It was actually one of the 3rd party components that required the GLIBC upgrade and not MySQL
Which is not what is written in the report. In either case, sth is very wrong, because that only means your 3rd party WAS NOT supported by the platform, and yet, it has most market share on Linux ? So Suse, that was chosen, was not the platform with the most market share, not enough to be supported by this 3rd party. And yes, that would apply to Suse 8, as the 3rd party had most market share before your study, during which SLES 9 became available.
Again, let me say that we chose components based on market share without knowing that these issues would crop up
How come ? Every 3rd party tells you which platform they support !!! A Linux admin that does not know that is not even an admin.
Most of this kind of stuff just ain't documented in the install/release notes
Of course it is. It says SLES 8 supported or it doesn't, and then you ask. This is nonsense otherwise, and nonsense happened in this study.
Most likely because the new MySQL version used a glibc function not existing in the previous version, hence rebuilding with the old glibc would error out.
Stop the BS please. They upgraded from MySQL 3 to MySQL 4, and no MySQL requires any specific version of GLIBC. Look at the report, they just reacted like no Linux admin would : they recompiled (and replaced instead of adding a new version of !!!) glibc instead of recompiling MySQL.
I know that the database I work with on a daily basis have a minimum requirement for glibc versions and when we release a new version, that requirement normally have bumped the release of the mninimum required glibc version, hence a glibc upgrade may be necessary.
Stop saying such stupid things please. Saying this, you just show that you are not an experienced Linux admin. The minimum glibc version you would require would be 2.x, which is available in any distro since years. Even 2.3.x are available since years. No database requires a new glibc version, as I doubt they need the latest TLS things. The only problem is with closed source databases, and if you have problems, that means you use a version unsupported by your platform.
To sum up : - Despite what is said, the Linux admins just do not look like experienced Linux or Suse admins - I still don't know what is this search package (the one which required new MySQL and glibc) - I have to question why the search package chosen was not supported by the distro, as sure enough, no sane Linux admin would have chosen it
The big question is still there : how come they ended up updating glibc ? Glibc for god's sake !! Sth is still very fishy here. We're talking about 5 years experience Linux admin yes ? With 2 years experience with Suse right ? So sth does not compute here. Sure enough, I have less than 2 years experience with Suse (but 6 years of experience with Linux at the time of my story that follows). In fact, I was confronted with Suse only once, on a project, where we used the same old Suse 8 version. I had to install lots of more complicated things : IDE RAID drivers unsupported by the Linux version provided (for Proliant servers), teaming for the Gigabit ethernet cards, LVS,... I had to recreate RPM for most of these things. I managed to create RPMs for all the unsupported packages, taking the source RPMS as guide. That is the only path a decent Linux admin with experience would take IMHO, if the route chosen is to use unsupported packages on a production platform (which is the case in this study). I grasped Suse in less than 1 day, knowing other binary distro. A Suse admin with 2 years experience should know that putting a package for a newer distro will invite lots of update. He should know how dependancies work, these admins obviously did not. What is fishy for me ? An experienced Linux and Suse admin : - would never have gone the "source distro" route and "make install" things like that in the system - would have created RPM for his distro - would never have recompiled glibc, but would have recompiled MySQL instead - even if foolish enough for recompiling glibc, would not have wiped out the old version, but made his package to install next to the old one
These supposed Linux admins behaved like they don't know how Linux OS work, or even how Suse works.
Re:GCC is the Key to Open Source's Success
on
GCC 4.1 Released
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· Score: 1
Free Software is a subset of Open Source Software, so to say that GCC is Open Source is absolutely correct, if perhaps more general than RMS would prefer
Not only RMS. It was his project, it was created with a purpose. That you lose this purpose in the discussion is not correct like you say. It's not wrong, but you lose lots of very important meaning, and thus later confusing people.
You would make the butt of jokes anyone who tried to demand that you call Roma tomatoes "Roma Tomatoes" every single time you referred to them instead of referring to them generally as tomatoes
Of course, that's because your analogy is wrong. A correct analogy would be with "sweet potato" and "potato". Replace where approriate, and your comment becomes really stupid. Of course, you chose a bad analogy to make RMS look stupid, but it was too obvious.
It simply does not make any difference to anyone what you call them as long as you get the point across that the thing in question falls into a certain group
Go tell that to a rogue company. Open Source does not mean anything as to how you can use the code. It's far more important than you imply. When people talk about a specialised subject, they are more precise. Like for cars.
Going too narrow may provide more information but at a loss of understanding to your audience
BS ! Like for cars as I said. You think the general public give a damn about gcc 4.1 ?!!! A GCC 4.1 release is interesting for people in the know, who sure enough know the difference between Open Source and Free Software, especially as GCC is a core Free Sofware component.
RMS is in error here, but not because he thinks that software designated Free Software ought not be referred to as Open Source software, but because he thinks that anyone cares
You are in error then. You are not in Windows warez land here. A lot of people care about Free Software despite what you claim, and a lot of company care about the implications of Free Software against Open Source.
I disagree with you, except for the dual core part. Primarily because you base your thoughts on shaky grounds. You cite a benchmark where the Athlon 64 X2 4600+ is rated higher than the Athlon 64 X2 4800+, which has more cache. This is nonsense for these CPUs. And obviously, these benchmarks have lots of problems, they surely are compiled with Intel ICC versions which produce slower code for AMD procs, as the benchmarks are completely out of touch with reality, putting Intel processors on top of AMD's fastest, completely out of touch with all the other benchs.
So the lousy improvement you cite probably is completely out of touch with reality too.
What makes me think that further, is that these benchmarks are not even done on a true 64 bit OS, with 64 bit compiled apps (like you would have on Linux). So I would say that Windows OS have let down CPU development, which explains why Intel and AMD now show what their proc can do on Linux.
I would have loved to see how my bi-Athlon MP machine rate too, but unfortunately, they did not review any, perhaps because the motherboards are now very hard to find.
Most of this is plain wrong and comes from a Windows shill, you should not repeat such nonsense in your posts !
START
Q. Why is Windows so insecure?
A. Because everyone runs as Administrator.
I'm sorry to say it to you, but mail attachements (which is insecure by nature) that run apps on your system when you click on them has nothing to do with being Administrator, but is still a very insecure behaviour. So the fact that Windows is so insecure is not completely explained by the fact that everyone runs as admin.
Q. Why does everyone run as Administrator (even when they know better)?
A. Because they don't understand security and are afraid they will be prevented from doing things.
This answer is plain wrong too. The correct answer is that Windows is unusable if you don't.
Q. Why don't they understand security?
A. Because they run as Administrator, bypassing all security.
This is plain wrong too. That's just because MS never explained security to them, and just told them it was "easy".
This microsoftie blog has lots of good info about running as non-admin. It can be painful to switch, but once you do, you won't regret it.
A good theory and rosy story as always. I've encountered people that run as non-admin. Given the tasks you have to go through when using this mode, I can assert it is unusable. Only Windows pro do that. One described me what he did when installing an app. It took several A4 pages to explain what he did each time !!! To tell you how pro the guy was, the WinNT 4 he prepared for the company were the only machines with Windows that I used, that didn't crash in 3 months (running 24/24 7/7 as desktop). Of course, you could not do lots of thing with these desktops, they did not have a floppy or CD drive (and the USB did not work in NT 4). It became unusable in 2 months, and then I put up with it until total lock 1 month later though.
What I find amazing, is how some people can call this OS easy to use, when you have to be so expert and do so tedious things to prevent it from destroying itself (not even get it working)... It's understandable that since I stopped repairing their PCs, lots of my neighbourhood just gave up on computing.
You sound exactly like a MS shill and zealot in your post, and you are one actually.
MS Windows is not powering any car, stop making a fool of yourself. It powers multimedia system but that's all. Putting your multimedia apps in a car is NO innovation, quit your nonsense.
You talk about cost os OSX, when MS keeps telling us that idt does not matter. You talk of annual upgrades that is a nightmare for IT departments. That's seeing things with your MS zealot centered view. Nobody forces you to upgrade your OS X.
MS didn't abuse any monopoly power to make Office number one
There you start looking like a zealot. Sorry, but History tells us otherwise.
They didn't abuse anyone to make Server 2k3 grow by leaps and bounds, faster then any other server platform this year
Actually they did, but they abuse the MS zealots more easily. And unfortunately, Windows 2k3 did not grow faster than any other server platform this year of before. And you need to precise what metric you use for growth too.
They didn't abuse anyone to sell 20 million Xboxes, and didn't abuse anyone to get a 1 year jump start on the PS3
That's true, except that they lose money for anyone of them sold, while the other console makers don't (at least, the direct rival Nintendo turns a profit for every console sold).
They have taken online game play to a whole new level
BS is not innovation, sorry.
Their IPTV stuff is amazing, and that is why Verizon and SBC were so willing to lock themselves into using it for years... its just light years ahead of all the other platforms
Did they lock themselves or not in the end ? I don't know, but here in France IPTV is a reality since years for some lucky people, and months for others. Wishful thinking and promises against reality, that's how I recognize a zealot speech.
They don't abuse anyone to be ranked almost double Google in web traffic, only behind AOL and Yahoo
You mean, like getting IE to go their web site by default ? You are such a shill and zealot that it's disgusting really.
They do innovate, often. In fact they spend more money on R&D then Google grosses in a year, more then double actually
And yet they come with far less innovations than Google. Didn't they say 1-2 years ago that their search engine would crush Google ? Fact is it's still a joke right now compared to Google.
They hire some of the greatest minds in the world, and you are stupid enough to think that because they are under the MS name they don't innovate
You are mistaken like a true zealot. Great minds are not equivalent to innovative minds. Innovation means creative. I don't say great minds are not creative, but they are not equal. Because they hired great minds or people who were once innovative, does not mean they innovate. Facts tell me they don't innovate, and only copy others, especially Apple (for years), and it's obvious, but your clouded mind can't see it.
The rest of your post is alike : shill thinking, debunked by reality and history. Sad really.
All your sentences apparently lacks this : "... in the USA". So you talk about USA, let me talk about France, as it's where I live.
Here, MS has done no big headway in the fronts you claim it does. Here I see no naysayers, no self-proclaimed geniuses, even browsing the net, I see noo ne of these, so you invented them or lurk in very strange fanatic places.
I follow Linux more than MS. What I see, is *manufacturers* trying to use Linux in their cars, ATMs, phones,... You talk about MS getting XP Embedded in things. I mean, I see people attracted to Linux, and you say MS force themselves on others. I have some ideas on which is most likely to succeed in the long term, but time will tell.
I know no GE here in France. From what I saw this year, home automation is still a big useless joke. Till now, I looked in the japanese market to see trends of what will work. Till now, this method has always worked, and based on it, home automation is not one of current trends. I see home automation is for geeks for now. It was true in 95, it is still true now. MS may be doing a hell of a job (we don't know good or bad), but if I look at IPTV, where you say MS is so far ahead of others, it looks strange. Perhaps they are so far ahead in theory, but here in France, we have IPTV (though with less features) *working* for months. It has started bringing true broadband years ago. And it all works on Linux (appliances and FOSS apps). This is no demo, there is no naysayer, it's just here, the deals are here with TV providers in France. So we have a less featureful IPTV here but it *works*, it's no theory that will blow everything up, it already is blowing everything up, and I see no MS here.
Phones : Mobile 5 blows everything yeah ! Before that, here in France, MS powered mobiles sold by the monopolistic phone provider here in France, were to blow everything out (specially Imode). It made a big flop, the phones crashed constantly (a nightmare some MS zealots kept up with !!), ,... Mobile 5 will do this and that, yeah right. I don't know enough in this market, but I know for sure that MS promises are nothing like reality, and that they still have to gain market share in relevant phone market (the one Mobile 5 targets, smartphones and the like).
All the areas you talked about are publicized contrary to your belief. All of them mean losses for MS for now, suspicious partners and rivals, low shares for MS (perhaps slowly improving). Everything you say looks really strange to me. I know for sure that MS is trying hard to take all these markets, but I also see customers choosing and trying Linux everywhere. I'm sure not a genius to find the outcome from all of this, but apparently you are, though I didn't find any evidence of why you are right in your post. It does not even piss me off, I think this is ridiculous. Especially your last sentences. I must have a prediction too, so I say nobody will be able to escape a Linux OS from now on. Wait and see.
accessibility doesn't have ANYTHING to do in a STORAGE FORMAT
Of course it does. If you can't read the storage format, you will have a hard time providing accessibility around it.
this is purely a software issue, with lots of money involved
I'm not so sure it is restricted to that.
how much do you wanna bet these so called "accessibility experts" are getting paid to say they don't want an open document format? who do you think is paying them?
Those that want to crush ODF are not accessibility experts and are paid by MS.
a sun accessibility expert? come on, this is the company that brought us JAVA, an accessibility nightmare in its own right
One has nothing to do with the other. This accessibility expert has a respectable bio, and contrary to what you say, JAVA has a good accessibility API. Java has many flaws perhaps, but this is not one of them. I saw most of the work done by volunteers and SUN, which started 5 years ago at least for Gnome, and I know if there's an area where we FOSS users can thank SUN, that's accessibility.
Now's the chance for open source advocates to show the power of open source
No, not now. They started thinking that way 5 years ago, so you're pretty late to the thinking.
If enough volunteers step forward to resolve the accessibility issues in OpenOffice so that Massachusetts can go forward with their Open Document initiative then it will be a huge feather in the open source cap
I don't understand what you mean. FOSS desktops ALREADY provides the support, and OOo 2 ALREADY uses it. On Windows, there is NO useful accessibility support. Only MS Office is supported by 3rd parties. Actually, you need several expensive 3rd parties made specifically for MS Office on Windows to provide the same level of accessibility that OOo provides on a Gnome desktop. MS Office provides NO accessibility API, all of these is provided by hooks from 3rd parties. So MS is actually in no position to speak about ODF accessibility, or of OOo accessibility (the app associated with ODF). Using MS funded organisations and pushing disabled people (who remember their job loss due to no support from accessibility in Windows), MS is trying to crush ODF (and won't support ODF instead to help disabled people, how hypocritical).
and for the remainder of people, OpenOffice.org will work just as well under Windows for the folks that need the Accesibility tools, until Linux catches up (not long)
And just for you and the mods that modded you up without reading TFA, OOo will NOT work just as well on Windows, which has no useful accessibility API, and where all the tools more or less working are for MS Office specifically. Something worse is that OSS desktops actually provide useful API to accessibility (and some award-winning tools) and some tools more powerful than even those tailored for MS Office on Windows. The only really lacking area on OSS desktops is speech recognition actually. Screen reading is being improved. I think the worst, is the actual abysmal support of MS and Windows for accessibility, and their history (summed up in TFA) is really not sth to brag about.
There are basically 2 problems : - No or poor support from vendors to anything except MS Office - Packaged speech recognition on platforms other than Windows
Had you take the time to read TFA (but being a shill, you could not), you would have learned the following things : - Open Source is pretty efficient in providing accessibility API - MS and MS Windows are the more deficient systems concerning accessibility API - Support for accessibility from vendors is specific to MS Office in Windows - Support for accessibility from vendors is very poor or inexistant for anything else - OSS desktops actually offer some tools more powerful than what is available from ISV on Windows Open Source desktops provide accessibility APIs, Jave provide accessibility API, but MS Windows do not provide any useful accessibility API. It's specifically explained in the article that JAWS made significant investment to provide accessibility tailored for MS Office, as Windows has no API for such things, for example. So it's not that open source software is deficient, but that ISV do not support anything beside MS Office. Mandating ODF would mean the present provider of accessibility tools will have an incentive to provide the support other Office suites need.
if OSS developers want adoption by government institutions, they'd better make accessability a consideration
Except that, as always, they already do and you are clueless (and you won't even read the article to be less clueless). Accessibility was one big consideration behind Gnome 2, and recently in KDE 3. It's very efficient, and for example, there are at least two (optional) libraries and apps (for example gok, at-spi) specifically for that in Gnome, and it's supported by most of the Gnome core apps (people often complain about the amount of libraries in Gnome, perhaps they will start to understand why this is the case). The problem here is actually in Windows which has no API for that, and manufacturers that do not use Java or OSS APIs for their tools, not the dedication of OSS in accessibility, or the state of it. Of course, the state of the API and tools dedicated to accessibility can be improved, as some bugs remain, and the features can be improved too, but the support is there and alive. Biggest work is from manufacturers. I think JAWS (or others) can adapt their product to these API if they want to have a part of the pie.
MS is not stupid. They know exactly what supercomputer owners are paying in licenses as part of the total cost (they're not all Linux), and I'm sure they'd steeply discount the license to get into the space they want.
You can be sure, you can state things, that does not make them true. I still don't understand what they are trying to acheive here. This move reinforces my belief that MS really think people love to use their OS.
They bring very little value to the back end.
Actually they bring none.
Windows has no advantage there.
So we agree they bring no value.
It's a C, C++, or Fortan (mixed, even) job running MPI over some specialized interconnect hardware.
Remember what you said here...
You also need a good parallel file system
I don't think so, perhaps for some niche apps. Most of the data travels through IPC and highly efficient and fast communication mechanisms, not files. Files are for the end results on the master system.
However, their strong suit in this space are tools like IDEs. If they can convince folks that using Windows as a front-end to development, then they can make some good inroads.
Remember what you said earlier ? I don't understand this statement of yours. I don't know of any MS IDE that works well for developing Unix/Linux apps. IIRC MS IDE (till the latest versions) is only powerful with MS APIs, not at all with FORTRAN or generic compliant C and C++, POSIX, or even MPI. Of course, the goal of a cluster is not to have a cool IDE, it is to provide the fastest possible accurate results. So I don't see what their cluster OS is for. Don't tell me they made an OS just to run an IDE !? That looks pretty stupid to me, despite what you believe about MS. As soon as you try to talk of them replacing the cluster OS with MS one, it's already a stupid solution, in terms of cost, reliability, efficiency. They just can't beat Linux on cost, no need to even talk about the other terms. And old Unixes still used in these clusters will be replaced with Linux, not Windows. I guess Windows can pay some first sites to prove their OS (for now it's still beta), but in the end of the day, people putting clusters in place need results, they can't put up with BSOD or locks or poor perfs.
Right now the supercomputing folks are starting to get interested in Eclipse, and they're trying to head that off, not to mention small ISV's like us.
In case you did not remember, Eclipse runs on these OSes used for clusters. No MS app does, and I'd even dare to say none of their OS does (except an hypothetical unknown one).
this is a perfect example of what's wrong with the Linux desktop
No, this is a perfect example of what's right with the Mandriva desktop.
Mandriva pops up a window when you connect a digital camera to give you the option of importing your photos
Except you're completely wrong, which just shows that you were modded by anti-Linux zealots. It pops up a dialog when you connect a USB card or when you see the camera as a USB storage device. If you actually access your camera by its protocol or PPTP, it won't pop up a dialog because obviously, Mandriva knows that there are photos on it. It's great there, because then it guides the user to the photo managing app.
Great! But the title bar reads "Warning". No problem for us geeks, but now, think Grandma
No problem for Grandma either, as she will see the big friendly warning icon, which : - is not red - does not contain a cross - looks like... a warning
I'm pretty convinced your rant is a red herring, as most people will look, in order, at : - the icon - the big bold text in the dialog - what's written on the buttons - eventually the text in the dialog There's a big chance they will never even see the dialog had a title.
What is she going to do when she gets a warning? Will she think that an error has occurred? Perhaps.
No, she sure as hell won't, as the first thing her eye will catch is the icon, which sure as hell do not look like a frightening error, but just a friendly warning.
That's why these dialog boxes need to have the polish and unified feel that they do on XP or OS X.
Which they have... In case you did not know, these dialog icons are stock GTK icons (not even Gnome, GTK !!). If you talk about the mix of GTK and KDE on Mandriva desktop, please remember that even some MS apps have not the same toolkit on Windows than the rest of the desktop, and have exactly the same problem. For example, some security dialogs of WinX SP2 are completely out of place compared to other dialogs. Or look at MS Office. Talk about "unified feel".
Since I live in Paris and I used to live in one of those poor suburbs
I live in the suburbs, and I know some people in these poor suburbs. I knew a lot of them and know how they think, what they endure every day.
1. There is no country in Europe that does not struggle with immigrants and children from immigrants from African origin. France has the largest number of them, hence the biggest problems
This is just not true. You talk like only immigrants of African origin are a problem. This is completely wrong, and the population of poor suburbs are not limited to immigrants of African origin. Your last sentence is racist at best. Poor families of any nationalities live in poor suburbs. You already forgot the poor people thet died burnt in Paris some months ago, and there was no riot.
2. Many of those rioters are simply criminals that do not want the police to be present in these suburbs and are demonstrating that it is their territory.
Yes, many are just criminals, but they just show that they are stronger than police, and they are fueled by their success they see on TV.
3. Islam has nothing... 4. These bloggers were... 5....
Well I agree.
6. These riots happen almost exclusively in the poor suburbs of France, 99% of the French population has only seen burning cars on TV.
No, these "riots" happen everywhere, even in Paris. But it's true 99 % of French population have only seen cars burn on TV.
This is a very good article on some of the reasons behind the rioting
No this is not. The true reason is that 2 innocent youths died during a police intervention, and the "chief of police" said the police had nothing to do with it the day after. When you are one of those people, enduring bad treatments and discrimination from police, and you hear that, you think : "now the police can kill us and go away with it with a poor excuse or a lie". That's this fear that started the riot. IMHO the rest is fueled by political groups that jumped on the occasion.
I live in France and know pretty well the psychology of these people, it's not complicated at all, sorry, it's actually pretty simple.
What you have are immigrant population from French colonies in North Africa who have entered France through their weaker immigration laws
Actually, France needed cheap labor at the time, and promised them work and home. So they came. Reality was hard work and cheap home.
The French are traditionally very nationalistic, and the immigrants were discriminated against and were not assimilated into mainstream cultures. Secondly, the middle-eastern culture itself is very prideful, mainly becase of their religious practices and family customs. The net result was that the immigrants self-segretated themselves into comminities of like-minded peoples
Nonsense. These people, with their hard work (far from their work location), just had no time to do anything other than work. When you're exhausted, it's way harder to integrate yourself (learn the language or educate your children). Immigrants were not self-segregated, they were all put together in the same cheap apartments.
So, the dominant european ethnics (through prejudice) resisted their assimilation, which had the net result of limiting the earning potential of the middle-eastern ethnics
Still true today.
The immigrants resist learning the French language and culture, and because of French law, are denied representation in their governments
Nothing to do with the law, it's a false secret, but access to high education is greatly influenced by where you live, which is greatly influenced by your income. It's nothing like the USA here in France, even for jobs and how they are paid.
When the government does try to "help" them with social programs, their culture see it as insulting / condescending
That's not true. They ask for more.
The net result of this is a hatred of a government that is constantly trying to patronize them and force them to give up their heritage
This is completely wrong. They have no more hatred for our government than other citizen. The problems are well known and here, it is the police forces. See the movie "La Haine" to have a good vision of what the problem is with some police forces (think Rodney King).
So, these neighborhoods tend to have less governmental police prescence than other suburbs of Paris, which tends to lead to more criminal elements
Not true either. Number of police force is dependant on your wealth and popularity (so, given what I said above, where you live).
It had gotten so bad, representatives of the federal government of France were claiming that they would "clean up the scum", which didn't go so well with the locals. In the latest chain of events, there were two youths who were fleeing police, hid in a utility station and accidentally electrocuted themselves. The immigrant cultures see this as police brutality & oppression, something denied by the authorities.
Don't know what USA TV relay, but this is all backwards and partly false. Everything started when 2 youths died in an utility station. Still no riot. We DO NOT KNOW for now what actually happened. Accident ? Not sure. Pursuit by police ? Not sure. We don't know. But the day after this tragic accident, the very well-known president candidate Sarkozy (for now, think he is Chief of Police) makes a huge mistake. Without any prior investigation, he says : "police was not responsible for the death of these youths". When you know how the people having the same life of these youths think, what they endure, and the fact that these youths never did anything bad in their life, you can immediately see the riots coming. And that's what happened. Bad guys who love to burn and break things go in the middle, they are encouraged by TV which report they deeds, count the number of cars they burnt. Others in other towns see that, and eve
If you are going to take the strategy of "We will do things to attempt to force you to do thigns our way," don't be supprised if the response of companies is "Fine, then we will ignore you."
Except that you have it backwards. In this case, these are the companies and their supporters that say "We will do things to attempt to force you to do thigns our way", "our way" being "put binary drivers in Linux". And the kernel developers are those that say "Fine, then we will ignore you", not the other way around.
The simple fact of the matter is that most companies are not willing to go open source, for software or drivers
That's their choice, but kernel developers ask nothing of the like. They ask for specs for example.
The problem is that Linux is a bit player. They are larger than the other bit players, but they are still tiny
There is no problem. Linux usage is only growing. If people ask for binary driver interface, that's because there is an interest in Linux. Linux grew with this policy, that's one of its quality, there's no way we will give up what made its success.
Given that the continous rewrites can get expensive, the choice for many will simply be not to write the driver.
The better choice would be to give the specs and let the kernel experts write the driver.
So if you are ok with that, then great, but don't get mad at companies when they won't play by your rules
Here, we get mad because THEY want US to play by their rule, stop getting it backwards.
In the end, it comes down to needing to make a decision of what you want Linux to be
No, it comes down to what Linus and kernel developers want it to be, and this has been pretty clear from the start, there is even a text doc in the kernel doc (by GKH) that explains why binary drivers are not wanted.
If you want Linux to try and become the next big thing in OSes and start to really make an entrance in the home market, standardisation is needed
Two problems in what you say : - We don't want what you say we want, we just want drivers. Unfortunately, this apparently means we need to force the vendors to provide them, so we need market share. - You have it backwards again. Standardisation is external to Linux. Every hardware standard is supported in Linux you know. The non-standard hardware are those that need special drivers. Manufacturers not able to standardise on their products have no lesson to give Linux devs IMHO.
You talk about geeks, but then you complain that Linux won't be able to get access to the latest geek toy for a lack of driver. You want to put the same shackles on Linux than the ones on Windows, I say NO ! Had it not been for Linux, in 2001, I would have had to buy 3 pieces of hardware which are perfectly functional on Linux. Most of the time, what works on Linux works way better than on Windows too (that's my experience). I don't want to give up on all this.
For many companies, there are no benefits to going open source
That's why it's a hard choice. Anyway, the rest of your rant is wrong, as ATI and NVidia actually work with the community on the libre drivers. They help on what they can without liability. And I think you are a zealot, more than GKH, who is a Linux kernel contributor, and explained why the binary interface is no good. The doc is distributed with any linux kernel tarball, and reviewed by several kernel contributors. So you basically call these kernel contributors zealots ? You are the zealot and troll me thinks. Also, FYI, the custom TLS scheme is userspace (library) and has little to do with the kernel. The kernel only support TLS. When you have a crash because of these TLS scheme (like I had), your app crash, not the complete kernel. And I think businesses won't talk of "this Greg KH guy kind" but rather of "this important kernel contributor".
It's not "impossible" to debug binary software
Of course not. But if we get our drivers in the same time frame that you provide Wine working, we're better off with the current situation. Having to reboot is worse than not having a backtrace for a game.
A stable binary module interface would help open source developers too
How ? You did not provide any hint of that. You only talked about people that tried to put things into deep kernel layers (VFS is not the same as a hardware driver interface). And asking the kernel developers to change their way to enhance a user land app is sth strongly disapproved, especially when it's to behave the Windows way like in Wine. I say the kernel developers were right to not allow this, as I see what you describe as trying to go the easy and dirty way, instead of analysing the problem. You have FUSE now if you want to use the "elegant" solution for ZeroInstall. So you can now make ZeroInstall user space more easily.
The kernel can boot from it for now, and take over then, so we have control. And there is at least one free BIOS project under way.
Do you have the source to the firmware in your IDE disk drive ?
No, but it has to obey a standard to have a chance to communicate with the motherboard and the OS without special drivers. These drivers are all in the kernel, so we have control.
In your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive ?
They have to obey some standard too (ATAPI at least), so we have control.
Do you have the source to your SCSI controller's firmware ?
No, but we have the source of the driver. This is actually the only problematic hardware among those you listed. Some people spend time analysing how to circumvent hindrances in these firmwares (mostly zone change count for DVD). I still have to choose carefully a DVD drive for which I can find a firmware not crippled.
If you think you have control over your computer you are suffering under a delusion.
Simplicity of the installation process? Last year I installed a Mandrake 9 on a VM. I had a functional install which I used for 2 weeks and then forgotten. This year I had to dust it off and install some new software for it.
So last year you installed a by then out of date distro (MDK 9 came in 2002 I think), OK. You forgot to say it was the download edition, OK. You had to install some new software for it OK.
Poof! The installation system is broken
No it's not, but you sure are a troll.
the software repositories don't work
They actually don't exist anymore, which is true if you used a download edition. Anyway, the software is probably available on your CDs.
nothing upgrades not only automatically
Of course, as you have no more repository for this version.
but even most things fail during manual installation due to library dependencies and even the Mandrake websites no longer exist
That's because you've done the same mistake as a lot of Linux distro newbies : you thought you were smart enough to use Linux without support in a setup even advanced user don't use (2 years old distro, now 3) and what's aggravating, you left it for a year without maintenance, and now want an up to date system, but you just realised you are not smart enough to do that (it involves getting the new version and upgrading from the CD or DVD).
End result: I cannot install software on a year old Linux system.
Actually you can, it involves updating the system entirely if you want latest softwares though, and it works well, though I don't know if it works well for MDK 9 -> Mandriva 2006, but I know MDK 9 -> MDK 10 -> MDV 2006 works well. Just shows that the installation process is very simple indeed.
When theory and reality disagree, reality wins. Windows software is, in general, at this moment in time easier to install than Linux software.
You are right : Linux software is, in general, at this moment in time easier to install than Windows software. For example, Gimp is installed by default on Mandriva, and more difficult, but still easy to install on Windows. But Photoshop is hard to install on Windows (have to go buy it, expensive,...), and very hard to install on Linux.
If you disagree with this statement, you are at best guilty of wishful thinking.
Ditto for mine.
That said, there seems to be an unhealthy fixation in the Linux world with the "ease of OS installation" or "the ease of application installation."
You seem to think unhealthily that it is a fixation. This topic appears only when trolls like you spout opinion as argument, opinions like the one from you above.
While most linux vendors have made admirable strides in the realm of OS installation to the point where the installation is now within the realm of 60% of computer users (compared to, I'd say, 70% for windows and 10% or less for linux 6 years ago)
I could pull numbers from out of my a** too, but I'll just say that I never saw an average user install Windows, so from my statistics, we are at 0 ù for Windows.
larger problems remain, such as the lack of true credible alternatives in many key software areas (gimp, for example, is a lousy photoshop clone)
And back on earth, I never saw an average user install Photoshop or even buy it. On the contrary, I've seen a lot of people use Gimp. That GIMP is a lousy photoshop clone is a (bad) opinion of yours. I could say that Cinepaint, that is an old fork of GIMP, is used extensively for movies; that Gimp is but a fraction of the price of Photoshop; that GIMP is available for all the platforms Photoshop is available on, the contrary can not be said. So you see, your trollish comment and flawed logic just made you mistake the word "niche" with "key" in the expression "key area". Even worse, FYI, Gimp is not perceived as a problem. The only problem in your phrase, is Photoshop, which is not available for Linux, and that's a problem only Adobe can fix.
a lack of true interoperability (like the fact that I can cut and paste items from powerpoint to photoshop to my email to into an MS-Access cell to... relatively seamlessly).
If only you understood what interoperability means, perhaps we could talk seriously... FYI, what you described is not interoperability.
I think pretty much by definition if people have to write long rambling articles "explaining" why it's so much easier to install software on Linux than Windows, it probably isn't.
That's because your logic is incorrect. In math, explaining why "1 + 1 = 2" is a very long process too (and not trivial), which does not mean that learning that 1 + 1 = 2 is hard. Where what you say is flawed, is that explaining why it's much easier to install software on Linux is not the same as explaining how to install software on Linux. If you read the article, you would have seen that explaining how to install software on Mandriva : - is very simple - is explained in the manual (hard copy or PDF on the site or doc package)
Saying anything works "flawlessly" once installed in absolute BS
It's not. But I understand why you can't believe it. People would not believe me either when I told them what I could do with Linux. That's a Windows mindset for sure.
I've had kernels crap out while compiling a module, daemons mysteriously shut off without leaving a log trail, one of my monitors in a dual monitor (Xinerama) setup come up with goofy vertical lines
Your first problem only happened to me when I was having hardware problems (bad memory) a long time ago, and the second looks like a hardware problem too.
Windows "flaws" tend to be easy to fix because so many people use Windows
On the other hand, this is BS. My SCSI problem was not easy to fix, I had a very hard time finding a solution for my problem (WinXP BSOD at boot time even in safe mode). Finally I found the solution on MS page thanks to Google on the Linux dual-boot patition (it involved installing with the dos command line and a special driver disk btw, cool... NOT). You meant "so many people struggle with Windows", I can agree with that, that's consistant with what I see every time. In Linux it is very different : people search for a solution, not for a workaround. A workaround in Linux is always considered a failure. In Linux, people fix things, make bugreports. Look at all the bugzillas and forum there are, all of them to fix problems. There are forums for Windows, even more, full of people with problems, but solutions are rare, workarounds abound. And often, when there is a solution, it's so tedious I'm amazed the guy put up with it every time.
Linux has a lot of that, too, but you have to know where to go to get the right answers sometimes
Which means your distro provider or forums, and it works without problem.
I'm tired of seeing the "Linux works flawlessly" argument
I don't think you are. I think you are 'pissed', which is not the same. That's a behaviour I experience every time with Windows shills, because they have so many hassles to keep with their Windows running, seeing sth having fun with computing is beyond them. Every time I work with Windows at work, you can bet there are problems every week. And they always blame the user when sth does not work (except when it's them, then they blame someone else).
Slashdot Mirror
It was actually one of the 3rd party components that required the GLIBC upgrade and not MySQL
Which is not what is written in the report. In either case, sth is very wrong, because that only means your 3rd party WAS NOT supported by the platform, and yet, it has most market share on Linux ?
So Suse, that was chosen, was not the platform with the most market share, not enough to be supported by this 3rd party. And yes, that would apply to Suse 8, as the 3rd party had most market share before your study, during which SLES 9 became available.
Again, let me say that we chose components based on market share without knowing that these issues would crop up
How come ? Every 3rd party tells you which platform they support !!!
A Linux admin that does not know that is not even an admin.
Most of this kind of stuff just ain't documented in the install/release notes
Of course it is. It says SLES 8 supported or it doesn't, and then you ask.
This is nonsense otherwise, and nonsense happened in this study.
Most likely because the new MySQL version used a glibc function not existing in the previous version, hence rebuilding with the old glibc would error out.
Stop the BS please.
They upgraded from MySQL 3 to MySQL 4, and no MySQL requires any specific version of GLIBC.
Look at the report, they just reacted like no Linux admin would : they recompiled (and replaced instead of adding a new version of !!!) glibc instead of recompiling MySQL.
I know that the database I work with on a daily basis have a minimum requirement for glibc versions and when we release a new version, that requirement normally have bumped the release of the mninimum required glibc version, hence a glibc upgrade may be necessary.
Stop saying such stupid things please.
Saying this, you just show that you are not an experienced Linux admin.
The minimum glibc version you would require would be 2.x, which is available in any distro since years.
Even 2.3.x are available since years.
No database requires a new glibc version, as I doubt they need the latest TLS things.
The only problem is with closed source databases, and if you have problems, that means you use a version unsupported by your platform.
The f*cked up part is still there and well.
...
To sum up :
- Despite what is said, the Linux admins just do not look like experienced Linux or Suse admins
- I still don't know what is this search package (the one which required new MySQL and glibc)
- I have to question why the search package chosen was not supported by the distro, as sure enough, no sane Linux admin would have chosen it
The big question is still there : how come they ended up updating glibc ?
Glibc for god's sake !!
Sth is still very fishy here. We're talking about 5 years experience Linux admin yes ? With 2 years experience with Suse right ?
So sth does not compute here. Sure enough, I have less than 2 years experience with Suse (but 6 years of experience with Linux at the time of my story that follows). In fact, I was confronted with Suse only once, on a project, where we used the same old Suse 8 version.
I had to install lots of more complicated things : IDE RAID drivers unsupported by the Linux version provided (for Proliant servers), teaming for the Gigabit ethernet cards, LVS,
I had to recreate RPM for most of these things. I managed to create RPMs for all the unsupported packages, taking the source RPMS as guide. That is the only path a decent Linux admin with experience would take IMHO, if the route chosen is to use unsupported packages on a production platform (which is the case in this study). I grasped Suse in less than 1 day, knowing other binary distro.
A Suse admin with 2 years experience should know that putting a package for a newer distro will invite lots of update. He should know how dependancies work, these admins obviously did not.
What is fishy for me ? An experienced Linux and Suse admin :
- would never have gone the "source distro" route and "make install" things like that in the system
- would have created RPM for his distro
- would never have recompiled glibc, but would have recompiled MySQL instead
- even if foolish enough for recompiling glibc, would not have wiped out the old version, but made his package to install next to the old one
These supposed Linux admins behaved like they don't know how Linux OS work, or even how Suse works.
Free Software is a subset of Open Source Software, so to say that GCC is Open Source is absolutely correct, if perhaps more general than RMS would prefer
Not only RMS. It was his project, it was created with a purpose. That you lose this purpose in the discussion is not correct like you say. It's not wrong, but you lose lots of very important meaning, and thus later confusing people.
You would make the butt of jokes anyone who tried to demand that you call Roma tomatoes "Roma Tomatoes" every single time you referred to them instead of referring to them generally as tomatoes
Of course, that's because your analogy is wrong.
A correct analogy would be with "sweet potato" and "potato". Replace where approriate, and your comment becomes really stupid.
Of course, you chose a bad analogy to make RMS look stupid, but it was too obvious.
It simply does not make any difference to anyone what you call them as long as you get the point across that the thing in question falls into a certain group
Go tell that to a rogue company. Open Source does not mean anything as to how you can use the code.
It's far more important than you imply.
When people talk about a specialised subject, they are more precise.
Like for cars.
Going too narrow may provide more information but at a loss of understanding to your audience
BS ! Like for cars as I said. You think the general public give a damn about gcc 4.1 ?!!!
A GCC 4.1 release is interesting for people in the know, who sure enough know the difference between Open Source and Free Software, especially as GCC is a core Free Sofware component.
RMS is in error here, but not because he thinks that software designated Free Software ought not be referred to as Open Source software, but because he thinks that anyone cares
You are in error then. You are not in Windows warez land here. A lot of people care about Free Software despite what you claim, and a lot of company care about the implications of Free Software against Open Source.
I disagree with you, except for the dual core part.
Primarily because you base your thoughts on shaky grounds.
You cite a benchmark where the Athlon 64 X2 4600+ is rated higher than the Athlon 64 X2 4800+, which has more cache. This is nonsense for these CPUs.
And obviously, these benchmarks have lots of problems, they surely are compiled with Intel ICC versions which produce slower code for AMD procs, as the benchmarks are completely out of touch with reality, putting Intel processors on top of AMD's fastest, completely out of touch with all the other benchs.
So the lousy improvement you cite probably is completely out of touch with reality too.
What makes me think that further, is that these benchmarks are not even done on a true 64 bit OS, with 64 bit compiled apps (like you would have on Linux).
So I would say that Windows OS have let down CPU development, which explains why Intel and AMD now show what their proc can do on Linux.
I would have loved to see how my bi-Athlon MP machine rate too, but unfortunately, they did not review any, perhaps because the motherboards are now very hard to find.
Most of this is plain wrong and comes from a Windows shill, you should not repeat such nonsense in your posts !
START
Q. Why is Windows so insecure?
A. Because everyone runs as Administrator.
I'm sorry to say it to you, but mail attachements (which is insecure by nature) that run apps on your system when you click on them has nothing to do with being Administrator, but is still a very insecure behaviour.
So the fact that Windows is so insecure is not completely explained by the fact that everyone runs as admin.
Q. Why does everyone run as Administrator (even when they know better)?
A. Because they don't understand security and are afraid they will be prevented from doing things.
This answer is plain wrong too. The correct answer is that Windows is unusable if you don't.
Q. Why don't they understand security?
A. Because they run as Administrator, bypassing all security.
This is plain wrong too. That's just because MS never explained security to them, and just told them it was "easy".
This microsoftie blog has lots of good info about running as non-admin. It can be painful to switch, but once you do, you won't regret it.
A good theory and rosy story as always. I've encountered people that run as non-admin. Given the tasks you have to go through when using this mode, I can assert it is unusable.
Only Windows pro do that. One described me what he did when installing an app. It took several A4 pages to explain what he did each time !!!
To tell you how pro the guy was, the WinNT 4 he prepared for the company were the only machines with Windows that I used, that didn't crash in 3 months (running 24/24 7/7 as desktop). Of course, you could not do lots of thing with these desktops, they did not have a floppy or CD drive (and the USB did not work in NT 4). It became unusable in 2 months, and then I put up with it until total lock 1 month later though.
What I find amazing, is how some people can call this OS easy to use, when you have to be so expert and do so tedious things to prevent it from destroying itself (not even get it working) ...
It's understandable that since I stopped repairing their PCs, lots of my neighbourhood just gave up on computing.
You sound exactly like a MS shill and zealot in your post, and you are one actually.
MS Windows is not powering any car, stop making a fool of yourself. It powers multimedia system but that's all.
Putting your multimedia apps in a car is NO innovation, quit your nonsense.
You talk about cost os OSX, when MS keeps telling us that idt does not matter.
You talk of annual upgrades that is a nightmare for IT departments. That's seeing things with your MS zealot centered view. Nobody forces you to upgrade your OS X.
MS didn't abuse any monopoly power to make Office number one
There you start looking like a zealot. Sorry, but History tells us otherwise.
They didn't abuse anyone to make Server 2k3 grow by leaps and bounds, faster then any other server platform this year
Actually they did, but they abuse the MS zealots more easily. And unfortunately, Windows 2k3 did not grow faster than any other server platform this year of before. And you need to precise what metric you use for growth too.
They didn't abuse anyone to sell 20 million Xboxes, and didn't abuse anyone to get a 1 year jump start on the PS3
That's true, except that they lose money for anyone of them sold, while the other console makers don't (at least, the direct rival Nintendo turns a profit for every console sold).
They have taken online game play to a whole new level
BS is not innovation, sorry.
Their IPTV stuff is amazing, and that is why Verizon and SBC were so willing to lock themselves into using it for years... its just light years ahead of all the other platforms
Did they lock themselves or not in the end ? I don't know, but here in France IPTV is a reality since years for some lucky people, and months for others. Wishful thinking and promises against reality, that's how I recognize a zealot speech.
They don't abuse anyone to be ranked almost double Google in web traffic, only behind AOL and Yahoo
You mean, like getting IE to go their web site by default ?
You are such a shill and zealot that it's disgusting really.
They do innovate, often. In fact they spend more money on R&D then Google grosses in a year, more then double actually
And yet they come with far less innovations than Google. Didn't they say 1-2 years ago that their search engine would crush Google ? Fact is it's still a joke right now compared to Google.
They hire some of the greatest minds in the world, and you are stupid enough to think that because they are under the MS name they don't innovate
You are mistaken like a true zealot. Great minds are not equivalent to innovative minds. Innovation means creative. I don't say great minds are not creative, but they are not equal. Because they hired great minds or people who were once innovative, does not mean they innovate. Facts tell me they don't innovate, and only copy others, especially Apple (for years), and it's obvious, but your clouded mind can't see it.
The rest of your post is alike : shill thinking, debunked by reality and history. Sad really.
All your sentences apparently lacks this : " ... in the USA".
... You talk about MS getting XP Embedded in things. I mean, I see people attracted to Linux, and you say MS force themselves on others. I have some ideas on which is most likely to succeed in the long term, but time will tell.
...
So you talk about USA, let me talk about France, as it's where I live.
Here, MS has done no big headway in the fronts you claim it does.
Here I see no naysayers, no self-proclaimed geniuses, even browsing the net, I see noo ne of these, so you invented them or lurk in very strange fanatic places.
I follow Linux more than MS. What I see, is *manufacturers* trying to use Linux in their cars, ATMs, phones,
I know no GE here in France. From what I saw this year, home automation is still a big useless joke.
Till now, I looked in the japanese market to see trends of what will work. Till now, this method has always worked, and based on it, home automation is not one of current trends. I see home automation is for geeks for now. It was true in 95, it is still true now.
MS may be doing a hell of a job (we don't know good or bad), but if I look at IPTV, where you say MS is so far ahead of others, it looks strange. Perhaps they are so far ahead in theory, but here in France, we have IPTV (though with less features) *working* for months. It has started bringing true broadband years ago. And it all works on Linux (appliances and FOSS apps). This is no demo, there is no naysayer, it's just here, the deals are here with TV providers in France. So we have a less featureful IPTV here but it *works*, it's no theory that will blow everything up, it already is blowing everything up, and I see no MS here.
Phones : Mobile 5 blows everything yeah ! Before that, here in France, MS powered mobiles sold by the monopolistic phone provider here in France, were to blow everything out (specially Imode). It made a big flop, the phones crashed constantly (a nightmare some MS zealots kept up with !!), ,
Mobile 5 will do this and that, yeah right. I don't know enough in this market, but I know for sure that MS promises are nothing like reality, and that they still have to gain market share in relevant phone market (the one Mobile 5 targets, smartphones and the like).
All the areas you talked about are publicized contrary to your belief. All of them mean losses for MS for now, suspicious partners and rivals, low shares for MS (perhaps slowly improving).
Everything you say looks really strange to me. I know for sure that MS is trying hard to take all these markets, but I also see customers choosing and trying Linux everywhere.
I'm sure not a genius to find the outcome from all of this, but apparently you are, though I didn't find any evidence of why you are right in your post.
It does not even piss me off, I think this is ridiculous. Especially your last sentences.
I must have a prediction too, so I say nobody will be able to escape a Linux OS from now on.
Wait and see.
accessibility doesn't have ANYTHING to do in a STORAGE FORMAT
Of course it does. If you can't read the storage format, you will have a hard time providing accessibility around it.
this is purely a software issue, with lots of money involved
I'm not so sure it is restricted to that.
how much do you wanna bet these so called "accessibility experts" are getting paid to say they don't want an open document format? who do you think is paying them?
Those that want to crush ODF are not accessibility experts and are paid by MS.
a sun accessibility expert? come on, this is the company that brought us JAVA, an accessibility nightmare in its own right
One has nothing to do with the other. This accessibility expert has a respectable bio, and contrary to what you say, JAVA has a good accessibility API. Java has many flaws perhaps, but this is not one of them.
I saw most of the work done by volunteers and SUN, which started 5 years ago at least for Gnome, and I know if there's an area where we FOSS users can thank SUN, that's accessibility.
Now's the chance for open source advocates to show the power of open source
No, not now. They started thinking that way 5 years ago, so you're pretty late to the thinking.
If enough volunteers step forward to resolve the accessibility issues in OpenOffice so that Massachusetts can go forward with their Open Document initiative then it will be a huge feather in the open source cap
I don't understand what you mean.
FOSS desktops ALREADY provides the support, and OOo 2 ALREADY uses it.
On Windows, there is NO useful accessibility support. Only MS Office is supported by 3rd parties.
Actually, you need several expensive 3rd parties made specifically for MS Office on Windows to provide the same level of accessibility that OOo provides on a Gnome desktop.
MS Office provides NO accessibility API, all of these is provided by hooks from 3rd parties.
So MS is actually in no position to speak about ODF accessibility, or of OOo accessibility (the app associated with ODF).
Using MS funded organisations and pushing disabled people (who remember their job loss due to no support from accessibility in Windows), MS is trying to crush ODF (and won't support ODF instead to help disabled people, how hypocritical).
and for the remainder of people, OpenOffice.org will work just as well under Windows for the folks that need the Accesibility tools, until Linux catches up (not long)
And just for you and the mods that modded you up without reading TFA, OOo will NOT work just as well on Windows, which has no useful accessibility API, and where all the tools more or less working are for MS Office specifically.
Something worse is that OSS desktops actually provide useful API to accessibility (and some award-winning tools) and some tools more powerful than even those tailored for MS Office on Windows.
The only really lacking area on OSS desktops is speech recognition actually. Screen reading is being improved.
I think the worst, is the actual abysmal support of MS and Windows for accessibility, and their history (summed up in TFA) is really not sth to brag about.
There are basically 2 problems :
- No or poor support from vendors to anything except MS Office
- Packaged speech recognition on platforms other than Windows
Had you take the time to read TFA (but being a shill, you could not), you would have learned the following things :
- Open Source is pretty efficient in providing accessibility API
- MS and MS Windows are the more deficient systems concerning accessibility API
- Support for accessibility from vendors is specific to MS Office in Windows
- Support for accessibility from vendors is very poor or inexistant for anything else
- OSS desktops actually offer some tools more powerful than what is available from ISV on Windows
Open Source desktops provide accessibility APIs, Jave provide accessibility API, but MS Windows do not provide any useful accessibility API. It's specifically explained in the article that JAWS made significant investment to provide accessibility tailored for MS Office, as Windows has no API for such things, for example. So it's not that open source software is deficient, but that ISV do not support anything beside MS Office. Mandating ODF would mean the present provider of accessibility tools will have an incentive to provide the support other Office suites need.
if OSS developers want adoption by government institutions, they'd better make accessability a consideration
Except that, as always, they already do and you are clueless (and you won't even read the article to be less clueless). Accessibility was one big consideration behind Gnome 2, and recently in KDE 3. It's very efficient, and for example, there are at least two (optional) libraries and apps (for example gok, at-spi) specifically for that in Gnome, and it's supported by most of the Gnome core apps (people often complain about the amount of libraries in Gnome, perhaps they will start to understand why this is the case).
The problem here is actually in Windows which has no API for that, and manufacturers that do not use Java or OSS APIs for their tools, not the dedication of OSS in accessibility, or the state of it.
Of course, the state of the API and tools dedicated to accessibility can be improved, as some bugs remain, and the features can be improved too, but the support is there and alive.
Biggest work is from manufacturers. I think JAWS (or others) can adapt their product to these API if they want to have a part of the pie.
MS is not stupid. They know exactly what supercomputer owners are paying in licenses as part of the total cost (they're not all Linux), and I'm sure they'd steeply discount the license to get into the space they want.
...
You can be sure, you can state things, that does not make them true. I still don't understand what they are trying to acheive here. This move reinforces my belief that MS really think people love to use their OS.
They bring very little value to the back end.
Actually they bring none.
Windows has no advantage there.
So we agree they bring no value.
It's a C, C++, or Fortan (mixed, even) job running MPI over some specialized interconnect hardware.
Remember what you said here
You also need a good parallel file system
I don't think so, perhaps for some niche apps. Most of the data travels through IPC and highly efficient and fast communication mechanisms, not files. Files are for the end results on the master system.
However, their strong suit in this space are tools like IDEs. If they can convince folks that using Windows as a front-end to development, then they can make some good inroads.
Remember what you said earlier ? I don't understand this statement of yours.
I don't know of any MS IDE that works well for developing Unix/Linux apps.
IIRC MS IDE (till the latest versions) is only powerful with MS APIs, not at all with FORTRAN or generic compliant C and C++, POSIX, or even MPI.
Of course, the goal of a cluster is not to have a cool IDE, it is to provide the fastest possible accurate results. So I don't see what their cluster OS is for. Don't tell me they made an OS just to run an IDE !? That looks pretty stupid to me, despite what you believe about MS.
As soon as you try to talk of them replacing the cluster OS with MS one, it's already a stupid solution, in terms of cost, reliability, efficiency. They just can't beat Linux on cost, no need to even talk about the other terms. And old Unixes still used in these clusters will be replaced with Linux, not Windows.
I guess Windows can pay some first sites to prove their OS (for now it's still beta), but in the end of the day, people putting clusters in place need results, they can't put up with BSOD or locks or poor perfs.
Right now the supercomputing folks are starting to get interested in Eclipse, and they're trying to head that off, not to mention small ISV's like us.
In case you did not remember, Eclipse runs on these OSes used for clusters. No MS app does, and I'd even dare to say none of their OS does (except an hypothetical unknown one).
this is a perfect example of what's wrong with the Linux desktop
... a warning
...
No, this is a perfect example of what's right with the Mandriva desktop.
Mandriva pops up a window when you connect a digital camera to give you the option of importing your photos
Except you're completely wrong, which just shows that you were modded by anti-Linux zealots.
It pops up a dialog when you connect a USB card or when you see the camera as a USB storage device.
If you actually access your camera by its protocol or PPTP, it won't pop up a dialog because obviously, Mandriva knows that there are photos on it.
It's great there, because then it guides the user to the photo managing app.
Great! But the title bar reads "Warning". No problem for us geeks, but now, think Grandma
No problem for Grandma either, as she will see the big friendly warning icon, which :
- is not red
- does not contain a cross
- looks like
I'm pretty convinced your rant is a red herring, as most people will look, in order, at :
- the icon
- the big bold text in the dialog
- what's written on the buttons
- eventually the text in the dialog
There's a big chance they will never even see the dialog had a title.
What is she going to do when she gets a warning? Will she think that an error has occurred? Perhaps.
No, she sure as hell won't, as the first thing her eye will catch is the icon, which sure as hell do not look like a frightening error, but just a friendly warning.
That's why these dialog boxes need to have the polish and unified feel that they do on XP or OS X.
Which they have
In case you did not know, these dialog icons are stock GTK icons (not even Gnome, GTK !!).
If you talk about the mix of GTK and KDE on Mandriva desktop, please remember that even some MS apps have not the same toolkit on Windows than the rest of the desktop, and have exactly the same problem.
For example, some security dialogs of WinX SP2 are completely out of place compared to other dialogs. Or look at MS Office. Talk about "unified feel".
Since I live in Paris and I used to live in one of those poor suburbs
... ... ...
I live in the suburbs, and I know some people in these poor suburbs. I knew a lot of them and know how they think, what they endure every day.
1. There is no country in Europe that does not struggle with immigrants and children from immigrants from African origin. France has the largest number of them, hence the biggest problems
This is just not true. You talk like only immigrants of African origin are a problem. This is completely wrong, and the population of poor suburbs are not limited to immigrants of African origin. Your last sentence is racist at best. Poor families of any nationalities live in poor suburbs. You already forgot the poor people thet died burnt in Paris some months ago, and there was no riot.
2. Many of those rioters are simply criminals that do not want the police to be present in these suburbs and are demonstrating that it is their territory.
Yes, many are just criminals, but they just show that they are stronger than police, and they are fueled by their success they see on TV.
3. Islam has nothing
4. These bloggers were
5.
Well I agree.
6. These riots happen almost exclusively in the poor suburbs of France, 99% of the French population has only seen burning cars on TV.
No, these "riots" happen everywhere, even in Paris. But it's true 99 % of French population have only seen cars burn on TV.
This is a very good article on some of the reasons behind the rioting
No this is not. The true reason is that 2 innocent youths died during a police intervention, and the "chief of police" said the police had nothing to do with it the day after.
When you are one of those people, enduring bad treatments and discrimination from police, and you hear that, you think : "now the police can kill us and go away with it with a poor excuse or a lie".
That's this fear that started the riot. IMHO the rest is fueled by political groups that jumped on the occasion.
The issue, as always, is more complicated
I live in France and know pretty well the psychology of these people, it's not complicated at all, sorry, it's actually pretty simple.
What you have are immigrant population from French colonies in North Africa who have entered France through their weaker immigration laws
Actually, France needed cheap labor at the time, and promised them work and home. So they came. Reality was hard work and cheap home.
The French are traditionally very nationalistic, and the immigrants were discriminated against and were not assimilated into mainstream cultures. Secondly, the middle-eastern culture itself is very prideful, mainly becase of their religious practices and family customs. The net result was that the immigrants self-segretated themselves into comminities of like-minded peoples
Nonsense. These people, with their hard work (far from their work location), just had no time to do anything other than work. When you're exhausted, it's way harder to integrate yourself (learn the language or educate your children). Immigrants were not self-segregated, they were all put together in the same cheap apartments.
So, the dominant european ethnics (through prejudice) resisted their assimilation, which had the net result of limiting the earning potential of the middle-eastern ethnics
Still true today.
The immigrants resist learning the French language and culture, and because of French law, are denied representation in their governments
Nothing to do with the law, it's a false secret, but access to high education is greatly influenced by where you live, which is greatly influenced by your income. It's nothing like the USA here in France, even for jobs and how they are paid.
When the government does try to "help" them with social programs, their culture see it as insulting / condescending
That's not true. They ask for more.
The net result of this is a hatred of a government that is constantly trying to patronize them and force them to give up their heritage
This is completely wrong. They have no more hatred for our government than other citizen. The problems are well known and here, it is the police forces. See the movie "La Haine" to have a good vision of what the problem is with some police forces (think Rodney King).
So, these neighborhoods tend to have less governmental police prescence than other suburbs of Paris, which tends to lead to more criminal elements
Not true either. Number of police force is dependant on your wealth and popularity (so, given what I said above, where you live).
It had gotten so bad, representatives of the federal government of France were claiming that they would "clean up the scum", which didn't go so well with the locals. In the latest chain of events, there were two youths who were fleeing police, hid in a utility station and accidentally electrocuted themselves. The immigrant cultures see this as police brutality & oppression, something denied by the authorities.
Don't know what USA TV relay, but this is all backwards and partly false.
Everything started when 2 youths died in an utility station. Still no riot. We DO NOT KNOW for now what actually happened. Accident ? Not sure. Pursuit by police ? Not sure. We don't know. But the day after this tragic accident, the very well-known president candidate Sarkozy (for now, think he is Chief of Police) makes a huge mistake. Without any prior investigation, he says : "police was not responsible for the death of these youths". When you know how the people having the same life of these youths think, what they endure, and the fact that these youths never did anything bad in their life, you can immediately see the riots coming. And that's what happened. Bad guys who love to burn and break things go in the middle, they are encouraged by TV which report they deeds, count the number of cars they burnt.
Others in other towns see that, and eve
If you are going to take the strategy of "We will do things to attempt to force you to do thigns our way," don't be supprised if the response of companies is "Fine, then we will ignore you."
Except that you have it backwards. In this case, these are the companies and their supporters that say "We will do things to attempt to force you to do thigns our way", "our way" being "put binary drivers in Linux".
And the kernel developers are those that say "Fine, then we will ignore you", not the other way around.
The simple fact of the matter is that most companies are not willing to go open source, for software or drivers
That's their choice, but kernel developers ask nothing of the like. They ask for specs for example.
The problem is that Linux is a bit player. They are larger than the other bit players, but they are still tiny
There is no problem. Linux usage is only growing. If people ask for binary driver interface, that's because there is an interest in Linux. Linux grew with this policy, that's one of its quality, there's no way we will give up what made its success.
Given that the continous rewrites can get expensive, the choice for many will simply be not to write the driver.
The better choice would be to give the specs and let the kernel experts write the driver.
So if you are ok with that, then great, but don't get mad at companies when they won't play by your rules
Here, we get mad because THEY want US to play by their rule, stop getting it backwards.
In the end, it comes down to needing to make a decision of what you want Linux to be
No, it comes down to what Linus and kernel developers want it to be, and this has been pretty clear from the start, there is even a text doc in the kernel doc (by GKH) that explains why binary drivers are not wanted.
If you want Linux to try and become the next big thing in OSes and start to really make an entrance in the home market, standardisation is needed
Two problems in what you say :
- We don't want what you say we want, we just want drivers. Unfortunately, this apparently means we need to force the vendors to provide them, so we need market share.
- You have it backwards again. Standardisation is external to Linux. Every hardware standard is supported in Linux you know. The non-standard hardware are those that need special drivers. Manufacturers not able to standardise on their products have no lesson to give Linux devs IMHO.
You talk about geeks, but then you complain that Linux won't be able to get access to the latest geek toy for a lack of driver. You want to put the same shackles on Linux than the ones on Windows, I say NO !
Had it not been for Linux, in 2001, I would have had to buy 3 pieces of hardware which are perfectly functional on Linux. Most of the time, what works on Linux works way better than on Windows too (that's my experience). I don't want to give up on all this.
For many companies, there are no benefits to going open source
That's why it's a hard choice. Anyway, the rest of your rant is wrong, as ATI and NVidia actually work with the community on the libre drivers. They help on what they can without liability.
And I think you are a zealot, more than GKH, who is a Linux kernel contributor, and explained why the binary interface is no good. The doc is distributed with any linux kernel tarball, and reviewed by several kernel contributors. So you basically call these kernel contributors zealots ? You are the zealot and troll me thinks.
Also, FYI, the custom TLS scheme is userspace (library) and has little to do with the kernel. The kernel only support TLS. When you have a crash because of these TLS scheme (like I had), your app crash, not the complete kernel.
And I think businesses won't talk of "this Greg KH guy kind" but rather of "this important kernel contributor".
It's not "impossible" to debug binary software
Of course not. But if we get our drivers in the same time frame that you provide Wine working, we're better off with the current situation. Having to reboot is worse than not having a backtrace for a game.
A stable binary module interface would help open source developers too
How ? You did not provide any hint of that. You only talked about people that tried to put things into deep kernel layers (VFS is not the same as a hardware driver interface).
And asking the kernel developers to change their way to enhance a user land app is sth strongly disapproved, especially when it's to behave the Windows way like in Wine. I say the kernel developers were right to not allow this, as I see what you describe as trying to go the easy and dirty way, instead of analysing the problem. You have FUSE now if you want to use the "elegant" solution for ZeroInstall. So you can now make ZeroInstall user space more easily.
Tell me, what BIOS do you run ?
The kernel can boot from it for now, and take over then, so we have control. And there is at least one free BIOS project under way.
Do you have the source to the firmware in your IDE disk drive ?
No, but it has to obey a standard to have a chance to communicate with the motherboard and the OS without special drivers. These drivers are all in the kernel, so we have control.
In your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive ?
They have to obey some standard too (ATAPI at least), so we have control.
Do you have the source to your SCSI controller's firmware ?
No, but we have the source of the driver. This is actually the only problematic hardware among those you listed. Some people spend time analysing how to circumvent hindrances in these firmwares (mostly zone change count for DVD). I still have to choose carefully a DVD drive for which I can find a firmware not crippled.
If you think you have control over your computer you are suffering under a delusion.
I don't think so.
Simplicity of the installation process? Last year I installed a Mandrake 9 on a VM. I had a functional install which I used for 2 weeks and then forgotten. This year I had to dust it off and install some new software for it.
So last year you installed a by then out of date distro (MDK 9 came in 2002 I think), OK. You forgot to say it was the download edition, OK.
You had to install some new software for it OK.
Poof! The installation system is broken
No it's not, but you sure are a troll.
the software repositories don't work
They actually don't exist anymore, which is true if you used a download edition. Anyway, the software is probably available on your CDs.
nothing upgrades not only automatically
Of course, as you have no more repository for this version.
but even most things fail during manual installation due to library dependencies and even the Mandrake websites no longer exist
That's because you've done the same mistake as a lot of Linux distro newbies : you thought you were smart enough to use Linux without support in a setup even advanced user don't use (2 years old distro, now 3) and what's aggravating, you left it for a year without maintenance, and now want an up to date system, but you just realised you are not smart enough to do that (it involves getting the new version and upgrading from the CD or DVD).
End result: I cannot install software on a year old Linux system.
Actually you can, it involves updating the system entirely if you want latest softwares though, and it works well, though I don't know if it works well for MDK 9 -> Mandriva 2006, but I know MDK 9 -> MDK 10 -> MDV 2006 works well.
Just shows that the installation process is very simple indeed.
When theory and reality disagree, reality wins. Windows software is, in general, at this moment in time easier to install than Linux software.
...), and very hard to install on Linux.
... relatively seamlessly).
...
You are right : Linux software is, in general, at this moment in time easier to install than Windows software.
For example, Gimp is installed by default on Mandriva, and more difficult, but still easy to install on Windows. But Photoshop is hard to install on Windows (have to go buy it, expensive,
If you disagree with this statement, you are at best guilty of wishful thinking.
Ditto for mine.
That said, there seems to be an unhealthy fixation in the Linux world with the "ease of OS installation" or "the ease of application installation."
You seem to think unhealthily that it is a fixation. This topic appears only when trolls like you spout opinion as argument, opinions like the one from you above.
While most linux vendors have made admirable strides in the realm of OS installation to the point where the installation is now within the realm of 60% of computer users (compared to, I'd say, 70% for windows and 10% or less for linux 6 years ago)
I could pull numbers from out of my a** too, but I'll just say that I never saw an average user install Windows, so from my statistics, we are at 0 ù for Windows.
larger problems remain, such as the lack of true credible alternatives in many key software areas (gimp, for example, is a lousy photoshop clone)
And back on earth, I never saw an average user install Photoshop or even buy it. On the contrary, I've seen a lot of people use Gimp. That GIMP is a lousy photoshop clone is a (bad) opinion of yours. I could say that Cinepaint, that is an old fork of GIMP, is used extensively for movies; that Gimp is but a fraction of the price of Photoshop; that GIMP is available for all the platforms Photoshop is available on, the contrary can not be said.
So you see, your trollish comment and flawed logic just made you mistake the word "niche" with "key" in the expression "key area". Even worse, FYI, Gimp is not perceived as a problem. The only problem in your phrase, is Photoshop, which is not available for Linux, and that's a problem only Adobe can fix.
a lack of true interoperability (like the fact that I can cut and paste items from powerpoint to photoshop to my email to into an MS-Access cell to
If only you understood what interoperability means, perhaps we could talk seriously
FYI, what you described is not interoperability.
I think pretty much by definition if people have to write long rambling articles "explaining" why it's so much easier to install software on Linux than Windows, it probably isn't.
That's because your logic is incorrect.
In math, explaining why "1 + 1 = 2" is a very long process too (and not trivial), which does not mean that learning that 1 + 1 = 2 is hard.
Where what you say is flawed, is that explaining why it's much easier to install software on Linux is not the same as explaining how to install software on Linux.
If you read the article, you would have seen that explaining how to install software on Mandriva :
- is very simple
- is explained in the manual (hard copy or PDF on the site or doc package)
Saying anything works "flawlessly" once installed in absolute BS
... NOT).
It's not. But I understand why you can't believe it. People would not believe me either when I told them what I could do with Linux. That's a Windows mindset for sure.
I've had kernels crap out while compiling a module, daemons mysteriously shut off without leaving a log trail, one of my monitors in a dual monitor (Xinerama) setup come up with goofy vertical lines
Your first problem only happened to me when I was having hardware problems (bad memory) a long time ago, and the second looks like a hardware problem too.
Windows "flaws" tend to be easy to fix because so many people use Windows
On the other hand, this is BS. My SCSI problem was not easy to fix, I had a very hard time finding a solution for my problem (WinXP BSOD at boot time even in safe mode). Finally I found the solution on MS page thanks to Google on the Linux dual-boot patition (it involved installing with the dos command line and a special driver disk btw, cool
You meant "so many people struggle with Windows", I can agree with that, that's consistant with what I see every time. In Linux it is very different : people search for a solution, not for a workaround. A workaround in Linux is always considered a failure. In Linux, people fix things, make bugreports. Look at all the bugzillas and forum there are, all of them to fix problems. There are forums for Windows, even more, full of people with problems, but solutions are rare, workarounds abound. And often, when there is a solution, it's so tedious I'm amazed the guy put up with it every time.
Linux has a lot of that, too, but you have to know where to go to get the right answers sometimes
Which means your distro provider or forums, and it works without problem.
I'm tired of seeing the "Linux works flawlessly" argument
I don't think you are. I think you are 'pissed', which is not the same.
That's a behaviour I experience every time with Windows shills, because they have so many hassles to keep with their Windows running, seeing sth having fun with computing is beyond them.
Every time I work with Windows at work, you can bet there are problems every week. And they always blame the user when sth does not work (except when it's them, then they blame someone else).