Which part of the programming is the art? Is it the code, neatly formatted, with creative comments and clever algorithms or is it the finished product? When you look at 'art' in a museum, all you see is the finished product. Contrary to popular belief, great art is not the result of a genius mind and a few hours in front of the canvas or clay, but rather the result of sometimes years of analytical study. The Mona Lisa has no less then nine versions of itself underneath the top layer of oil and color.
So which is the art? The code or the program? I personally think it's the program, and beautiful programs usually have very nice/efficient/clean code.
Lego isn't making money off the Mindstorms programming language and interface. They'll selling the hardware (and just packaging everything necessary to access that hardware along with it). It's not as if Lego separates the two. An open-source Lego OS isn't going to hurt them at all. People will still need to buy Mindstorms to be able to use it. At least they recognize the fact that an open-source project might actually/make/ them money, unlike some/Japanese/ firms who won't let emulators out there hit the market.
What do they plan to do with these newly revived birds once they 'make' them? Are they going to be re-released into the wild? No doubt in 70 years the ecosystem they once lived in has changed so that reinserting them may prove harmful to either the birds, the land, or both.
Man, I wish scientists would actually be a little more broad-minded about what they're doing.
Price/Performance It's all related to how much you pay your admins and how well they administer your system. This isn't a function of the OS. Yes, Linux costs less out of the box, but an NT admin is going to have a harder time (and thus charge more) to set it up than he is an NT system. If a business currently has functioning NT systems and competent NT sysadmins, why should they switch to Linux?
Clustering How many small businesses who are choosing between Linux and NT need to, want to, or care about the ability to cluster? People who care about this benchmark are not the same people who need to run clusters.
Other Hardware Configurations How much would it cost for a company to build a Linux-happy system? Most systems built today (and the systems that we want Linux to run on) are built for Microsoft. You'd need a custom-built, custom-designed solution to truly grab all of Linux's power, and that costs money, either in man-hours or purchasing power. The results of this test would've been far more atypical if they had built both machines finely tuned for Linux. At least this time around, they weren't blatantly geared towards Microsoft.
Security Security, I'd say, is 75% system administration and 25% OS. Linux has its security problems as well, most of which can be plugged up with effective network management. Many of NT's can, too. MS may be a lot more apathetic to security concerns, but they don't run the systems, they sell them. I don't consider Linux or NT any more secure than the other.
Stability Stability can be completely a function of management. I've heard stories of Linux systems stay up for months or years. Guess what, I've heard the same stories about NT as well. I've also heard stories about unstable Linux systems. I've seen no long term studies done on system stability, so everything I hear about stability I file away under anecdotal evidence, not hard verifiable data.
Change real world needs What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I don't see how this benefits Linux. Change the system and, whoa, Linux might perform worse under that setup. It happens to both types of OSes, and before you say, "It happens to Linux less!" find some hard data, not stories.
The Future Past trends do not determine future performance. I doubt Linux will keep up its 212%/year growth and Linus has already said that upgrades aren't going to be as drastic as 2.0 to 2.2. Don't assume that Linux will advance in the next three years as it has in the past three years.
It's not just navigation. It has problems loading images as well. Anything with CSS on it seems to completely throw the browser into a funk. Even simple images don't load all the way. I have yet to see a transparent pixel image load up correctly on any of the test pages that I run. I'm waiting to post a bug report, though, until they fix all the CSS issues.
So far, it's 'looking' very nice. However, even though the rendering speed is/very/ fast, the overall functionality still falls well short of what I need in a web browser.
Gateway's been offering a cool "slim" computer like this in Japan for a while already and is getting ready to introduce it in the US. Here's the C|Net News article for more information. Prices will range from $1999 to $2299, which is a little cheaper than the NEC and I think overall, it's probably a better computer coming from Gateway. Personally, I like how they fit the stuff in the side. "Cool" computers come and go and the NEC one doesn't seem to solve too many problems that exist.
The German gov't sure is tip-toeing around this one. They don't seem to understand (or maybe the do understand) the power that Microsoft is going assert over this project. Yes, other organizations can (and should) sponsor the project, but they won't have nearly the same financial power when it comes to buying computers, setting up classes, etc.
And 'Linux' won't be able to sponsor this, no matter what the government thinks. Linux isn't a corporation.
You know, given the German response to this (and the other incident mentioned in the article), I'm surprised that such a movement hasn't taken place in the US. Given Microsoft's funding of school computer labs, one might think that similar organizations here (here being the US) would possibly want schools to also look to alternatives. Maybe Apple's a bit more powerful in these situations or perhaps our country just isn't as open to these new ideas as Europe is.
You're right, someone who's gone through a PPP setup process can get it done fairly fast. My issue wasn't necessarily getting PPP working, it was getting PPP working properly with the setup I wanted (it still isn't, I've just given up).
And regarding programs, yes, some programs stay up for six months or longer on Linux. Big deal, some Windows stations stay up for that long as well. My point is that a lot of programs that Linux is counting on to provide the same services as Windows aren't up to speed yet, but advocates are pointing to them saying, "See, we have this and we have this." GNOME is the perfect example. I stopped running GNOME, not because I didn't like it (I really did), but it simply crashed too much, even after version 1.0.6. I don't want my GUI crashing on my when I use it. KDE didn't fair much better. If I had been in a mission-critical situation, I'd have been pissed. Not only that, my support options would've been limited. I would've had to pay someone to figure out the problem. Corporate produced software at least provides support and they have the incentive to make sure their product works properly, because people will buy it and they don't want to lose customers (or time to technical support).
People dismiss this as FUD. No, it's not FUD. It's FUD to you because it doesn't happen to you, but it's very real for a company evaluating Linux vs. NT. Their users are not going to be like you. They're going to be more like me, someone who taxes their system by screwing around with it, except that they're a) not going to know their doing it and b) not going to know how to fix it. Say what you will about NT, but it's stupid easy. Windows sells because it's stupid easy to use. You have no reason to go mess with permissions. You have no reason to go fscking with the internals. It works, and when it doesn't work, it tells you it doesn't work and gives you an easy out. When my GNOME panel crashes because it didn't like what I dropped on it or my kppp crashes because it didn't like failing with three different devices, it just disappears. That's not FUD. That's life.
I know how well Linux runs some apps and I know how poorly Linux runs some apps. The majority of stuff that I download is pretty poor code. Linux itself is rather nicely refined, but I would hate to rely on the programs that are available out there.
The author of the article, again, hit on some very good points. I've seen two people address them directly. Everyone else just cried, groaned, or tried to piss on him. I like Linux, too, but unlike some people, I'm not trying to build it up as something it's not.
I've found myself pondering the same thing as this guy over the past few months, both in my head and in the open with other people. I'm a Linux supporter, no doubt there, but I'm not blind to the fact that Linux isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread, that it's not even as good an operating system as Windows in some key areas.
Everyone talks about open-source and stability as if it's the end-all be-all of the OS market. Guess what, Linux the operating system may be stable, but even with good administration, most of the apps aren't. What good is an operating system to a company if its programs have to be continually restarted? WinNT's instability can be overcome with even moderately good system administration; it's all a matter of how the system is run. I chatted with a customer of ours the other day who runs WinNT exclusively because its cheaper. Why is it cheaper? Because its easier to use, maintain, and runs on almost anything their Intel-based systems can offer. Linux, on the other hand, he said, costs them more to maintain because they have to pay for compilations, extensive management, and the repeated solving of problems given by the apps. And, he says, they get much better support from Microsoft.
Part of Slashdot's (and the Linux community's in general) problem with articles like these is that they conflict with the ego created by Linus' "world domination" speeches. We tend to get so full of ourselves because we feel we're using an inherently better operating system than our competitor and when someone attacks that notion (and this article did it rather succinctly and not maliciously) we ignore what they're actually saying and start attacking the attacker.
Get off your high horse! I've been off mine for a while. When it takes me an hour to setup a reasonably hassle-free way to form a PPP connection on my Linux box and it takes me roughly 10 minutes to do the same on my Windows box, I can literally see the problem areas of Linux and why using it could be more expensive than using a Windows alternatives. Learning curves cost money, too. It's not all about free software and it's not all about open-source in the corporate world. To think thus is to put the same blinders that prevent looking at alternatives in the first place.
You know, with all the emphasis given to landing stuff on Mars, I'm surprised that I haven't heard any talk of NASA sending these microbes (as well as a variety of life forms that don't qualify as animal -- wouldn't want to enrage the environmentalists, now would we?) in a controlled experiment to the Martian surface. We do our darndest to prove that life could possibly exist on Mars here on Earth, but the best Martian simulation is Mars itself. If we can send a robotic probe to the Martian surface and turn cartwheels in the dust all day, we can certainly set up rudimentary experiments that determine what kinds of lifeforms truly do live in such a harsh environment.
I hope someone from NASA reads Slashdot and can comment on this. Hopefully, an engineer inside NASA's organization has already thought of this. I can't see why it would be that difficult.
The JPL article refers to the technology as "Synthetic Intelligence", not "Artificial Intelligence", highlighting a key idea. This "intelligence" was built, programmed, what have you. Basically, what they have is a complex program that can diagnose problems correctly. I think when the machine can accurately detect that the "false errors" it was receiving were truly false and can thus operate outside its bounds, we can call it AI.
Of course, that doesn't diminish its importance. If only we could get this sort of self-diagnostic power into our Linux and MS boxes.
It's funny, because IBM was everything that Microsoft is now back in its heyday. IBM made Microsoft what it is today. This may be a stretch, but IBM and Microsoft fit nicely into the roles of Obi-Wan and Anakin/Vader. IBM takes Microsoft under its wing, supports it and makes it a driving force in the industry. Then Microsoft turns around and bites the hand that feeds it, turning the Dark Side of the monopoly. Now, a much older and still much more experienced IBM is undermining Microsoft yet again, with its support of the new challenger, open-source software. IBM itself is too much of an old, slow behemoth to actually do much to counter Microsoft, but by supporter this new contender, they're encouraging not an anti-Microsoft sentiment, but a more inventive philosophy that is driving the software industry to new ideas and new successes. Even Microsoft is taking heed, even if it is in their own twisted way. Obi-Wan never actually defeated Vader, but he did train the little kid that did.
Star Wars analogy aside, IBM can only be helped by these maneuvers (both past and present). By standing up to Microsoft back then, IBM paid a painful price, but set the stage for others to do the same. Hopefully, Dell and other companies currently trying to work in other (more productive) solutions will be more successful.
The article points out that this may cause the sheep to die earlier than expected as all the cells are older. I would think that there would be other complications (or benefits) as well. As people age, their metabolism slows down. They also get wrinkly, smell funny, and go bald. Cloning of animals may finally help us to understand how aging works. Is it a result of time upon the body, or is it a result of genetics? We may even get some medical benefits as the body fights disease differently with age and we could start people off at an optimal age for immune system development (not being a doctor, this may well be birth).
And if humans are ever cloned, what does this mean for things like Senior Citizen discounts and Social Security (I know this doesn't necessarily apply outside of the US). Is someone 65 years old because they've been on this planet for 65 years or because their cells say they're 65? Perhaps these old people who are climbing mountains and water skiing barefoot on one leg aren't really old, they've just been around for a while.:)
After getting over my initial bout of nausea at the thought of Leonardo playing the essence of the Dark Side (it's tough enough imagining the little kid growing up to be James Earl Jones, but Leonardo.. as Jar-Jar would say, "How wude!"), I actually allowed my brain to start working.
Lucas is in the inital stages of writing the screenplay for Episode 2. He's said so himself, when questioned about the rumors floating around about Episode 2 and casting and what-not. The chances that Leonardo was being interviewed for it are doubtful at best. Lucas has also been rumored to be working on a new Indiana Jones. Perhaps Leonardo is being interviewed for that. Guess what? That idea is just as baseless as Leonardo playing Anakin.
Lucas was recently interviewed about the hype surrounding Star Wars and said it's pretty much ridiculous. People are now throwing themselves into a frenzy over a rumored interview. Can't we finish dissecting the first movie before we start in on the second?
I don't think the solution is doing away with Anonymous Coward posting (I never really liked the term "Anonymous Coward" anyway). People who'd like to keep their anonymity but still contribute to the general discussion should be allowed to do so.
However, crap should be dealt with. Rob should be able to track down the IPs of the offending people and contact their ISP. If anything, it's a form of abuse that most respectable ISPs won't allow (the same holds true for newsgroup postings in many cases, so I think the rules can be made to apply to these sorts of things). If the person continually offends and the ISP refuses to come around, Rob can either a) block the ISP (preferred) or b) post an e-mail address where/. users can contact the ISP about said user (this might be as close to a DoS attack that the law allows *smirk*).
Either way, the system isn't at fault here; abusive users are. Deal with the problem, not the symptom.
If Dell really wanted to find the oldest working computers, they should probably head south down I-35 about an hour (to San Antonio, TX) and check out some of the systems in use by the military systems. They don't throw away anything and you can be damn sure they still have the purchase orders for them.
I remember when I used to follow my dad into work, they'd have this general progression of computers as you walked into the room. Up front would be the new computers, then the middle-aged computers and then near the back would be these behemoths that were running some operating system I'd never seen before.
Why do they keep them around? Because they had budget information in formats that could only be read by programs that ran on those machines. It's the same reason my old Architecture professor doesn't upgrade his machine. He wouldn't be able to view any of his old papers that he wrote!
Linux in general and KDE specifically are getting to the point where you can't run them on low-end systems anymore. It's not just bloat, either. A lot of KDE's enhancements are truly necessary. Integrating CORBA and "Microsoftian" aspects of the OS are going to be required as that's what people have come to expect, but I still use Linux because it runs great on my old P120 with (only) 40 MB of RAM. KDE already uses too much memory (so does it's rival GNOME). Features should not have to be added at the price of system capability.
It seems to be a general trend in Linux application programming, the idea that more features == better. Most applications that I use are very old versions that did exactly what I needed without any extra features that I didn't particularly need. A select few, like Window Maker, I keep up-to-date only because they keep adding functionality without sacrificing performance.
Perhaps the writers of KDE and other Linux GUI managers/apps/tools should take a page out of Alfredo's book and focus on really making their programs efficient, not just working.
I suspect that this version won't be the IE that people have come to know. On my Windows machines, I use IE5 and I love it. It integrates rather nicely with the operating system, takes advantage of many of Windows' features, and provides a very smooth, stable browsing platform. I've also used IE4.5 for the Mac, and the complete opposite is true. It was slow, bloated, tended to crash a lot, and extremely clunky to use. Without the operating system's built-in mechanisms to take advantage of, IE becomes just another application and it's not particularly an efficient one.
I probably won't even touch IE for Linux if the rumor is true (I think it is; Microsoft legitimizes Linux as a competitor if they develop their software for it). Netscape, even the browser standalone is large enough as it is and I don't need another browser mussing up my system.
Some things are better left uncreated. I agree that some things, like the mouse and keyboard particularly, benefitted from being made ergonomic (I really like using my MS keyboard), but an entire ergonomic setup? I find such desks and keyboard pads and mousepads to be incredibly uncomfortable to use. They may prevent carpal tunnel syndrome and help me in the long run, but which is more harmful; the painful displeasure then or the painful displeasure now? I've been using computers for the majority of my life and CTS has yet to hit me so I'm going to go with the former. It may be imprudent, but it's a reality.
Give me a papasan and a table and I'm set. There's no need to create an all in one folding thingamajig seat to hold my computer. It's too inflexible and its too expensive!
I suppose that they're going to do the same thing that they've done to every other product they've come in contact with. Instead of defending Linux, people should read into the FUD to find out what Microsoft is attacking. Microsoft is probably going to start poking the tender spots of Linux, the spots that need to be addressed, the very spots that corporations are worried about. People should take Microsoft's FUD as an RFE. Rather than saying, "Our operating system is inherently superior to yours," say, "Hey, Softies, thanks for the tips!" and then program solutions to what Microsoft (and probably the businesses they target) sees as problems.
This is a Good Thing(tm). With Microsoft's eagle eye on the warpath, people are going to be more critical than ever of something that's already blessed with stability and strength. If the cards are played correctly, Linux can use what looks like a negative as an ultimate positive.
On the one side are the commercial giants, the companies that will save Linux from the depths of obscurity, companies like IBM, Oracle, and even (gasp) Redhat. On the other are the ardent purists, the folks who deem freeware to be always free, who cringe at the thought of people paying for their beloved work and who fight the idea that money should be made off others' efforts.
If 1998 was the year the Linux took the world by storm, 1999 will be the year that the corporation takes Linux by storm. It's already begun to happen and people are already complaining. The big names are up front. Small upstarts are using hot models and naked pictures to sell product. In the back sit the timeless veterans: Slashdot, Debian, FSF. Who will win?
If people stop worrying about who is making money off Linux, everyone will win. Companies are working within the established framework to do what they need to do: make money. Linux programmers are still hacking away, developing strong systems and code that works. This code is still free. Does it hurt you to know that Redhat is moving forward with plans of world domination? No, it helps you, because they're putting money into the development of Linux, as are IBM and Oracle. Why? Because those companies will have better systems and products if the platform they're working on is more stable, more open, and more extendable. Companies don't want to commercialize Linux, they want to commercialize products. Companies love Linux because Linux deals with standards vs. Microsoft which deals in proprietary ideas.
If Redhat sues Linux Care, it's business. If IBM pays more for the front seats, it's business. Linux is a business, not a product. Let the companies make their money. Let the developers develop the foundation. Seeing IBM and Oracle front this Expo is a great sign for Linux's viability in the marketplace. Seeing Redhat flex its corporate muscle is a great sign for Linux's strength in the business world.
Keep hacking. Keep programming. Enjoy the fruits of your labor and let others build upon your foundation. If the Linux community fights this, I'm afraid that they're going to be reduced to same scratching-to-stay-alive heap as Apple.
Umm, why would someone need to advertise Burger King at Burger King? People are there. They've already succumbed to the advertising pressure.
Anyone have any idea of how BK plans to implement this? Are they going to have individual Windows boxes setup with 'Net access or are they going to have Macs or are they going to be truly intelligent and run X-servers. As long as Netscape or IE is up and running, I don't see how people will care.
In San Antonio, TX, Kinko's has this sort of 'Net access dealie where you can basically use their computers for anything (graphics editing, pagemaker work, surfing the 'Net, checking e-mail, et al) for a price. I wonder if people will be able to limit themselves to just a meal, though.
It's about time. One of the biggest paradoxes in the Linux community is the argument over how to "sell" Linux to the mainstream. Nobody wants Linux to commercialize and to many, that means no selling, but sales is more than just making money. I, for one, am quite glad that VA Research, a highly respected company in the Linux community is taking responsibility for selling Linux and rather than do it through marketing or gimmicks, they're doing it through the one thing that Linux community actually has over its competition: community. One of commercialism's great knocks on Linux is that you can't expect good support from something written by many different individuals. Well, hopefully a site that coalesces and displays our community's greatest asset (it's knowledge) will start turning doubters into users.
VA Research and the Advisory Board should be commended on their efforts (international considerations or not) and the Linux community should be given a pat on the back for showing that people can get together and produce both good software and ideas.
More important than the fact that games are being released for Linux is the fact that gaming subsystems are being developed for Linux. Carmack's recent investment in the Mesa project and the release of games like the Q3Test show that there's an interest in taking advantage of some of Linux's possibilities. I don't know how well it's going to work out as right now, Linux really doesn't have the strongest of foundations for gaming, but the beginning holes are there as more and more processors and video chips are being supporting (the OSS drivers were a big step forward). Unfortunately for me, one of the biggest reasons that I run Linux is also one of the biggest reasons that I don't play games on it: my computer's simply too old.
I look forward to seeing how the market responds to this. I hope companies actually start developing Linux binaries that they can include on the shipping CDs so we don't have to wait for some other company to port them. id has already shown that the process can be relatively simply. Not that I want to see Loki Games disappear, but I hope we won't have to depend on just them for Linux versions of our favorite Windows games.
I think the review was an overly simplified view of a highly atypical Redhat installation. The person obviously doing the review has quite a bit more clue than even the average new Linux user if he's choosing fdisk over Disk Druid. While he continually makes reference to how easy it is to setup Redhat from a new user's standpoint, all of the recommendations and methods he gives are for advanced users, not newbies. I'm surprised that he didn't go more into Redhat's recommendations for setting up swap space and disk partitions. In fact, I'm surprised that he didn't simply follow Redhat's guide for new installations rather than simply doing it his way. I wonder if the installation would've gone as smoothly. A better review would've installed the Workstation setup to see if it worked as advertised since that's what a "typical" installation should be. His "nice" GNOME desktop took a little work to get setup. How easy is that for a newbie? Who knows, but I bet it's more difficult than the phrase that he gave it.
I'm not trying to badmouth Redhat 6.0. In fact, I'm running it now off an upgrade from Redhat 5.2. The upgrade didn't go as smoothly as I would've liked, mainly because I have a bastardized system consisting of weird partitioning, symlinks, and non-RPM installations. I could give a D to their upgrade process in a nice fancy format like CPUReview, but why? My experiences are probably due more to the way I set things up than to Redhat's merits. Their review is the same way. A much more valid review would come from someone who truly was new to Linux, or at least to Redhat. Then you find out how easy it really is to partition space, understand the instructions, and use a Window Manager.
Personally, I give RH6 about a B, B-. I give this review a D+, enough to pass, but not enough to mean anything more than it was done.
NOTE: of course, with the ever-increasing number of test cases of Linux in the computer media community, it's getting tough to find someone green enough to function as a "Linux newbie".
Slashdot Mirror
Which part of the programming is the art? Is it the code, neatly formatted, with creative comments and clever algorithms or is it the finished product? When you look at 'art' in a museum, all you see is the finished product. Contrary to popular belief, great art is not the result of a genius mind and a few hours in front of the canvas or clay, but rather the result of sometimes years of analytical study. The Mona Lisa has no less then nine versions of itself underneath the top layer of oil and color.
So which is the art? The code or the program? I personally think it's the program, and beautiful programs usually have very nice/efficient/clean code.
MHO
Lego isn't making money off the Mindstorms programming language and interface. They'll selling the hardware (and just packaging everything necessary to access that hardware along with it). It's not as if Lego separates the two. An open-source Lego OS isn't going to hurt them at all. People will still need to buy Mindstorms to be able to use it. At least they recognize the fact that an open-source project might actually /make/ them money, unlike some /Japanese/ firms who won't let emulators out there hit the market.
What do they plan to do with these newly revived birds once they 'make' them? Are they going to be re-released into the wild? No doubt in 70 years the ecosystem they once lived in has changed so that reinserting them may prove harmful to either the birds, the land, or both.
Man, I wish scientists would actually be a little more broad-minded about what they're doing.
All of your stuff is completely relative.
Price/Performance
It's all related to how much you pay your admins and how well they administer your system. This isn't a function of the OS. Yes, Linux costs less out of the box, but an NT admin is going to have a harder time (and thus charge more) to set it up than he is an NT system. If a business currently has functioning NT systems and competent NT sysadmins, why should they switch to Linux?
Clustering
How many small businesses who are choosing between Linux and NT need to, want to, or care about the ability to cluster? People who care about this benchmark are not the same people who need to run clusters.
Other Hardware Configurations
How much would it cost for a company to build a Linux-happy system? Most systems built today (and the systems that we want Linux to run on) are built for Microsoft. You'd need a custom-built, custom-designed solution to truly grab all of Linux's power, and that costs money, either in man-hours or purchasing power. The results of this test would've been far more atypical if they had built both machines finely tuned for Linux. At least this time around, they weren't blatantly geared towards Microsoft.
Security
Security, I'd say, is 75% system administration and 25% OS. Linux has its security problems as well, most of which can be plugged up with effective network management. Many of NT's can, too. MS may be a lot more apathetic to security concerns, but they don't run the systems, they sell them. I don't consider Linux or NT any more secure than the other.
Stability
Stability can be completely a function of management. I've heard stories of Linux systems stay up for months or years. Guess what, I've heard the same stories about NT as well. I've also heard stories about unstable Linux systems. I've seen no long term studies done on system stability, so everything I hear about stability I file away under anecdotal evidence, not hard verifiable data.
Change real world needs
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. I don't see how this benefits Linux. Change the system and, whoa, Linux might perform worse under that setup. It happens to both types of OSes, and before you say, "It happens to Linux less!" find some hard data, not stories.
The Future
Past trends do not determine future performance. I doubt Linux will keep up its 212%/year growth and Linus has already said that upgrades aren't going to be as drastic as 2.0 to 2.2. Don't assume that Linux will advance in the next three years as it has in the past three years.
It's not just navigation. It has problems loading images as well. Anything with CSS on it seems to completely throw the browser into a funk. Even simple images don't load all the way. I have yet to see a transparent pixel image load up correctly on any of the test pages that I run. I'm waiting to post a bug report, though, until they fix all the CSS issues.
/very/ fast, the overall functionality still falls well short of what I need in a web browser.
So far, it's 'looking' very nice. However, even though the rendering speed is
*sigh*
Gateway's been offering a cool "slim" computer like this in Japan for a while already and is getting ready to introduce it in the US. Here's the C|Net News article for more information. Prices will range from $1999 to $2299, which is a little cheaper than the NEC and I think overall, it's probably a better computer coming from Gateway. Personally, I like how they fit the stuff in the side. "Cool" computers come and go and the NEC one doesn't seem to solve too many problems that exist.
My US$.02
The German gov't sure is tip-toeing around this one. They don't seem to understand (or maybe the do understand) the power that Microsoft is going assert over this project. Yes, other organizations can (and should) sponsor the project, but they won't have nearly the same financial power when it comes to buying computers, setting up classes, etc.
And 'Linux' won't be able to sponsor this, no matter what the government thinks. Linux isn't a corporation.
You know, given the German response to this (and the other incident mentioned in the article), I'm surprised that such a movement hasn't taken place in the US. Given Microsoft's funding of school computer labs, one might think that similar organizations here (here being the US) would possibly want schools to also look to alternatives. Maybe Apple's a bit more powerful in these situations or perhaps our country just isn't as open to these new ideas as Europe is.
Hmm.
You're right, someone who's gone through a PPP setup process can get it done fairly fast. My issue wasn't necessarily getting PPP working, it was getting PPP working properly with the setup I wanted (it still isn't, I've just given up).
And regarding programs, yes, some programs stay up for six months or longer on Linux. Big deal, some Windows stations stay up for that long as well. My point is that a lot of programs that Linux is counting on to provide the same services as Windows aren't up to speed yet, but advocates are pointing to them saying, "See, we have this and we have this." GNOME is the perfect example. I stopped running GNOME, not because I didn't like it (I really did), but it simply crashed too much, even after version 1.0.6. I don't want my GUI crashing on my when I use it. KDE didn't fair much better. If I had been in a mission-critical situation, I'd have been pissed. Not only that, my support options would've been limited. I would've had to pay someone to figure out the problem. Corporate produced software at least provides support and they have the incentive to make sure their product works properly, because people will buy it and they don't want to lose customers (or time to technical support).
People dismiss this as FUD. No, it's not FUD. It's FUD to you because it doesn't happen to you, but it's very real for a company evaluating Linux vs. NT. Their users are not going to be like you. They're going to be more like me, someone who taxes their system by screwing around with it, except that they're a) not going to know their doing it and b) not going to know how to fix it. Say what you will about NT, but it's stupid easy. Windows sells because it's stupid easy to use. You have no reason to go mess with permissions. You have no reason to go fscking with the internals. It works, and when it doesn't work, it tells you it doesn't work and gives you an easy out. When my GNOME panel crashes because it didn't like what I dropped on it or my kppp crashes because it didn't like failing with three different devices, it just disappears. That's not FUD. That's life.
I know how well Linux runs some apps and I know how poorly Linux runs some apps. The majority of stuff that I download is pretty poor code. Linux itself is rather nicely refined, but I would hate to rely on the programs that are available out there.
The author of the article, again, hit on some very good points. I've seen two people address them directly. Everyone else just cried, groaned, or tried to piss on him. I like Linux, too, but unlike some people, I'm not trying to build it up as something it's not.
I've found myself pondering the same thing as this guy over the past few months, both in my head and in the open with other people. I'm a Linux supporter, no doubt there, but I'm not blind to the fact that Linux isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread, that it's not even as good an operating system as Windows in some key areas.
Everyone talks about open-source and stability as if it's the end-all be-all of the OS market. Guess what, Linux the operating system may be stable, but even with good administration, most of the apps aren't. What good is an operating system to a company if its programs have to be continually restarted? WinNT's instability can be overcome with even moderately good system administration; it's all a matter of how the system is run. I chatted with a customer of ours the other day who runs WinNT exclusively because its cheaper. Why is it cheaper? Because its easier to use, maintain, and runs on almost anything their Intel-based systems can offer. Linux, on the other hand, he said, costs them more to maintain because they have to pay for compilations, extensive management, and the repeated solving of problems given by the apps. And, he says, they get much better support from Microsoft.
Part of Slashdot's (and the Linux community's in general) problem with articles like these is that they conflict with the ego created by Linus' "world domination" speeches. We tend to get so full of ourselves because we feel we're using an inherently better operating system than our competitor and when someone attacks that notion (and this article did it rather succinctly and not maliciously) we ignore what they're actually saying and start attacking the attacker.
Get off your high horse! I've been off mine for a while. When it takes me an hour to setup a reasonably hassle-free way to form a PPP connection on my Linux box and it takes me roughly 10 minutes to do the same on my Windows box, I can literally see the problem areas of Linux and why using it could be more expensive than using a Windows alternatives. Learning curves cost money, too. It's not all about free software and it's not all about open-source in the corporate world. To think thus is to put the same blinders that prevent looking at alternatives in the first place.
You know, with all the emphasis given to landing stuff on Mars, I'm surprised that I haven't heard any talk of NASA sending these microbes (as well as a variety of life forms that don't qualify as animal -- wouldn't want to enrage the environmentalists, now would we?) in a controlled experiment to the Martian surface. We do our darndest to prove that life could possibly exist on Mars here on Earth, but the best Martian simulation is Mars itself. If we can send a robotic probe to the Martian surface and turn cartwheels in the dust all day, we can certainly set up rudimentary experiments that determine what kinds of lifeforms truly do live in such a harsh environment.
I hope someone from NASA reads Slashdot and can comment on this. Hopefully, an engineer inside NASA's organization has already thought of this. I can't see why it would be that difficult.
The JPL article refers to the technology as "Synthetic Intelligence", not "Artificial Intelligence", highlighting a key idea. This "intelligence" was built, programmed, what have you. Basically, what they have is a complex program that can diagnose problems correctly. I think when the machine can accurately detect that the "false errors" it was receiving were truly false and can thus operate outside its bounds, we can call it AI.
Of course, that doesn't diminish its importance. If only we could get this sort of self-diagnostic power into our Linux and MS boxes.
It's funny, because IBM was everything that Microsoft is now back in its heyday. IBM made Microsoft what it is today. This may be a stretch, but IBM and Microsoft fit nicely into the roles of Obi-Wan and Anakin/Vader. IBM takes Microsoft under its wing, supports it and makes it a driving force in the industry. Then Microsoft turns around and bites the hand that feeds it, turning the Dark Side of the monopoly. Now, a much older and still much more experienced IBM is undermining Microsoft yet again, with its support of the new challenger, open-source software. IBM itself is too much of an old, slow behemoth to actually do much to counter Microsoft, but by supporter this new contender, they're encouraging not an anti-Microsoft sentiment, but a more inventive philosophy that is driving the software industry to new ideas and new successes. Even Microsoft is taking heed, even if it is in their own twisted way. Obi-Wan never actually defeated Vader, but he did train the little kid that did.
Star Wars analogy aside, IBM can only be helped by these maneuvers (both past and present). By standing up to Microsoft back then, IBM paid a painful price, but set the stage for others to do the same. Hopefully, Dell and other companies currently trying to work in other (more productive) solutions will be more successful.
The article points out that this may cause the sheep to die earlier than expected as all the cells are older. I would think that there would be other complications (or benefits) as well. As people age, their metabolism slows down. They also get wrinkly, smell funny, and go bald. Cloning of animals may finally help us to understand how aging works. Is it a result of time upon the body, or is it a result of genetics? We may even get some medical benefits as the body fights disease differently with age and we could start people off at an optimal age for immune system development (not being a doctor, this may well be birth).
:)
And if humans are ever cloned, what does this mean for things like Senior Citizen discounts and Social Security (I know this doesn't necessarily apply outside of the US). Is someone 65 years old because they've been on this planet for 65 years or because their cells say they're 65? Perhaps these old people who are climbing mountains and water skiing barefoot on one leg aren't really old, they've just been around for a while.
After getting over my initial bout of nausea at the thought of Leonardo playing the essence of the Dark Side (it's tough enough imagining the little kid growing up to be James Earl Jones, but Leonardo .. as Jar-Jar would say, "How wude!"), I actually allowed my brain to start working.
Lucas is in the inital stages of writing the screenplay for Episode 2. He's said so himself, when questioned about the rumors floating around about Episode 2 and casting and what-not. The chances that Leonardo was being interviewed for it are doubtful at best. Lucas has also been rumored to be working on a new Indiana Jones. Perhaps Leonardo is being interviewed for that. Guess what? That idea is just as baseless as Leonardo playing Anakin.
Lucas was recently interviewed about the hype surrounding Star Wars and said it's pretty much ridiculous. People are now throwing themselves into a frenzy over a rumored interview. Can't we finish dissecting the first movie before we start in on the second?
I don't think the solution is doing away with Anonymous Coward posting (I never really liked the term "Anonymous Coward" anyway). People who'd like to keep their anonymity but still contribute to the general discussion should be allowed to do so.
/. users can contact the ISP about said user (this might be as close to a DoS attack that the law allows *smirk*).
However, crap should be dealt with. Rob should be able to track down the IPs of the offending people and contact their ISP. If anything, it's a form of abuse that most respectable ISPs won't allow (the same holds true for newsgroup postings in many cases, so I think the rules can be made to apply to these sorts of things). If the person continually offends and the ISP refuses to come around, Rob can either a) block the ISP (preferred) or b) post an e-mail address where
Either way, the system isn't at fault here; abusive users are. Deal with the problem, not the symptom.
If Dell really wanted to find the oldest working computers, they should probably head south down I-35 about an hour (to San Antonio, TX) and check out some of the systems in use by the military systems. They don't throw away anything and you can be damn sure they still have the purchase orders for them.
I remember when I used to follow my dad into work, they'd have this general progression of computers as you walked into the room. Up front would be the new computers, then the middle-aged computers and then near the back would be these behemoths that were running some operating system I'd never seen before.
Why do they keep them around? Because they had budget information in formats that could only be read by programs that ran on those machines. It's the same reason my old Architecture professor doesn't upgrade his machine. He wouldn't be able to view any of his old papers that he wrote!
Look at all the new features! Woo!
Linux in general and KDE specifically are getting to the point where you can't run them on low-end systems anymore. It's not just bloat, either. A lot of KDE's enhancements are truly necessary. Integrating CORBA and "Microsoftian" aspects of the OS are going to be required as that's what people have come to expect, but I still use Linux because it runs great on my old P120 with (only) 40 MB of RAM. KDE already uses too much memory (so does it's rival GNOME). Features should not have to be added at the price of system capability.
It seems to be a general trend in Linux application programming, the idea that more features == better. Most applications that I use are very old versions that did exactly what I needed without any extra features that I didn't particularly need. A select few, like Window Maker, I keep up-to-date only because they keep adding functionality without sacrificing performance.
Perhaps the writers of KDE and other Linux GUI managers/apps/tools should take a page out of Alfredo's book and focus on really making their programs efficient, not just working.
I suspect that this version won't be the IE that people have come to know. On my Windows machines, I use IE5 and I love it. It integrates rather nicely with the operating system, takes advantage of many of Windows' features, and provides a very smooth, stable browsing platform. I've also used IE4.5 for the Mac, and the complete opposite is true. It was slow, bloated, tended to crash a lot, and extremely clunky to use. Without the operating system's built-in mechanisms to take advantage of, IE becomes just another application and it's not particularly an efficient one.
I probably won't even touch IE for Linux if the rumor is true (I think it is; Microsoft legitimizes Linux as a competitor if they develop their software for it). Netscape, even the browser standalone is large enough as it is and I don't need another browser mussing up my system.
Some things are better left uncreated. I agree that some things, like the mouse and keyboard particularly, benefitted from being made ergonomic (I really like using my MS keyboard), but an entire ergonomic setup? I find such desks and keyboard pads and mousepads to be incredibly uncomfortable to use. They may prevent carpal tunnel syndrome and help me in the long run, but which is more harmful; the painful displeasure then or the painful displeasure now? I've been using computers for the majority of my life and CTS has yet to hit me so I'm going to go with the former. It may be imprudent, but it's a reality.
Give me a papasan and a table and I'm set. There's no need to create an all in one folding thingamajig seat to hold my computer. It's too inflexible and its too expensive!
I suppose that they're going to do the same thing that they've done to every other product they've come in contact with. Instead of defending Linux, people should read into the FUD to find out what Microsoft is attacking. Microsoft is probably going to start poking the tender spots of Linux, the spots that need to be addressed, the very spots that corporations are worried about. People should take Microsoft's FUD as an RFE. Rather than saying, "Our operating system is inherently superior to yours," say, "Hey, Softies, thanks for the tips!" and then program solutions to what Microsoft (and probably the businesses they target) sees as problems.
This is a Good Thing(tm). With Microsoft's eagle eye on the warpath, people are going to be more critical than ever of something that's already blessed with stability and strength. If the cards are played correctly, Linux can use what looks like a negative as an ultimate positive.
On the one side are the commercial giants, the companies that will save Linux from the depths of obscurity, companies like IBM, Oracle, and even (gasp) Redhat. On the other are the ardent purists, the folks who deem freeware to be always free, who cringe at the thought of people paying for their beloved work and who fight the idea that money should be made off others' efforts.
If 1998 was the year the Linux took the world by storm, 1999 will be the year that the corporation takes Linux by storm. It's already begun to happen and people are already complaining. The big names are up front. Small upstarts are using hot models and naked pictures to sell product. In the back sit the timeless veterans: Slashdot, Debian, FSF. Who will win?
If people stop worrying about who is making money off Linux, everyone will win. Companies are working within the established framework to do what they need to do: make money. Linux programmers are still hacking away, developing strong systems and code that works. This code is still free. Does it hurt you to know that Redhat is moving forward with plans of world domination? No, it helps you, because they're putting money into the development of Linux, as are IBM and Oracle. Why? Because those companies will have better systems and products if the platform they're working on is more stable, more open, and more extendable. Companies don't want to commercialize Linux, they want to commercialize products. Companies love Linux because Linux deals with standards vs. Microsoft which deals in proprietary ideas.
If Redhat sues Linux Care, it's business. If IBM pays more for the front seats, it's business. Linux is a business, not a product. Let the companies make their money. Let the developers develop the foundation. Seeing IBM and Oracle front this Expo is a great sign for Linux's viability in the marketplace. Seeing Redhat flex its corporate muscle is a great sign for Linux's strength in the business world.
Keep hacking. Keep programming. Enjoy the fruits of your labor and let others build upon your foundation. If the Linux community fights this, I'm afraid that they're going to be reduced to same scratching-to-stay-alive heap as Apple.
Umm, why would someone need to advertise Burger King at Burger King? People are there. They've already succumbed to the advertising pressure.
Anyone have any idea of how BK plans to implement this? Are they going to have individual Windows boxes setup with 'Net access or are they going to have Macs or are they going to be truly intelligent and run X-servers. As long as Netscape or IE is up and running, I don't see how people will care.
In San Antonio, TX, Kinko's has this sort of 'Net access dealie where you can basically use their computers for anything (graphics editing, pagemaker work, surfing the 'Net, checking e-mail, et al) for a price. I wonder if people will be able to limit themselves to just a meal, though.
It's about time. One of the biggest paradoxes in the Linux community is the argument over how to "sell" Linux to the mainstream. Nobody wants Linux to commercialize and to many, that means no selling, but sales is more than just making money. I, for one, am quite glad that VA Research, a highly respected company in the Linux community is taking responsibility for selling Linux and rather than do it through marketing or gimmicks, they're doing it through the one thing that Linux community actually has over its competition: community. One of commercialism's great knocks on Linux is that you can't expect good support from something written by many different individuals. Well, hopefully a site that coalesces and displays our community's greatest asset (it's knowledge) will start turning doubters into users.
VA Research and the Advisory Board should be commended on their efforts (international considerations or not) and the Linux community should be given a pat on the back for showing that people can get together and produce both good software and ideas.
More important than the fact that games are being released for Linux is the fact that gaming subsystems are being developed for Linux. Carmack's recent investment in the Mesa project and the release of games like the Q3Test show that there's an interest in taking advantage of some of Linux's possibilities. I don't know how well it's going to work out as right now, Linux really doesn't have the strongest of foundations for gaming, but the beginning holes are there as more and more processors and video chips are being supporting (the OSS drivers were a big step forward). Unfortunately for me, one of the biggest reasons that I run Linux is also one of the biggest reasons that I don't play games on it: my computer's simply too old.
I look forward to seeing how the market responds to this. I hope companies actually start developing Linux binaries that they can include on the shipping CDs so we don't have to wait for some other company to port them. id has already shown that the process can be relatively simply. Not that I want to see Loki Games disappear, but I hope we won't have to depend on just them for Linux versions of our favorite Windows games.
I think the review was an overly simplified view of a highly atypical Redhat installation. The person obviously doing the review has quite a bit more clue than even the average new Linux user if he's choosing fdisk over Disk Druid. While he continually makes reference to how easy it is to setup Redhat from a new user's standpoint, all of the recommendations and methods he gives are for advanced users, not newbies. I'm surprised that he didn't go more into Redhat's recommendations for setting up swap space and disk partitions. In fact, I'm surprised that he didn't simply follow Redhat's guide for new installations rather than simply doing it his way. I wonder if the installation would've gone as smoothly. A better review would've installed the Workstation setup to see if it worked as advertised since that's what a "typical" installation should be. His "nice" GNOME desktop took a little work to get setup. How easy is that for a newbie? Who knows, but I bet it's more difficult than the phrase that he gave it.
I'm not trying to badmouth Redhat 6.0. In fact, I'm running it now off an upgrade from Redhat 5.2. The upgrade didn't go as smoothly as I would've liked, mainly because I have a bastardized system consisting of weird partitioning, symlinks, and non-RPM installations. I could give a D to their upgrade process in a nice fancy format like CPUReview, but why? My experiences are probably due more to the way I set things up than to Redhat's merits. Their review is the same way. A much more valid review would come from someone who truly was new to Linux, or at least to Redhat. Then you find out how easy it really is to partition space, understand the instructions, and use a Window Manager.
Personally, I give RH6 about a B, B-. I give this review a D+, enough to pass, but not enough to mean anything more than it was done.
NOTE: of course, with the ever-increasing number of test cases of Linux in the computer media community, it's getting tough to find someone green enough to function as a "Linux newbie".