While speeding up the boot process is important. Especially in cases where a server goes down and you need to bring it back up quickly. For Linux it is not so important as windows. The system is so much more stable, and a reboot is technically only required if you rebuild the kernel; so you should really never turn the machine off. Of course, power outages without UPSs are a problem, but should be rare.
Another thing you'll notice with Linux is that the boot up is very slow and boring, unless you use bootsplash. But even then, it takes a long time before you can do anything. On windows, XP at least, it brings the gui up right away and you can get to work. But you'll notice that the first minute or so you try to do things it is very slow. The mouse wont move smoothly, programs wont load quickly, etc. What they did in windows is push all the things necessary to get the gui up to the front of the boot process, then they do the rest afterwards in the background thus making the system really unusable for an extra minute or two. For most linux systems it takes about the same amount of time to get everything loaded, but they do things in a sensical order. And once X is running, its running and ready to go.
So speeding up the boot process isn't that great. But it can't hurt either. What I'm really waiting for is a bettery way to reload the kernel without rebooting. There is already something I heard of, but it's not so great.
The next phase is myomer. The fictional "muscles" used in Battletech 'mech construction. They are supposedly strong fibers that expand and contract when you pass current through them, or something to that effect.
Those features are nice. And I'm sure that most people on slashdot would benefit from them greatly. But for normal people, it wont help. My parents I switched to linux. And they enjoy the obvious benefits like not crashing and no spyware. And they've been using firefox even longer than they've been using linux. And they still dont' understand tabbed browsing, why its better. They don't organize bookmarks into folders. They really just don't care about efficient use of the computer. It takes me about 5 seconds to accomplish what it takes them an hour to do, and they don't care. They have the features and the power available to them to imporove their computing experience and do things faster and more efficiently. But they don't do it.
So for nerds like you and me this stuff rules. But leave it to firefox extensions. If you put it in the base package it will only confuse normal folk. You have to stick to things that are obviously better and things that my parents will use. Like the google search box.
While I think it is plainly obvious that in terms of stability, performance and security that Linux systems are superior to windows systems I don't think that bugs per line of code is a very good measurement. The designs of the two operating systems are so far off from each other its really not a fair comparison.
A bettery way would be a component by component comparison. For example: look at the memory management code in Linux then in Windows. Compare the code for features as well as bugs. Do this for every component. Then you will get a fair comparison.
Of course, I'm almost sure that the result will be that the components of linux are smaller, less buggy, and more "computer science correct" than the windows counterparts. But I'm also sure you will find the windows code to have more features. Meaning the ability to do so many backwards compatible things that nobody understands. So the features don't necessarily mean beneficial abilities for the end user, but they mean ways in which the code allows for so many possibilities.
firefox takes 133 MB of RAM? What is wrong with your computer? On this windows machine here at school it takes 23MB. And it takes even less on my Linux boxen at home. You must have installed some pretty heavy extensions and startup up some pretty crazy plugins to get it to use that much RAM.
random trivia: The first game to ever come on PC-CDROM was Loom from LucasArts. Also wasn't Wing Commander IV the one that came with a pile of CDs? I thought that 3 just had one or two.
When I was a kid the orthodontist had gameboys for kids to play. But he wasn't very good about keeping batteries and games fresh. He did have Metroid II and Zelda: Link's Awakening. I think its rather obvious that the reason the gameboy works is because it distracts the mind from thinking about it. Anxiety forms when you keep thinking about what they're going to do to you and how much it will be unpleasant. If you don't think about it, you stop worrying.
Kind of like how the government and the megacorps use television to distract people so they don't worry about what's really going on in the world.
I really don't understand these people. There are people here at college who download music and movies and keep buying more and more drives. What the hell is the point? Download something, watch or listen to it as you will. And then, when you aren't going to listen to or watch it ever again, DELETE IT.
Nooo. Instead we've got students here with spindles of CD-Rs full up with anime fansubs they are never going to watch again. I know a guy who has every episode of MST3K ever in a giant spindle. I don't think he's ever opened it. I also heard a buy bragging the other day about his 400 gig drive with only 20 gigs free because he filled it with movies.
These people are just stupid. They feel that this data is a "posession" of "value". They have something in their brain that makes them feel that having this data does something for them even if they never use it. They need to get a life. I mean, in the worst case scenario I delete something that I do indeed plan to watch again, I can *gasp* download it again! It doesn't take that long.
But I bet the hard disk and optical media industries live on these morons. So at least they do some good.
Here at RIT we've had all those things and more for 5+ years. At least this is my 5th year and I've always registered online. In addition to upgrading already existing technologies, which need it desperately, students are working to push more open source stuff. I got firefox installed in the library, and I'd say almost half the school uses it. One cool thing we have is a movable type license for every RIT facutly, staff and student. Now that's cool.
We also have an extremely fast extremely open network. The school allows you to do just about anything with the network. But if you go too far and they find out they come after you. I always laugh when I hear stories about people who can't even play fpses because the school blocks them.
This is why Steam is awesome. I almost forgot. Remember back in the day when a new version of CS would come out there would be a mad rush. You would have to sit through tons of bullshit at fileplanet or whatnot. And Gamespy arcade, that game finder was worse than the the WON one built into half-life 1.
Steam isn't the best solution, which would be automatic bittorrent software upgrades accompanied by an in-game game finder and no protection of sorts. But the reason its great is because the alternative is worse.
Maybe the people who love steam are the people like me who have been playing CS since beta7 and had to suffer all those years and the people who hate it are all the new guys and warez dudes.
Gamespy arcade sucks and always has sucked. I remember I would get games where the only way to play multiplayer was with gamespy arcade I would just refuse to isntall that crad adware. Like moonbase commander. no thank you, lan games for me only.
People get what they deserve for relying on some third party to do their game matching services. I wish kali would come back.
there are a zillion gui e-mail clients out there besides the moz and ms offerings. However, just about every single one of them for windows is spyware. Eudora isn't spyware if you pay for it. One alternative is to use linux and run ximian evolution, maybe you can get it to run in cygwin/mingw? The other option is webmail. And of course, you can use some non-gui mail like mutt.
Other than that, i think you're SOL.
Re:Somone get these ppl some free software!
on
Given Up to Spyware?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
yes, it is disturbing. I imagine that a significantly large portion of the Internet is dedicated to free/open-source software. It completely boggles the mind how you can be on the net and not notice it. It's as if you went on a trip to New York City you stop in the middle of Times Square and ask someone "Do they have Taxis here?"
Firefox is spreading well enough, but other things like aim clients amaze me. I use gaim, and some people say they prefer trillian or something else of that nature. But the number of people using the AOL AIM client is astounding. I mean, seriously.
Like many others I would like to believe this. And if its true I would like to utilize this information in court to try to make something happen.
But is there really enough evidence to hold this up? I don't see this article citing any sources. And towards the end it starts to sound more like a crazy conspiracy theory than something real.
ARM eh? I see some gentoo on my Nintendo DS real soon...
Oh, and anyone who things that a source based distribution would be bad for embedded, the opposite is true. Since its embedded you probably wouldn't be managing packages on it, like if it was say, a portable DVD player. Gentoo is really technically a meta-distro. It would just make it easier to create linux systems for different devices without having to do full on LFS. The compiling would be done once by the developer, then imaged into the devices. But the build would be device specific, meaning it would be as good as it can be.
I diasgree a little. I don't think someone can be held responsible for inaction. Lets say you're in a grocery store and it gets held up. The grocery clerk can't take me in because I hid in the corner. You could have helped, and didn't and are therefore responsible? no.
However, if someone is flagrantly negligent, then its another story. For example, If I have a factory with a machine. Workers are paid to use this machine. I fail in my duties to maintain the machine and it explodes injuring workers. That is my fault because I failed to perform my duty to the best of my abilities.
What it comes down to is responsibility. UC had a responsibility to make the plant safer and not explode. They failed and are responsible for the effects. 9/11 they have a responsibility to protect the country. In order to hold anyone liable you have to examine each individuals personal responsibility and then evaluate how well they performed vs. how they could have performed and what the effects of their failures where. A much more complicated affair.
As for the grocery clerk, I'm not responsible for his security.
If I had enough moneys I could buy the business. Then I could stop dealing with MS (save costs) and sell the PCs with a real linux build on them. None of this Sun and Lindows stuff. I'd build a gentoo or a debian and setup the desktop all nice with some easy gui tools for updating software. I'd stop making desktops and stick to thinkpads. By taking the windows tax off the price of the laptops I can beat everyone else on price. All the nerds and poor college students would buy them. It would rule.
Oh, but I don't have a hajillion dollars to buy it. Sorrow.
I alwasy reccomend computers be built from parts. If you care about saving money and getting high quality stuff, that is the only way to go. I have also discovered this Mini ITX case made by antec which might be good for your situation. It is very small and can be easily placed anywhere without being intrusive.
For things like the commodore audio chip you can't get exactly the same sounds without the real hardware. But for SNES I think that zsnes + roms + alsa does a pretty faithful rendition of the sound. And if I fiddle with the sound options you could argue that however unfaithful the sound becomes, it is actually superior in quality to that of just an SNES.
That's one thing the SNES did have over the Genesis. The sound quality was vastly superior. I remember the "echoy" cave noises in super mario world, that was something else.
Unless you go to the library. For every time some sort of registration has blocked me from reading something, I've always been able to go to the public or university library to get around it. If you're at a library, that library usually has all the subscriptions already. And since being there seems to mean that you're doing something for academics its all good.
The digital library exists. But to get access you have to go to the paper library.
...but the strips I read whenever they are updated include Boy On A Stick And Slither (which I crave beyond reason)...
Tycho reads boasas! That's awesome. If you don't already, you very much must read this comic. It is clearly a relatively unknown awesome comic of ultimate awesome. The Comic. My favorite one
Slashdot Mirror
Google hires a lot of doctors. Granted, most of them are doctors of CS. But still.
While speeding up the boot process is important. Especially in cases where a server goes down and you need to bring it back up quickly. For Linux it is not so important as windows. The system is so much more stable, and a reboot is technically only required if you rebuild the kernel; so you should really never turn the machine off. Of course, power outages without UPSs are a problem, but should be rare.
Another thing you'll notice with Linux is that the boot up is very slow and boring, unless you use bootsplash. But even then, it takes a long time before you can do anything. On windows, XP at least, it brings the gui up right away and you can get to work. But you'll notice that the first minute or so you try to do things it is very slow. The mouse wont move smoothly, programs wont load quickly, etc. What they did in windows is push all the things necessary to get the gui up to the front of the boot process, then they do the rest afterwards in the background thus making the system really unusable for an extra minute or two. For most linux systems it takes about the same amount of time to get everything loaded, but they do things in a sensical order. And once X is running, its running and ready to go.
So speeding up the boot process isn't that great. But it can't hurt either. What I'm really waiting for is a bettery way to reload the kernel without rebooting. There is already something I heard of, but it's not so great.
The next phase is myomer. The fictional "muscles" used in Battletech 'mech construction. They are supposedly strong fibers that expand and contract when you pass current through them, or something to that effect.
Giant robots here we come!
They like video games, a lot. If you can include games in it in any way, they'll be all over it.
Those features are nice. And I'm sure that most people on slashdot would benefit from them greatly. But for normal people, it wont help. My parents I switched to linux. And they enjoy the obvious benefits like not crashing and no spyware. And they've been using firefox even longer than they've been using linux. And they still dont' understand tabbed browsing, why its better. They don't organize bookmarks into folders. They really just don't care about efficient use of the computer. It takes me about 5 seconds to accomplish what it takes them an hour to do, and they don't care. They have the features and the power available to them to imporove their computing experience and do things faster and more efficiently. But they don't do it.
So for nerds like you and me this stuff rules. But leave it to firefox extensions. If you put it in the base package it will only confuse normal folk. You have to stick to things that are obviously better and things that my parents will use. Like the google search box.
While I think it is plainly obvious that in terms of stability, performance and security that Linux systems are superior to windows systems I don't think that bugs per line of code is a very good measurement. The designs of the two operating systems are so far off from each other its really not a fair comparison.
A bettery way would be a component by component comparison. For example: look at the memory management code in Linux then in Windows. Compare the code for features as well as bugs. Do this for every component. Then you will get a fair comparison.
Of course, I'm almost sure that the result will be that the components of linux are smaller, less buggy, and more "computer science correct" than the windows counterparts. But I'm also sure you will find the windows code to have more features. Meaning the ability to do so many backwards compatible things that nobody understands. So the features don't necessarily mean beneficial abilities for the end user, but they mean ways in which the code allows for so many possibilities.
firefox takes 133 MB of RAM? What is wrong with your computer? On this windows machine here at school it takes 23MB. And it takes even less on my Linux boxen at home. You must have installed some pretty heavy extensions and startup up some pretty crazy plugins to get it to use that much RAM.
random trivia: The first game to ever come on PC-CDROM was Loom from LucasArts. Also wasn't Wing Commander IV the one that came with a pile of CDs? I thought that 3 just had one or two.
this is the awesome. How can I integrate it with the search box in firefox? I feel an extension coming on.
When I was a kid the orthodontist had gameboys for kids to play. But he wasn't very good about keeping batteries and games fresh. He did have Metroid II and Zelda: Link's Awakening. I think its rather obvious that the reason the gameboy works is because it distracts the mind from thinking about it. Anxiety forms when you keep thinking about what they're going to do to you and how much it will be unpleasant. If you don't think about it, you stop worrying.
Kind of like how the government and the megacorps use television to distract people so they don't worry about what's really going on in the world.
I really don't understand these people. There are people here at college who download music and movies and keep buying more and more drives. What the hell is the point? Download something, watch or listen to it as you will. And then, when you aren't going to listen to or watch it ever again, DELETE IT.
Nooo. Instead we've got students here with spindles of CD-Rs full up with anime fansubs they are never going to watch again. I know a guy who has every episode of MST3K ever in a giant spindle. I don't think he's ever opened it. I also heard a buy bragging the other day about his 400 gig drive with only 20 gigs free because he filled it with movies.
These people are just stupid. They feel that this data is a "posession" of "value". They have something in their brain that makes them feel that having this data does something for them even if they never use it. They need to get a life. I mean, in the worst case scenario I delete something that I do indeed plan to watch again, I can *gasp* download it again! It doesn't take that long.
But I bet the hard disk and optical media industries live on these morons. So at least they do some good.
Here at RIT we've had all those things and more for 5+ years. At least this is my 5th year and I've always registered online. In addition to upgrading already existing technologies, which need it desperately, students are working to push more open source stuff. I got firefox installed in the library, and I'd say almost half the school uses it. One cool thing we have is a movable type license for every RIT facutly, staff and student. Now that's cool.
We also have an extremely fast extremely open network. The school allows you to do just about anything with the network. But if you go too far and they find out they come after you. I always laugh when I hear stories about people who can't even play fpses because the school blocks them.
A single peer to peer ad-hoc worldwide bittorrent style feed through which RSS stories are passed and spread. A great vision for the future.
This is why Steam is awesome. I almost forgot. Remember back in the day when a new version of CS would come out there would be a mad rush. You would have to sit through tons of bullshit at fileplanet or whatnot. And Gamespy arcade, that game finder was worse than the the WON one built into half-life 1.
Steam isn't the best solution, which would be automatic bittorrent software upgrades accompanied by an in-game game finder and no protection of sorts. But the reason its great is because the alternative is worse.
Maybe the people who love steam are the people like me who have been playing CS since beta7 and had to suffer all those years and the people who hate it are all the new guys and warez dudes.
Gamespy arcade sucks and always has sucked. I remember I would get games where the only way to play multiplayer was with gamespy arcade I would just refuse to isntall that crad adware. Like moonbase commander. no thank you, lan games for me only.
People get what they deserve for relying on some third party to do their game matching services. I wish kali would come back.
there are a zillion gui e-mail clients out there besides the moz and ms offerings. However, just about every single one of them for windows is spyware. Eudora isn't spyware if you pay for it. One alternative is to use linux and run ximian evolution, maybe you can get it to run in cygwin/mingw? The other option is webmail. And of course, you can use some non-gui mail like mutt.
Other than that, i think you're SOL.
yes, it is disturbing. I imagine that a significantly large portion of the Internet is dedicated to free/open-source software. It completely boggles the mind how you can be on the net and not notice it. It's as if you went on a trip to New York City you stop in the middle of Times Square and ask someone "Do they have Taxis here?"
Firefox is spreading well enough, but other things like aim clients amaze me. I use gaim, and some people say they prefer trillian or something else of that nature. But the number of people using the AOL AIM client is astounding. I mean, seriously.
Like many others I would like to believe this. And if its true I would like to utilize this information in court to try to make something happen.
But is there really enough evidence to hold this up? I don't see this article citing any sources. And towards the end it starts to sound more like a crazy conspiracy theory than something real.
ARM eh? I see some gentoo on my Nintendo DS real soon...
Oh, and anyone who things that a source based distribution would be bad for embedded, the opposite is true. Since its embedded you probably wouldn't be managing packages on it, like if it was say, a portable DVD player. Gentoo is really technically a meta-distro. It would just make it easier to create linux systems for different devices without having to do full on LFS. The compiling would be done once by the developer, then imaged into the devices. But the build would be device specific, meaning it would be as good as it can be.
I diasgree a little. I don't think someone can be held responsible for inaction. Lets say you're in a grocery store and it gets held up. The grocery clerk can't take me in because I hid in the corner. You could have helped, and didn't and are therefore responsible? no.
However, if someone is flagrantly negligent, then its another story. For example, If I have a factory with a machine. Workers are paid to use this machine. I fail in my duties to maintain the machine and it explodes injuring workers. That is my fault because I failed to perform my duty to the best of my abilities.
What it comes down to is responsibility. UC had a responsibility to make the plant safer and not explode. They failed and are responsible for the effects. 9/11 they have a responsibility to protect the country. In order to hold anyone liable you have to examine each individuals personal responsibility and then evaluate how well they performed vs. how they could have performed and what the effects of their failures where. A much more complicated affair.
As for the grocery clerk, I'm not responsible for his security.
If I had enough moneys I could buy the business. Then I could stop dealing with MS (save costs) and sell the PCs with a real linux build on them. None of this Sun and Lindows stuff. I'd build a gentoo or a debian and setup the desktop all nice with some easy gui tools for updating software. I'd stop making desktops and stick to thinkpads. By taking the windows tax off the price of the laptops I can beat everyone else on price. All the nerds and poor college students would buy them. It would rule.
Oh, but I don't have a hajillion dollars to buy it. Sorrow.
I alwasy reccomend computers be built from parts. If you care about saving money and getting high quality stuff, that is the only way to go. I have also discovered this Mini ITX case made by antec which might be good for your situation. It is very small and can be easily placed anywhere without being intrusive.
e sc ription=11-129-146&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?d
They don't happen to have a Nintendo DS Dev kit do they?
For things like the commodore audio chip you can't get exactly the same sounds without the real hardware. But for SNES I think that zsnes + roms + alsa does a pretty faithful rendition of the sound. And if I fiddle with the sound options you could argue that however unfaithful the sound becomes, it is actually superior in quality to that of just an SNES.
That's one thing the SNES did have over the Genesis. The sound quality was vastly superior. I remember the "echoy" cave noises in super mario world, that was something else.
Unless you go to the library. For every time some sort of registration has blocked me from reading something, I've always been able to go to the public or university library to get around it. If you're at a library, that library usually has all the subscriptions already. And since being there seems to mean that you're doing something for academics its all good.
The digital library exists. But to get access you have to go to the paper library.
...but the strips I read whenever they are updated include Boy On A Stick And Slither (which I crave beyond reason)...
Tycho reads boasas! That's awesome. If you don't already, you very much must read this comic. It is clearly a relatively unknown awesome comic of ultimate awesome.
The Comic.
My favorite one