Does your laptop suspend to ram? Can you start more than one X server in parallel?
I've no idea if the driver works with suspend to ram. I've never bothered to get suspend to ram working, since it's in a fairly high state of flux within the linux kernel.
For my uses, the latest drivers works fine. Don't get me wrong, it's still not perfect; I would love a more complete opengl implementation. Otherwise, I'm satisfied with it.
Well, I haven't had any experience with Asian languages, but I had to play around a little to get the european language characters. In the end it was relatively simple, editing a.Xmodmap file and enabling Multi_key. I don't use Gnome or KDE, and it may be much simpler in those environments.
Basically, this is something you can't blame on Linux per se. It's the fault of the specific distribution you're using. I'm sure some distributions make it very easy to alter input methods.
I agree though, the windows system is very nice for multiple language input. They've done a very good job with it.
Media playing
Linux may have issues with media and default installations, but I'd say that windows is much worse here. I can't believe some of the headaches I've had to go through, to get windows to play some media. I've downloaded some funny video off a website, and then spent the next hour trying to find the right codec to play it with.
Contrast this with Linux and mplayer (with w32codecs installed), and I have never had a problem playing anything with this combo. It is a dream compared to windows.
Device support
Again, another issue that goes both ways. I've had network cards which have been a royal pain to get going in windows, but in Linux it just works. The few scanners that I've played around with in Linux have just worked, as well.
On the whole, I've found that relatively obscure equipment always works much better with Linux, and certain big brands work much better with windows. It's certainly not a cut and dried issue though.
Fonts
Can't say I've had too many issues with fonts on my Linux system, or any Linux installs I've completed recently (latest Ubuntu and Redhat Core 5). Maybe I'm just used to the way they look in Linux. But then again, I do remote desktop into Windows servers, and the fonts there don't seem to be much smoother. *shrug* Maybe it's a subjective thing.
In the end, I do agree that windows gives a more consistent desktop feel than any Linux distribution I've used. It definitely does some things better. But then again, Linux systems do some things better than windows.
Myself, I prefer Linux because it gives me more control than windows. I don't like the way that windows dictates how the computer experience is supposed to be. Still, I can appreciate the way Microsoft integrate things.
Of course, it all helps when most of the world is oriented towards the Microsoft way of computing. Want to inline multimedia on the webpage? Most websites could do so that's compatible, but they choose to do it the Microsoft Way, which doesn't work on Linux. Word and Excel documents? Again with the Microsoft formats. Linux can handle them, although it would be much better to bring on ODF!
Should I mention the crappy way Word often handles older formats? OpenOffice is much better in that respect. It just goes to show really, that there's no true winner one way or the other. They both have their strengths and weaknesses.
... apparantly Sydney is located in the middle of a road, right next to a large bus depot. That's where the little red dot labelled 'Sydney' is located. I should drive over there and erect a signpost, pointing out the landmark.
Maybe someone should tell the GoogleEarth people that it should be the GPO (General Post Office), in the middle of the central business district, 3352'4.49"S 15112'26.46"E . I'll submit a data error report, via http://earth.google.com/support/bin/request.py . Has anyone else reported errors here, and had them fixed?
Kudos to Google for the Linux client. Works wonderfully. I can finally put my GoogleEarth Wine hack to rest, which never displayed text and toolbars properly.
1. Put an executable program on a filesystem which is mounted noexec 2. Run/lib/ld-linux.so.2/path/to/your/noexec/program
I didn't try it, but I did see the following quote in my "mount" manual page: "(Until recently it was possible to run binaries anyway using a command like/lib/ld*.so/mnt/binary. This trick fails since Linux 2.4.25 / 2.6.0)"
Per the autopay dis-abler function in the group policy in windows, all removable drives aside from optical disks (DVD/CDROM) have autoplay disabled by default.
They didn't use autoplay, they used an enticing file name on an executable. (My wife Pics.exe (with a zip icon) would do it.)
Does Windows have the ability to attach devices with a "noexec" option? That seems like it'd be handy in this situation.
Can Windows admins prevent executable access to any area a user can write to, or attach devices to? It seems like this would be enough to prevent this sort of situation. If not, then I guess it's score one more for Unix system security.
I know, my friend. What are we to do with these slashdot posters?! It is so disheartening to see acronyms used, without initial expansion. Awful, absolutely awful grammar. It's on the same level as people who neglect the common comma.
Bad grammar is growing, you know. I've seen it on other forums. Slashdotters are straying from their habitat and infecting the online world with their insidious machinations. We both know what a pristine world of grammar existed before slashdot.
Earl, for I assume your name is Earl, we are a bastion of grammatical fortitude, against a raging sea of passive sentences and split infinitives. You must stay strong, friend. Show no fear. Correct the heathens, for they do not know what they are doing.
I'm glad I actually understood what the original poster had to say.
Actually, in this case, the redundancy is very helpful for readability. I had no idea what BPI stood for, so mentioning that it was British, helped me understand where the acronym originated.
Besides, I'm sure you'd agree that redundancy is a very worthwile goal, and should be encouraged.;)
The point was this- don't worry about mainstream acceptance by non-gamers. Don't worry whether some movie critic or english prof thinks you're "art" or not. Make something people like to play. Thats what matters, not getting the blessing of the snobs who define "art".
I've enjoyed reading this thread, because I can appreciate the well reasoned arguments of both sides. I have to call exception to the above though. What really matters, is making something that you like to play, not what you think other people like to play. That's when the real creativity happens. That's where games like Katamari Damarcy and Shadow of the Colossus are born. It's all in satisfying the self, and hopefully as a consequence, satisfying others.
From previous experience, the Fedora installation has been painfully slow. You can see the (lack of) activity when it's copying over packages from the CDROM. It copies the package, installs it to the hard drive, copies another package, installs that, and so on.
It would be soooo much faster if it actually made use of parallel processes. One process copying from the CDROM, and another installing to the hard drive when the package is available. I mean, how hard can it be?! I've written perl scripts which do that and more.
Anyway, I hope that Fedora 5 has improved this, but looking at the review, I don't think it's happened.
ATI works great for me with Linux
on
ATI's 1GB Video Card
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Flogging generic statements like "ATI sucks for Linux", is not very accurate. A better way of putting it is "ATI sucks for some cards under Linux".
I can certainly say that my laptop, with its ATI Radeon Xpress 200M chip, works wonderfully under Linux. Yes, I'm talking about their binary driver distribution. Using the latest version of their drivers. I'm also using the Xorg 6.9 xserver. It's fully 3D accelerated, as shown in the following command:
$ glxinfo | grep OpenGL OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc. OpenGL renderer string: RADEON XPRESS 200M Series SW TCL Generic OpenGL version string: 2.0.5695 (8.23.7)
I'm aware that the binary driver doesn't work with some ATI cards, especially some of the top range ones. But for what I use, it's brilliant. The installer is a little easier than the Nvidia one too. Thanks ATI, you've done a great job, from my perspective.
What's the bet on how long it takes Les Editions Albert René to take the author to court? They successfully did it to Mobilix, on the farcical premise that it sounds like Obelix.
To be fair, a thought experiment rarely provides proof of anything. Yes, they're useful for figuring things out and demonstrating things, but they don't prove anything.
To be just as fair, I never claim to prove anything:). I was just annoyed with the original poster, and his claims about closed source being proven more secure. But while I don't really prove anything, I hope I've shown that open source can have many reasons for being more secure.
Whether it's open source or closed source, it is impossible to say software is 'secure'. My only argument, is that open source software is generally more secure than closed source software. Sure, there'll be open source projects that are horribly insecure, and there'll be closed source projects that are very secure. But these are the minority, in my argument.
Closed source is proven to be far more secure in the real world than source that has been picked through by numerous people.
OK, this is flamebait, but what the hell. It annoys me when people claim something is proven, without actually supplying any proof.
As a thought experiment, try this out. Start off with a software project that forks into two branches. One branch is developed with an open source model. The other branch becomes closed source. Assume that the original software project had a certain number of bugs. Now I ask you, as time goes on, which branch would contain less bugs? The closed source, or the open source?
It seems obvious to me that the open source project would quickly have its bugs fixed, because of two reasons. The coders on the project would have ego on the line, and would therefore be much more careful with publicly available code. Due to the immense availability of peer review, issues are discovered and reported much more quickly and thoroughly.
It also seems obvious that the closed source project would have many more bugs, for many different reasons. Programmers are more likely to ignore issues, because "nobody can see it". The pressure of getting a release out means that things are quickly cobbled together without much thought for security. If there is a review of code, it is not likely to be as thorough as what is available to open source.
If the code is hidden, a program is not more secure. Otherwise, how do you explain the numerous security issues found in closed source software every year?! Whoever found the bugs, didn't have access to the source, yet they were still found. And once it is found, how can you fix it? I'd say that closed source software is far more insecure than open source, because not many have access to the source.
Thought I'd throw my opinion on the points you raise, based on my observations...
Driver API. Centralised driver development doesn't work - period. Assume the existance of a totally awesome vendor who is happy to release GPLd drivers with their new widget. They put a penguin on the side of the box. They immediately get their ass sued off by people who buy the widget, plug it into Goobuntu or whatever, nothing happens
Actually, I've been quite pleased with the driver scene with Linux. The few drivers I need, that don't come bundled with the kernel, have been a breeze to install. Mind you, this comes with kernel 2.6, which seems to have the infrastructure to build drivers without kernel source. For example, I need to install drivers for my wireless LAN (madwifi drivers), wireless internet (iBurst), graphics driver (ATI), and BIOS system management (tp_smapi).
Sure, it isn't as convenient as windows, in that you still have to do a make, make install. But at the same time, it's worked very reliably. I can't tell you the number of headaches I've had trying to get some drivers working in Windows. That seems to be the story with Windows... when it work, it works really nice, but when it doesn't work, it is hell on earth to figure out and fix. Linux seems to take the middle road... making the easy things a little harder, but the hard things easier.
Yet the kernel developers do exactly this for drivers, and threaten (or actually do) sue random vendors who distribute binary drivers (except not nVidia, as that'd cause mass civil war). Worse, the kernel developers are getting more militant not less. This is simply not a tenable situation for desktops which deal with far wider variety of hardware than servers. In its current state Linux can never be a desktop kernel, unless you redefine "desktop" so far it loses all meaning.
Well, speaking as an end user, like I said above, I'm quite happy with the driver situation in Linux on my PC. Almost everything is catered for with the kernel, and the few external drivers I need, work flawlessly. Yes, I use Linux on my desktop, even at work. As a desktop, it works wonderfully for me. I can read my exchange email via Evolution, I can read and edit Word and Excel files with OpenOffice, I insert my USB mouse, keyboard, hard drive, and flash stick, and it's picked up on automatically, I can access windows shares, remotely mounted (although this took a little bit of work to set up, but now works automatically).
As far as binary drivers are concerned, I can't recall any developer that has sued a vendor because of their binary drivers. Can you list examples?
C++ support. It doesn't work. It's unbelievably slow, the glibc developers refuse patches to fix it, and is only reliable as long as you use "pure" binaries built with the same compiler that everything else is. This makes robust binary distribution of C++ apps impossible and as nearly every large desktop app is written in C++ this is a problem.
I'm not a C++ programmer, but I have heard of the changing binary ABI under Linux, causing many headaches for older programs. So you've got a good point here. All I can say, is that hopefully the ABI has stabilised now with the latest gcc, and it should be compatible from now on. I don't know too much about this scene.
No easy install/uninstall - if you're comfortable with partitioning etc then you can get Fedora installed without too much bother, but Ubuntu doesn't even have a graphical installer, and as far as I'm aware no distro today offers an easy way to remove it and put Windows back to 100% disk usage. Who in their right mind would try a program that ate 10gigs of disk space and didn't come with a way to uninstall it?
Geez, what operating system comes with an uninstall?! That's the f
The unfortunate result of all this DRM mania, is that many people will not buy media anymore. Not everyone of course, but lets assume 10%. Sales will go down by the same percentage, or even more (some people buy more than others). Media companies point the finger at piracy. Government issues more stringent laws. More people abandon media sales, because it's just not entertaining having police conduct spot searches in your home.
Let's go back to standing around the piano with the family, singing the old (copyright free, public domain) songs. That's the sort of entertainment the RIAAs of the world cannot control.
.... called the "Saga of the Exiles" (The Many-Coloured Land, The Golden Torc, etc). Modern humans went back in a time device, to prehistoric earth. They settled in France, funnily enough.
They went back 6 million years, in the book. So the coincidences stop there. It's a good read!
Ooooo, vapourware! I'd better hope that a strong wind doesn't come up, otherwise my WM might dissapear.
I think you'd better revise your definition of vapourware. According to this website, it's software not yet in production, but has already been announced. Doesn't exactly match the perennial development of E17.
It may be nice tech demo, but let us face it, it is a dead end street.
More than a tech demo, mate. It's very usable. I've been using it full time on my work desktop, for the last few months. It is perfect for what I want in a WM. For others, it may still lack some features, but for me, it's great!
I mean I got it to run on my old HP-UX workstation back in the day. But what has it done of _use_ latetly.
Spoken like someone who hasn't even tried E17 lately. Do you often criticize before you try? I could make a snide comment about this being Slashdot, but I actually think most Slashdot postings are quite decent.
And no, I'm not new here.
Of course, I'll get modded as Troll or Flamebait for not toeing the line.
Well, let's look up the meaning of Troll... yep, I think your post fits the bill. So of course you're going to be modded as a Troll.
I'm using it on a 500MHz PIII Dell laptop, with the following graphics chipset:
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (re v 64)
Works a treat. In fact, it's quite nice and speedy! I've been using E17 fulltime, for the last few months. It's perfect for what I want in a Window Manager.
I totally agree. He should definitely be convicted, for crimes of bad taste.
New York Times: the bastion of moral journalism?
on
Paul Graham on PR
·
· Score: 1
Notice how the author of this article gave a very positive rap for the New York Times? Makes me wonder what (or who) inspired the author to write this article.
'To survive' means that putting humans/life beyond Earth is a very Good Thing in case a very Bad Thing happens to humans/life on Earth.
Precisely! Moving off Earth, will avert the almost certain human extinction, when the new Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie is released. By all reports, it is certain to offend most sentient species in our universe, prompting an undercurrent in Galaxy politics, which will eventuate in the Earth being demolished by Vogons, to make way for a completely unnecessary hyperspace bypass. The Vogons were jealous anyway, because even they couldn't compete with some of the crap that comes out of Hollywood.
When I went to Dan's homepage and clicked on one of the reviews, my antivirus program has informed me that there was a malware Javascript virus that tried to be executed. That certainly means that I am not going to his website ever again.
The website has its quirks, and the javascript problem you had is probably because of the following:
In other words... advertising code. If Dan trusts these burstnet guys enough, to link to their ad javascripts, then I'm sure it's safe. Otherwise, you can always use Adblock (you are using Firefox/Mozilla, aren't you?:)
Give Dan's Data another try. He writes honest, down to earth, reviews. I've yet to come across another review site on the internet, that tells it as straight as what Dan does.
Slashdot Mirror
I've no idea if the driver works with suspend to ram. I've never bothered to get suspend to ram working, since it's in a fairly high state of flux within the linux kernel.
Can I start more than one X server simultaneously? Again, something that I never use. Apparantly it can though, according to this: http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/linux_8.25.18.h
For my uses, the latest drivers works fine. Don't get me wrong, it's still not perfect; I would love a more complete opengl implementation. Otherwise, I'm satisfied with it.
$ lspci | grep -i vga
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RC410 [Radeon Xpress 200M]
$
$ fglrxinfo
display:
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: RADEON XPRESS 200M Series Generic
OpenGL version string: 2.0.5879 (8.26.18)
Seems to be working already, as far as I can tell. This is on an IBM R51e laptop. What's the problem?
Well, I haven't had any experience with Asian languages, but I had to play around a little to get the european language characters. In the end it was relatively simple, editing a
Basically, this is something you can't blame on Linux per se. It's the fault of the specific distribution you're using. I'm sure some distributions make it very easy to alter input methods.
I agree though, the windows system is very nice for multiple language input. They've done a very good job with it.
Linux may have issues with media and default installations, but I'd say that windows is much worse here. I can't believe some of the headaches I've had to go through, to get windows to play some media. I've downloaded some funny video off a website, and then spent the next hour trying to find the right codec to play it with.
Contrast this with Linux and mplayer (with w32codecs installed), and I have never had a problem playing anything with this combo. It is a dream compared to windows.
Again, another issue that goes both ways. I've had network cards which have been a royal pain to get going in windows, but in Linux it just works. The few scanners that I've played around with in Linux have just worked, as well.
On the whole, I've found that relatively obscure equipment always works much better with Linux, and certain big brands work much better with windows. It's certainly not a cut and dried issue though.
Can't say I've had too many issues with fonts on my Linux system, or any Linux installs I've completed recently (latest Ubuntu and Redhat Core 5). Maybe I'm just used to the way they look in Linux. But then again, I do remote desktop into Windows servers, and the fonts there don't seem to be much smoother. *shrug* Maybe it's a subjective thing.
In the end, I do agree that windows gives a more consistent desktop feel than any Linux distribution I've used. It definitely does some things better. But then again, Linux systems do some things better than windows.
Myself, I prefer Linux because it gives me more control than windows. I don't like the way that windows dictates how the computer experience is supposed to be. Still, I can appreciate the way Microsoft integrate things.
Of course, it all helps when most of the world is oriented towards the Microsoft way of computing. Want to inline multimedia on the webpage? Most websites could do so that's compatible, but they choose to do it the Microsoft Way, which doesn't work on Linux. Word and Excel documents? Again with the Microsoft formats. Linux can handle them, although it would be much better to bring on ODF!
Should I mention the crappy way Word often handles older formats? OpenOffice is much better in that respect. It just goes to show really, that there's no true winner one way or the other. They both have their strengths and weaknesses.
Maybe someone should tell the GoogleEarth people that it should be the GPO (General Post Office), in the middle of the central business district, 3352'4.49"S 15112'26.46"E . I'll submit a data error report, via http://earth.google.com/support/bin/request.py . Has anyone else reported errors here, and had them fixed?
Kudos to Google for the Linux client. Works wonderfully. I can finally put my GoogleEarth Wine hack to rest, which never displayed text and toolbars properly.
I didn't try it, but I did see the following quote in my "mount" manual page: "(Until recently it was possible to run binaries anyway using a command like
I presume that your hack doesn't work anymore.
Does Windows have the ability to attach devices with a "noexec" option? That seems like it'd be handy in this situation.
Can Windows admins prevent executable access to any area a user can write to, or attach devices to? It seems like this would be enough to prevent this sort of situation. If not, then I guess it's score one more for Unix system security.
I know, my friend. What are we to do with these slashdot posters?! It is so disheartening to see acronyms used, without initial expansion. Awful, absolutely awful grammar. It's on the same level as people who neglect the common comma.
Bad grammar is growing, you know. I've seen it on other forums. Slashdotters are straying from their habitat and infecting the online world with their insidious machinations. We both know what a pristine world of grammar existed before slashdot.
Earl, for I assume your name is Earl, we are a bastion of grammatical fortitude, against a raging sea of passive sentences and split infinitives. You must stay strong, friend. Show no fear. Correct the heathens, for they do not know what they are doing.
I'm glad I actually understood what the original poster had to say.
Actually, in this case, the redundancy is very helpful for readability. I had no idea what BPI stood for, so mentioning that it was British, helped me understand where the acronym originated.
;)
Besides, I'm sure you'd agree that redundancy is a very worthwile goal, and should be encouraged.
If it's free, it tastes better. Scientifically proven fact.
I've enjoyed reading this thread, because I can appreciate the well reasoned arguments of both sides. I have to call exception to the above though. What really matters, is making something that you like to play, not what you think other people like to play. That's when the real creativity happens. That's where games like Katamari Damarcy and Shadow of the Colossus are born. It's all in satisfying the self, and hopefully as a consequence, satisfying others.
From previous experience, the Fedora installation has been painfully slow. You can see the (lack of) activity when it's copying over packages from the CDROM. It copies the package, installs it to the hard drive, copies another package, installs that, and so on.
It would be soooo much faster if it actually made use of parallel processes. One process copying from the CDROM, and another installing to the hard drive when the package is available. I mean, how hard can it be?! I've written perl scripts which do that and more.
Anyway, I hope that Fedora 5 has improved this, but looking at the review, I don't think it's happened.
Flogging generic statements like "ATI sucks for Linux", is not very accurate. A better way of putting it is "ATI sucks for some cards under Linux".
I can certainly say that my laptop, with its ATI Radeon Xpress 200M chip, works wonderfully under Linux. Yes, I'm talking about their binary driver distribution. Using the latest version of their drivers. I'm also using the Xorg 6.9 xserver. It's fully 3D accelerated, as shown in the following command:
$ glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: RADEON XPRESS 200M Series SW TCL Generic
OpenGL version string: 2.0.5695 (8.23.7)
I'm aware that the binary driver doesn't work with some ATI cards, especially some of the top range ones. But for what I use, it's brilliant. The installer is a little easier than the Nvidia one too. Thanks ATI, you've done a great job, from my perspective.
What's the bet on how long it takes Les Editions Albert René to take the author to court? They successfully did it to Mobilix, on the farcical premise that it sounds like Obelix.
To be just as fair, I never claim to prove anything
Whether it's open source or closed source, it is impossible to say software is 'secure'. My only argument, is that open source software is generally more secure than closed source software. Sure, there'll be open source projects that are horribly insecure, and there'll be closed source projects that are very secure. But these are the minority, in my argument.
OK, this is flamebait, but what the hell. It annoys me when people claim something is proven, without actually supplying any proof.
As a thought experiment, try this out. Start off with a software project that forks into two branches. One branch is developed with an open source model. The other branch becomes closed source. Assume that the original software project had a certain number of bugs. Now I ask you, as time goes on, which branch would contain less bugs? The closed source, or the open source?
It seems obvious to me that the open source project would quickly have its bugs fixed, because of two reasons. The coders on the project would have ego on the line, and would therefore be much more careful with publicly available code. Due to the immense availability of peer review, issues are discovered and reported much more quickly and thoroughly.
It also seems obvious that the closed source project would have many more bugs, for many different reasons. Programmers are more likely to ignore issues, because "nobody can see it". The pressure of getting a release out means that things are quickly cobbled together without much thought for security. If there is a review of code, it is not likely to be as thorough as what is available to open source.
If the code is hidden, a program is not more secure. Otherwise, how do you explain the numerous security issues found in closed source software every year?! Whoever found the bugs, didn't have access to the source, yet they were still found. And once it is found, how can you fix it? I'd say that closed source software is far more insecure than open source, because not many have access to the source.
Driver API. Centralised driver development doesn't work - period. Assume the existance of a totally awesome vendor who is happy to release GPLd drivers with their new widget. They put a penguin on the side of the box. They immediately get their ass sued off by people who buy the widget, plug it into Goobuntu or whatever, nothing happens
Actually, I've been quite pleased with the driver scene with Linux. The few drivers I need, that don't come bundled with the kernel, have been a breeze to install. Mind you, this comes with kernel 2.6, which seems to have the infrastructure to build drivers without kernel source. For example, I need to install drivers for my wireless LAN (madwifi drivers), wireless internet (iBurst), graphics driver (ATI), and BIOS system management (tp_smapi).
... when it work, it works really nice, but when it doesn't work, it is hell on earth to figure out and fix. Linux seems to take the middle road ... making the easy things a little harder, but the hard things easier.
Sure, it isn't as convenient as windows, in that you still have to do a make, make install. But at the same time, it's worked very reliably. I can't tell you the number of headaches I've had trying to get some drivers working in Windows. That seems to be the story with Windows
Yet the kernel developers do exactly this for drivers, and threaten (or actually do) sue random vendors who distribute binary drivers (except not nVidia, as that'd cause mass civil war). Worse, the kernel developers are getting more militant not less. This is simply not a tenable situation for desktops which deal with far wider variety of hardware than servers. In its current state Linux can never be a desktop kernel, unless you redefine "desktop" so far it loses all meaning.
Well, speaking as an end user, like I said above, I'm quite happy with the driver situation in Linux on my PC. Almost everything is catered for with the kernel, and the few external drivers I need, work flawlessly. Yes, I use Linux on my desktop, even at work. As a desktop, it works wonderfully for me. I can read my exchange email via Evolution, I can read and edit Word and Excel files with OpenOffice, I insert my USB mouse, keyboard, hard drive, and flash stick, and it's picked up on automatically, I can access windows shares, remotely mounted (although this took a little bit of work to set up, but now works automatically).
As far as binary drivers are concerned, I can't recall any developer that has sued a vendor because of their binary drivers. Can you list examples?
C++ support. It doesn't work. It's unbelievably slow, the glibc developers refuse patches to fix it, and is only reliable as long as you use "pure" binaries built with the same compiler that everything else is. This makes robust binary distribution of C++ apps impossible and as nearly every large desktop app is written in C++ this is a problem.
I'm not a C++ programmer, but I have heard of the changing binary ABI under Linux, causing many headaches for older programs. So you've got a good point here. All I can say, is that hopefully the ABI has stabilised now with the latest gcc, and it should be compatible from now on. I don't know too much about this scene.
No easy install/uninstall - if you're comfortable with partitioning etc then you can get Fedora installed without too much bother, but Ubuntu doesn't even have a graphical installer, and as far as I'm aware no distro today offers an easy way to remove it and put Windows back to 100% disk usage. Who in their right mind would try a program that ate 10gigs of disk space and didn't come with a way to uninstall it?
Geez, what operating system comes with an uninstall?! That's the f
The unfortunate result of all this DRM mania, is that many people will not buy media anymore. Not everyone of course, but lets assume 10%. Sales will go down by the same percentage, or even more (some people buy more than others). Media companies point the finger at piracy. Government issues more stringent laws. More people abandon media sales, because it's just not entertaining having police conduct spot searches in your home.
Let's go back to standing around the piano with the family, singing the old (copyright free, public domain) songs. That's the sort of entertainment the RIAAs of the world cannot control.
They went back 6 million years, in the book. So the coincidences stop there. It's a good read!
I think you'd better revise your definition of vapourware. According to this website, it's software not yet in production, but has already been announced. Doesn't exactly match the perennial development of E17.
More than a tech demo, mate. It's very usable. I've been using it full time on my work desktop, for the last few months. It is perfect for what I want in a WM. For others, it may still lack some features, but for me, it's great!
Spoken like someone who hasn't even tried E17 lately. Do you often criticize before you try? I could make a snide comment about this being Slashdot, but I actually think most Slashdot postings are quite decent.
And no, I'm not new here.
Well, let's look up the meaning of Troll
I'm using it on a 500MHz PIII Dell laptop, with the following graphics chipset:
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (re
v 64)
Works a treat. In fact, it's quite nice and speedy! I've been using E17 fulltime, for the last few months. It's perfect for what I want in a Window Manager.
I totally agree. He should definitely be convicted, for crimes of bad taste.
Notice how the author of this article gave a very positive rap for the New York Times? Makes me wonder what (or who) inspired the author to write this article.
... ;)
Something to think about
Precisely! Moving off Earth, will avert the almost certain human extinction, when the new Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie is released. By all reports, it is certain to offend most sentient species in our universe, prompting an undercurrent in Galaxy politics, which will eventuate in the Earth being demolished by Vogons, to make way for a completely unnecessary hyperspace bypass. The Vogons were jealous anyway, because even they couldn't compete with some of the crap that comes out of Hollywood.
Life imitating art? Fuck yeah!
It's called the Rock of Haggling. The first rule of getting a good bargain is:
Mr. Rollins is obviously an experienced haggler. He can't overtly praise AMD, otherwise he looks too eager, and loses bargaining power.
- When I went to Dan's homepage and clicked on one of the reviews, my antivirus program has informed me that there was a malware Javascript virus that tried to be executed. That certainly means that I am not going to his website ever again.
The website has its quirks, and the javascript problem you had is probably because of the following:In other words ... advertising code. If Dan trusts these burstnet guys enough, to link to their ad javascripts, then I'm sure it's safe. Otherwise, you can always use Adblock (you are using Firefox/Mozilla, aren't you? :)
Give Dan's Data another try. He writes honest, down to earth, reviews. I've yet to come across another review site on the internet, that tells it as straight as what Dan does.