As it turns out, almost the entire technically literate population of India knows/converses in English, with varying levels of proficiency, of course.
If you know something about India, you'd probably have heard that we have like hundreds of languages spoken all over India (18 are official). For that reason, English has for some time been the language for inter-regional communication.
Unfortunately, we have a major illiteracy problem in the regional languages themselves to aggressively promote English too. ie, our priority is to have most of the population literate first in the regional language (ie the language prevelant in the region they stay in), and then move on to promoting English.
As a result, in the urban areas, English is taught right from kindergarten; in semi-urban areas, English is taught from Grade 6 upwards, and of course rural areas don't do English at all.
I really doubt if this has happened as a result of goverment policy, but that is the situation now. I, coming from this background, am pretty comfortable with this; especially since government rules mandate that the entry to technical schools will not be related to demonstrable profiency in English, but the same will be the language of higer education (in most cases). This way, a person from a different background gets a chance to learn English after getting through the (very tough!) entrance examinations.
Coming to Internet; in India it's still an urban phenomenon. However, there is lots of scope for computer deployment in semi-urban and rural areas; not for surfing the net, but for infrastructure, just like here in the US. The hitch, obviously, is that the very areas that are most useful in terms of computerization are the ones that have the least English proficiency.
Hence the need of language distributions of Linux. Its absence will be a major deterrant in its deployment in the field (as opposed to in the urban areas, where it already has significant presence)
Finally, an off-topic point. Even MS Windows doesn't really have very good support for indian languages, even if it is available. (Compare Chinese/Korean/Japanese...) This funny fact is due to the aforesaid reality: computer deployment (not even talking about internet here) has traditionally been in areas where a significant computer-handling population knows English: a situation quite unlike any other country (Compare China/Korea/Japan).
Hence, never has there been a strong motivation for any major company to develop language OS/software for India: we don't care, we'll use the English version .
In Sum: if Linux does provide good support for the regional languages, combined with the fact that it's so cost-effective, it'll be lapped up by the government/NGOs like anything. This will be good both for India AND Linux: imagine the numbers!
Sounds exactly like what CmdrTaco told me when I asked him when he was going to release Slash sourcecode. I'd sent an idea for a poll:
Why hasn't Rob released Slash: 1. He's afraid of loopholes in SLASH that will be instantly exploited 2. He knows that the code is crappy as hell, and is moderately ashamed 3. He's in the Cathedral, slooooowly planning to move to the bazaar (too slow?) 4. andover.net doesn't want him to release code for fear of being cloned 5. the density of adult language comments is surprisingly high 6. "He's a hypocrite!" shouts/. readership
To the last he replied: "My personal favorite. Of course, as always, every email bitching about the Slash code release delays the release by another 24 hours."
I couldn't agree more. I've been with/. for a long time, and am as regular as one can possibly be. However, if there is one thing that tends to put me off, that's the commentary.
Hemos: we *know* you like Biotech... and we're really sorry about the geek compund.. even the cellphone. Roblimo: yeah, the limo service is cool, and hope you get wireless worked out. CmdrTaco: did you finish Cryptonomicon? I remember you were itching to read it. JonKatz: well... *sigh*. You were the first slashbox I deactivated (CmdrTaco actually suggested it on the page, y'know)... but no fear! I reactivated you again!:-) CmdrTaco: we remember your travails through trying to manage school and run the website.
Anyways. my point is this: unfortunately,/. is now a portal, like it or not: a more geeky portal, but that nevertheless. Somewhere along the line, you've changed (and you know that) from being a personal page (Chips and Dips was it?) to something that's in the public glare, and hence you need to be accountable to what you write.
After all, it was fun when we all discovered the/. effect... and it was probably humorous when we voted Linus in as the best couple in that Finnish (or was it in Amsterdm?) ball.... without even having been there! But should we still keep on doing that?
So this long-winded prose is simply to establish my credentials, and say that hey! Sorry friends, but you no longer can decide on what commentry to post... it *has* to be something that is as impartial as possible... most importantly because the news stories are as important as the comments (notice irony)
So Hemos, Roblimo (CmdrTaco: you do well but can't pass without blame)... please avoid expressing your personal opinions in the posts! the idea of allowing the first post is actually a pretty good one.
And this here is a flamebait: guys! resist the temptation to appear smart in front of the/. readership! Someone out there can do better analysis, and may not share your views! Should the archived article really be frozen with your views on it?
I switched from KDE/KWM to GNOME/E recently, mainly because it was default in the new computer, and, face it guys (even KDE guys agree mostly), GNOME/E is definitely better looking.
However, in terms of just using the mouse, KDE scores! With zillions of windows, I found myself Alt-tabbing with comfort on KDE desktops, primarily because of the windows-style icon list that pops up.
E, because of the way it handles Alt-tabbing, (I'm told) can't do this icon-listy-thingy. That's sad, because sometimes I choose my window *while* my Alt is pressed: it might be a window on some other workspace, but since the icon's there, I can keep pressing tab till I get to it... instead of doing Alt-tab and have each window in the ring refresh as its displayed; even before my desired window comes up.
Given that i usually work in emacs/xterms/lynx, Alt-tabbing is one huge reason less to use the mousy. Netscaping is usually very mouse intensive, but I'm more relaxed then, as opposed to when I'm coding and don't wanna move my hands all over the desk;-)
This thing is coming more and more in the news... I was lucky enough to see the demo some time back.
It's really sweet: absolutely quiet... you could put 100s together and still have pindrop silence (there is no fan to cool off the cpu essentially).
Two modes of login are supported: the first looks like the normal solaris login, and probably works like logging in from an XTerm (or fakes this; see later)
The other is much more interesting. It uses a JavaCard. Essentially, you insert a JavaCard in an usused terminal slot, and you get back your workspace... when you're done, just remove the card, and your workspace flashes out, and the login screen reappears.
It's very neat, in the demo, they started an MP3 player, and when the song was midway, removed the card. Almost instantaneously, the login screen was up. She went up to another station, inserted the card, and the MP3 started playing from where it had been stopped!!
There were some graphical demos too... but that imho depends on the network bandwidth and how fast the server is, since all the processing is being done there.
I guess they are checkpointing various kinds of state for each user on the server... *very* server intensive, but a single point of administration (and failure!) is the plus (minus!) point, i guess...
Could someone please post screenshots of this thing? Seems like something really interesting...
I'll probably going to check this out in a few days, but how does it work: does it boot off a CD directly into a minimal GUI interface? (like Caldera or Corel) If it's written in perl I'm not too sure...
Hmmm... Well I've never even *used* Debian, much less develop any of it (no religious reasons, never got hold of it or had a free m/c to load it on. Hear it's pretty good tho... (there, now nobody'll flame me:-)))
I wonder how Red Hat created their list... it says "Dear open source community member", and I haven't really contributed to Open Source just yet (that's changing in the next month, however)... hmmm...
Mark Hall (in his article in Performance Computing) how Bob Herbold, Microsoft's COO and EVP, spoke in his "Keynotemercial" at PCExpo this week about the way prices have been dropping over the years. To quote Hall:
For example, he noted that in 1990 an "average" PC cost $3,000, and today only $600. He also revealed that the elements of MS Office cost $1,500 in 1990, while Office 2000 "only" costs $499. So the MS software suite cost up to 50 percent of what a PC cost in 1990, but today it is 83 percent. I suggest Bob change his infomercial speech, unless he thinks his audience can't do the math.
Change "audience" to anything you feel appropriate. computer manufacturers? why not users??? who have to pay a bundle for the MS Office they inevitably need to buy considering the market dominance of the aforementioned bloat.
You bet!! I knew i was a slashdot addict when i found it was taking 60% of all the time i was spending in front of a computer (which, of course, was 60% of my entire day: including the time spent in sleeping)
But now that I'm back in India for a while, I've confirmed this status, by checking slashdot out once every hour... with a speed that's sometimes 5 bytes/sec, and rarely more than 1.2 Kbytes/sec... plus the dozens of slashboxes... it's still very worth the wait!!!
and no, I'm not willing to go in for a "light" version.... the slashboxes count!!:-) up with dustpuppy!
It's funny that Gates should comment that large software projects can't be undertaken in "university-type" environs...
At USC, MS Research "donated" machines for grad student rooms... the rider being that nothing but NT crash on them: we can't even partition them! And MIT and Stanford of course....
And the lucre.:-( one of USC-LUG office bearers is interning at microsoft this summer... ostensibly "ONLY for the cash". hmmm.
btw, the librettos run linux.. we have 4-5 of them here at the CS dept at USC, and all run 2.2.2. NOt a breeze though.. and it's suspect you'll be able to get your boss to switch anyways...:-)
Slashdot Mirror
You can play DVD on your background (you have to set your background color to a specific value, start up the DVD, then hide the DVD player).
i can't find anything on the web regarding this... what background color do you need to set your desktop to?
so then, someone care to annotate this image with the names?
. sh tml?Kernel02/convs/12x10_dscn4027.jpg
http://images.dibona.com/pictures/showpic/index
(I'm an Indian student working on my PhD at USC.)
As it turns out, almost the entire technically literate population of India knows/converses in English, with varying levels of proficiency, of course.
If you know something about India, you'd probably have heard that we have like hundreds of languages spoken all over India (18 are official). For that reason, English has for some time been the language for inter-regional communication.
Unfortunately, we have a major illiteracy problem in the regional languages themselves to aggressively promote English too. ie, our priority is to have most of the population literate first in the regional language (ie the language prevelant in the region they stay in), and then move on to promoting English.
As a result, in the urban areas, English is taught right from kindergarten; in semi-urban areas, English is taught from Grade 6 upwards, and of course rural areas don't do English at all.
I really doubt if this has happened as a result of goverment policy, but that is the situation now. I, coming from this background, am pretty comfortable with this; especially since government rules mandate that the entry to technical schools will not be related to demonstrable profiency in English, but the same will be the language of higer education (in most cases). This way, a person from a different background gets a chance to learn English after getting through the (very tough!) entrance examinations.
Coming to Internet; in India it's still an urban phenomenon. However, there is lots of scope for computer deployment in semi-urban and rural areas; not for surfing the net, but for infrastructure, just like here in the US. The hitch, obviously, is that the very areas that are most useful in terms of computerization are the ones that have the least English proficiency.
Hence the need of language distributions of Linux. Its absence will be a major deterrant in its deployment in the field (as opposed to in the urban areas, where it already has significant presence)
Finally, an off-topic point. Even MS Windows doesn't really have very good support for indian languages, even if it is available. (Compare Chinese/Korean/Japanese...) This funny fact is due to the aforesaid reality: computer deployment (not even talking about internet here) has traditionally been in areas where a significant computer-handling population knows English: a situation quite unlike any other country (Compare China/Korea/Japan).
Hence, never has there been a strong motivation for any major company to develop language OS/software for India: we don't care, we'll use the English version .
In Sum: if Linux does provide good support for the regional languages, combined with the fact that it's so cost-effective, it'll be lapped up by the government/NGOs like anything. This will be good both for India AND Linux: imagine the numbers!
Sounds exactly like what CmdrTaco told me when I asked him when he was going to release Slash sourcecode. I'd sent an idea for a poll:
/. readership
Why hasn't Rob released Slash:
1. He's afraid of loopholes in SLASH that will be instantly exploited
2. He knows that the code is crappy as hell, and is moderately ashamed
3. He's in the Cathedral, slooooowly planning to move to the bazaar (too slow?)
4. andover.net doesn't want him to release code for fear of being cloned
5. the density of adult language comments is surprisingly high
6. "He's a hypocrite!" shouts
To the last he replied:
"My personal favorite. Of course, as always, every email bitching about the
Slash code release delays the release by another 24 hours."
*sigh*
:-)
amit
I couldn't agree more. I've been with /. for a long time, and am as regular as one can possibly be. However, if there is one thing that tends to put me off, that's the commentary.
:-) CmdrTaco: we remember your travails through trying to manage school and run the website.
/. is now a portal, like it or not: a more geeky portal, but that nevertheless. Somewhere along the line, you've changed (and you know that) from being a personal page (Chips and Dips was it?) to something that's in the public glare, and hence you need to be accountable to what you write.
/. effect... and it was probably humorous when we voted Linus in as the best couple in that Finnish (or was it in Amsterdm?) ball.... without even having been there! But should we still keep on doing that?
/. readership! Someone out there can do better analysis, and may not share your views! Should the archived article really be frozen with your views on it?
Hemos: we *know* you like Biotech... and we're really sorry about the geek compund.. even the cellphone. Roblimo: yeah, the limo service is cool, and hope you get wireless worked out. CmdrTaco: did you finish Cryptonomicon? I remember you were itching to read it. JonKatz: well... *sigh*. You were the first slashbox I deactivated (CmdrTaco actually suggested it on the page, y'know)... but no fear! I reactivated you again!
Anyways. my point is this: unfortunately,
After all, it was fun when we all discovered the
So this long-winded prose is simply to establish my credentials, and say that hey! Sorry friends, but you no longer can decide on what commentry to post... it *has* to be something that is as impartial as possible... most importantly because the news stories are as important as the comments (notice irony)
So Hemos, Roblimo (CmdrTaco: you do well but can't pass without blame)... please avoid expressing your personal opinions in the posts! the idea of allowing the first post is actually a pretty good one.
And this here is a flamebait: guys! resist the temptation to appear smart in front of the
amit
I switched from KDE/KWM to GNOME/E recently, mainly because it was default in the new computer, and, face it guys (even KDE guys agree mostly), GNOME/E is definitely better looking.
However, in terms of just using the mouse, KDE scores! With zillions of windows, I found myself Alt-tabbing with comfort on KDE desktops, primarily because of the windows-style icon list that pops up.
E, because of the way it handles Alt-tabbing, (I'm told) can't do this icon-listy-thingy. That's sad, because sometimes I choose my window *while* my Alt is pressed: it might be a window on some other workspace, but since the icon's there, I can keep pressing tab till I get to it... instead of doing Alt-tab and have each window in the ring refresh as its displayed; even before my desired window comes up.
Given that i usually work in emacs/xterms/lynx, Alt-tabbing is one huge reason less to use the mousy. Netscaping is usually very mouse intensive, but I'm more relaxed then, as opposed to when I'm coding and don't wanna move my hands all over the desk
amit
...and my comment about Microsoft was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek...
of course! there is a "wall"!! i was just pointing out the irony....
didn't like the fact that i was made out to look like an idiot... which i probably am anyways *grin*
amit
This thing is coming more and more in the news... I was lucky enough to see the demo some time back.
It's really sweet: absolutely quiet... you could put 100s together and still have pindrop silence (there is no fan to cool off the cpu essentially).
Two modes of login are supported: the first looks like the normal solaris login, and probably works like logging in from an XTerm (or fakes this; see later)
The other is much more interesting. It uses a JavaCard. Essentially, you insert a JavaCard in an usused terminal slot, and you get back your workspace... when you're done, just remove the card, and your workspace flashes out, and the login screen reappears.
It's very neat, in the demo, they started an MP3 player, and when the song was midway, removed the card. Almost instantaneously, the login screen was up. She went up to another station, inserted the card, and the MP3 started playing from where it had been stopped!!
There were some graphical demos too... but that imho depends on the network bandwidth and how fast the server is, since all the processing is being done there.
I guess they are checkpointing various kinds of state for each user on the server... *very* server intensive, but a single point of administration (and failure!) is the plus (minus!) point, i guess...
amit
Could someone please post screenshots of this thing? Seems like something really interesting...
I'll probably going to check this out in a few days, but how does it work: does it boot off a CD directly into a minimal GUI interface? (like Caldera or Corel) If it's written in perl I'm not too sure...
Somebody enlighten this poor bloke please...
amit
It says "non-transferable" in the email... *shrug*
amit
I'm an F-1 student at USC, and haven't been in the US for more than an year. However, I do have an SSN. Does that qualify me as a "US resident"?
;-))
Either way, how can I find out? ie, who do I talk to? (Er... I'd really prefer a free (as in beer) source
amit
Hmmm... Well I've never even *used* Debian, much less develop any of it (no religious reasons, never got hold of it or had a free m/c to load it on. Hear it's pretty good tho... (there, now nobody'll flame me :-)))
amit
I wonder how Red Hat created their list... it says "Dear open source community member", and I haven't really contributed to Open Source just yet (that's changing in the next month, however)... hmmm...
You haven't been giving out emails, have you Rob?
:-)
amit
what's the checkbook app you use? i've been looking for a good one for ages :-(
amit
Mark Hall (in his article in Performance Computing) how Bob Herbold, Microsoft's COO and EVP, spoke in his "Keynotemercial" at PCExpo this week about the way prices have been dropping over the years. To quote Hall:
For example, he noted that in
1990 an "average" PC cost $3,000, and
today only $600. He also revealed that
the elements of MS Office cost $1,500 in
1990, while Office 2000 "only" costs
$499. So the MS software suite cost up
to 50 percent of what a PC cost in 1990,
but today it is 83 percent. I suggest Bob
change his infomercial speech, unless
he thinks his audience can't do the math.
Change "audience" to anything you feel appropriate. computer manufacturers? why not users??? who have to pay a bundle for the MS Office they inevitably need to buy considering the market dominance of the aforementioned bloat.
amit
hmmm... can't locate a way of posting a "root" comment :-(
anyways, is it just me or is there a pun in the post? Rob posted his "commnts" that are linked to "commets.html"...
hmmm....
amit
You bet!! I knew i was a slashdot addict when i found it was taking 60% of all the time i was spending in front of a computer (which, of course, was 60% of my entire day: including the time spent in sleeping)
But now that I'm back in India for a while, I've confirmed this status, by checking slashdot out once every hour... with a speed that's sometimes 5 bytes/sec, and rarely more than 1.2 Kbytes/sec... plus the dozens of slashboxes... it's still very worth the wait!!!
and no, I'm not willing to go in for a "light" version.... the slashboxes count!!
amit
It's funny that Gates should comment that large
:-( one of USC-LUG office bearers is interning at microsoft this summer... ostensibly "ONLY for the cash". hmmm.
software projects can't be undertaken in "university-type" environs...
At USC, MS Research "donated" machines for grad
student rooms... the rider being that nothing
but NT crash on them: we can't even partition them! And MIT and Stanford of course....
And the lucre.
amit
btw, the librettos run linux.. we have 4-5 of them :-)
here at the CS dept at USC, and all run 2.2.2. NOt
a breeze though.. and it's suspect you'll be able
to get your boss to switch anyways...
and yes, good for presentations!!
amit