Since end users are allowed to submit bugs, the only ones that should be counted are those that are confirmed
Ok. So how long do bugs get to hang out in an unconfirmed status before something should be done then?
I submitted a bug during the 1.5 testing cycle nearly two months ago. It's still hanging out in unconfirmed status. As best I can tell there's nobody looking at it. It's certainly not high priority, but it annoys me daily -- one of the websites I use daily scrolls down improperly when you use the back button (or alt-left/backspace/etc).
There are over 3000 unconfirmed bugs for Firefox right now. I'm sure a large number of those are duplicate or invalid, but if even 10% of them are valid bugs then that's nearly double the number you list. And of those you list there are some that have been hanging out for years and are significant UI or stability issues -- 218223 is an example of the former, and 244713 for the latter (there's an older critical bug, but it's apparantly hard to track down the cause).
I love FF and use it on every box I have, as well as recommend it heavily to friends and family, but I am rather disappointed with 1.5's stability. They added some very badly needed features (the incremental update should have been in 1.0), but have ignored a lot of other serious issues at the same time (like the ungodly mess that can happen if you change your default profile home and then remove the profile...)
I wasnt able to run any X applications under putty, maybe I'm doing something wrong
I'd have to guess so, although I don't know what. I run X apps off my Linux server to other boxes on the network and to my work machine (although even w/ SSH compression it's ungodly slow -- only a 128 kbps uplink). I use Cygwin's X server. I've also done it via Cygwin's openssh.
As for the website -- this is hardly a full and indepth dissection, but here's a start:
Installation section:
Yes, installing Linux is easy now (and yes, I installed Slackware back in the mid 90s; I know how much better it is now). But it's not any easier than installing Windows in the vast majority of cases. The statements in (1) conflict directly with those in (2) -- sorry, but if Windows installation is "typically beyond the scope of a typical PC user" then so is installing Linux. They are not radically different in how you install them.
While the number of bundled apps with Linux is vastly higher, some of your statements in (4) are incorrect. Gimp, while powerful, is nowhere near the level of Photoshop. And gnucash (that's a bad link you have there) is not "accounting software". It's a poor man's Quicken/Money at best (there is better than gnucash nowadays; but it's not bundled with any distro I know of).
Your continual harping on hardware drivers, both in this section and elsewhere, is simply bogus. Windows comes with the vast majority of drivers, and it's easy to update drivers -- in most cases you can even do it through Windows Update. Stop implying that Linux always has the drivers needed -- it simply does not. Wireless support is seriously crappy, ACPI/APM support is barely any better (extremely important for laptops), and 3D graphics support is essentially non-existant (and recompiling the kernel to add support, if there is any, is well beyond the capabilities of most PC users). Sound support is sketchy at best, particularly anything more advanced than basic audio out. There are certainly areas that Linux is better (the biggest being "outdated" hardware, which is hardly a concern for the average user; the second being SATA drive support, which has been an issue w/ Windows installation for awhile now, but is becoming a non-issue now that BIOS's are making it irrelevant).
As for Windows Activation (in (5)) -- it's hardly time consuming. It takes a few seconds. Even the time I had to use the 800 number it took no more than a minute. If you have network connectivity it's as difficult as clicking "Next".
And, finally, you are simply wrong about the requirement for anti-virus and anti-spyware on Windows and Linux. I have run a Windows PC for years w/o either, and had no problems. I know of others that do so as well. I didn't download from untrustworthy sources, I didn't open unknown or potentially dangerous attachments, etc. I do run AV software now, but only because my work required it for VPN access. Sure, I probably could've continued not doing so, but it really wasn't worth the chance of being fired. On a similar note, Linux is not immune from virus/worm threats, it simply isn't being targeted yet. A well written virus that is capable of dealing with a variety of distros could do quite a bit of damage simply because many Linux users aren't expecting to be vulnerable. As for spyware -- you're telling me that nobody ever gets rooted on Linux, or that there aren't rootkits out there for it? Where do you think the name comes from? Intrusion detection existed long, long before Windows got a TCP/IP stack.
Software Installation: The strongest point you have is that there is no equivalent to yum/emerge/etc. for 3rd party Windows software. A rather large part of this is due to the commercial vs free software attitudes in the underlying OS's -- none of the Linux update tools have methods for non-free software. You cannot get Java via the update tools (at least not legally), or Oracle, or much other software. But still, it is generally better in Linux vs Windows. But saying that "All updates a
I can't seem to get the numeric keypad to actually do numbers
Just tested it here -- no problems. I'm using bash on FC2 on the Linux end, PuTTY 0.58 on the Windows end. TERM is set to "xterm".
Potentially relevant settings:
Terminal->Keyboard: Home and End keys: Standard Function keys and keypad: Linux Initial state of cursor keys: Normal Initial state of numeric keyboard: Normal
I've seen significantly fewer since XP, but not zero. In fact, I can make my laptop BSoD on demand. Install EAC (Exact Audio Copy) and ask it to do anything that touches the net (get data from FreeDB; report info on the CD/DVD drive, etc) -- boom, dead. Why? No damn clue. This is a pretty plain jane Centrino laptop using the built-in 802.11g adapter and standard drivers for everything. But I could consistantly BSoD the system w/ EAC.
Works just fine on my desktop system (rather different -- wired w/ no firewall).
It's probably a driver issue, but I'd love to know what EAC is doing so weirdly to cause a BSoD on network access -- that really shouldn't be possible.
Outside of that, I'm hard pressed to remember the last BSoD that I had. They are extremely rare nowadays unless you have bad hardware. Nor do I have long term instability issues -- I can leave my XP boxes up w/o rebooting and they're just fine, just like my Linux boxes. IMO you need to choose the right OS for the right job -- Linux excels in a server role, while Windows is better for gamers (duh) and laptops. For a corporate desktop it depends on what you're doing, but I'd say that most could do fine on Linux -- it mostly depends on what apps you need to run.
These were the prices that Best Buy reports on their web page and the prices that I have seen elsewhere as well
And you think that Dell pays $200 for that copy of MS Windows XP Home Edition on that $300 PC?
Hey, let's use your own pricing method for Linux -- apparantly the only way to get Linux is to pay $99 for Linspire at Best Buy.
This is utterly stupid. The original poster was correct that the alleged prices listed in the book are complete and utter fabrications. Using bogus numbers to make your point doesn't just fail against anyone with a clue, it undermines your points that are valid. There are plenty of valid reasons to go with Linux over Windows, particularly in a typical office environment. Stick to them.
the colours are broken, often vim syntax highlighting is unreadable
Then you have vim doing the wrong highlighting -- most likely vim is defaulting to background=light when you should use background=dark. Solution? Either change putty to use a light background (e.g. -- white/grey with dark text instead of the default black w/ grey text) or do a:set background=dark in vim or.vimrc.
The black on black bit is almost certainly the same issue -- the apps are presuming what color your background is and they're simply wrong. That's not a putty issue.
Refreshing after resize is unreliable and sometimes makes the application permanently unviewable.
Sorry, never had that issue.
Connection drops from time to time, seems not as reliable but may be due to Windows' limited network capabilities
I leave my putty sessions up for days or weeks at a time. The only time it times out is if the connection on one end drops -- the general case is that my DSL modem drops. Not much putty can do about that. You do have TCP keepalives turned on, right? If not, then the remote host is probably booting you for being idle.
Cant do X forwarding or many other nifty things
Funny, I guess that "Connection->SSH->X11, Enable X11 Forwarding" checkbox is a thing of my imagination. I highly recommend that if you enable that then you also click on "Enable compression" on the "Connection->SSH" page. This is analogous to the openssh -X/-L and -C options.
I think I even saw putty plain not run certain terminal applications.
Most likely a termcap issue, but I've seen putty used to replace commercial clients and do a better job.
As for your website -- do you really want me to dissect it? There's a lot of utter crap on there, varying from outright lies to improper parallels. There are some truths as well, but they're buried in the muck.
And no, I'm not a Windows fanboy -- but I do use the right tool for the right job. I have both Windows and Linux systems at home, and I'm a professional C++ coder on Unix platforms.
Why not allow the sysadmins to upgrade from SLES 8 to SLES 9
He answered this -- the configuration control system that was in place did not allow for the upgrading of the OS.
This is not unusual -- if you know everything works with OS Y version X, then you simply do not upgrade just because X+1 comes out without doing massive testing.
He also said that after the test was done the Linux admins said that the test followed their real world experience pretty well, except that they would've upgraded the OS instead of backporting glibc. The configuration control didn't allow for that -- which is almost certainly a problem with the configuration control. If your admins say "well, we can upgrade to X+1 and certify that everything works in Z days, or we can try to backport the changes which will take W days with the understanding that it may all blow up anyway" then most businesses will go with the first route -- even if Z is bigger than W because that "blow up anyway" bit should scare the crap out of any CTO that's worth employing.
Yes, they should've allowed for the upgrading. The configuration control was overly stringent and caused undue breakage. There are certainly parallels in the Windows world where installing a patch breaks other systems. And there you're down one option -- you can either deal with the broken software, you can go back to a vulnerable/unpatched state, but you cannot port the patch backwards in most cases. Not that I recommend the latter option in almost any case -- fixing the broken apps is likely to cause far less pain.
ssh -L 666:127.0.0.1:666 host will forward 666 from remote to localhost ssh -R 666:127.0.0.1:666 host will forward 666 from localhost to remote
Yeah, and that's ever so much more convienent to type than just setting it up in a GUI, saving it as a profile, and typing "putty -host xyzzy".
Nice to see that you still play Doom though.
putty is a half crippled ssh-client clone for windows.
Your fanaticism is showing. putty is open source, cross platform, and damn good. If you're going to claim that it's "half crippled" then you'd best back that up with actual facts rather than just looking like a knee jerk anti-Windows fanboy. I don't suggest that you use putty for all tasks, but it's certainly a good alternative for many of them. Right tool, right job.
The GP already explained that. But not adjusting for inflation is bogus -- ticket prices have gone up over the years.
It's still not a fully accurate view -- what you really want to know is how many people saw a movie, not how many dollars/franks/euros/lira/etc. were spent on it. Although even then there would need to be some adjustment for time span (the longer a movie has been out, the more people are likely to see it; conversely, the more recent movies have a far, far larger audience to play to).
Given all that, adjusted numbers are probably the most fair way to show popularity over the long term. They're not perfect, but they're better than any other data we have.
potentially in ways not involving Javascript as well?
The bug is in Javascript, so it'd be rather hard to exploit it without using JS.
The first part of your statement, however, is quite correct. It's entirely possible (even probable) that a black hat saw this report and realized the potential implications. The only contrary point is that none of the white hats did so -- and they're not stupid either.
I often think that there are more black hats than white hats though... at least at the very top of the hierarchy.
the little car-theif confessed to shooting somebody in a pool hall. That somebody turned out to be a cop
And the rest of the story is that the cop flashed his gun at Cantu first in order to intimidate him. So it's not quite as crystal clear as you indicate.
I'm not saying that Cantu was a shining model of citizenship, but only telling half of the story isn't exactly fair either. The only witnesses were effectively bullied into proclaiming his guilt, even though they knew it wasn't him. That's not justice.
Which it's not - it's refusing to let OEMs include alternatives that's the problem
I was wondering if anyone would catch that point -- and that is the underlying issue. Of course, if I write a OSS program and want to get it included with the major distributions, how difficult is it? I honestly don't know. I suspect it's relatively easy to get it included in the updater (yum, emerge, etc.).
It's really more of a difference in mindsets between the two though -- Windows is more oriented toward the classic commercial model where if you want X functionality then you go to vendor Y and pay amount Z to get it. And all of that was done at brick and mortar stores, or via phone, etc. where you ended up with a physical media to install. The OSS world is different -- it's grown up around the Internet and is designed toward using that as a delivery mechanism.
Of course, even with OSS, some packages simply don't use the update mechanism provided. Install Oracle, for instance, and you must get your patches and other updates from a different source. And AFAIK the same is true for java -- at least in my experience you have to go to Sun to get it, and the patches aren't available via yum, etc. (and, contrarily, in Windows you have to practically beat Java to not auto-update; which is a problem for us since our code doesn't work w/ 1.5.x).
I do miss highlight / middle click copy and paste in windows
I've seen some utils that make that available, at least in some/most programs.
thanks for mentioning DeskWin and VirtuaWin
NP. It's one of those areas I often see Linux-ers bash MS for -- when it just shows that they haven't tried to look for a solution. Both of those are GPL programs, and I highly recommend VirtuaWin. I've used both extensively and while they both work, I've had fewer problems (lost apps, non-responding desktop switches, etc.) with VirtuaWin. It also has more features and a plethora of plugins.
Technically it's in any language with that functionality for prefix/postfix increment/decrement -- when you do postfix then the code must make a copy of whatever's being incremented first, return that copy, and then increment the original. If it's just a 4 byte integer -- no big deal. If it's a 4k object, that starts getting to be a bigger issue. Particularly if you're doing it in a loop or all over the code.
So unless you need the pre-incremented value for something (and there are entirely valid reasons for doing this), use prefix -- it's faster.
And something is preventing you from using one of the dozen of utilities that does this on Windows? There's the crappy MS Power toy, as well as OSS solutions like deskwin and VirtuaWin. The latter two are easily as powerful as the *nix desktop virtual window managers (and yes, I've used many different ones, dating all the way back to tvtwm).
I want to see the contents of small text icons, and of web pages, in the thumbnails representing them. I want to be able to drag & drop, copy & paste files between ftp's. I want to be able to see tomorrow's weather in my panel. I want tabbed powerful command lines. I want my clipboard to have multiple entries. I want to be able to click "always on top" on a button I can configure on all of my windows' title bars.
Again, all are available with utility software. Free (as in beer, often as in speech) software.
I want my browser to keep my forms filled when I press the back button.
Mine does, but odds are we use the same browser.:)
Some of your complaints are certainly valid. But you're ignoring some of the more prevalent complaints against the Linux desktop too -- like the amazingly lousy clipboard in Linux. And yes, I've used both extensively. My preference at this point is Windows with a ton of free software goodies.
As for the first two complaints -- uh, whenever MS integrates/provides another utility into Windows people start screaming bloody murder about it being anti-competitive, monopolistic, etc. Even if it's provided by a 3rd party. So you can't bash them on this while at the same time denigrating them everytime they do something to improve it.
I can't think of one thing windows does better in the desktop or server market that Linux [and the scores of OSS tools] can't totally do better.
Debugger.
Sorry, ddd/gdb, Eclipse, and so forth are pale shadows to MS Visual Studio still, particularly for C and C++ work (Eclipse is probably the best for Java though).
Our code is cross platform Unix, but we maintain a Windows port for one reason only -- debugging. Using Visual Studio is far, far better than the alternatives. We vastly reduce the time involved in finding and eliminating bugs by doing so. And no, we don't sell the Windows version. It's literally only used for internal debugging.
Is there a technical reason why the Linux debuggers couldn't be better? Of course not. That's completely and utterly irrelevant (as are most of your "explanations" you attempt to give in rebuttal) though. The fact of the matter is they aren't, and are actually several years behind in comparison.
And no, I don't develop in Visual Studio -- I prefer vim. And we use CVS for source control. We use gmake (even on Windows) and other OSS tools too. Best tool for the job.
He was paid to evaluate two possible scenarios given a set of initial conditions. Researchers do it all the time in this place we like to call the "real world" - in engineering for example. You take a few alternative designs, apply the constraints you are given, and pick the right tool for the job.
Part of the issue is that the initial conditions appear to be bogus. If you wanted to be fair then it wouldn't be "MS Windows + MS SQL Server" vs "SuSE + MySql" vs "SuSE + Oracle" -- the databases are available on both platforms, so why weren't they used? MS SQL Server is not directly comparable to MySQL or Oracle -- it's more powerful than MySQL, less powerful than Oracle. The entire test case is arbitrarily asymetric and so it's not absurd to leap to the conclusion that there's a reason that MS didn't want it to be symetric.
As an engineer you should be able to ask why "MS Windows + Oracle" wasn't an option. Maybe there would be valid reasons, but at the very least they should be spelled out in such a scenario.
Actually it is a bad practise because it is hard to search for.
Only if you use bad tools.
In vim, searching for \<i\> will find all instances of the word "i" alone, while not matching it as part of a word. It will also match its use in expressions (since +, -,;, etc. are considered word boundary markers).
Certainly other names can be better -- even changing to "ii" is a vast improvement -- but saying that it's particularly hard to search for just indicates poor usage/knowledge of tools on your part.
And, really... teach yourself to stop using the postfix increment operator except where it's really needed. The prefix operator is more efficient, especially in OO languages (you don't have to make a copy of the object first; if you're not using the pre-incremented value for anything then there is no point in doing x++ instead of ++x).
Actually it is a bad practise because it is hard to search for.
Only if you use bad tools.
In vim,/\ will find all instances of the word "i" alone, while not matching it as part of a word. It will also match its use in expressions (since +, -,;, etc. are considered word boundary markers).
Certainly other names can be better -- even changing to "ii" is a vast improvement -- but saying that it's particularly hard to search for just indicates poor usage/knowledge of tools on your part.
And, really... teach yourself to stop using the postfix increment operator except where it's really needed. The prefix operator is more efficient, especially in OO languages (you don't have to make a copy of the object first; if you're not using the pre-incremented value for anything then there is no point in doing x++ instead of ++x).
Ooh, new version of Windows Media Player that probably still won't play oggs without me having to mess with codecs
And I bet it won't play Quicktime files either without having to mess with codecs! Or a bazillion other formats! Your "point" is completely and utterly invalid.
since Microsoft *still* doesn't have an ext3 filesystem driver, it's safe from the kiddies.
That's not MS's job, and there's been an ext2 IFS available for some time now. It's not their fault that you didn't install it.
When Windows Update works like emerge, I might consider using it.
It does. By default as of SP2. You don't have SP2 installed? Again -- not their fault. MS has actually tried harder to get SP2 rolled out than any previous service pack. If you don't have it installed it's completely your own fault.
There are certainly some problems with Windows, but so far you've only mentioned IO (Idiot Operator) errors.
Days to resolve a vulnerability are dangerous guides. First, a vulnerability has to be reported, then verified. We are dependent upon the vendor (MS, Oracle, etc) to correctly reflect these. However, almost anyone can and does report one for OSS - and that is a good thing.
This is a huge thing, particularly if you rely upon the vendor to acknowledge the vulnerability. There are a lot of vulnerabilities out there that are known (and sometimes even "in the wild") that the vendor refuses to acknowledge for various reasons. Often they'll finally acknowledge it shortly before (or on the day of) having a patch ready for it -- that way they look like they're "on the ball" to management even if the IT geeks know better. This is not a purely MS problem, nor is it unique to commercial/closed-source software, but it certainly seems more prevelant in closed source than open source.
I just do not see a 68% difference anywhere for an experienced admin.
I think this is what it always boils down to -- familiarity with one platform over another. I certainly know how to do certain things in Unix/Linux better than in Windows, and vica versa. That doesn't necessarily mean that Windows is better than Linux for a certain task -- it merely means that I'm more familiar/comfortable with one than the other. And that is a significant factor to base business (or personal) decisions on.
Remember all those "yet another local root exploit in the linux kernel" advisories?
What about them? Do you have the faintest clue what that means? I'm guessing not based on your flamebait attitude.
Hint -- in order to make use of a "local root exploit" you have to have access to an account on the box. So unless you can get on the box, the local root exploit is a complete non-issue. Based on the GP post, most of those boxes are well behind a firewall and have either no or limited interaction with the world at large. And while that doesn't mean you can ignore things, it does mean that you can worry more about certain attacks than others. In particular if you keep the external interfaces up to date and use good ID software then your threat level for a local root exploit goes to just about zero.
In fact, you can keep just about everything except the kernel up-to-date and not have to reboot. I wish I could say the same for XP (which has vastly reduced the number of "must reboot" scenarios, but hardly eliminated them).
Remote root exploits are a much bigger issue... and are fortunately quite rare on Linux nowadays. Again, I wish I could say the same for XP.
ou can picture up the Nikon D50 or Canon 350D (Rebel XT) with "kit lenses" for less than the Sony or Kodak camera.
It's still vastly higher than most consumers are willing to spend though. I just recently bought a Canon A610 -- it's certainly not a DSLR, but I'm very pleased with it, particularly for the price.
I do find the inclusion of the Canon SD550 odd, as is Adobie Elements. And I think a Wifi enabled camera is more "gimmick" than goodness.
How do those who are active boycotters stick to it? Do you actively pursue telling others, or is it just a "one person, one dollar, one vote" kind of life lead?
If you actively pursue telling others you'll just annoy them and get labeled as a wacko. So it's pretty much up to you and your money. If the opportunity presents itself to discuss the topic without having to stretch for relevance (e.g. -- a friend/colleage/random stranger complains about a CD not working on their computer or something), then go for it. Otherwise keep to yourself. The only real exception here is demonstrations -- if you can get a reasonable number of people together then you don't look like quite such a loon; instead you look like a group of loons. But at least then you're in a flock.
As for boycotting Sony specifically -- first, write them a note telling them why you're boycotting and what they need to do to end your boycott. The second part is extremely important -- if you don't give them a method to regain your money, then why should they even bother? And in that vein, it has to be reasonable. I don't expect Sony to never issue non-CDs with DRM. I do expect them to never use this piece of crap again and to fire/relieve from their existing duties any managers that were involved in the approval of XCD.
Second, try to make sure you don't give them any money. If you want to be strict about it, then only punish Sony-BMG Music. That means no buying CDs from them. If you want to be more liberal then don't buy anything from any Sony division -- no CDs, no DVDs, no movies, no electronics (including PS2 and so forth), nothing whatsoever directly associated with the company. If you want to be even more liberal then don't buy anything that will funnel money to the company -- all PS2 games are licensed, so none of them. Similarly, many movies may use music that's owned by Sony, so start checking those music credits first! And if you want to be a complete whacko then avoid any thing that funnels money to them through cross-licensing, partnerships, and so forth. Given how big Sony is, if you take this route then I suggest you sit quietly in an open field and hope they break before you die of dehydration or starvation (pray for rain and small, harmless furry animals to wander nearby).
At least send the letter and try to stick to your boycott, at whatever level you choose. They've already done a lot more than I expected by recalling the defective CDs. Now they need to post a public apology (from a Japanese company that's a big deal), post a non-ActiveX method on their website to completely and utterly remove the DRM (and the decloaking junk), and appropriately punish the management involved in this cock-up. That would make me happy at least.
You make valid points, but the question remains -- what's the file format?
I don't care so much about editing out the commercials, but the fact of the matter is that if I can't watch it on my TV in a reasonable manner then this is of absolutely no use to me.
And the only way to make it watchable on TV in a reasonable manner is to provide it in MPEG-2 format, or something that can be easily transcoded to that -- then you can burn it to DVD and watch it on any DVD player (or, in my case, stick it on my server and transfer it to a TiVo to watch).
Heck, if you provide all the stuff necessary to burn a DVD easily then you can make the commercials non-skippable, at least for most users who won't take the time to figure out how to edit the control files/content to change that.
Slashdot Mirror
Since end users are allowed to submit bugs, the only ones that should be counted are those that are confirmed
Ok. So how long do bugs get to hang out in an unconfirmed status before something should be done then?
I submitted a bug during the 1.5 testing cycle nearly two months ago. It's still hanging out in unconfirmed status. As best I can tell there's nobody looking at it. It's certainly not high priority, but it annoys me daily -- one of the websites I use daily scrolls down improperly when you use the back button (or alt-left/backspace/etc).
There are over 3000 unconfirmed bugs for Firefox right now. I'm sure a large number of those are duplicate or invalid, but if even 10% of them are valid bugs then that's nearly double the number you list. And of those you list there are some that have been hanging out for years and are significant UI or stability issues -- 218223 is an example of the former, and 244713 for the latter (there's an older critical bug, but it's apparantly hard to track down the cause).
I love FF and use it on every box I have, as well as recommend it heavily to friends and family, but I am rather disappointed with 1.5's stability. They added some very badly needed features (the incremental update should have been in 1.0), but have ignored a lot of other serious issues at the same time (like the ungodly mess that can happen if you change your default profile home and then remove the profile...)
I wasnt able to run any X applications under putty, maybe I'm doing something wrong
I'd have to guess so, although I don't know what. I run X apps off my Linux server to other boxes on the network and to my work machine (although even w/ SSH compression it's ungodly slow -- only a 128 kbps uplink). I use Cygwin's X server. I've also done it via Cygwin's openssh.
As for the website -- this is hardly a full and indepth dissection, but here's a start:
Installation section:
Yes, installing Linux is easy now (and yes, I installed Slackware back in the mid 90s; I know how much better it is now). But it's not any easier than installing Windows in the vast majority of cases. The statements in (1) conflict directly with those in (2) -- sorry, but if Windows installation is "typically beyond the scope of a typical PC user" then so is installing Linux. They are not radically different in how you install them.
While the number of bundled apps with Linux is vastly higher, some of your statements in (4) are incorrect. Gimp, while powerful, is nowhere near the level of Photoshop. And gnucash (that's a bad link you have there) is not "accounting software". It's a poor man's Quicken/Money at best (there is better than gnucash nowadays; but it's not bundled with any distro I know of).
Your continual harping on hardware drivers, both in this section and elsewhere, is simply bogus. Windows comes with the vast majority of drivers, and it's easy to update drivers -- in most cases you can even do it through Windows Update. Stop implying that Linux always has the drivers needed -- it simply does not. Wireless support is seriously crappy, ACPI/APM support is barely any better (extremely important for laptops), and 3D graphics support is essentially non-existant (and recompiling the kernel to add support, if there is any, is well beyond the capabilities of most PC users). Sound support is sketchy at best, particularly anything more advanced than basic audio out. There are certainly areas that Linux is better (the biggest being "outdated" hardware, which is hardly a concern for the average user; the second being SATA drive support, which has been an issue w/ Windows installation for awhile now, but is becoming a non-issue now that BIOS's are making it irrelevant).
As for Windows Activation (in (5)) -- it's hardly time consuming. It takes a few seconds. Even the time I had to use the 800 number it took no more than a minute. If you have network connectivity it's as difficult as clicking "Next".
And, finally, you are simply wrong about the requirement for anti-virus and anti-spyware on Windows and Linux. I have run a Windows PC for years w/o either, and had no problems. I know of others that do so as well. I didn't download from untrustworthy sources, I didn't open unknown or potentially dangerous attachments, etc. I do run AV software now, but only because my work required it for VPN access. Sure, I probably could've continued not doing so, but it really wasn't worth the chance of being fired. On a similar note, Linux is not immune from virus/worm threats, it simply isn't being targeted yet. A well written virus that is capable of dealing with a variety of distros could do quite a bit of damage simply because many Linux users aren't expecting to be vulnerable. As for spyware -- you're telling me that nobody ever gets rooted on Linux, or that there aren't rootkits out there for it? Where do you think the name comes from? Intrusion detection existed long, long before Windows got a TCP/IP stack.
Software Installation:
The strongest point you have is that there is no equivalent to yum/emerge/etc. for 3rd party Windows software. A rather large part of this is due to the commercial vs free software attitudes in the underlying OS's -- none of the Linux update tools have methods for non-free software. You cannot get Java via the update tools (at least not legally), or Oracle, or much other software. But still, it is generally better in Linux vs Windows. But saying that "All updates a
I can't seem to get the numeric keypad to actually do numbers
Just tested it here -- no problems. I'm using bash on FC2 on the Linux end, PuTTY 0.58 on the Windows end. TERM is set to "xterm".
Potentially relevant settings:
Terminal->Keyboard:
Home and End keys: Standard
Function keys and keypad: Linux
Initial state of cursor keys: Normal
Initial state of numeric keyboard: Normal
Connection->Data:
Terminal-type string: xterm
Haven't seen any pattern of these since XP.
I've seen significantly fewer since XP, but not zero. In fact, I can make my laptop BSoD on demand. Install EAC (Exact Audio Copy) and ask it to do anything that touches the net (get data from FreeDB; report info on the CD/DVD drive, etc) -- boom, dead. Why? No damn clue. This is a pretty plain jane Centrino laptop using the built-in 802.11g adapter and standard drivers for everything. But I could consistantly BSoD the system w/ EAC.
Works just fine on my desktop system (rather different -- wired w/ no firewall).
It's probably a driver issue, but I'd love to know what EAC is doing so weirdly to cause a BSoD on network access -- that really shouldn't be possible.
Outside of that, I'm hard pressed to remember the last BSoD that I had. They are extremely rare nowadays unless you have bad hardware. Nor do I have long term instability issues -- I can leave my XP boxes up w/o rebooting and they're just fine, just like my Linux boxes. IMO you need to choose the right OS for the right job -- Linux excels in a server role, while Windows is better for gamers (duh) and laptops. For a corporate desktop it depends on what you're doing, but I'd say that most could do fine on Linux -- it mostly depends on what apps you need to run.
These were the prices that Best Buy reports on their web page and the prices that I have seen elsewhere as well
And you think that Dell pays $200 for that copy of MS Windows XP Home Edition on that $300 PC?
Hey, let's use your own pricing method for Linux -- apparantly the only way to get Linux is to pay $99 for Linspire at Best Buy.
This is utterly stupid. The original poster was correct that the alleged prices listed in the book are complete and utter fabrications. Using bogus numbers to make your point doesn't just fail against anyone with a clue, it undermines your points that are valid. There are plenty of valid reasons to go with Linux over Windows, particularly in a typical office environment. Stick to them.
the colours are broken, often vim syntax highlighting is unreadable
:set background=dark in vim or .vimrc.
Then you have vim doing the wrong highlighting -- most likely vim is defaulting to background=light when you should use background=dark. Solution? Either change putty to use a light background (e.g. -- white/grey with dark text instead of the default black w/ grey text) or do a
The black on black bit is almost certainly the same issue -- the apps are presuming what color your background is and they're simply wrong. That's not a putty issue.
Refreshing after resize is unreliable and sometimes makes the application permanently unviewable.
Sorry, never had that issue.
Connection drops from time to time, seems not as reliable but may be due to Windows' limited network capabilities
I leave my putty sessions up for days or weeks at a time. The only time it times out is if the connection on one end drops -- the general case is that my DSL modem drops. Not much putty can do about that. You do have TCP keepalives turned on, right? If not, then the remote host is probably booting you for being idle.
Cant do X forwarding or many other nifty things
Funny, I guess that "Connection->SSH->X11, Enable X11 Forwarding" checkbox is a thing of my imagination. I highly recommend that if you enable that then you also click on "Enable compression" on the "Connection->SSH" page. This is analogous to the openssh -X/-L and -C options.
I think I even saw putty plain not run certain terminal applications.
Most likely a termcap issue, but I've seen putty used to replace commercial clients and do a better job.
As for your website -- do you really want me to dissect it? There's a lot of utter crap on there, varying from outright lies to improper parallels. There are some truths as well, but they're buried in the muck.
And no, I'm not a Windows fanboy -- but I do use the right tool for the right job. I have both Windows and Linux systems at home, and I'm a professional C++ coder on Unix platforms.
Why not allow the sysadmins to upgrade from SLES 8 to SLES 9
He answered this -- the configuration control system that was in place did not allow for the upgrading of the OS.
This is not unusual -- if you know everything works with OS Y version X, then you simply do not upgrade just because X+1 comes out without doing massive testing.
He also said that after the test was done the Linux admins said that the test followed their real world experience pretty well, except that they would've upgraded the OS instead of backporting glibc. The configuration control didn't allow for that -- which is almost certainly a problem with the configuration control. If your admins say "well, we can upgrade to X+1 and certify that everything works in Z days, or we can try to backport the changes which will take W days with the understanding that it may all blow up anyway" then most businesses will go with the first route -- even if Z is bigger than W because that "blow up anyway" bit should scare the crap out of any CTO that's worth employing.
Yes, they should've allowed for the upgrading. The configuration control was overly stringent and caused undue breakage. There are certainly parallels in the Windows world where installing a patch breaks other systems. And there you're down one option -- you can either deal with the broken software, you can go back to a vulnerable/unpatched state, but you cannot port the patch backwards in most cases. Not that I recommend the latter option in almost any case -- fixing the broken apps is likely to cause far less pain.
ssh -L 666:127.0.0.1:666 host will forward 666 from remote to localhost
ssh -R 666:127.0.0.1:666 host will forward 666 from localhost to remote
Yeah, and that's ever so much more convienent to type than just setting it up in a GUI, saving it as a profile, and typing "putty -host xyzzy".
Nice to see that you still play Doom though.
putty is a half crippled ssh-client clone for windows.
Your fanaticism is showing. putty is open source, cross platform, and damn good. If you're going to claim that it's "half crippled" then you'd best back that up with actual facts rather than just looking like a knee jerk anti-Windows fanboy. I don't suggest that you use putty for all tasks, but it's certainly a good alternative for many of them. Right tool, right job.
The GP already explained that. But not adjusting for inflation is bogus -- ticket prices have gone up over the years.
It's still not a fully accurate view -- what you really want to know is how many people saw a movie, not how many dollars/franks/euros/lira/etc. were spent on it. Although even then there would need to be some adjustment for time span (the longer a movie has been out, the more people are likely to see it; conversely, the more recent movies have a far, far larger audience to play to).
Given all that, adjusted numbers are probably the most fair way to show popularity over the long term. They're not perfect, but they're better than any other data we have.
potentially in ways not involving Javascript as well?
The bug is in Javascript, so it'd be rather hard to exploit it without using JS.
The first part of your statement, however, is quite correct. It's entirely possible (even probable) that a black hat saw this report and realized the potential implications. The only contrary point is that none of the white hats did so -- and they're not stupid either.
I often think that there are more black hats than white hats though... at least at the very top of the hierarchy.
the little car-theif confessed to shooting somebody in a pool hall. That somebody turned out to be a cop
And the rest of the story is that the cop flashed his gun at Cantu first in order to intimidate him. So it's not quite as crystal clear as you indicate.
I'm not saying that Cantu was a shining model of citizenship, but only telling half of the story isn't exactly fair either. The only witnesses were effectively bullied into proclaiming his guilt, even though they knew it wasn't him. That's not justice.
Which it's not - it's refusing to let OEMs include alternatives that's the problem
I was wondering if anyone would catch that point -- and that is the underlying issue. Of course, if I write a OSS program and want to get it included with the major distributions, how difficult is it? I honestly don't know. I suspect it's relatively easy to get it included in the updater (yum, emerge, etc.).
It's really more of a difference in mindsets between the two though -- Windows is more oriented toward the classic commercial model where if you want X functionality then you go to vendor Y and pay amount Z to get it. And all of that was done at brick and mortar stores, or via phone, etc. where you ended up with a physical media to install. The OSS world is different -- it's grown up around the Internet and is designed toward using that as a delivery mechanism.
Of course, even with OSS, some packages simply don't use the update mechanism provided. Install Oracle, for instance, and you must get your patches and other updates from a different source. And AFAIK the same is true for java -- at least in my experience you have to go to Sun to get it, and the patches aren't available via yum, etc. (and, contrarily, in Windows you have to practically beat Java to not auto-update; which is a problem for us since our code doesn't work w/ 1.5.x).
I do miss highlight / middle click copy and paste in windows
I've seen some utils that make that available, at least in some/most programs.
thanks for mentioning DeskWin and VirtuaWin
NP. It's one of those areas I often see Linux-ers bash MS for -- when it just shows that they haven't tried to look for a solution. Both of those are GPL programs, and I highly recommend VirtuaWin. I've used both extensively and while they both work, I've had fewer problems (lost apps, non-responding desktop switches, etc.) with VirtuaWin. It also has more features and a plethora of plugins.
Is that in all OOPs or just the pure OOPs?
Technically it's in any language with that functionality for prefix/postfix increment/decrement -- when you do postfix then the code must make a copy of whatever's being incremented first, return that copy, and then increment the original. If it's just a 4 byte integer -- no big deal. If it's a 4k object, that starts getting to be a bigger issue. Particularly if you're doing it in a loop or all over the code.
So unless you need the pre-incremented value for something (and there are entirely valid reasons for doing this), use prefix -- it's faster.
I want my virtual desktops.
:)
And something is preventing you from using one of the dozen of utilities that does this on Windows? There's the crappy MS Power toy, as well as OSS solutions like deskwin and VirtuaWin. The latter two are easily as powerful as the *nix desktop virtual window managers (and yes, I've used many different ones, dating all the way back to tvtwm).
I want to see the contents of small text icons, and of web pages, in the thumbnails representing them.
I want to be able to drag & drop, copy & paste files between ftp's.
I want to be able to see tomorrow's weather in my panel.
I want tabbed powerful command lines.
I want my clipboard to have multiple entries.
I want to be able to click "always on top" on a button I can configure on all of my windows' title bars.
Again, all are available with utility software. Free (as in beer, often as in speech) software.
I want my browser to keep my forms filled when I press the back button.
Mine does, but odds are we use the same browser.
Some of your complaints are certainly valid. But you're ignoring some of the more prevalent complaints against the Linux desktop too -- like the amazingly lousy clipboard in Linux. And yes, I've used both extensively. My preference at this point is Windows with a ton of free software goodies.
As for the first two complaints -- uh, whenever MS integrates/provides another utility into Windows people start screaming bloody murder about it being anti-competitive, monopolistic, etc. Even if it's provided by a 3rd party. So you can't bash them on this while at the same time denigrating them everytime they do something to improve it.
I can't think of one thing windows does better in the desktop or server market that Linux [and the scores of OSS tools] can't totally do better.
Debugger.
Sorry, ddd/gdb, Eclipse, and so forth are pale shadows to MS Visual Studio still, particularly for C and C++ work (Eclipse is probably the best for Java though).
Our code is cross platform Unix, but we maintain a Windows port for one reason only -- debugging. Using Visual Studio is far, far better than the alternatives. We vastly reduce the time involved in finding and eliminating bugs by doing so. And no, we don't sell the Windows version. It's literally only used for internal debugging.
Is there a technical reason why the Linux debuggers couldn't be better? Of course not. That's completely and utterly irrelevant (as are most of your "explanations" you attempt to give in rebuttal) though. The fact of the matter is they aren't, and are actually several years behind in comparison.
And no, I don't develop in Visual Studio -- I prefer vim. And we use CVS for source control. We use gmake (even on Windows) and other OSS tools too. Best tool for the job.
He was paid to evaluate two possible scenarios given a set of initial conditions. Researchers do it all the time in this place we like to call the "real world" - in engineering for example. You take a few alternative designs, apply the constraints you are given, and pick the right tool for the job.
Part of the issue is that the initial conditions appear to be bogus. If you wanted to be fair then it wouldn't be "MS Windows + MS SQL Server" vs "SuSE + MySql" vs "SuSE + Oracle" -- the databases are available on both platforms, so why weren't they used? MS SQL Server is not directly comparable to MySQL or Oracle -- it's more powerful than MySQL, less powerful than Oracle. The entire test case is arbitrarily asymetric and so it's not absurd to leap to the conclusion that there's a reason that MS didn't want it to be symetric.
As an engineer you should be able to ask why "MS Windows + Oracle" wasn't an option. Maybe there would be valid reasons, but at the very least they should be spelled out in such a scenario.
Wow, that's what I get for not previewing. Oops.
;, etc. are considered word boundary markers).
Actually it is a bad practise because it is hard to search for.
Only if you use bad tools.
In vim, searching for \<i\> will find all instances of the word "i" alone, while not matching it as part of a word. It will also match its use in expressions (since +, -,
Certainly other names can be better -- even changing to "ii" is a vast improvement -- but saying that it's particularly hard to search for just indicates poor usage/knowledge of tools on your part.
And, really... teach yourself to stop using the postfix increment operator except where it's really needed. The prefix operator is more efficient, especially in OO languages (you don't have to make a copy of the object first; if you're not using the pre-incremented value for anything then there is no point in doing x++ instead of ++x).
Actually it is a bad practise because it is hard to search for.
/\ will find all instances of the word "i" alone, while not matching it as part of a word. It will also match its use in expressions (since +, -, ;, etc. are considered word boundary markers).
Only if you use bad tools.
In vim,
Certainly other names can be better -- even changing to "ii" is a vast improvement -- but saying that it's particularly hard to search for just indicates poor usage/knowledge of tools on your part.
And, really... teach yourself to stop using the postfix increment operator except where it's really needed. The prefix operator is more efficient, especially in OO languages (you don't have to make a copy of the object first; if you're not using the pre-incremented value for anything then there is no point in doing x++ instead of ++x).
Ooh, new version of Windows Media Player that probably still won't play oggs without me having to mess with codecs
And I bet it won't play Quicktime files either without having to mess with codecs! Or a bazillion other formats! Your "point" is completely and utterly invalid.
since Microsoft *still* doesn't have an ext3 filesystem driver, it's safe from the kiddies.
That's not MS's job, and there's been an ext2 IFS available for some time now. It's not their fault that you didn't install it.
When Windows Update works like emerge, I might consider using it.
It does. By default as of SP2. You don't have SP2 installed? Again -- not their fault. MS has actually tried harder to get SP2 rolled out than any previous service pack. If you don't have it installed it's completely your own fault.
There are certainly some problems with Windows, but so far you've only mentioned IO (Idiot Operator) errors.
Days to resolve a vulnerability are dangerous guides. First, a vulnerability has to be reported, then verified. We are dependent upon the vendor (MS, Oracle, etc) to correctly reflect these. However, almost anyone can and does report one for OSS - and that is a good thing.
This is a huge thing, particularly if you rely upon the vendor to acknowledge the vulnerability. There are a lot of vulnerabilities out there that are known (and sometimes even "in the wild") that the vendor refuses to acknowledge for various reasons. Often they'll finally acknowledge it shortly before (or on the day of) having a patch ready for it -- that way they look like they're "on the ball" to management even if the IT geeks know better. This is not a purely MS problem, nor is it unique to commercial/closed-source software, but it certainly seems more prevelant in closed source than open source.
I just do not see a 68% difference anywhere for an experienced admin.
I think this is what it always boils down to -- familiarity with one platform over another. I certainly know how to do certain things in Unix/Linux better than in Windows, and vica versa. That doesn't necessarily mean that Windows is better than Linux for a certain task -- it merely means that I'm more familiar/comfortable with one than the other. And that is a significant factor to base business (or personal) decisions on.
Remember all those "yet another local root exploit in the linux kernel" advisories?
What about them? Do you have the faintest clue what that means? I'm guessing not based on your flamebait attitude.
Hint -- in order to make use of a "local root exploit" you have to have access to an account on the box. So unless you can get on the box, the local root exploit is a complete non-issue. Based on the GP post, most of those boxes are well behind a firewall and have either no or limited interaction with the world at large. And while that doesn't mean you can ignore things, it does mean that you can worry more about certain attacks than others. In particular if you keep the external interfaces up to date and use good ID software then your threat level for a local root exploit goes to just about zero.
In fact, you can keep just about everything except the kernel up-to-date and not have to reboot. I wish I could say the same for XP (which has vastly reduced the number of "must reboot" scenarios, but hardly eliminated them).
Remote root exploits are a much bigger issue... and are fortunately quite rare on Linux nowadays. Again, I wish I could say the same for XP.
Including a bathroom wipe that leaves a momentary trail of color to show you where you've cleaned,
Great. Ass dye.
Wipes for cleaning bathroom surfaces, not toilet paper.
ou can picture up the Nikon D50 or Canon 350D (Rebel XT) with "kit lenses" for less than the Sony or Kodak camera.
It's still vastly higher than most consumers are willing to spend though. I just recently bought a Canon A610 -- it's certainly not a DSLR, but I'm very pleased with it, particularly for the price.
I do find the inclusion of the Canon SD550 odd, as is Adobie Elements. And I think a Wifi enabled camera is more "gimmick" than goodness.
How do those who are active boycotters stick to it? Do you actively pursue telling others, or is it just a "one person, one dollar, one vote" kind of life lead?
If you actively pursue telling others you'll just annoy them and get labeled as a wacko. So it's pretty much up to you and your money. If the opportunity presents itself to discuss the topic without having to stretch for relevance (e.g. -- a friend/colleage/random stranger complains about a CD not working on their computer or something), then go for it. Otherwise keep to yourself. The only real exception here is demonstrations -- if you can get a reasonable number of people together then you don't look like quite such a loon; instead you look like a group of loons. But at least then you're in a flock.
As for boycotting Sony specifically -- first, write them a note telling them why you're boycotting and what they need to do to end your boycott. The second part is extremely important -- if you don't give them a method to regain your money, then why should they even bother? And in that vein, it has to be reasonable. I don't expect Sony to never issue non-CDs with DRM. I do expect them to never use this piece of crap again and to fire/relieve from their existing duties any managers that were involved in the approval of XCD.
Second, try to make sure you don't give them any money. If you want to be strict about it, then only punish Sony-BMG Music. That means no buying CDs from them. If you want to be more liberal then don't buy anything from any Sony division -- no CDs, no DVDs, no movies, no electronics (including PS2 and so forth), nothing whatsoever directly associated with the company. If you want to be even more liberal then don't buy anything that will funnel money to the company -- all PS2 games are licensed, so none of them. Similarly, many movies may use music that's owned by Sony, so start checking those music credits first! And if you want to be a complete whacko then avoid any thing that funnels money to them through cross-licensing, partnerships, and so forth. Given how big Sony is, if you take this route then I suggest you sit quietly in an open field and hope they break before you die of dehydration or starvation (pray for rain and small, harmless furry animals to wander nearby).
At least send the letter and try to stick to your boycott, at whatever level you choose. They've already done a lot more than I expected by recalling the defective CDs. Now they need to post a public apology (from a Japanese company that's a big deal), post a non-ActiveX method on their website to completely and utterly remove the DRM (and the decloaking junk), and appropriately punish the management involved in this cock-up. That would make me happy at least.
You make valid points, but the question remains -- what's the file format?
I don't care so much about editing out the commercials, but the fact of the matter is that if I can't watch it on my TV in a reasonable manner then this is of absolutely no use to me.
And the only way to make it watchable on TV in a reasonable manner is to provide it in MPEG-2 format, or something that can be easily transcoded to that -- then you can burn it to DVD and watch it on any DVD player (or, in my case, stick it on my server and transfer it to a TiVo to watch).
Heck, if you provide all the stuff necessary to burn a DVD easily then you can make the commercials non-skippable, at least for most users who won't take the time to figure out how to edit the control files/content to change that.