I was using Mandrake 7.1 (downloaded through FTP) and let the installer configure it with all the defaults. (This was about a year ago, so I don't recall all the details.)
The graphics card was good (cannot remember the name) but the PC was a high-end Dell Dimension (4100?) with 256MB RAM. Everything in the box came pre-installed by DELL -- originally loaded with Win2000. I had two of them. (No longer have them.)
Not sure how to explain it, but the same Mandrake build was unusable in KDE and GNOME on my home 100MHz machine. (Win95 on the same machine was almost tollerable.)
Slow down your sister in law's computer so it runs maybe 3/4 as fast as today when she runs her applications. Keep the same apps she uses today. Will she have any reason to complain?
You don't have to be a computer wonk to notice fast vs slower.
I feel the apps are already "almost there" for Linux. But as long as the desktop feels sluggish compared to Windows, your sister in law, and my sisters for that matter, will want the snappier Windows configured machine.
They won't know how it was configured or care, but they will care that it is responsive at their level of expectation.
Did you find some native Linux drivers or something? Or perhaps you have not run Windows GUI apps on the same machines to draw a comparison?
I had an identical Windows2000 machine running next to the the KDE/GNOME machine and you did not need a virtual stopwatch to see the difference. This was standard Dell hardware circa early 2000.
I was very surprised and disappointed at the time.
I tried using Linux KDE as a desktop last year and was disappointed with the speed of the graphical interface. I could watch the dialogs painting and this was on a 900MHz machine.
This is not an issue with Servers.
I, like most users, expect performance to be at least as snappy as on other systems using comparable hardware.
As hardware gets faster, the GUI sluggishness will be less apparent. That along with the advent of more mainstream compatible apps will make it more prevalent as a desktop OS.
Stevenson added that observations also hint at oceans on Titan, Triton, and Pluto.
And I always thought Pluto was just a big frozen asteroid. Does it have enough mass to keep water? This seems like a typo to me. (Unless frozen water now counts as an ocean.)
For while Linux has a large presence in the server marketplace, it doesn't cut it as a desktop operating system. That's not through any technical shortcomings of the product itself, but rather the technical shortcomings of users.
I take issue with that statement. It is not the users' fault that Linux GUIs use X windows and as a result the GUIs are more slugish in Linux that in Windows. No amount of reasonable configuring by a user can change that.
I've seen people support the larger size of Pocket PCs because they plan to take them on airplanes and play games. Well, this looks like a much better candidate for that kind of application. (God knows you cannot carry any of those monsters around in a shirt pocket all day.)
Games! Build games for this da*n thing and someone will buy it. Maybe I will.
The processer is twice the speed of any Pocket PC, the screen is 4 times (or more) bigger. Yes, games.
Wow. I like it. Xircom certainly had the right form factor. But evidently they lacked the right marketing. I did not even know this awesome product existed. Shame on me.
Looks like Citizen is also on the right track. I cannot read Japanese, but evidently they are showing a full function PDA that is about half the size of a Palm V (little bigger than Rexx). I want it!
These things are becoming freaks because they are too big to lug around in a pocket everyday but have more power than a decent laptop from 4 years ago. More memory and processor power are a waste in a package that will really do little more than some point-click lookups (eg address book) and play games.
How much memory and processing power does an address book need?
If it is more than an address book then give me a da*n keyboard and bigger screen. Wait, I already have one of those. I call it a laptop and it is about as small as I can stand a real computer being.
Were these "day" students or "night" students? There is a difference. Most daytime students are younger and are more likely (if in CS) to already know and understand issues about Linux. Night students, on the other hand, are more likely to be older and less familiar with Linux.
Yes, if you are older you are more likely to already be comfortable with some other operating systems.
Actually, I found a Panasonic like that about 8 years ago and purchased it. I have enough clocks in my family room and don't need one more that is perpetually one minute too fast or slow compared to the other clocks around it. The VCR has 4 heads, MTS stereo, and is programmable. The time shows up the screen when I need to see it. I'm surprised it was so hard to find.
I felt AdCritic was one of the benefits of having Broadband. Now it is gone and I'm not sure why. The "why" page just says they did not make $. Okay. Why didn't they make enough money?
There seems to be a missed marketing opportunity here. If their traffic was really so big, you cannot tell me that the vendors whose commercials they displayed could not be approached for some payola. This is more advertising for them. Why wasn't their spiel compelling if they did approach vendors?
When I first found the site I assumed it would eventually create a new marketing avenue where companies focused on creating funny/appealing commercials with the up front intent of hosting it on AdCritic. The strategy there being the better the commercial is, the more eyes you will have looking at it.
Perhaps AdCritic was just a little before its time. Maybe the demographic was not right. Maybe it will be back when everyone's mom and grandma has broadband. Maybe it will be back when folks at companies controlling ad budgets really understand the marketing power of the internet.
if the mouse is incapable of filling your needs, you should consider alternatives
Exactly. Everything you ever needed to know you did not learn in kindergarten, but for some reason some people don't beleive that. Sometimes, as is the case with general purpose computers, the interface will require some training because there are new concepts.
An apt analogy is language. There are too many words in English. We should simplify it. Perhaps we only need 500 words.... Of course, if we "simplify" we reduce the efficiency and power of it for those that have mastered it.
Teach people about disks, don't take the icon away.
I truly doubt there is an increase in autism, just an increase in the number of children they are diagnosing as autistic.
If it were just a matter of over-diagnosis for profit motive, we would likely see such an over diagnosis in all affluent areas, not just geographical regions of technical expertise. There is probably something here since the spikes are showing up in Silicon Valley and not Beverly Hills.
I think psychology is mostly a bunch of gibberish that's many times misapplied, but Psychiatrists and gene researchers may be onto something here.
Some people might remember that the UK actually recovered a scrapped Vulcan long range bomber from the junk heap back in the 1980's to bomb Argentine encampments during the Falklands war. Prior to the war they had decided these planes were obsolete. Obviously they were not.
Once air defenses are not an issue, the only things that matter are:
1. They should be able to fly far.
2. They should be able to carry serious payload.
3. They should be reliable.
Speed and fancy features become a liability as witnessed by the dismal reliability and usefulness of the B1 bomber. They hardly seem safe to fly. (But they are newer!)
Finding water (or ice) on Mars is fascinating, but people that think this means we can turn it into a vacation resort are not being realistic.
As you point out, Mars does not have enough mass or magnetic shielding to preserve an atmosphere. Creating one by melting the ice caps would be a waste.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't you have to be a patent attorney to do this? They don't work for free last time I checked.
AOL is losing lots of customers to services like speakeasy because the speed and support are better.
Could it be that what we are witnessing is a distribution of wealth thoughout the connected world? Technology is the enabler here.
This is a very BAD thing of course for the 1st world countries if wealth is a limited resource.
I was using Mandrake 7.1 (downloaded through FTP) and let the installer configure it with all the defaults. (This was about a year ago, so I don't recall all the details.)
The graphics card was good (cannot remember the name) but the PC was a high-end Dell Dimension (4100?) with 256MB RAM. Everything in the box came pre-installed by DELL -- originally loaded with Win2000. I had two of them. (No longer have them.)
Not sure how to explain it, but the same Mandrake build was unusable in KDE and GNOME on my home 100MHz machine. (Win95 on the same machine was almost tollerable.)
Slow down your sister in law's computer so it runs maybe 3/4 as fast as today when she runs her applications. Keep the same apps she uses today. Will she have any reason to complain?
You don't have to be a computer wonk to notice fast vs slower.
I feel the apps are already "almost there" for Linux. But as long as the desktop feels sluggish compared to Windows, your sister in law, and my sisters for that matter, will want the snappier Windows configured machine.
They won't know how it was configured or care, but they will care that it is responsive at their level of expectation.
Did you find some native Linux drivers or something? Or perhaps you have not run Windows GUI apps on the same machines to draw a comparison?
I had an identical Windows2000 machine running next to the the KDE/GNOME machine and you did not need a virtual stopwatch to see the difference. This was standard Dell hardware circa early 2000.
I was very surprised and disappointed at the time.
KDE and GNOME are the whole point dude. Those desktops need to be as at least as snappy as Windows. Unfortunately they are not at this time.
Switching to less snazzy desktops to recover speed misses the whole point of KDE and GNOME in the first place.
I tried using Linux KDE as a desktop last year and was disappointed with the speed of the graphical interface. I could watch the dialogs painting and this was on a 900MHz machine.
This is not an issue with Servers.
I, like most users, expect performance to be at least as snappy as on other systems using comparable hardware.
As hardware gets faster, the GUI sluggishness will be less apparent. That along with the advent of more mainstream compatible apps will make it more prevalent as a desktop OS.
If you put a cat inside this computer, will it die?
Stevenson added that observations also hint at oceans on Titan, Triton, and Pluto.
And I always thought Pluto was just a big frozen asteroid. Does it have enough mass to keep water? This seems like a typo to me. (Unless frozen water now counts as an ocean.)
For while Linux has a large presence in the server marketplace, it doesn't cut it as a desktop operating system. That's not through any technical shortcomings of the product itself, but rather the technical shortcomings of users.
I take issue with that statement. It is not the users' fault that Linux GUIs use X windows and as a result the GUIs are more slugish in Linux that in Windows. No amount of reasonable configuring by a user can change that.
I've seen people support the larger size of Pocket PCs because they plan to take them on airplanes and play games. Well, this looks like a much better candidate for that kind of application. (God knows you cannot carry any of those monsters around in a shirt pocket all day.)
Games! Build games for this da*n thing and someone will buy it. Maybe I will.
The processer is twice the speed of any Pocket PC, the screen is 4 times (or more) bigger. Yes, games.
Wow. I like it. Xircom certainly had the right form factor. But evidently they lacked the right marketing. I did not even know this awesome product existed. Shame on me.
/ 631059-000.html
Looks like Citizen is also on the right track. I cannot read Japanese, but evidently they are showing a full function PDA that is about half the size of a Palm V (little bigger than Rexx). I want it!
http://ascii24.com/news/i/topi/article/2001/11/07
They also demo a PDA watch but that will catch on as much as calculator watches and pocket protectors. We all have those right?
thiner than a co-workers Handspring by a few millimeteres
Then you have a real pocket PC and I applaud you. My entire point is that size matters and you seem to appreciate that.
All the other features are ho-hum if it is too much hassle to carry it around.
These things are becoming freaks because they are too big to lug around in a pocket everyday but have more power than a decent laptop from 4 years ago. More memory and processor power are a waste in a package that will really do little more than some point-click lookups (eg address book) and play games.
How much memory and processing power does an address book need?
If it is more than an address book then give me a da*n keyboard and bigger screen. Wait, I already have one of those. I call it a laptop and it is about as small as I can stand a real computer being.
I'll consider lugging one around every day when the pocket PC becomes half the thickness it currenly is and is half the weight.
Yes, size does matter.
Meanwhile I'll stick with my old but smaller Handspring.
Were these "day" students or "night" students? There is a difference. Most daytime students are younger and are more likely (if in CS) to already know and understand issues about Linux. Night students, on the other hand, are more likely to be older and less familiar with Linux.
Yes, if you are older you are more likely to already be comfortable with some other operating systems.
I'm waiting for the machine that turns Pb into Au.
Maybe they should remove the clock
Actually, I found a Panasonic like that about 8 years ago and purchased it. I have enough clocks in my family room and don't need one more that is perpetually one minute too fast or slow compared to the other clocks around it. The VCR has 4 heads, MTS stereo, and is programmable. The time shows up the screen when I need to see it. I'm surprised it was so hard to find.
I felt AdCritic was one of the benefits of having Broadband. Now it is gone and I'm not sure why. The "why" page just says they did not make $. Okay. Why didn't they make enough money?
There seems to be a missed marketing opportunity here. If their traffic was really so big, you cannot tell me that the vendors whose commercials they displayed could not be approached for some payola. This is more advertising for them. Why wasn't their spiel compelling if they did approach vendors?
When I first found the site I assumed it would eventually create a new marketing avenue where companies focused on creating funny/appealing commercials with the up front intent of hosting it on AdCritic. The strategy there being the better the commercial is, the more eyes you will have looking at it.
Perhaps AdCritic was just a little before its time. Maybe the demographic was not right. Maybe it will be back when everyone's mom and grandma has broadband. Maybe it will be back when folks at companies controlling ad budgets really understand the marketing power of the internet.
if the mouse is incapable of filling your needs, you should consider alternatives
... Of course, if we "simplify" we reduce the efficiency and power of it for those that have mastered it.
Exactly. Everything you ever needed to know you did not learn in kindergarten, but for some reason some people don't beleive that. Sometimes, as is the case with general purpose computers, the interface will require some training because there are new concepts.
An apt analogy is language. There are too many words in English. We should simplify it. Perhaps we only need 500 words.
Teach people about disks, don't take the icon away.
I truly doubt there is an increase in autism, just an increase in the number of children they are diagnosing as autistic.
If it were just a matter of over-diagnosis for profit motive, we would likely see such an over diagnosis in all affluent areas, not just geographical regions of technical expertise. There is probably something here since the spikes are showing up in Silicon Valley and not Beverly Hills.
I think psychology is mostly a bunch of gibberish that's many times misapplied, but Psychiatrists and gene researchers may be onto something here.
Some people might remember that the UK actually recovered a scrapped Vulcan long range bomber from the junk heap back in the 1980's to bomb Argentine encampments during the Falklands war. Prior to the war they had decided these planes were obsolete. Obviously they were not.
Once air defenses are not an issue, the only things that matter are:
1. They should be able to fly far.
2. They should be able to carry serious payload.
3. They should be reliable.
Speed and fancy features become a liability as witnessed by the dismal reliability and usefulness of the B1 bomber. They hardly seem safe to fly. (But they are newer!)
http://msnbc.com/news/671543.asp?cp1=1
http://www.cnn.com/US/9802/18/B1.crash.update/
http://www.texnews.com/1998/local/net0219.html
The BBC article refers to the "Stardust" project as though everyone knows about it...
Stardust project, which had a similar problem that was much worse. In that case, Stardust's team were able to completely remove the contamination
You can read more about that mission at http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov.
What a name.
Finding water (or ice) on Mars is fascinating, but people that think this means we can turn it into a vacation resort are not being realistic.
As you point out, Mars does not have enough mass or magnetic shielding to preserve an atmosphere. Creating one by melting the ice caps would be a waste.
Then again, glass dome anyone?