I know there are comments here that mention Slackware as a joke but I'm actually serious. OK; maybe the install procedure could be intimidating, but then one could use a live variant such as Eric Hameelers' Slackware Live in its Plasma 5 or MATE variants. These could run flawlessly from an USB stick without the need for a complex installation procedure.
Slackware, contrary to what many people assert, is fundamentally simple and easy to maintain. Most problems could be solved with simple commands or by editing text configuration files; and problems are rare. The distribution is rock-solid, stable and fast. And in many cases is a "non-distro", in the sense that what you usually get is unmodified upstream software, without any "optimizations" (?) applied by many distros. It's the Linux distribution which is closest to a classical Unix and thus it provides a great learning environment, but its simplicity and stability means peace of mind and freedom to learn.
And Slackware shines as a learning environment: a full set of dev tools, a vast array of desktop environments (most of them provided by third parties but very up to date) and a simple architecture that just works. And whatever you'll learn, it will be applicable in just about any Linux, not just Slackware. Try it, and you will not be disappointed.
This is simply not true. Try to pay in USD in a cafeteria in Cascavel or a beach restaurant in Caiobá. I have personal experience. In both cases the owner flat out refused taking USD as a payment.
Thanks! I think the Three Gorges dam (China) is bigger but AFAICT Itaipu still holds the record for energy production (98.630 TWh in 2013). Of course, Three Gorges is expected to surpass Itaipu, going over 100 TWh, but it still hasn't happened yet.
My country (Paraguay) went 100% renewable after 1973, when the Acaray dam went operational and covered 100% of the energy needs of the country. In 1983 the world's largest operational dam (Itaipú) began to serve energy and we own 50% of it (with Brazil). We also own 50% of another large dam (Yacyreta). Now, and save for biomass-burning usines used in the Mennonite colonies at the far north, isolated Chaco area, we still are 100% covered by hydropower. There are plans to convert these biomass plants either to solar power or to lay down wires so they could use power from Itaipu. So, I would say that covering large energy needs with renewable power is totally possible, and we are proof of it since 1973.
KDE is not dead at all, not even by a long shot. I'm using the latest Plasma 5 desktop in Slackware (current) and I find it lean, fast, and quite stable.
I think the problem lies in the fact that the codebase is quite big and the developer base is shrinking. There are not many hobbyists working on it right now, and there are simply no distros sponsorinng any paid developers to work on KDE. The result is that there are a lot of emblematic KDE apps/frameworks which still need to be ported to Plasma 5, such as Kile or Krusader, KHTML, or Reqonk (some may say that some of those apps/frameworks are already ported but there are no releases of them). One by one, the applications and frameworks get abandoned.
So, there was a time where several distros sponsored some developers, and there were also other high-profile developers working on KDE as a hobby. These got new jobs, so their involvement in KDE had to be cut, and there was no replacement in sight.
I think KDE is trying to correct the problem. They are a good community, but to be honest, it is a difficult process.
This was a real computer giant. I remember that my dad got wind of his ideas, and he made sure I had a computer available to tinker with in my late childhood and teen years, something that here (Paraguay, South America) was by no means taken for granted back in the time (late 1970s/1980s). Even to this day Dr. Papert made a significant contribution to Paraguayan education in the form of the XO/OLPC laptops, which are instrumental in educating many Paraguayan children. RIP and thanks for everything Dr. Papert.
I enter "init 5", I expect the graphical system (usually X11 with a chooser) to start. Different UNIX/Linux init subsystems handle this differently, but the 1/2/3/5 runlevels can generally be counted on to be the same.
Breaking this is introducing incompatibilities for the sake of being different.
Why? If you have to edit inittab, it shows you the meaning of each runlevel just above the "Default runlevel" line as the (grand)parent post shows. Not exactly "breaking things to introduce incompatibilities".
Not in my Kindle Voyage. All I have is Baskerville, Bookerly, Helvetica, Palatino, Futura, Caecilia and Caecilia Condensed. No Verdana here. Seriously, the only worthwile choices IMHO are Baskerville, Bookerly and Palatino. Caecilia is awful in its bold weight (almost indistinguishable from the normal one).
Seriously, Amazon needs to improve the font situation on its e-ink Kindles.
In libpurple (read: Pidgin and other apps that might use it for messaging) you can connect via purple-facebook, which is a Facebook chat protocol plugin. There are still some glitches but it's definitely usable.
I will give MS the benefit of the doubt in this one. Good for them, and for the cause of Free Software.
However, about your rhetorical question:
Okay, I'll bite: how many entities has MS sued for.net patent violations on the subsequent versions, as you referenced? It's been the better part of a decade now, right? No doubt they have sprung their trap...?
I'll answer: I don't know, but MS doesn't need to sue when half of all Android devices worldwide paid extortionmoney to MS to the tune of USD 28 billion in confidential settlements, and it refuses to disclose which exact patents it is using for (extortion) licensing.
IMHO, the trap has sprung, and has bitten a lot of people. So yes, some distrust in MS is well warranted.
I think it's for two reasons: first, because the technique enables to watch molecular processes at the 'single molecule' level, and this is highly significant for chemistry, obviously.
I think there might be a second reason too: the effectiveness of the technique depends on a lot of photochemical knowledge and proper selection of dyes, which again is another significant area of study and research in chemistry.
Pinfo is an info file viewer. It was created when the author, Przemek Borys, was very depressed trying to read gtk info entries using the standard tools.
Pinfo is similar in use to lynx. It has similar key movements, and gives similar intuition. You just move across info nodes, and select links, follow them... Well, you know how it is when you view html with lynx.:) It supports as many colors as it could.
Believe me, it's a lifesaver for reading info pages.
I don't know which Ubuntu you are talking about but the three machines that I run don't have any problems that they wouldn't have under (or because of) Vista. And I can maintain all three free of cost.... Just because it doesn't fulfill your expectations doesn't mean it's not a good desktop. Windows doesn't fulfill mine... so what do you say to that?
I ain't saying nothin'. It's theuserstheoneswhoaredoin'thetalkin'. Ubuntu is buggy. Period. The fact that Vista, or any Windows for that regard, might be buggy too, does not invalidate that perception.
Correction: It's a FREE Ferrari that outruns the MS Ferrari at many many occasions and you don't have to buy a special screwdriver for thousands of dollars to open the hood. What is KDE then? A Lamborghini in first gear? Same here, they do a lot of stuff but it has it's problems too.
Don't compare apples to oranges. Compare Ubuntu (a distro, or a complex of distros) to other distros: CentOS, PCLinuxOS, LinuxMint, Mandriva, OpenSUSE, Slackware... you get the idea.
I stand by my point. Putting a slow, buggy distro with a GNOME frontend = big mess. I've seen that before (summoning Red Hat Linux versions from the dead...).
You might get a decent implementation of GNOME on another distro, who knows... (Debian, perhaps?). You might also get a good, stable distro who also happens to be very fast (Vector Linux).
But these two damning factors (GNOME and a slow, buggy linux) are present in Ubuntu and this is a trend that is only going to get worse as far as I can see.
Having that handed out as a flagship Linux desktop is like having a Ferrari in first gear.
btw, want a decent Linux desktop and don't want to use KDE? Great, just use XFce, which is a great desktop too.
That's a good clarification, and was sorely needed after the flames of some less enlightened Ubutu fanbois.
However, I'd like to point out that there are several problems with Kubuntu's implementation of KDE 4.x. You can also check this. Funny thing is, most of the problems people experience with Ubuntu are absent in other distros (e.g., in my box I use Slackware and I haven't seen those horror stories).
That's why I say that Ubuntu is buggy. Ubuntu's QA needs to be better, and the distro layout should be better (i.e., include Flash and Java out of the box, make things stable, and so on).
Ubuntu undoubtedly has potential; but there's something that's killing them. I don't know what it is, but it's making them do releases that are more and more unstable. In this way, they negate whatever advantage they could get. ("Linux? Oh yea, it came in my netbook but I wiped it clean, it never got my screen right and apps crashed every time!").
Let Microsoft go after Ubuntu. Because Ubuntu is slow, buggy, and not a good desktop. Ubuntu is not the best GNU/Linux distribution. For starters, their quality assurance could be much better, and it is not economical in resource usage. Moreover, it was infected with the "Red Hat" disease of patching everything, introducing more, difficult to track and patch, bugs.
Worse yet, Ubuntu uses by default the GNOME Desktop. It's my personal preference, but I can't stand GNOME, period. It is so aggravating I can't even use it. A GNU/Linux desktop using GNOME is like using a Ferrari car only in first shift. Its vast potential is completely underused.
Therefore, my guess is that Ubuntu is in fact a low-hanging fruit. Let Microsoft go after Ubuntu; meanwhile... KDE will eat their lunch. 4.2 is just the harbinger of things to come and it's that terrific. Period.
That was my comment. I wasn't trolling; I was just expressing my point of view on the subject. How sad that some with mod points thought I was trolling -- obviously they cannot handle dissent.
So what? Windows became leader because it *was* the best desktop (at least, the one that offered the best value) at one time. It became the leader then, and since then, it has maintained that position aided by monopolistic practices. All this is commonplace.
And I say, it's better for them to distract their gaze on slow, buggy implementation of Linux while the best ones (say, LinuxMint, PCLinuxOS, gah... there are many of them) begin to steal MS's lunch.
Let Microsoft go after Ubuntu. Because Ubuntu is slow, buggy, and not a good desktop.
Ubuntu is not the best GNU/Linux distribution. For starters, their quality assurance could be much better, and it is not economical in resource usage. Moreover, it was infected with the "Red Hat" disease of patching everything, introducing more, difficult to track and patch, bugs.
Worse yet, Ubuntu uses by default the GNOME Desktop. It's my personal preference, but I can't stand GNOME, period. It is so aggravating I can't even use it. A GNU/Linux desktop using GNOME is like using a Ferrari car only in first shift. Its vast potential is completely underused.
Therefore, my guess is that Ubuntu is in fact a low-hanging fruit. Let Microsoft go after Ubuntu; meanwhile... KDE will eat their lunch. 4.2 is just the harbinger of things to come and it's that terrific. Period.
Slashdot Mirror
I know there are comments here that mention Slackware as a joke but I'm actually serious. OK; maybe the install procedure could be intimidating, but then one could use a live variant such as Eric Hameelers' Slackware Live in its Plasma 5 or MATE variants. These could run flawlessly from an USB stick without the need for a complex installation procedure.
Slackware, contrary to what many people assert, is fundamentally simple and easy to maintain. Most problems could be solved with simple commands or by editing text configuration files; and problems are rare. The distribution is rock-solid, stable and fast. And in many cases is a "non-distro", in the sense that what you usually get is unmodified upstream software, without any "optimizations" (?) applied by many distros. It's the Linux distribution which is closest to a classical Unix and thus it provides a great learning environment, but its simplicity and stability means peace of mind and freedom to learn.
And Slackware shines as a learning environment: a full set of dev tools, a vast array of desktop environments (most of them provided by third parties but very up to date) and a simple architecture that just works. And whatever you'll learn, it will be applicable in just about any Linux, not just Slackware. Try it, and you will not be disappointed.
This is simply not true. Try to pay in USD in a cafeteria in Cascavel or a beach restaurant in Caiobá. I have personal experience. In both cases the owner flat out refused taking USD as a payment.
Not everywhere. Good luck trying to pay anything in USD in Brazil.
Twitter still does not resolve here.
Thanks! I think the Three Gorges dam (China) is bigger but AFAICT Itaipu still holds the record for energy production (98.630 TWh in 2013). Of course, Three Gorges is expected to surpass Itaipu, going over 100 TWh, but it still hasn't happened yet.
My country (Paraguay) went 100% renewable after 1973, when the Acaray dam went operational and covered 100% of the energy needs of the country. In 1983 the world's largest operational dam (Itaipú) began to serve energy and we own 50% of it (with Brazil). We also own 50% of another large dam (Yacyreta). Now, and save for biomass-burning usines used in the Mennonite colonies at the far north, isolated Chaco area, we still are 100% covered by hydropower. There are plans to convert these biomass plants either to solar power or to lay down wires so they could use power from Itaipu. So, I would say that covering large energy needs with renewable power is totally possible, and we are proof of it since 1973.
I can confirm this in my Win10 setup. Upon plugging my Kindle Voyage, Win10 Anniversary Update crashes instantly and require a reboot.
KDE is not dead at all, not even by a long shot. I'm using the latest Plasma 5 desktop in Slackware (current) and I find it lean, fast, and quite stable.
I think the problem lies in the fact that the codebase is quite big and the developer base is shrinking. There are not many hobbyists working on it right now, and there are simply no distros sponsorinng any paid developers to work on KDE. The result is that there are a lot of emblematic KDE apps/frameworks which still need to be ported to Plasma 5, such as Kile or Krusader, KHTML, or Reqonk (some may say that some of those apps/frameworks are already ported but there are no releases of them). One by one, the applications and frameworks get abandoned.
Among the latest to suffer this behavior was KDE-Telepathy, which is right now losing its maintainer.
So, there was a time where several distros sponsored some developers, and there were also other high-profile developers working on KDE as a hobby. These got new jobs, so their involvement in KDE had to be cut, and there was no replacement in sight.
I think KDE is trying to correct the problem. They are a good community, but to be honest, it is a difficult process.
This was a real computer giant. I remember that my dad got wind of his ideas, and he made sure I had a computer available to tinker with in my late childhood and teen years, something that here (Paraguay, South America) was by no means taken for granted back in the time (late 1970s/1980s). Even to this day Dr. Papert made a significant contribution to Paraguayan education in the form of the XO/OLPC laptops, which are instrumental in educating many Paraguayan children. RIP and thanks for everything Dr. Papert.
I enter "init 5", I expect the graphical system (usually X11 with a chooser) to start.
Different UNIX/Linux init subsystems handle this differently, but the 1/2/3/5 runlevels can generally be counted on to be the same.
Breaking this is introducing incompatibilities for the sake of being different.
Why? If you have to edit inittab, it shows you the meaning of each runlevel just above the "Default runlevel" line as the (grand)parent post shows. Not exactly "breaking things to introduce incompatibilities".
Not in my Kindle Voyage. All I have is Baskerville, Bookerly, Helvetica, Palatino, Futura, Caecilia and Caecilia Condensed. No Verdana here. Seriously, the only worthwile choices IMHO are Baskerville, Bookerly and Palatino. Caecilia is awful in its bold weight (almost indistinguishable from the normal one).
Seriously, Amazon needs to improve the font situation on its e-ink Kindles.
In libpurple (read: Pidgin and other apps that might use it for messaging) you can connect via purple-facebook, which is a Facebook chat protocol plugin. There are still some glitches but it's definitely usable.
I will give MS the benefit of the doubt in this one. Good for them, and for the cause of Free Software.
However, about your rhetorical question:
Okay, I'll bite: how many entities has MS sued for .net patent violations on the subsequent versions, as you referenced? It's been the better part of a decade now, right? No doubt they have sprung their trap...?
I'll answer: I don't know, but MS doesn't need to sue when half of all Android devices worldwide paid extortion money to MS to the tune of USD 28 billion in confidential settlements, and it refuses to disclose which exact patents it is using for (extortion) licensing.
IMHO, the trap has sprung, and has bitten a lot of people. So yes, some distrust in MS is well warranted.
I think it's for two reasons: first, because the technique enables to watch molecular processes at the 'single molecule' level, and this is highly significant for chemistry, obviously.
I think there might be a second reason too: the effectiveness of the technique depends on a lot of photochemical knowledge and proper selection of dyes, which again is another significant area of study and research in chemistry.
Try pinfo. From the description:
Believe me, it's a lifesaver for reading info pages.
Just installed an official update from Nokia a week ago...
And even though it was launched in 2009, it offers a boatload of features that other phones don't even try to match: the Nokia N900.
Is work continuing on KHTML...?
It seems so. Check this.
Oh boy, let's see...
I ain't saying nothin'. It's the users the ones who are doin' the talkin'. Ubuntu is buggy. Period. The fact that Vista, or any Windows for that regard, might be buggy too, does not invalidate that perception.
Don't compare apples to oranges. Compare Ubuntu (a distro, or a complex of distros) to other distros: CentOS, PCLinuxOS, LinuxMint, Mandriva, OpenSUSE, Slackware... you get the idea.
I stand by my point. Putting a slow, buggy distro with a GNOME frontend = big mess. I've seen that before (summoning Red Hat Linux versions from the dead...).
You might get a decent implementation of GNOME on another distro, who knows... (Debian, perhaps?). You might also get a good, stable distro who also happens to be very fast (Vector Linux).
But these two damning factors (GNOME and a slow, buggy linux) are present in Ubuntu and this is a trend that is only going to get worse as far as I can see.
Having that handed out as a flagship Linux desktop is like having a Ferrari in first gear.
btw, want a decent Linux desktop and don't want to use KDE? Great, just use XFce, which is a great desktop too.
So, who is the fanboi here...? ;-)
Agreed in a 99%. My only nitpick is that depending on the user's level of technical wizardry, there might be a Linux desktop good enough for him.
That's a good clarification, and was sorely needed after the flames of some less enlightened Ubutu fanbois.
However, I'd like to point out that there are several problems with Kubuntu's implementation of KDE 4.x. You can also check this. Funny thing is, most of the problems people experience with Ubuntu are absent in other distros (e.g., in my box I use Slackware and I haven't seen those horror stories).
That's why I say that Ubuntu is buggy. Ubuntu's QA needs to be better, and the distro layout should be better (i.e., include Flash and Java out of the box, make things stable, and so on).
Ubuntu undoubtedly has potential; but there's something that's killing them. I don't know what it is, but it's making them do releases that are more and more unstable. In this way, they negate whatever advantage they could get. ("Linux? Oh yea, it came in my netbook but I wiped it clean, it never got my screen right and apps crashed every time!").
That was my comment. I wasn't trolling; I was just expressing my point of view on the subject. How sad that some with mod points thought I was trolling -- obviously they cannot handle dissent.
So what? Windows became leader because it *was* the best desktop (at least, the one that offered the best value) at one time. It became the leader then, and since then, it has maintained that position aided by monopolistic practices. All this is commonplace.
And I say, it's better for them to distract their gaze on slow, buggy implementation of Linux while the best ones (say, LinuxMint, PCLinuxOS, gah... there are many of them) begin to steal MS's lunch.
Let Microsoft go after Ubuntu. Because Ubuntu is slow, buggy, and not a good desktop.
Ubuntu is not the best GNU/Linux distribution. For starters, their quality assurance could be much better, and it is not economical in resource usage. Moreover, it was infected with the "Red Hat" disease of patching everything, introducing more, difficult to track and patch, bugs.
Worse yet, Ubuntu uses by default the GNOME Desktop. It's my personal preference, but I can't stand GNOME, period. It is so aggravating I can't even use it. A GNU/Linux desktop using GNOME is like using a Ferrari car only in first shift. Its vast potential is completely underused.
Therefore, my guess is that Ubuntu is in fact a low-hanging fruit. Let Microsoft go after Ubuntu; meanwhile... KDE will eat their lunch. 4.2 is just the harbinger of things to come and it's that terrific. Period.
I know, I know, Reps are all for greedy corporations, but Dems are all for government intrusion in your life.
This was predictable. To all you who voted Dem, this serves you right.