Not a troll, nor flamebait - just "hacking" the 'reasonable' clause and cost in the GPL
If it is not a troll nor flamebait, then it is just plain stupid.
Hypothetical: Say I make (ast an hourly rate of my annual salary) $50 an hour. Not unresaonable for a consultant
Here comes the stupidity. The GPL says you have to provide the code for the cost of handling, not for the cost of a consultant. To give the code is not a mean to make a living, not in the GPL.
Figure it takes me 20 minutes to process the request, type up the label, grab the latest from my repository and DL the rest fromthe upstream, burn a DVD, and put it in a protective mailer package. And other 20 to go to the post office and 20 to come back (assume I'm in a rural area outside the suburbs). So thats and our of my time. Add in that this is essentially overtime in addition to my real job, so I bill it at time and a half. Thats $75 baseline in cost
So no, it's not. The price of DVD + burning + label + mailer package + gas is OK. Not your time as a consultant. The GPL does not ask you to be a consultant, but to give the source. Any reasonable person can understand that. So if you're reasonable but not a troll nor flamebait, you must be stupid. Even fansub people asked far less to send VHS all over the world.
"Yes, you can have the whole source tree from my upstream and the 2K of diffs I have added - the reasonable cost for this source is $94.37 per CD" Is that the right answer?
No, it's an idiot answer. It's so stupid that paying for bandwidth every month would be far cheaper. There's chance too, that if someone's so stupid, nobody would need their code.
Every penny of it is documented and accounted for. Every bit of it is involved with the cost in materiels and time that it takes to prepare and ship the source. My software is free, my time is not
Most stupid thing I read today. The account you keep isn't in line with what the GPL asks anyway (no consultant fee). Now, you say your time is not free, but you distribute binaries and not source ? What kind of BS is that ? How come you lose your time to compile binaries instead of just giving the source code ? The source code came before, remember ? How come you take an open source license, and then can't understand you have to give the source code, but release binaries only instead ? That just does not make sense at all. You're describing someone who distributes freeware, not open source. There's also a big contradiction in someone who says his time is not free, but actually manage a distro alone !!! If your time is not free and you can't stand 'losing' it, then you should be on the receiving end of the distro, not the maker of it.
If you think otherwise, go ahead and put yourself down as a slave who will work for free at the demands of people that use the software you donated - is that the intend of the GPL, to enslave authors to the whims of the recipients of their gifts?
And you say you're not a troll ? What you describe is exactly what the author of Mepis did. Now you go on insulting him saying he enslaved himself. And then you go on to say, by a completely broken logic, that the GPL enslaved the guy. Can you remember who chose the GPL for its project ? Yes, the author of the project. Nobody forced or enslaved anyone to take all these GPL projects and make a distro off them.
Does the GPL give someone the right to dictate to the person releasing the software what they can and cannot do with their time? Think about it.
It's all thought out : try to think coherently ! The GPL does not choose the author of the software, the author of the software choose the GPL. When you can understand this very basic thing, you can actually say something coherent.
If not, then how do you overcome the situation above, where the GPL seems to imply that you have to release the whole of the code, including upstreams, not just your diffs, especially
Re:"splice" - because Microsoft did it?
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Linux 2.6.17 Released
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· Score: 2, Informative
The "splice" system call seems to be an answer to one of Microsoft's bad ideas - serving web pages from the kernel
WHat is this nonsense ? The khttp in-kernel web server was implemented on Linux first, then copied by MS. IIRC it isn't even in 2.6 kernels anymore.
So now Linux has a comparable "zero copy" facility
Linux already had a zero-copy facility, splice is just a new improved one. What are you talking about ?
"Zero copy" tends to be overrated. It makes some benchmarks look good, but it's only useful if your system is mostly doing very dumb I/O bound stuff. In environments where web pages have to be ground through some engine like PHP before they go out, it won't help much. The usual effect of adding "zero copy" to something is that the performance goes up a little, the complexity goes up a lot, and the number of crashes increases
It's worth pointing out that pretty much every remotely mainstream OS *except* Linux manages to work (and work well) with a stable kernel ABI. Including ones considered at least - if not more - stable than Linux, even by Linux zealots, like FreeBSD and Solaris.
FreeBSD example then just proves that a stable ABI won't bring more drivers to Linux, thus destroying the GP argument that Linus needs to stabilize the kernel driver ABI.
Now, I am a 100% Win fan. I love it; things just work
Good, at least you're not lieing about where you come from.
1. No fecking media support! I get XMMS inform me on first attempt at playing an MP3 that it won't because of licensing conflict. Wtf? Codecs for avi's and DVDs were a simular story; all had to be downloaded via yum (bloody excellent tool!). Seriously; not good, but fixed in the end
It's a legal issue. And you basically can't complain, because there IS actually VERY GOOD media support. The only problem you got here, is that you used a free (and experimental ground) distro, instead of paid for a desktop oriented distro. Which makes a big difference. The paid for desktop oriented distros actually come with media support, and even encrypted DVD playback. You discovered Linux is not magic. You can get this for free, but you have to know what you're doing.
2. Why the hell do I have to install a new kernel? Why? I've never had to on Windows - why is Linux different? Is it so buggy? I installed with a factory version something ending 054. Now I have something ending 122 I believe. I did it ok, but that's not the point I'm making; were there really 68 cock-ups so great in the kernel build from release-time until that now they had to re-release 68 times? I'm guessing probablly not, but still
You didn't install any new kernel, it was automatically installed by the update just like Windows does. As it didn't annoy you at all, and was less annoying than in Windows, this reaction is just some knee-jerk reaction because you heard of Linux kernel having several releases, and want to find a problem where there is none. Besides, distro do not release a package for each minor revision they make, so no, having +68 in the number does not mean they released it 68 times, just that they made 68 more internal revisions of their package.
3. Point 2 also breaks my nvidia drivers. I don't want to re-compile new drivers everytime there's a new 'patch'. For the love of god, why?!
Because you didn't bought the desktop oriented distro I talked about earlier. These distro also update the NVidia driver for you. Free of charge means you get no support, that's the choice YOU made. There, you got your answer. Linux is not magic.
4. X-Windows. What a mess. Why do I have to tell it my x & y refresh rates for my monitor? Windows just 'knows'
You meant "X Window (System)", there is no X-Windows. Now that it's corrected, X Window is not your problem at all. And no, Windows does not just 'knows' your monitor refresh rates, it got them from the monitor. Which XOrg (which you probably use) does too ! I mean, a desktop oriented distro like Mandriva configures everything automagically (even the closed NVidia drivers if you have the commercial versions) and my stock XOrg does it too. If you don't force refresh rates in the config file, XOrg will discover them itself when you launch it. "Xorg -configure" will even discover your monitor's name. And all that works since a long time (years). Only if your monitor does not provide informations it obviously won't work.
Many more things here I feel that X-Windows should just 'know' - the number of buttons on my USB mouse for-instance. If Windows can do it, there's no reason why Linux can't
Windows can't know the number of buttons on your mouse. You forgot (selective amnesia Windows users suffer from) that your mouse did not even support your mouse wheel out of the box on Windows (I'm talking XP SP2). You forgot that the driver was specific for your mouse, or asked you your mouse type on Windows, and that's how it knew your mouse capabilities. Linux is not magic, it won't know more than the manufacturer of your mouse. A desktop oriented distro like Mandriva will offer you to choose your mouse type (from those the distro know).
Also, X-Windows 'feels' slower than Windows. I'm sure there's good reasons for this, but I don't care; Windows is snappier
Why do you buy any object that delivers content? The quality of the content
Wrong. First comes availability of the content. Quality differs between contents.
Why'd you buy a DVD player? The movies on DVD with their superior audio/video quality and that the movies YOU wanted to watch were available in this format. Otherwise we'd have stayed with VHS
BS. That's rather because you could access and operate the media faster (no rewind to do for example), because different language are available (only one on a VHS) with subtitles, and additional content immediately accessible on some media. Did I talked about the fact that the DVD player is cheaper, smaller, that the media is smaller too ? A lot of people stayed with their VHS until they had no choice.
Why do you choose an operating system? The applications
Wrong again. You choose it because it works and will allow you to fulfill further needs. Most people don't even have this choice you talk about : they choose a computer, and the OS is forced on them. You sure enough don't know in advance what you will do with your computer.
If my customers send me msword docs all day long, i should be running windows as I'm in the best position to have 100% compatibility with their documents
BS again. If your customers send you MSWord docs all day long, you should use an app that can read these docs on your OS, or ask them to send other doc formats. Has nothing to do with your choice of OS anyway.
Windows is more expensive to purchase than linux, but if I cannot run Outlook/excel/word/whatever then the cost of windows is a necessary and mandatory cost
Why ?
Why is PS2 sales still high? It's not the cost of the game machine, but that there are HUNDREDS of games available for it. With a large variety in the type of games available, any new consumer is more likely to find a game they want to play on the PS2 than on the xbox360 which still has only a few games
And how did they do before ? I rather think that since Sony and MS entered the console market, new generations of console come too fast. People have not even taken all the value from their current console, that a next gen is already out, with a high cost. Lots of people on/. were uttering nonsense about Sony screwed because XBox360 was out one year before. That's nonsense, because till last week, PS2 was still outselling XBox360 by 20x in Japan retail stores. I mean 20x !!!! The XBox360 just passed the GameCube last week in Japan in units sold for the week, long after the announce of the Wii which made GC numbers fall. Apart from that, only Sony manage to make an appearance on the top 50 of games sold in Japan, in a chart owned by Nintendo (with DS, GC and GBA games) in numbers. But you're right that lots of high profile games have been out even this year (Dragonquest, FF, soccer) for the PS2.
If PS3 is backwards compatible with the PS2, it will be a slam dunk as people can still play their old games, if PS3 is not backwards compatible it will suffer from the same problems as the xbox360
I think so too. But even if PS3 is backwards compatible, it will be a hard sell.
Not that I disagree with you on this topic, but your post is almost word for word what the industry said of Microsoft when it entered the Server market competing against Novell
But Novell is nothing like Linux and FOSS.
Microsoft was considered to be the 'me to servers' of the time, yet as it turns out the MS servers 'did' offer features that the Novell servers of the time didn't and application servers progressed to the point that MS kicked Novell's butt
You sound like features are only what made MS kick Novell's but. That's just misleading.
So if history repeats, don't be surprisd if MS does have an ace up its sleeve and its approach to the clustered server model using that ace and companies do find real advantages when using the Microsoft concepts
That's not history repeating here, but sth completely different. The situation you described previously is how Linux gained the HPC market. MS to take HPC share from Linux based OS is sth completely different.
I guess it is the same old story, never underestimate MS...
I guess it's not. Never underestimate MS, like in consoles, mobiles, media centers, release dates,... ? I think you'd be more right than wrong by underestimating them.
If you don't want to run the Beta, fine, don't run it. However, to my mind you lose all rights to complain about misfeatures and bugs if you had an opportunity to find and report them, and didn't
BS. You will pay for the products, and as such you have rights to complain about the defects of what you bought.
It's kind of like politics; if you can vote and don't, don't expect any sympathy from me if you bitch about the state of your government
It's not like politics AT ALL ! Your vote does not expire after one year, and you don't have to pay for your vote to count afterwards.
Actually in both cases you get exactly the same reward - absolutely nothing
Wrong ! With FOSS, you at least gain knowledge. If you don't understand the price of knowledge, just look at the price of certifications or even school years (which are cheap).
You get nothing that isn't available to everyone who *doesn't* help in the testing. At best you get your name on a list of participants, and the warm glow inside of having helped with something
Except that in FOSS, helping is a very important part, as it's the way FOSS improves.
In this fashion it is absolutely no different than if the app linked to GTK or QT to release a "native" version. It is native. It is compiled for and runs under Linux without any API emulators or ABI interfaces required. That is the definition of a native application.
So it works on anything other than x86 ? Because that's what native Linux apps can do. Now YOU can go back to sleep.
Software developers are really in a bind with Linux. If you don't create software for Linux, Linux people whine that you are not supporting them
Which is true. Where was the bind exactly ?
Create software for Linux, Linux people whine that its not open source
Especially when there are already better programs like Digikam that ARE FOSS. Was this the bind ? It's BS then, as "software developers" can also develop FOSS for Linux, in which case there's no bind. They don't even have to go that far, they can just develop NATIVE apps (meaning using Gnome or KDE libs) for Linux, and we'd be happy.
Picasa is an awesome photo management application
Obviously you did not use Digikam... I wonder how you would call it, super awesome ?
Be glad Google ported it to Linux, and that you can use it for free
Why ? Specifically in this case, it is not accessible to people like me that don't live in the US, surely because it's not even localised; it apparently lacks features of the Windows version, and is not even on par with existing Linux apps that have the same purpose, and come with the source. The only thing to be glad for, is all the patches for Wine.
Note that there are many useful applications that developers, for many reasons, don't want to release as open source. Limiting yourself to open source limits your choices
If everyone had your attitude, it would be true. Except that in the FOSS community, when sth is lacking, the community is hard at work solving the problem. Limiting yourself to open source makes it improves, until it becomes better than its closed source counterparts. Then, one day, the developers you talk about wonder how and when FOSS produced a better app than theirs. FOSS allows you to continuously stand on shoulders of giants, closed source does not. So yes, if FOSS started late, it is initially less useful, but it can improve indefinitely. Closed source can disappear entirely with its main developer.
Linux already have better quality softwares with more features like Digikam, thanks. These softwares are still improving too. And guess what, programs like Digikam actually integrate well with a KDE or even a Gnome desktop, are native apps that don't need Wine libs to run, and don't appear like a sore point on your desktop.
Do you similarly think chroot (and other equivalents) implies everything else runs as root ?
Do you understand what chroot is ? chroot is NOT for running a browser, nor is it included in a browser, that would be nonsense and useless. chroot is for changing the visible environment in its instance. It can be applied to lots of things, from booting a live CD, to sandboxing a 32 bit environment in a 64 bit one, it's just not only a security tool. Comparing chroot to IE7 mechanism is comparing apples and oranges.
The primary purpose of a web browser is to download, parse and display data from untrusted, unverifiable sources. They are inherently insecure applications
Where did you come to this conclusion ? What is that logic ? It just means a browser is an application dealing with an insecure and potentially hostile environment. It doesn't mean the app itself is insecure, it rather means teh app have to be secure.
I'd say bundling the web browser up into its own little isolated pocket of permissions is a damn good idea. Expect to see OS X and "user friendly" Linux distros follow suit within 12 months
BS. COmpletely off base. The isolated pocket of permissions is already given by the OS in the case of Linux distro, so they have nothing to do. If someone had to follow suite, that would be the web browser developers, not Linux distro. I doubt they will do that. You believe that FOSS web browsers or OS are in as bad shape as IE and Windows, that's why you think others have to follow suite. You're dreaming really, I say just hold to your nightmare, but you're better off not talking about other OS.
Umm, I have no say in how well made most of my car is, does that mean I should spend half of every day walking to and from work, and take several month long sabbaticals when I want to visit my family?
No, that means you should tell the vendor, and then choose another car. Cars market is far better, as you have several compatible alternatives, there is not one car forced on you.
People are going to use both Windows and OS X because they are the tools most suited to them, or because they are required to by their employer. Given that fact, it is very useful to have more information on what to expect
Wait a minute ! You gave no valid reason to use Windows or OS X. "most suited" ? What does that mean ? "Required by employer" ? Why ? Anyway, that does not answer the question of why you should migrate to Windows Vista.
It all depends upon why you use a computer. If your purpose is to promote an open source model, then you've chosen wisely. For me, my purpose is to get work done, to communicate, to create
Which is exactly the goal of FOSS software. What, you really believed FOSS was there to promote a model ? The primary goal of the closed source model is to sell, not to get work done, communicate or create. This is a very naive view, as a lot of (I would say "most") closed source software out there is so bad that you need reviews to know beforehand if they really do what they claim, and some FOSS even manage to be way better than these. So if your purpose is to get work done, communicate and create, and that you forgot you had to pay hefty sums of money to do that on closed source OS, that means one of two things : you have a pretty big wallet, or you are pirating everything you need (which means you're hypocritical about your purposes). In both cases, your advice is not really relevant.
To me, being open source is a feature. It is nice, and useful, and provides security going forward, but it is by no means the only feature or the most important one
What are the most important features ? For me, it's assurance that I will always be able to access my work and old data for example. Being FOSS is a requirement to assure that, so it's more than a feature, it's a big prerequisite to efficient work done. There are others : assurance that I will be able to use some program or hardware in the future. This is a big problem on closed source OS.
The Windows OS is just a fraction of the cost, however maybe only Windows OS supports the pay-as-you-go integration with the hardware right now
I've seen the same thing on HP and IBM hardware and software years ago. And even with SUN E10K, E15K.
The same model could be used to buy a machine that runs Mac OSX or Linux. It's a novel idea and an alternative to the $100 PC
It's not a novel idea at all. It does not make sense with Linux and FOSS, as most FOSS is free. It's not an alternative to the $100 PC either. That would mean the PC + Windows costs less than $300, as you have to pay 1/3 of the price right away, and with the $100 PC, you actually own the hardware and the software, no lease.
1. boot off install dvd...if you have a DVD-ROM. Of course, where do you get the install DVD? One doesn't exactly find Linux on store shelves most places
No problem, get an install CD, Ubuntu sends you one for free...
2. answer a few questions...and pray your devices are all set up properly. Because if your 3Com 802.11b NIC doesn't install when you set up Breezy Badger, you're going to jump through some hoops to make it work. Trust me on this.
What BS. So the man can't afford a PC, but he could afford a Wifi router or extension ?
"How do I do that?" "I can't find the app I want."
The app he wanted, which was email the GP was talking about, is right there under his very nose and installed by default, with a beautiful icon containing a letter, in ANY consumer grade distro. Quit the BS please.
"What about my games/apps from Windows?" "Hey I downloaded this program, what do I have to do to make it work?" "Why can't I just buy a CD and stick it in the drive to install a program like I do with Windows?" "Why won't (insert website or online media) load right?"
Wow, the guy didn't even have a PC before, and you say as soon as he gets his used PC with Linux, he is spouting nonsense as if he had the latest gamer PC and as if he used Windows all his life ? Try to be credible at least.
Linux is not an OS for the meek
I would say Linux is not an OS for BS people like you.
If a user isn't willing to spend some time getting to know it and learn how to use it properly, it's a lot less tolerant of mistakes than Windows. It's not ready for prime time, and won't be until someone makes it idiot-friendly (which may not be a good thing)
Don't know what Linux did to you, but it had to be pretty bad for you to lose completely the track of what we were talking about, and go in "Linux is sh*t" troll land.
Yeah, this other day, I was setting up an Ubuntu box and wanted to install Firefox 1.5 as the default browser. Now, I'm mostly a Windows man, so I've been corrupted by habit that this should be done in about 8 mouse clicks from start to finish, 5 of them on the "Next" or "Finish" button. But after that failed to work, I decided to do it the obvious, natural way -- first I Googled for an instruction sheet, then I typed in 15 commands as printed on the sheet, and *blam* I was up and running
But what you described is the stupid Windows way !! You have still a long way to go to unlearn all these backwards behaviours you learned on Windows. Firefox is already the default Ubuntu browser, and the obvious, natural way to update to Firefox 1.5 is to let the distro update it on its own, without doing anything more than accepting updates when they come.
What stops a Linux software company from licensing MP3 or the DVD decoder? Nothing. Why haven't any Linux companies done it? Well, one has-- Linspire.
Actually, only your ignorance, and the ignorance of every commenters like you is the problem. Other commercial distros like Mandriva have MP3 and DVD licensing, not only Linspire.
I'm a daily Slashdot reader, and even I'VE never heard of those And I'm not surprised. The commercial distros from which some are derived are good enough. For example, Mandriva commercial distros address every problem the guy had. A free distro is for people that know what they are doing, no wonder the guy could not do everything he wanted with what he got.
This, again, is one of Linux's biggest problems: Too much fragmentation. If distro developers could put their egos aside and combine forces to create distros with some semblance of popular recognition, Linux's fortunes may change Not at all. This is not even fragmentation. You forgot that this is FOSS here. All these distros are compatible.
You're not gonna win-over an already confused user by presenting him or her with 50 more obscure and semi-obscure choices
Nobody does that. Mandriva will present you Mandriva commercial offerings and nothing else. Go check their website if you don't believe me. Yes, what you are saying is stupid, you just have to realise it.
That person is just gonna say "fuck it" and stick with what he or she knows: Windows
Fortunately, most people don't really know Windows. That's why those that don't have a geek at hand or did not get a new PC still have Windows 98 (if they manage to keep it until today, meaning not connected to the Internet at least).
Also, people want to install something with staying power. Half the distros out there are gonna be gone in a couple of years, replaced by a whole new set. How can you have faith installing something you've never heard of?
That's true. But Linux distros have that fantastic feature : it's very easy to dissociate the user files from the OS, which means easiness to change distro.
I've been using Linux for about 12 years now, and I would NEVER give it to someone as an alternative to Windows
I've know Linux for 7 years only, and I have already installed Linux successfully as an alternative to Windows for several people.
Difficulty installing software and hardware. Having to RTFM to do anything. Difficulty in viewing common formats like PDF
All of this is false and an obvious troll.
The GUI is still early 90s feel at best
Another blatant troll. Except on Amiga or NeXT, I don't recall the early 90s GUI being multilingual, auto-adjustable to size, fully customizable, using vector graphics,... OK, now it's obvious you're a troll.
But he is not anal retentive enough to get the mouse "just right" to manipulate the GUI
The only situation when this does not work out of the box is with some KVM.
We had a bunch of text files that did not end in.txt, and it was too much of a pain to look at these files via "Open with..." or similar, so dropping to the commandline was easiest
Which is real BS. Linux OS do not need extensions to recognise a file type, and on the GUI, this has been true for a long time. There was only one problem before : the difference in what type of apps would be launched by default for some file types, between Gnome and KDE. Nowadays, Gnome, that you talk about, goes further, and prints a big warning in case the extension and file type detected are not the same. So you should have had no problem with a text file not ending in.txt (I never have any problems with these files on Gnome) even on CentOS 4.3 which is not a desktop distro. The situation you describe is what happens on Windows. But I know already you're a troll.
Lord forbid if you want to do something like watch a DVD or video clip. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm unsure if flash works
A newbie Linux user learns about all of this in about 6 months time at most. And you dare talk about your 12 years Linux experience ? You're definitely not suited to talk about desktop Linux. If what you say is true, you use Linux like an underpowered Unix shell, and not a lot more. DVD, Flash and other closed formats problems are well known too.
It will probably take 10+ years for Linux to get a decent GUI on top of their excellent OS
You even managed to miss this milestone. Get out of your cave or basement please. Linux is way past getting a decent GUI. In case you didn't get it, commercial distro makers are working on bringing the Linux GUI to more users right now. Which means breaking the barrier of reluctant ISV, closed media formats and closed drivers.
If you are editing config files, you are already doing something wrong. Most desktop oriented distros do not need editing config files, or only for very advanced tasks, which is obviously not your case. A free distro is not for you, you should get a commercial version of a distro, which are suitable for newbies like you, and some even come with a paper tutorial for most common tasks (try Mandriva).
The mistake is trying to entrench the standard by basically making the console overpriced. That will drive marketshare to Xbox, who already is out ahead with consoles and games in the next generation, despite the overheating issues
I think gamers like you are completely off base. I don't say what Sony is doing is good for them, but I look at the japanese market, which, despite what the naysayers say, is still the main relevant market, especially since most innovative and high selling games come from there. And when I look at even last weeks chart, I don't see people driven to XBox 360. I see PS2 selling 16 times more than XBox360 (XBox360 selling 2000 units). I don't even see one XBox360 game in the top 50 of games sales. And it was the same the week before. People don't want next-gen, people want fun at affordable prices. I'm not even sure people want next-gen consoles yet. Since last gen, when MS went into the race, the consoles are out to fast, the pace is really too fast, especially at these prices. People won't keep up.
The console now costs as much as a midrange PC which is ridiculous, and now they are competing for people's money who are trying to consider if they want a PC or an PS3
I doubt that. They're putting things in their console, for people that have big HDTV sets with HDMI support, which are expensive.
Sony's only hurting themselves. Hopefully Nintendo will get some benefit out of this in marketshare and more people and games will come to their console
Sony are definitely not hurting themselves, or perhaps they are in North America, but that's not the relevant market. But given the current trends in Japan (DSLite is trouncing everything) and knowing how Nintendo makes value add for its products (with exchange between their handhelds and home consoles), I bet the Wii will be a huge success. Which would be surprising to me, given that Nintendo consoles are hard to pirate most of the time.
I'd like to see you select the correct jpeg out of a directory of 500 without an icon preview. Using a GUI also takes less learning and less mental effort. I'd be intersted to see actual timed comparisons of the two as well, I've read that command line users often think they are being quicker than GUI users, but acutally aren't because of the way the brain senses time
I hope you don't really believe such BS. Because you chose one specific application that is faster with a GUI does not mean what you say after that is true. Try renaming these 500 same jpegs to a formatted pattern, and I can assure you that's not your brain that distorts the time then, when making your script in 30 seconds, and the script executing for 10. Doing the same with a GUI would take hours. I used to do this for MP3 files, I've just done sth similar yesterday, transforming some sequences in a lot of (more than 1500) XML files with a sed. Between doing it by hand (which is error prone) and making the script, it was a no brainer. Just because the GP says BS, does not mean the opposite BS is true.
Because, like for Casshern, they're prisoners to their foreign body or armor. Which is a completely different thing than manipulating a robot, it's way harder for your mental health. Kids have no problem picturing themselves in robots, or even transforming, they know they can go back to normal. Most (male) kids just loves this. Something like what happens in GitS or Casshern would be at the very least disturbing to kids (and adults alike).
Can't you see how NGE completely changed anime! It brought a new and inspired story line of a teenage kid with social problems battling aliens in a giant robot... innovative ideas that had never been examined before!
That's the idea you have of the anime when seeing only the 2 first episodes of it...
Err wait... I guess I'm with you, anime is just like any other genre/media, there are a few great pearls of human insight, but in general its mass marketed garbage
This view explains why you could never pass the 2 first episodes, and I guess that's true of any anime you ever tried to look at. It's true though, that anime is just another media, which itself has several genres. It's not even mass marketed garbage, it's just shown on TV in Japan.
To wit, look at shakespeare. Generally, a couple rich people who get in trouble with someone else, and either laugh it off or die. The end. The complexity is internalized in the characters; the plot itself is simple. That is why Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and Evangelion is just another mecha anime.
Except that... Eva is exactly what you describe : the complexity is internalized in the characters. Though I'm not really a fan of Eva, it's not just another mecha anime. The mecha part is just a decoy and you fell for it. Eva is done by an otaku, targeted to otaku, to shake them. Adults could grab it too. I've seen the effect on otakus (well, more fans than true otakus actually), and I understood at the time, how Anno could be sure it would be a success. I'm an anime fan myself, but Eva did not have so much effect on me.
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Not a troll, nor flamebait - just "hacking" the 'reasonable' clause and cost in the GPL
If it is not a troll nor flamebait, then it is just plain stupid.
Hypothetical:
Say I make (ast an hourly rate of my annual salary) $50 an hour. Not unresaonable for a consultant
Here comes the stupidity. The GPL says you have to provide the code for the cost of handling, not for the cost of a consultant.
To give the code is not a mean to make a living, not in the GPL.
Figure it takes me 20 minutes to process the request, type up the label, grab the latest from my repository and DL the rest fromthe upstream, burn a DVD, and put it in a protective mailer package. And other 20 to go to the post office and 20 to come back (assume I'm in a rural area outside the suburbs). So thats and our of my time. Add in that this is essentially overtime in addition to my real job, so I bill it at time and a half. Thats $75 baseline in cost
So no, it's not. The price of DVD + burning + label + mailer package + gas is OK. Not your time as a consultant. The GPL does not ask you to be a consultant, but to give the source. Any reasonable person can understand that. So if you're reasonable but not a troll nor flamebait, you must be stupid.
Even fansub people asked far less to send VHS all over the world.
"Yes, you can have the whole source tree from my upstream and the 2K of diffs I have added - the reasonable cost for this source is $94.37 per CD"
Is that the right answer?
No, it's an idiot answer. It's so stupid that paying for bandwidth every month would be far cheaper.
There's chance too, that if someone's so stupid, nobody would need their code.
Every penny of it is documented and accounted for. Every bit of it is involved with the cost in materiels and time that it takes to prepare and ship the source. My software is free, my time is not
Most stupid thing I read today. The account you keep isn't in line with what the GPL asks anyway (no consultant fee).
Now, you say your time is not free, but you distribute binaries and not source ? What kind of BS is that ?
How come you lose your time to compile binaries instead of just giving the source code ? The source code came before, remember ?
How come you take an open source license, and then can't understand you have to give the source code, but release binaries only instead ?
That just does not make sense at all. You're describing someone who distributes freeware, not open source.
There's also a big contradiction in someone who says his time is not free, but actually manage a distro alone !!!
If your time is not free and you can't stand 'losing' it, then you should be on the receiving end of the distro, not the maker of it.
If you think otherwise, go ahead and put yourself down as a slave who will work for free at the demands of people that use the software you donated - is that the intend of the GPL, to enslave authors to the whims of the recipients of their gifts?
And you say you're not a troll ?
What you describe is exactly what the author of Mepis did. Now you go on insulting him saying he enslaved himself. And then you go on to say, by a completely broken logic, that the GPL enslaved the guy. Can you remember who chose the GPL for its project ? Yes, the author of the project. Nobody forced or enslaved anyone to take all these GPL projects and make a distro off them.
Does the GPL give someone the right to dictate to the person releasing the software what they can and cannot do with their time? Think about it.
It's all thought out : try to think coherently !
The GPL does not choose the author of the software, the author of the software choose the GPL. When you can understand this very basic thing, you can actually say something coherent.
If not, then how do you overcome the situation above, where the GPL seems to imply that you have to release the whole of the code, including upstreams, not just your diffs, especially
The "splice" system call seems to be an answer to one of Microsoft's bad ideas - serving web pages from the kernel
WHat is this nonsense ? The khttp in-kernel web server was implemented on Linux first, then copied by MS.
IIRC it isn't even in 2.6 kernels anymore.
So now Linux has a comparable "zero copy" facility
Linux already had a zero-copy facility, splice is just a new improved one.
What are you talking about ?
"Zero copy" tends to be overrated. It makes some benchmarks look good, but it's only useful if your system is mostly doing very dumb I/O bound stuff. In environments where web pages have to be ground through some engine like PHP before they go out, it won't help much.
The usual effect of adding "zero copy" to something is that the performance goes up a little, the complexity goes up a lot, and the number of crashes increases
Not in this case. Linux made it right.
It's worth pointing out that pretty much every remotely mainstream OS *except* Linux manages to work (and work well) with a stable kernel ABI. Including ones considered at least - if not more - stable than Linux, even by Linux zealots, like FreeBSD and Solaris.
FreeBSD example then just proves that a stable ABI won't bring more drivers to Linux, thus destroying the GP argument that Linus needs to stabilize the kernel driver ABI.
Now, I am a 100% Win fan. I love it; things just work
Good, at least you're not lieing about where you come from.
1. No fecking media support! I get XMMS inform me on first attempt at playing an MP3 that it won't because of licensing conflict. Wtf? Codecs for avi's and DVDs were a simular story; all had to be downloaded via yum (bloody excellent tool!). Seriously; not good, but fixed in the end
It's a legal issue. And you basically can't complain, because there IS actually VERY GOOD media support.
The only problem you got here, is that you used a free (and experimental ground) distro, instead of paid for a desktop oriented distro.
Which makes a big difference. The paid for desktop oriented distros actually come with media support, and even encrypted DVD playback. You discovered Linux is not magic. You can get this for free, but you have to know what you're doing.
2. Why the hell do I have to install a new kernel? Why? I've never had to on Windows - why is Linux different? Is it so buggy? I installed with a factory version something ending 054. Now I have something ending 122 I believe. I did it ok, but that's not the point I'm making; were there really 68 cock-ups so great in the kernel build from release-time until that now they had to re-release 68 times? I'm guessing probablly not, but still
You didn't install any new kernel, it was automatically installed by the update just like Windows does.
As it didn't annoy you at all, and was less annoying than in Windows, this reaction is just some knee-jerk reaction because you heard of Linux kernel having several releases, and want to find a problem where there is none.
Besides, distro do not release a package for each minor revision they make, so no, having +68 in the number does not mean they released it 68 times, just that they made 68 more internal revisions of their package.
3. Point 2 also breaks my nvidia drivers. I don't want to re-compile new drivers everytime there's a new 'patch'. For the love of god, why?!
Because you didn't bought the desktop oriented distro I talked about earlier. These distro also update the NVidia driver for you.
Free of charge means you get no support, that's the choice YOU made. There, you got your answer. Linux is not magic.
4. X-Windows. What a mess. Why do I have to tell it my x & y refresh rates for my monitor? Windows just 'knows'
You meant "X Window (System)", there is no X-Windows. Now that it's corrected, X Window is not your problem at all.
And no, Windows does not just 'knows' your monitor refresh rates, it got them from the monitor.
Which XOrg (which you probably use) does too ! I mean, a desktop oriented distro like Mandriva configures everything automagically (even the closed NVidia drivers if you have the commercial versions) and my stock XOrg does it too.
If you don't force refresh rates in the config file, XOrg will discover them itself when you launch it.
"Xorg -configure" will even discover your monitor's name. And all that works since a long time (years).
Only if your monitor does not provide informations it obviously won't work.
Many more things here I feel that X-Windows should just 'know' - the number of buttons on my USB mouse for-instance. If Windows can do it, there's no reason why Linux can't
Windows can't know the number of buttons on your mouse. You forgot (selective amnesia Windows users suffer from) that your mouse did not even support your mouse wheel out of the box on Windows (I'm talking XP SP2). You forgot that the driver was specific for your mouse, or asked you your mouse type on Windows, and that's how it knew your mouse capabilities.
Linux is not magic, it won't know more than the manufacturer of your mouse. A desktop oriented distro like Mandriva will offer you to choose your mouse type (from those the distro know).
Also, X-Windows 'feels' slower than Windows. I'm sure there's good reasons for this, but I don't care; Windows is snappier
Why do you buy any object that delivers content? The quality of the content
/. were uttering nonsense about Sony screwed because XBox360 was out one year before.
Wrong. First comes availability of the content. Quality differs between contents.
Why'd you buy a DVD player? The movies on DVD with their superior audio/video quality and that the movies YOU wanted to watch were available in this format. Otherwise we'd have stayed with VHS
BS. That's rather because you could access and operate the media faster (no rewind to do for example), because different language are available (only one on a VHS) with subtitles, and additional content immediately accessible on some media. Did I talked about the fact that the DVD player is cheaper, smaller, that the media is smaller too ?
A lot of people stayed with their VHS until they had no choice.
Why do you choose an operating system? The applications
Wrong again. You choose it because it works and will allow you to fulfill further needs.
Most people don't even have this choice you talk about : they choose a computer, and the OS is forced on them.
You sure enough don't know in advance what you will do with your computer.
If my customers send me msword docs all day long, i should be running windows as I'm in the best position to have 100% compatibility with their documents
BS again. If your customers send you MSWord docs all day long, you should use an app that can read these docs on your OS, or ask them to send other doc formats. Has nothing to do with your choice of OS anyway.
Windows is more expensive to purchase than linux, but if I cannot run Outlook/excel/word/whatever then the cost of windows is a necessary and mandatory cost
Why ?
Why is PS2 sales still high? It's not the cost of the game machine, but that there are HUNDREDS of games available for it. With a large variety in the type of games available, any new consumer is more likely to find a game they want to play on the PS2 than on the xbox360 which still has only a few games
And how did they do before ?
I rather think that since Sony and MS entered the console market, new generations of console come too fast.
People have not even taken all the value from their current console, that a next gen is already out, with a high cost.
Lots of people on
That's nonsense, because till last week, PS2 was still outselling XBox360 by 20x in Japan retail stores. I mean 20x !!!!
The XBox360 just passed the GameCube last week in Japan in units sold for the week, long after the announce of the Wii which made GC numbers fall.
Apart from that, only Sony manage to make an appearance on the top 50 of games sold in Japan, in a chart owned by Nintendo (with DS, GC and GBA games) in numbers.
But you're right that lots of high profile games have been out even this year (Dragonquest, FF, soccer) for the PS2.
If PS3 is backwards compatible with the PS2, it will be a slam dunk as people can still play their old games, if PS3 is not backwards compatible it will suffer from the same problems as the xbox360
I think so too. But even if PS3 is backwards compatible, it will be a hard sell.
Not that I disagree with you on this topic, but your post is almost word for word what the industry said of Microsoft when it entered the Server market competing against Novell
... ?
But Novell is nothing like Linux and FOSS.
Microsoft was considered to be the 'me to servers' of the time, yet as it turns out the MS servers 'did' offer features that the Novell servers of the time didn't and application servers progressed to the point that MS kicked Novell's butt
You sound like features are only what made MS kick Novell's but. That's just misleading.
So if history repeats, don't be surprisd if MS does have an ace up its sleeve and its approach to the clustered server model using that ace and companies do find real advantages when using the Microsoft concepts
That's not history repeating here, but sth completely different. The situation you described previously is how Linux gained the HPC market.
MS to take HPC share from Linux based OS is sth completely different.
I guess it is the same old story, never underestimate MS...
I guess it's not. Never underestimate MS, like in consoles, mobiles, media centers, release dates,
I think you'd be more right than wrong by underestimating them.
If you don't want to run the Beta, fine, don't run it. However, to my mind you lose all rights to complain about misfeatures and bugs if you had an opportunity to find and report them, and didn't
BS. You will pay for the products, and as such you have rights to complain about the defects of what you bought.
It's kind of like politics; if you can vote and don't, don't expect any sympathy from me if you bitch about the state of your government
It's not like politics AT ALL ! Your vote does not expire after one year, and you don't have to pay for your vote to count afterwards.
Actually in both cases you get exactly the same reward - absolutely nothing
Wrong ! With FOSS, you at least gain knowledge.
If you don't understand the price of knowledge, just look at the price of certifications or even school years (which are cheap).
You get nothing that isn't available to everyone who *doesn't* help in the testing. At best you get your name on a list of participants, and the warm glow inside of having helped with something
Except that in FOSS, helping is a very important part, as it's the way FOSS improves.
In this fashion it is absolutely no different than if the app linked to GTK or QT to release a "native" version. It is native. It is compiled for and runs under Linux without any API emulators or ABI interfaces required. That is the definition of a native application.
So it works on anything other than x86 ? Because that's what native Linux apps can do.
Now YOU can go back to sleep.
Software developers are really in a bind with Linux. If you don't create software for Linux, Linux people whine that you are not supporting them
... I wonder how you would call it, super awesome ?
Which is true. Where was the bind exactly ?
Create software for Linux, Linux people whine that its not open source
Especially when there are already better programs like Digikam that ARE FOSS. Was this the bind ?
It's BS then, as "software developers" can also develop FOSS for Linux, in which case there's no bind.
They don't even have to go that far, they can just develop NATIVE apps (meaning using Gnome or KDE libs) for Linux, and we'd be happy.
Picasa is an awesome photo management application
Obviously you did not use Digikam
Be glad Google ported it to Linux, and that you can use it for free
Why ? Specifically in this case, it is not accessible to people like me that don't live in the US, surely because it's not even localised; it apparently lacks features of the Windows version, and is not even on par with existing Linux apps that have the same purpose, and come with the source.
The only thing to be glad for, is all the patches for Wine.
Note that there are many useful applications that developers, for many reasons, don't want to release as open source. Limiting yourself to open source limits your choices
If everyone had your attitude, it would be true. Except that in the FOSS community, when sth is lacking, the community is hard at work solving the problem.
Limiting yourself to open source makes it improves, until it becomes better than its closed source counterparts.
Then, one day, the developers you talk about wonder how and when FOSS produced a better app than theirs.
FOSS allows you to continuously stand on shoulders of giants, closed source does not. So yes, if FOSS started late, it is initially less useful, but it can improve indefinitely. Closed source can disappear entirely with its main developer.
Linux already have better quality softwares with more features like Digikam, thanks.
These softwares are still improving too.
And guess what, programs like Digikam actually integrate well with a KDE or even a Gnome desktop, are native apps that don't need Wine libs to run, and don't appear like a sore point on your desktop.
Do you similarly think chroot (and other equivalents) implies everything else runs as root ?
Do you understand what chroot is ?
chroot is NOT for running a browser, nor is it included in a browser, that would be nonsense and useless. chroot is for changing the visible environment in its instance.
It can be applied to lots of things, from booting a live CD, to sandboxing a 32 bit environment in a 64 bit one, it's just not only a security tool.
Comparing chroot to IE7 mechanism is comparing apples and oranges.
The primary purpose of a web browser is to download, parse and display data from untrusted, unverifiable sources. They are inherently insecure applications
Where did you come to this conclusion ? What is that logic ?
It just means a browser is an application dealing with an insecure and potentially hostile environment. It doesn't mean the app itself is insecure, it rather means teh app have to be secure.
I'd say bundling the web browser up into its own little isolated pocket of permissions is a damn good idea. Expect to see OS X and "user friendly" Linux distros follow suit within 12 months
BS. COmpletely off base. The isolated pocket of permissions is already given by the OS in the case of Linux distro, so they have nothing to do.
If someone had to follow suite, that would be the web browser developers, not Linux distro. I doubt they will do that.
You believe that FOSS web browsers or OS are in as bad shape as IE and Windows, that's why you think others have to follow suite.
You're dreaming really, I say just hold to your nightmare, but you're better off not talking about other OS.
Umm, I have no say in how well made most of my car is, does that mean I should spend half of every day walking to and from work, and take several month long sabbaticals when I want to visit my family?
No, that means you should tell the vendor, and then choose another car. Cars market is far better, as you have several compatible alternatives, there is not one car forced on you.
People are going to use both Windows and OS X because they are the tools most suited to them, or because they are required to by their employer. Given that fact, it is very useful to have more information on what to expect
Wait a minute ! You gave no valid reason to use Windows or OS X. "most suited" ? What does that mean ? "Required by employer" ? Why ?
Anyway, that does not answer the question of why you should migrate to Windows Vista.
It all depends upon why you use a computer. If your purpose is to promote an open source model, then you've chosen wisely. For me, my purpose is to get work done, to communicate, to create
Which is exactly the goal of FOSS software. What, you really believed FOSS was there to promote a model ?
The primary goal of the closed source model is to sell, not to get work done, communicate or create. This is a very naive view, as a lot of (I would say "most") closed source software out there is so bad that you need reviews to know beforehand if they really do what they claim, and some FOSS even manage to be way better than these.
So if your purpose is to get work done, communicate and create, and that you forgot you had to pay hefty sums of money to do that on closed source OS, that means one of two things : you have a pretty big wallet, or you are pirating everything you need (which means you're hypocritical about your purposes). In both cases, your advice is not really relevant.
To me, being open source is a feature. It is nice, and useful, and provides security going forward, but it is by no means the only feature or the most important one
What are the most important features ?
For me, it's assurance that I will always be able to access my work and old data for example. Being FOSS is a requirement to assure that, so it's more than a feature, it's a big prerequisite to efficient work done.
There are others : assurance that I will be able to use some program or hardware in the future. This is a big problem on closed source OS.
What do you think SourceForge is?
And you ?
For sure, SourceForge is NOT a place where the dev tools stop working 120 days after you started coding.
Complaining that developers don't get paid for MS's shared source software while many FOSS developers also develop for no pay is obtuse
But complaining that developers can't even keep the dev environment unless they pay the company making the contest is not obtuse at all.
The Windows OS is just a fraction of the cost, however maybe only Windows OS supports the pay-as-you-go integration with the hardware right now
I've seen the same thing on HP and IBM hardware and software years ago. And even with SUN E10K, E15K.
The same model could be used to buy a machine that runs Mac OSX or Linux. It's a novel idea and an alternative to the $100 PC
It's not a novel idea at all.
It does not make sense with Linux and FOSS, as most FOSS is free.
It's not an alternative to the $100 PC either. That would mean the PC + Windows costs less than $300, as you have to pay 1/3 of the price right away, and with the $100 PC, you actually own the hardware and the software, no lease.
1. boot off install dvd ...if you have a DVD-ROM. Of course, where do you get the install DVD? One doesn't exactly find Linux on store shelves most places
...
...and pray your devices are all set up properly. Because if your 3Com 802.11b NIC doesn't install when you set up Breezy Badger, you're going to jump through some hoops to make it work. Trust me on this.
No problem, get an install CD, Ubuntu sends you one for free
2. answer a few questions
What BS. So the man can't afford a PC, but he could afford a Wifi router or extension ?
"How do I do that?" "I can't find the app I want."
The app he wanted, which was email the GP was talking about, is right there under his very nose and installed by default, with a beautiful icon containing a letter, in ANY consumer grade distro. Quit the BS please.
"What about my games/apps from Windows?" "Hey I downloaded this program, what do I have to do to make it work?" "Why can't I just buy a CD and stick it in the drive to install a program like I do with Windows?" "Why won't (insert website or online media) load right?"
Wow, the guy didn't even have a PC before, and you say as soon as he gets his used PC with Linux, he is spouting nonsense as if he had the latest gamer PC and as if he used Windows all his life ? Try to be credible at least.
Linux is not an OS for the meek
I would say Linux is not an OS for BS people like you.
If a user isn't willing to spend some time getting to know it and learn how to use it properly, it's a lot less tolerant of mistakes than Windows. It's not ready for prime time, and won't be until someone makes it idiot-friendly (which may not be a good thing)
Don't know what Linux did to you, but it had to be pretty bad for you to lose completely the track of what we were talking about, and go in "Linux is sh*t" troll land.
Yeah, this other day, I was setting up an Ubuntu box and wanted to install Firefox 1.5 as the default browser. Now, I'm mostly a Windows man, so I've been corrupted by habit that this should be done in about 8 mouse clicks from start to finish, 5 of them on the "Next" or "Finish" button. But after that failed to work, I decided to do it the obvious, natural way -- first I Googled for an instruction sheet, then I typed in 15 commands as printed on the sheet, and *blam* I was up and running
But what you described is the stupid Windows way !! You have still a long way to go to unlearn all these backwards behaviours you learned on Windows.
Firefox is already the default Ubuntu browser, and the obvious, natural way to update to Firefox 1.5 is to let the distro update it on its own, without doing anything more than accepting updates when they come.
What stops a Linux software company from licensing MP3 or the DVD decoder? Nothing. Why haven't any Linux companies done it? Well, one has-- Linspire.
Actually, only your ignorance, and the ignorance of every commenters like you is the problem. Other commercial distros like Mandriva have MP3 and DVD licensing, not only Linspire.
I'm a daily Slashdot reader, and even I'VE never heard of those
And I'm not surprised. The commercial distros from which some are derived are good enough. For example, Mandriva commercial distros address every problem the guy had. A free distro is for people that know what they are doing, no wonder the guy could not do everything he wanted with what he got.
This, again, is one of Linux's biggest problems: Too much fragmentation. If distro developers could put their egos aside and combine forces to create distros with some semblance of popular recognition, Linux's fortunes may change
Not at all. This is not even fragmentation. You forgot that this is FOSS here. All these distros are compatible.
You're not gonna win-over an already confused user by presenting him or her with 50 more obscure and semi-obscure choices
Nobody does that. Mandriva will present you Mandriva commercial offerings and nothing else. Go check their website if you don't believe me. Yes, what you are saying is stupid, you just have to realise it.
That person is just gonna say "fuck it" and stick with what he or she knows: Windows
Fortunately, most people don't really know Windows. That's why those that don't have a geek at hand or did not get a new PC still have Windows 98 (if they manage to keep it until today, meaning not connected to the Internet at least).
Also, people want to install something with staying power. Half the distros out there are gonna be gone in a couple of years, replaced by a whole new set. How can you have faith installing something you've never heard of?
That's true. But Linux distros have that fantastic feature : it's very easy to dissociate the user files from the OS, which means easiness to change distro.
I've been using Linux for about 12 years now, and I would NEVER give it to someone as an alternative to Windows
...
.txt, and it was too much of a pain to look at these files via "Open with..." or similar, so dropping to the commandline was easiest
.txt (I never have any problems with these files on Gnome) even on CentOS 4.3 which is not a desktop distro. The situation you describe is what happens on Windows. But I know already you're a troll.
I've know Linux for 7 years only, and I have already installed Linux successfully as an alternative to Windows for several people.
Difficulty installing software and hardware. Having to RTFM to do anything. Difficulty in viewing common formats like PDF
All of this is false and an obvious troll.
The GUI is still early 90s feel at best
Another blatant troll. Except on Amiga or NeXT, I don't recall the early 90s GUI being multilingual, auto-adjustable to size, fully customizable, using vector graphics,
OK, now it's obvious you're a troll.
But he is not anal retentive enough to get the mouse "just right" to manipulate the GUI
The only situation when this does not work out of the box is with some KVM.
We had a bunch of text files that did not end in
Which is real BS. Linux OS do not need extensions to recognise a file type, and on the GUI, this has been true for a long time. There was only one problem before : the difference in what type of apps would be launched by default for some file types, between Gnome and KDE.
Nowadays, Gnome, that you talk about, goes further, and prints a big warning in case the extension and file type detected are not the same. So you should have had no problem with a text file not ending in
Lord forbid if you want to do something like watch a DVD or video clip. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm unsure if flash works
A newbie Linux user learns about all of this in about 6 months time at most. And you dare talk about your 12 years Linux experience ? You're definitely not suited to talk about desktop Linux. If what you say is true, you use Linux like an underpowered Unix shell, and not a lot more.
DVD, Flash and other closed formats problems are well known too.
It will probably take 10+ years for Linux to get a decent GUI on top of their excellent OS
You even managed to miss this milestone. Get out of your cave or basement please.
Linux is way past getting a decent GUI. In case you didn't get it, commercial distro makers are working on bringing the Linux GUI to more users right now. Which means breaking the barrier of reluctant ISV, closed media formats and closed drivers.
If you are editing config files, you are already doing something wrong.
Most desktop oriented distros do not need editing config files, or only for very advanced tasks, which is obviously not your case.
A free distro is not for you, you should get a commercial version of a distro, which are suitable for newbies like you, and some even come with a paper tutorial for most common tasks (try Mandriva).
The mistake is trying to entrench the standard by basically making the console overpriced. That will drive marketshare to Xbox, who already is out ahead with consoles and games in the next generation, despite the overheating issues
I think gamers like you are completely off base.
I don't say what Sony is doing is good for them, but I look at the japanese market, which, despite what the naysayers say, is still the main relevant market, especially since most innovative and high selling games come from there.
And when I look at even last weeks chart, I don't see people driven to XBox 360.
I see PS2 selling 16 times more than XBox360 (XBox360 selling 2000 units). I don't even see one XBox360 game in the top 50 of games sales. And it was the same the week before.
People don't want next-gen, people want fun at affordable prices. I'm not even sure people want next-gen consoles yet.
Since last gen, when MS went into the race, the consoles are out to fast, the pace is really too fast, especially at these prices.
People won't keep up.
The console now costs as much as a midrange PC which is ridiculous, and now they are competing for people's money who are trying to consider if they want a PC or an PS3
I doubt that. They're putting things in their console, for people that have big HDTV sets with HDMI support, which are expensive.
Sony's only hurting themselves. Hopefully Nintendo will get some benefit out of this in marketshare and more people and games will come to their console
Sony are definitely not hurting themselves, or perhaps they are in North America, but that's not the relevant market.
But given the current trends in Japan (DSLite is trouncing everything) and knowing how Nintendo makes value add for its products (with exchange between their handhelds and home consoles), I bet the Wii will be a huge success. Which would be surprising to me, given that Nintendo consoles are hard to pirate most of the time.
I'd like to see you select the correct jpeg out of a directory of 500 without an icon preview.
Using a GUI also takes less learning and less mental effort. I'd be intersted to see actual timed comparisons of the two as well, I've read that command line users often think they are being quicker than GUI users, but acutally aren't because of the way the brain senses time
I hope you don't really believe such BS.
Because you chose one specific application that is faster with a GUI does not mean what you say after that is true.
Try renaming these 500 same jpegs to a formatted pattern, and I can assure you that's not your brain that distorts the time then, when making your script in 30 seconds, and the script executing for 10. Doing the same with a GUI would take hours.
I used to do this for MP3 files, I've just done sth similar yesterday, transforming some sequences in a lot of (more than 1500) XML files with a sed.
Between doing it by hand (which is error prone) and making the script, it was a no brainer.
Just because the GP says BS, does not mean the opposite BS is true.
Because, like for Casshern, they're prisoners to their foreign body or armor. Which is a completely different thing than manipulating a robot, it's way harder for your mental health.
Kids have no problem picturing themselves in robots, or even transforming, they know they can go back to normal. Most (male) kids just loves this.
Something like what happens in GitS or Casshern would be at the very least disturbing to kids (and adults alike).
Can't you see how NGE completely changed anime! It brought a new and inspired story line of a teenage kid with social problems battling aliens in a giant robot... innovative ideas that had never been examined before!
...
That's the idea you have of the anime when seeing only the 2 first episodes of it
Err wait... I guess I'm with you, anime is just like any other genre/media, there are a few great pearls of human insight, but in general its mass marketed garbage
This view explains why you could never pass the 2 first episodes, and I guess that's true of any anime you ever tried to look at.
It's true though, that anime is just another media, which itself has several genres. It's not even mass marketed garbage, it's just shown on TV in Japan.
To wit, look at shakespeare. Generally, a couple rich people who get in trouble with someone else, and either laugh it off or die. The end. The complexity is internalized in the characters; the plot itself is simple. That is why Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and Evangelion is just another mecha anime.
... Eva is exactly what you describe : the complexity is internalized in the characters.
Except that
Though I'm not really a fan of Eva, it's not just another mecha anime. The mecha part is just a decoy and you fell for it.
Eva is done by an otaku, targeted to otaku, to shake them. Adults could grab it too.
I've seen the effect on otakus (well, more fans than true otakus actually), and I understood at the time, how Anno could be sure it would be a success. I'm an anime fan myself, but Eva did not have so much effect on me.