = law makes sense]... IOW this would be terrible.
I think you missed my argument. Say Eolas wins and all the other things you say come to pass. As a result the market adjusts (by greatly increasing the number of parasitic companies).
The next step is for a lot of previously large companies to go bankrupt due to constant patent litigation. I'm betting Sony would be first, since they seem to enjoy rolling over (treating the US litigation as a cost of doing business, much as US companies treat African corruption -- whcih IMO is a mistake since it encourages more). But it could be MS, or anybody.
At this point politicians are going to see very large numbers of jobs being lost, and America (& maybe Europe if they've jumped on board) falling behind in the technology game. They are then more than likely to intervene, saying this is stupid and rewriting the laws.
It wouldn't be a very pleasant process to live through -- possibly we would both lose our jobs as side effects, or not get jobs because the companies doing the employment decide it is too risky to stay in that market. It would certainly take many years but the end result would be a more clear anti software patent stance than any case law could provide.
If there is a (bush) fire, one way of putting it out is to add accelerant so as to cause it to burn hotter and faster. The effect is that it consumes all the available fuel before travelling far enough to start nearby. If instead firefighters poured foam on it, they would probably be unable to put it out and so it would end up causing more damage.
However, I'm risk-averse, so I'd rather Eolas loses and we have to deal with software patents in a more subtle manner.
Yeah, it is always a hard call when you see two things you're opposed to fighting. My reasoning is this:
MS is a right pain, but it is a right pain that is dying slownly as OSS catches up in all of its profitable markets.
Patent litigation is a right pain, and it is a right pain that is gaining momentum. A few wins for the likes of Eolas now will create hundreds of these little parasitic companies sucking the life out of anybody producing software.
I don't see how producing better software can win the patent game, so I'd rather not play. Given that, I'm in favour of MS slamming Eolas with a complete victory.
A more subtle approach would be to favour Eolas winning because it would lead to problems with the system becoming obvious and so a major overhaul instead of a patch job. Well, I can see the argument here, but it isn't a risk I would like to take. What if the powers that be decide they get more campaign contributions from the parasites than jobs from software developers?
Er, you do know the whole point of Xen was virtualisation without the performance hit, right? Now, maybe it isn't 100% successful, I can't try since it doesn't support my CPU (7447).
But my understanding from reading the tech-report is its only fault was no DRI (so no 3D acceleration).
There is a protocol for accessing all the music on a remote iTunes server (i.e. your GF's iBook). Someone even got it working in KDE yesterday so you can browse their music and play whatever you like (or copy it over, or whatever).
I would have assumed you could do the same from iTunes on another machine, but since I only have one mac I can't really test that.
If the user doesn't have much ram, then a database is a bad idea. If they have lots of ram, then a database is a good idea. Perhaps the developers should experiment with pulling DIMMs out of their system to find the turning point, but even then -- the users might have the extra ram because they've got a multi-head machine or whatever.
There really is no way of finding out except guessing based on the user's machine's specs, or profiling it while running on the user's machine. Since both of those are subject to errors, I really would prefer the user could change the option.
Y'know, I'm really rather fond of KDE making it easy for me to customise everything how I like it...
I disagree, I think a lot of corporate lobbying is for things that make sense and few people would disagree with. It is just a small amount that goes against the public inerest.
Of course, the lobbying which you would agree with won't be reported because it isn't of interest (newsworthy).
It is sad that when corporate interest and the public interest are opposed, corporate interest always seems to win nowadays.
I'm impressed you managed to get so much for under $1000. I was playing the crazily cheap game (e.g. I got the video card from rosewill which I've never hard of before, because it was $3 cheaper than aopen; and the case cost less than I'd pay for a PSU). Anyway, I got $992 with an OEMed XP home.
You're right that you won't get a comparable mac. For a start, the mac locks the graphics speed to how flash your computer is -- get a budget machine and you get a 5200. To get a 6600 you have to be buying a powermac and spending the best part of $2000.
Since the 5200 is faster than I would normally put into a PC anyway (I don't do any 3D, so the MX4400 is quite fast enough), that doesn't worry me much. But I can see the mac being pretty useless for a gamer on a budget, and that's ignoring the low number of mac games...
Yes, I am defintly a bottom-of-the-barrel as-far-from-bleeding-edge-as-you-can-get customer...but the nthing, is, in the PC world, I can do this. Until the Mini came out, Mac had nothing whatsoever that even came CLOSE to those kinds of prices.
Yeah it did have cheap machines, the iBook and the eMac. They weren't $500 laptops like you're talking about, but they were cheaper than the average PC.
I'm afraid I wasn't paying attention to comp prices at the time so I can't give you figures but odds are they're similar to current figures but with lower specs which would give $999 for the iBook and $799 for the eMac.
Thats because the PCs allows you to buy less and therefore spend less.
That is true.
Thats not a fair comparison.
I'm not sure about this. If the question is: "Are macs and PCs equal value, or are macs overpriced?" then your answer is probably right, but if the question is "For $x, can I get more with a PC" then the comparison might be fair -- For instance I value garage band, iMovie and iDVD at $0.
Of course, you could also digress about how people undervalue build quality until it fails, but that's a bit of a tangent.
A while back I got irritated by some troll on slashdot trotting out the standard 'apple computers are slower and more expensive' line -- mainly because they were low-id rather than an AC, but I digress.
Anyway, I compared two machines, a 20" iMac and a dual 2.5GHz G5. The iMac was there because they wanted to see a budget range computer, and the dual G5 because they claimed AMD was faster.
The rules were pretty simple, configure a roughly similar machine at newegg and compare the price to apple's. Components had to be of acceptable quality (it isn't like apple uses $50 cases), and the same spec (speed, size, whatever) but within that I chose the cheapest I could at newegg and took advantage of any on-the-day deals.
The end result was apple came out cheaper for both machines (though it would've been slightly more if I'd done a 17" imac). The dual G5 was a lot cheaper since dual proc PCs are considered workstation-class and therefore have a huge markup, especially when you want a processor the same speed as the 2.5GHz G5 (I used an athlon FX-55 IIRC).
There are still price points where apple gets beaten by newegg -- e.g. without comparing properly, the powerbooks look lousy value to me -- but you can be sure that anybody claiming Apple is more expensive has had their head buried in the sand for years now.
ASSUMPTIONS THAT CANNOT BE MADE in the x86 world, where a machine could be using one of thousands of motherboards, network cards, graphics cards, sound cards, etc
Er... no. This argument was invented years ago before microsoft got direct X or PNP working and there might have been some truth in it then, but there just isn't now. Take a look at knoppix for instance. Notice that it just works (tm) with virtually all of those thousands of motherboards, network cards, graphics cards, sound cards, etc. Now, I'll agree its support isn't perfect, it doesn't work with one of my wireless adaptors for instance.
However it is damn close to perfect, and it would be trivial for Apple to restrict it with simple statements like any video card from ATI or NVIDIA (which is 99% of the market anyway).
OSX on x86 won't happen because Apple doesn't want it to happen. Perhaps they've noticed that windows is actually stable now if you have good hardware but like the image OSX is more stable because they enforce good hardware. Perhaps they like their profit margins on hardware. Perhaps they like how stylish hardware pushes OSX's stylish image. To be honest, I don't really care why -- but the lack of availability isn't for technical reasons.
Yes and no... even if a few people keep their old VCRs and the like, the only people they'll be able to trade the files with are others with old VCRs and the like.
The problem they have at the moment is that if one person uploads a file, everyone gets it. They're working on "fixing" that...
Money (bank notes) can be viewed, but they can't be copied (easily) thanks to those cute little rings we keep hearing about.
It isn't hard to imagine a world where every VCR, DVDR, HDR, PVR, camcorder, whatever. has a little check for those little rings and refuses to record that area. We've heard about watermarking with images, but videos contain an awful lot more information than just one photo which makes them much easier to watermark.
Even if you manage to bypass it by hacking the source, the resulting video won't play on next-gen computers or PVRs etc, because it will still have those rings in it.
Oh, smart software might be able to remove the watermark given enough time. But at that point you get an arms race that most people won't bother with. Plus, what watermark are you going to replace it with? Anything you choose will have its private key revoked and (most) people will no longer be able to view the movie.
I accept that is your experience, but what I did is save the money from raid and double the RAM. Over the three generations it probably ended up costing about what your raid setup cost.
In my experience, linux handles extra ram extremely well, while windows handles it awfully. A linux machine with a decent amount of ram will cache so many of your disk accesses than it feels like the disk is a blazing SCSI drive even when it is a 5400RPM sloth. Plus it copes with opening lots of programs, etc. in a way the SCSI drive machine won't.
Oh, I do buy the drives with 8MB cache, but that's because they're the only ones with 5yr warranties. I don't know if they really are faster since I don't have 2MB drives to compare against.
Finally, I will be buying one of the dual-core machines rather than the 3800+. Not because of any benchmarks, but because I've used true SMP machines in the past and they feel so responsive.
Forget about distro arguments, forget about how cool kdeedu is, forget about how amazing (whatever, I don't use gnome, but I'm sure there is something).
Concentrate on the fact that you have slow machines running undocumented software that are being demonstrated by people who do not know the software. Every one of those issues needs to be resolved, and if you want the lab to be a real success then aim for the goal of making everything run smoothly every time.
The machines will feel slow, so you will have to work around this somehow or choose a light wm and cope with the added complexity it brings. The software is mimimally documented, and what documentation exists will need to be rewritten for your target level and language. Think howtos with step by step screenshots -- the reason cheesy computer courses use those is because they work... And the teachers need more than just a training course if you expect things to go well, they need a depth of experience.
So to start with the hardware. Linspire does not run well on a typical 500MHz machine because it needs more ram. Decide for each major choice (distro, window manager) how slow it is, and if it will feel better if you choose the fast but hard option or the slow but easy option. Generally, people who haven't used 3GHz computers cope with slowness more, so decide based on their experience rather than yours. If the machines have high ram I would go with KDE, low ram and I'd go with enlightenment or similar.
Next, concentrate on making sure every single thing these people want to do will work flawlessly first time. Make the documentation perfect. In many ways, the docs will be more important than the software.
Now you have the computer side working, concentrate on teaching the teachers to the point that they feel 100% comfortable. It is important at this point that no changes happen to the software. If the teachers just know how to do their lesson but don't feel comfortable then that discomfort will show strongly.
I hate to say it, but this sort of project is a lot of work even with awesome software running on blazingly fast machines. You're not targetting geeks who will overlook details such as user interface or docs because a program is cool. Of course, if you drop your standards and just deliver something that will appeal to geeks, well that's pretty easy with linux.
If you do manage to get the software, training materials and educators all working smoothly, then don't change a thing. Say openoffice 2.0 comes out and would fix a number of issues, ignore it! You can only retrain geeks fast, not people. You'd break your howto with items shifting menus or even just icons being tweaked. You'd upset your educators who don't have the depth of experience in software to cope.
Oh, and please publush everything at this point -- collaborative development doesn't just apply to software.
NO! NO! NO! Not the Searle argument again. That guy is an absolute nutter and should be banned! Actually, on second thoughts, as long as I never have to hear his drivel again, I don't mind what happens to him.
His argument essentially boils down to: "The computer doesn't understand because all it does is manipulate symbols. Even if it does exactly the same steps as a human, the human understood and the computer was just being a mimic. Giving the computer a body wouldn't make it any less of a mimic".
The #1 flaw in his argument is that it would result in humans being classified as non-intelligent. He constantly spouts on about how machines aren't intelligent but then says "Except that the human understands what they are doing". I think that's a close contender to the Wookie defense for world's worst argument.
I've got a pegasos machine currently for my low end server behind my DSL line. It satisfies some of my requirements (fairly small, low power consumption) and it is fun to play with a different arch. However, it is too slow, too hot, and too loud.
I guess I could replace it with a mac mini and then I'd only have the problem of it being too slow, but I've been thinking of fixing all the problems by replacing it with a 'low end' SFF A64 since they use less power when idle but have the grunt when necessary. However I have been concerned that Shuttle haven't thought about noise ever since I played with a SFF P4 box that sounded like a jet engine.
Slashdot Mirror
That's one of the best written rants I've read in a long time. FWIW, I think you're wrong. Firstly, distros are similar but different to the old vendors. Secondly, freedesktop is strongly pushing convergence. Thirdly, linux is 'good enough' for a great many people already. Fourth, the big software houses are either porting their software to linux or else watching the OSS alternatives slowly mature to replace them.
.c files on the install CD where I proceeded to ignore them.
Firstly, yeah, distros are remarkably similar to the different un*x vendors, but there are a few key differences. No 1. is probably that they get more of their software from the same places and so have compatability pushed down from upstream. They can introduce incompatabilities, perhaps in the name of consistancy, but every time a new upstream version comes out they become compatable again -- it is just too hard.
Secondly, freedesktop is actively addressing all of the major incompatabilities and systematically fixing them. KDE and Gnome don't work well together? They work better together than they did last year, and will work better still next year. Same for Fedora and Debian, same for fonts, X11, etc...
Thirdly, I run linux on my computer. When I go down to the local computer shop I can buy a machine sans OS without any strange looks. I can even pick up scanners and read on the back "Linux compatable", though I don't really have any assurance what that means yet -- last time it meant they'd copied the GPL source out of the linux kernel and dumped the
Linux might not be the default, but it isn't hard to be a linux user any more. You might get laughed at by the gentoo haxors for using linspire, or by the debian croud for choosing gentoo, but you'll still be able to interact with them and get stuff done.
Fourth, have you used kword lately? It is pretty damn smooth -- and many people view it as second rate software compared to openoffice! Similarly, gimp is still a PITA to use, but compare it to the last version and it is a walk in the park. What do you think the next version will be like? About photoshop 3 level? Better? kpdf is already better than acrobat reader in most regards, though not all. Macromedia is much better than the OSS offerings currently, but less so than last year (was there an OSS flash creator last year? there is now). Last year to install windows software point-and-click you bought codeweavers but now you just install the free winetools.
Now, you're claiming linux will fall apart thanks to ego. Software will change to much or something. Isn't this exactly the sort of thing that any given distro works against? Say you pick, *shrug*, Xandros. Is Xandros consistant from release to release? Why, yes it is. Does it really matter for a xandros customer that ubuntu looks different? Especially if they play nicely together, it seems a moot point to me.
It is a little laggy, especially if you are in the habit of repositioning it. Not enough to be a problem for word processing, but I wouldn't want to try doom with it -- even in marble blast I get annoyed at it occasionally.
But I'm not much of a gamer. For normal (office) use, it works extremely well.
But don't try playing games with a MX1000 (which I happen to own and am very happy with).
Right, and also the number and locations of computers has changed in five years. Previously, people had the family's computer in the shared living areas where a bit of noise didn't matter -- after all, the TV makes noise, the stereo makes noise, and the computer is usually making noise out of its speakers at the same time.
Now people are more likely to be putting machines in their bedrooms or the like. And business machines are being tightly integrated into the office so that when the computer is not in use it is supposed to visually disappear.
Loud, large, hot computers just don't fit with that image. For my last two computers I paid a significant premium to get a cooler (low power) machine. For my last one I also paid a premium for quiet (I learned that lesson the hard way). Now, I'm getting older and I guess this caring about the enviroment I live in is part of that, but as I look around I see more and more people making similar decisions.
Of course, the gamers haven't changed yet, and maybe they never will. But they never were more than about 10% of the market.
[Eolas winning = law makes sense] ... IOW this would be terrible.
I think you missed my argument. Say Eolas wins and all the other things you say come to pass. As a result the market adjusts (by greatly increasing the number of parasitic companies).
The next step is for a lot of previously large companies to go bankrupt due to constant patent litigation. I'm betting Sony would be first, since they seem to enjoy rolling over (treating the US litigation as a cost of doing business, much as US companies treat African corruption -- whcih IMO is a mistake since it encourages more). But it could be MS, or anybody.
At this point politicians are going to see very large numbers of jobs being lost, and America (& maybe Europe if they've jumped on board) falling behind in the technology game. They are then more than likely to intervene, saying this is stupid and rewriting the laws.
It wouldn't be a very pleasant process to live through -- possibly we would both lose our jobs as side effects, or not get jobs because the companies doing the employment decide it is too risky to stay in that market. It would certainly take many years but the end result would be a more clear anti software patent stance than any case law could provide.
If there is a (bush) fire, one way of putting it out is to add accelerant so as to cause it to burn hotter and faster. The effect is that it consumes all the available fuel before travelling far enough to start nearby. If instead firefighters poured foam on it, they would probably be unable to put it out and so it would end up causing more damage.
However, I'm risk-averse, so I'd rather Eolas loses and we have to deal with software patents in a more subtle manner.
If I have to keep tabs on secunia and worry about grabbing the latest hotfixes, I may as well be using IE.
Go ahead. We don't mind. Really.
Yeah, it is always a hard call when you see two things you're opposed to fighting. My reasoning is this:
MS is a right pain, but it is a right pain that is dying slownly as OSS catches up in all of its profitable markets.
Patent litigation is a right pain, and it is a right pain that is gaining momentum. A few wins for the likes of Eolas now will create hundreds of these little parasitic companies sucking the life out of anybody producing software.
I don't see how producing better software can win the patent game, so I'd rather not play. Given that, I'm in favour of MS slamming Eolas with a complete victory.
A more subtle approach would be to favour Eolas winning because it would lead to problems with the system becoming obvious and so a major overhaul instead of a patch job. Well, I can see the argument here, but it isn't a risk I would like to take. What if the powers that be decide they get more campaign contributions from the parasites than jobs from software developers?
So, strange as it is to say it... Go Microsoft!
Except of course for bit torrent which is damn useful every time a new linux distro or similar comes out.
Er, you do know the whole point of Xen was virtualisation without the performance hit, right? Now, maybe it isn't 100% successful, I can't try since it doesn't support my CPU (7447).
But my understanding from reading the tech-report is its only fault was no DRI (so no 3D acceleration).
There is a protocol for accessing all the music on a remote iTunes server (i.e. your GF's iBook). Someone even got it working in KDE yesterday so you can browse their music and play whatever you like (or copy it over, or whatever).
I would have assumed you could do the same from iTunes on another machine, but since I only have one mac I can't really test that.
If the user doesn't have much ram, then a database is a bad idea. If they have lots of ram, then a database is a good idea. Perhaps the developers should experiment with pulling DIMMs out of their system to find the turning point, but even then -- the users might have the extra ram because they've got a multi-head machine or whatever.
There really is no way of finding out except guessing based on the user's machine's specs, or profiling it while running on the user's machine. Since both of those are subject to errors, I really would prefer the user could change the option.
Y'know, I'm really rather fond of KDE making it easy for me to customise everything how I like it...
I disagree, I think a lot of corporate lobbying is for things that make sense and few people would disagree with. It is just a small amount that goes against the public inerest.
Of course, the lobbying which you would agree with won't be reported because it isn't of interest (newsworthy).
It is sad that when corporate interest and the public interest are opposed, corporate interest always seems to win nowadays.
I'm impressed you managed to get so much for under $1000. I was playing the crazily cheap game (e.g. I got the video card from rosewill which I've never hard of before, because it was $3 cheaper than aopen; and the case cost less than I'd pay for a PSU). Anyway, I got $992 with an OEMed XP home.
You're right that you won't get a comparable mac. For a start, the mac locks the graphics speed to how flash your computer is -- get a budget machine and you get a 5200. To get a 6600 you have to be buying a powermac and spending the best part of $2000.
Since the 5200 is faster than I would normally put into a PC anyway (I don't do any 3D, so the MX4400 is quite fast enough), that doesn't worry me much. But I can see the mac being pretty useless for a gamer on a budget, and that's ignoring the low number of mac games...
Yes, I am defintly a bottom-of-the-barrel as-far-from-bleeding-edge-as-you-can-get customer...but the nthing, is, in the PC world, I can do this. Until the Mini came out, Mac had nothing whatsoever that even came CLOSE to those kinds of prices.
Yeah it did have cheap machines, the iBook and the eMac. They weren't $500 laptops like you're talking about, but they were cheaper than the average PC.
I'm afraid I wasn't paying attention to comp prices at the time so I can't give you figures but odds are they're similar to current figures but with lower specs which would give $999 for the iBook and $799 for the eMac.
Thats because the PCs allows you to buy less and therefore spend less.
That is true.
Thats not a fair comparison.
I'm not sure about this. If the question is: "Are macs and PCs equal value, or are macs overpriced?" then your answer is probably right, but if the question is "For $x, can I get more with a PC" then the comparison might be fair -- For instance I value garage band, iMovie and iDVD at $0.
Of course, you could also digress about how people undervalue build quality until it fails, but that's a bit of a tangent.
Yeah, ok, fair point...
I guess I've got used to spending money on computers, so when I was thinking of buying a mac that was the price-range I first looked in.
A while back I got irritated by some troll on slashdot trotting out the standard 'apple computers are slower and more expensive' line -- mainly because they were low-id rather than an AC, but I digress.
Anyway, I compared two machines, a 20" iMac and a dual 2.5GHz G5. The iMac was there because they wanted to see a budget range computer, and the dual G5 because they claimed AMD was faster.
The rules were pretty simple, configure a roughly similar machine at newegg and compare the price to apple's. Components had to be of acceptable quality (it isn't like apple uses $50 cases), and the same spec (speed, size, whatever) but within that I chose the cheapest I could at newegg and took advantage of any on-the-day deals.
The end result was apple came out cheaper for both machines (though it would've been slightly more if I'd done a 17" imac). The dual G5 was a lot cheaper since dual proc PCs are considered workstation-class and therefore have a huge markup, especially when you want a processor the same speed as the 2.5GHz G5 (I used an athlon FX-55 IIRC).
There are still price points where apple gets beaten by newegg -- e.g. without comparing properly, the powerbooks look lousy value to me -- but you can be sure that anybody claiming Apple is more expensive has had their head buried in the sand for years now.
ASSUMPTIONS THAT CANNOT BE MADE in the x86 world, where a machine could be using one of thousands of motherboards, network cards, graphics cards, sound cards, etc
Er... no. This argument was invented years ago before microsoft got direct X or PNP working and there might have been some truth in it then, but there just isn't now. Take a look at knoppix for instance. Notice that it just works (tm) with virtually all of those thousands of motherboards, network cards, graphics cards, sound cards, etc. Now, I'll agree its support isn't perfect, it doesn't work with one of my wireless adaptors for instance.
However it is damn close to perfect, and it would be trivial for Apple to restrict it with simple statements like any video card from ATI or NVIDIA (which is 99% of the market anyway).
OSX on x86 won't happen because Apple doesn't want it to happen. Perhaps they've noticed that windows is actually stable now if you have good hardware but like the image OSX is more stable because they enforce good hardware. Perhaps they like their profit margins on hardware. Perhaps they like how stylish hardware pushes OSX's stylish image. To be honest, I don't really care why -- but the lack of availability isn't for technical reasons.
Yes and no... even if a few people keep their old VCRs and the like, the only people they'll be able to trade the files with are others with old VCRs and the like.
The problem they have at the moment is that if one person uploads a file, everyone gets it. They're working on "fixing" that...
Just read the article, the last line of it summarises the entire lawsuit:
EBay had net revenue of $3.27 billion in 2004.
Money (bank notes) can be viewed, but they can't be copied (easily) thanks to those cute little rings we keep hearing about.
It isn't hard to imagine a world where every VCR, DVDR, HDR, PVR, camcorder, whatever. has a little check for those little rings and refuses to record that area. We've heard about watermarking with images, but videos contain an awful lot more information than just one photo which makes them much easier to watermark.
Even if you manage to bypass it by hacking the source, the resulting video won't play on next-gen computers or PVRs etc, because it will still have those rings in it.
Oh, smart software might be able to remove the watermark given enough time. But at that point you get an arms race that most people won't bother with. Plus, what watermark are you going to replace it with? Anything you choose will have its private key revoked and (most) people will no longer be able to view the movie.
I accept that is your experience, but what I did is save the money from raid and double the RAM. Over the three generations it probably ended up costing about what your raid setup cost.
In my experience, linux handles extra ram extremely well, while windows handles it awfully. A linux machine with a decent amount of ram will cache so many of your disk accesses than it feels like the disk is a blazing SCSI drive even when it is a 5400RPM sloth. Plus it copes with opening lots of programs, etc. in a way the SCSI drive machine won't.
Oh, I do buy the drives with 8MB cache, but that's because they're the only ones with 5yr warranties. I don't know if they really are faster since I don't have 2MB drives to compare against.
Finally, I will be buying one of the dual-core machines rather than the 3800+. Not because of any benchmarks, but because I've used true SMP machines in the past and they feel so responsive.
Forget about distro arguments, forget about how cool kdeedu is, forget about how amazing (whatever, I don't use gnome, but I'm sure there is something).
Concentrate on the fact that you have slow machines running undocumented software that are being demonstrated by people who do not know the software. Every one of those issues needs to be resolved, and if you want the lab to be a real success then aim for the goal of making everything run smoothly every time.
The machines will feel slow, so you will have to work around this somehow or choose a light wm and cope with the added complexity it brings. The software is mimimally documented, and what documentation exists will need to be rewritten for your target level and language. Think howtos with step by step screenshots -- the reason cheesy computer courses use those is because they work... And the teachers need more than just a training course if you expect things to go well, they need a depth of experience.
So to start with the hardware. Linspire does not run well on a typical 500MHz machine because it needs more ram. Decide for each major choice (distro, window manager) how slow it is, and if it will feel better if you choose the fast but hard option or the slow but easy option. Generally, people who haven't used 3GHz computers cope with slowness more, so decide based on their experience rather than yours. If the machines have high ram I would go with KDE, low ram and I'd go with enlightenment or similar.
Next, concentrate on making sure every single thing these people want to do will work flawlessly first time. Make the documentation perfect. In many ways, the docs will be more important than the software.
Now you have the computer side working, concentrate on teaching the teachers to the point that they feel 100% comfortable. It is important at this point that no changes happen to the software. If the teachers just know how to do their lesson but don't feel comfortable then that discomfort will show strongly.
I hate to say it, but this sort of project is a lot of work even with awesome software running on blazingly fast machines. You're not targetting geeks who will overlook details such as user interface or docs because a program is cool. Of course, if you drop your standards and just deliver something that will appeal to geeks, well that's pretty easy with linux.
If you do manage to get the software, training materials and educators all working smoothly, then don't change a thing. Say openoffice 2.0 comes out and would fix a number of issues, ignore it! You can only retrain geeks fast, not people. You'd break your howto with items shifting menus or even just icons being tweaked. You'd upset your educators who don't have the depth of experience in software to cope.
Oh, and please publush everything at this point -- collaborative development doesn't just apply to software.
Good luck.
NO! NO! NO! Not the Searle argument again. That guy is an absolute nutter and should be banned! Actually, on second thoughts, as long as I never have to hear his drivel again, I don't mind what happens to him.
His argument essentially boils down to: "The computer doesn't understand because all it does is manipulate symbols. Even if it does exactly the same steps as a human, the human understood and the computer was just being a mimic. Giving the computer a body wouldn't make it any less of a mimic".
The #1 flaw in his argument is that it would result in humans being classified as non-intelligent. He constantly spouts on about how machines aren't intelligent but then says "Except that the human understands what they are doing". I think that's a close contender to the Wookie defense for world's worst argument.
I've got a pegasos machine currently for my low end server behind my DSL line. It satisfies some of my requirements (fairly small, low power consumption) and it is fun to play with a different arch. However, it is too slow, too hot, and too loud.
I guess I could replace it with a mac mini and then I'd only have the problem of it being too slow, but I've been thinking of fixing all the problems by replacing it with a 'low end' SFF A64 since they use less power when idle but have the grunt when necessary. However I have been concerned that Shuttle haven't thought about noise ever since I played with a SFF P4 box that sounded like a jet engine.