There are plenty of distros out there which excell at holding the novice user's hand while softly whispering in his ear, "don't worry, everything is going to be OK. We'll get through this together, you and me."
Slackware is not one of them. That's why we like it.
Sure it does. Just download the distro at work (using straight rsync or swaret or even FTP if you want but that doesn't work very well) and then build your own ISOs from the distro. It's a piece of cake, there is even a text file there to tell you exactly how to build the ISO. You can even build your own CD with just the packages you want on it, so you can have the whole thing on 1 CD if you want.
If all else fails, unofficial sites do release ISOs of the current releases. Some have been mentioned in this forum.
I've used Slackware since 98, so not as long as you, but I would like to echo your comments. My experience with other distros is slim (bit of RedHat, bit of Knoppix), but I haven't seen a compelling reason to change. Slackware has been like a good friend to me.
A short incomplete list of things I like about the distro: Slackware makes you learn stuff (not a bad thing). Slackware doesn't molly coddle you. Things make sense. It's configurable to a fault. It's up-to-date. Patrick kicks ass. Nuff said.
Well, I can't say how it compares to other package management systems in the other distros, but I rather like the slackware package management system. It has improved, it sounds like, since the last time you used Slackware. It does allow package removal, and allow you to upgrade packages as well. Also there are tools to help youbuild your own packages.
Because their current form of distribution is superior to ISO download. By using an rsync mirror, you can not only easily download an entire distro, but update that distro with any changes as they occur...without downloading the entire ISO again. For instance, when RC2 comes out, by using rsync you'll be able to easily download just the changes from RC1 to RC2. (I don't use swaret as i've got some custom scripts built to use some rsync mirrors I know of, but I'm sure it works on this concept and uses rsync).
Also: this distro method allows you to pick only those packages you want to download. Don't like GNOME? don't download it. Don't want any gui at all? skip gnome, kde, and X.
Once you've downloaded your distro, just do an NFS export on the distro dir on the host machine. Then build yourself a boot CD or boot floppy (as you prefer). Once you've booted on the target machine, you can install straight off the NFS share to the target. Works great, I do it all the time...I did my first ever Slackware install this way, even though the host machine was a Windows box.
Honestly, ISO downloads of distros kinda sucks, once you start doing things this way.
Unless you're talking about a particularly nasty heroin addiction, the only way to quit anything is cold turkey.
I quit caffine for six months (back at it again, unfortunately). I was also worried about the withdrawl headaches affecting work, so I quit on a friday afternoon and took the following Monday, Tuesday off. That worked well--i was pretty much done with the headaches by then and was already noticing the benefits of quitting (most notably, more energy throughout the day).
Look out for the pitfall that got me back on caffine again. After being off caffine for about 6 months, I came to work one day with only about two hours of sleep the night before...so I said, "well, just a can of Coke this one time to get me through today." Boom, that's all it took. Now I'm back to my regular pot of coffee or so every day. God, I love coffee. Damn you, caffine!
So, are you saying if you're a company trying to run WebSphere or Java on an AS/400, you're behind the times? Care to back that statement up at all? You may be surprised to learn the iSeries (used to be the AS/400, been the iSeries for years now) runs Java just fine. And Websphere. And Tomcat. And Apache. Oh, yeah...and Linux. We've many customers happily running Websphere on their iSeries for years now. All this, plus take that iSeries database in a performace challege against any other database running in that company, and I'd definitely wager on the iSeries.
That you consider the iSeries a platform that is behind the times, shows more of your ignorance than the companies running them.
I've written a functionally similar application I use to listen to my CDs at work. The system provides a web interface to my 3 Sony CD changers using the Sony "S-Link" interface included on all Sony CD changers.
Michael, in your "editorializing" on this submission, you managed to sum up pretty much everything that bugs me about Slashdot. Thanks for that.
Did you even read the Portal of Evil post? Apparently not. If you had, you'd realize this particular brand of spyware is installed without the users' consent. "When will people learn?"?!? When will Slashdot editors learn to read articles first, and cast their pompus, overbearing comments later? Like a lot later. Like maybe never.
This software affects Windows users, and therefore, not the sort of user that goes around compiling his or her own kernels on a daily basis. I believe this, and this alone, is the reason it upsets you so much. You're the kind of guy that will scoff at an everyday Windows user who accidentally opens a virus attachment, then goes on to pay his mechanic $500 dollars for what should have been a routine $50 repair without batting an eyelid. In short, you're a dick.
Comments like yours are typical of the smug, unbearable technodweeb -- the kind doomed to spend the rest of his life relegated to the back room with his precious computers, far away from those people who actually use them.
Do me a favor from now on. Post the damn story, and shut up.
Companies don't want well rounded tools, they want sharp cutting tools to perform particular tasks.
I've hired people in the past, and when I do, I don't look for Tools. A Tool is great for one particular task, yes; but the tasks required in tech are dynamic. I need people who can be dynamic with those constantly changing requirements. In short, I need people who can learn and think quickly.
Furthermore, judging by the number of companies that require a degree, I have to assume they don't want Tools either.
This has been said already in this forum, but I think it worth pointing out again.
The difference between tech school and college is tech school teaches you how to do a particular task, and college teaches you how to think about things.
When you go to college and take your first CS class, I think you'll be surprised at how inapplicible all your years of on-the-job programming experience actually are. A real CS program at an accredited school is not interested in churning out programmers which will succeed in the business world, as would be a tech school. Rather, they are interested in producing individuals who have the capacity to solve problems which haven't been even described yet. People who can look at a problem and see multiple ways to solve it. People that are adaptable.
Of course, schools don't always succeed in this lofty task, but that's not the point. The thing for you to remember is that higher education, in and of itself, is worth quite a lot more than the piece of paper you get at the end. Do not take a college CS class and worry yourself with, "how will this class help me in my next job," you will drive yourself nuts. The benefits are a little more abstract than that, but also more rewarding.
I really shouldn't be one to talk: I don't have a degree myself. I attended University of Minnesota pursuing a IT/CS degree for 2 1/2 years before getting lured into the business world, never to return and finish my degree. I can tell you this though, the knowledge I gained from my time in college definitely, without question, puts me ahead of those people with only tech school or no higher education.
I looked at moving all my CDs to some eletronic format some time back. The main problem I have with the current electronic formats is not so much the quality or the players (which is definitely an issue), but the inability to retain the continuity of the "album" itself.
In other words, I want an electronic format which keeps the _entire_disk_ intact as a single entity. Think of your classical or electronica discs where there are no breaks from track to track: once converted to mp3 (or whatever), I found it impossible to play the album the way it was meant to be heard. No matter what I tried, I still got a slight break in-between the tracks.
Also, wouldn't it be nice if there was an open electronic format that retained things like the liner pages, etc, from the CD? Maybe I'm the only one who cares about such esoteric issues, but to me, the concept of the "album" itself is important and needs to be retained.
My solution? I, along with some other people, created a system which allows me to integrate my Sony CD changers with my Linux/Apache web server. Now, I can control my jukeboxes from a web page. I am running a streaming server, so I can listen to my collection from work or wherever, and the concept of an "album" is retained throughout. You can see my work here:
You won't be able to control the changer, as a login is required to do that part. If you're interested in a demo, drop me an email and I'll set you up with a login.
Regards;
DaC
Note to Linux-Works marketing department...
on
Portable Linux Box
·
· Score: 3
Slashdot users (your target market, I assume) have spoken: For crying out loud, quit trying to market this thing as a portable PC. Why in the hell would I ever transport a computer that I have to plug into a wall, keyboard, and monitor before I start? What is the point?
I've got to believe that the designer of this sexy little toy intended it to be the "big ugly putty box" killer. That's what the nano-PC should be marketed as: the future of the desktop computer.
And about friggin' time too. Computer cases in general are my pet peeve. Why is it that I can buy a piece of home audio equipment for $200 with the most kickassedly(tm) designed case you've ever seen, but when I spend $2000 on a computer I get some putty-colored moster made out the cheapest, crappiest, ugliest plastic the manufacturer could find? OOH IT HAS A BLINKING GREEN LIGHT I'M SO IMPRESSED. Meanwhile, my crappy $300 car stereo can do this waay-fscked-up laser show that makes it just about impossible for me to see oncoming traffic at night. What is wrong with this picture?!?
Why do you think Apple has been so successful with the iMac? They managed to come up with a case design only slighty less vomit-inducing than your average PC case, and the entire computing world lost its collective mind like a pre-teen staring at a copy of "Plumpers Magazine" for the first time.
I think it goes without saying that the nano-PC is only about 1,000,000 times cooler sitting on your desk than an iMac. Actually, even one of those stupid miniature fridges from thinkgeek is cooler sitting on your desk than an iMac, but that is not my point.
For once you've caught the big desktop manufacturers with their pants down. Your Prime Directive is clear: destroy them all while there is still time.
And while you're at it, would it KILL you guys to put a real video card in the thing?!?
Hi Junks:
I think you've read more into my statement than I actually meant by it. Rather than making a grandiose statement about how fast technology itself moves, I was referencing the phenomena whereby the first time *one* hacker publicly accomplishes a feat, there is generally a time period of rapid growth where other hackers attempt to trump the initial accomplishment.
So therefore, the fact that the first publicly known web server running the Hurd was about a year ago, I'd expect some rapid advancement since then. For example: a production site running HURD with a significant amount of daily traffic, perhaps.
Regards;
DaC
Slashdot Mirror
There are plenty of distros out there which excell at holding the novice user's hand while softly whispering in his ear, "don't worry, everything is going to be OK. We'll get through this together, you and me."
Slackware is not one of them. That's why we like it.
DaC
What about people who only have three fingers on their left hand? It is very hard to type "rsync" if you only have three fingers on your left hand.
And what about robots which have been programmed to love? WHAT ABOUT THE ROBOTS, HAS ANYONE THOUGHT ABOUT THE ROBOTS?!?
But the serious answer is, if you are on such a restrictive network, then you shouldn't be downloading an ISO. But you already knew that.
DaC
Sure it does. Just download the distro at work (using straight rsync or swaret or even FTP if you want but that doesn't work very well) and then build your own ISOs from the distro. It's a piece of cake, there is even a text file there to tell you exactly how to build the ISO. You can even build your own CD with just the packages you want on it, so you can have the whole thing on 1 CD if you want.
If all else fails, unofficial sites do release ISOs of the current releases. Some have been mentioned in this forum.
DaC
I've used Slackware since 98, so not as long as you, but I would like to echo your comments. My experience with other distros is slim (bit of RedHat, bit of Knoppix), but I haven't seen a compelling reason to change. Slackware has been like a good friend to me.
A short incomplete list of things I like about the distro: Slackware makes you learn stuff (not a bad thing). Slackware doesn't molly coddle you. Things make sense. It's configurable to a fault. It's up-to-date. Patrick kicks ass. Nuff said.
DaC
Well, I can't say how it compares to other package management systems in the other distros, but I rather like the slackware package management system. It has improved, it sounds like, since the last time you used Slackware. It does allow package removal, and allow you to upgrade packages as well. Also there are tools to help youbuild your own packages.
DaC
Because their current form of distribution is superior to ISO download. By using an rsync mirror, you can not only easily download an entire distro, but update that distro with any changes as they occur...without downloading the entire ISO again. For instance, when RC2 comes out, by using rsync you'll be able to easily download just the changes from RC1 to RC2. (I don't use swaret as i've got some custom scripts built to use some rsync mirrors I know of, but I'm sure it works on this concept and uses rsync).
Also: this distro method allows you to pick only those packages you want to download. Don't like GNOME? don't download it. Don't want any gui at all? skip gnome, kde, and X.
Once you've downloaded your distro, just do an NFS export on the distro dir on the host machine. Then build yourself a boot CD or boot floppy (as you prefer). Once you've booted on the target machine, you can install straight off the NFS share to the target. Works great, I do it all the time...I did my first ever Slackware install this way, even though the host machine was a Windows box.
Honestly, ISO downloads of distros kinda sucks, once you start doing things this way.
DaC
Unless you're talking about a particularly nasty heroin addiction, the only way to quit anything is cold turkey.
I quit caffine for six months (back at it again, unfortunately). I was also worried about the withdrawl headaches affecting work, so I quit on a friday afternoon and took the following Monday, Tuesday off. That worked well--i was pretty much done with the headaches by then and was already noticing the benefits of quitting (most notably, more energy throughout the day).
Look out for the pitfall that got me back on caffine again. After being off caffine for about 6 months, I came to work one day with only about two hours of sleep the night before...so I said, "well, just a can of Coke this one time to get me through today." Boom, that's all it took. Now I'm back to my regular pot of coffee or so every day. God, I love coffee. Damn you, caffine!
DaC
So, are you saying if you're a company trying to run WebSphere or Java on an AS/400, you're behind the times? Care to back that statement up at all? You may be surprised to learn the iSeries (used to be the AS/400, been the iSeries for years now) runs Java just fine. And Websphere. And Tomcat. And Apache. Oh, yeah...and Linux. We've many customers happily running Websphere on their iSeries for years now. All this, plus take that iSeries database in a performace challege against any other database running in that company, and I'd definitely wager on the iSeries.
That you consider the iSeries a platform that is behind the times, shows more of your ignorance than the companies running them.
DaC
Drop me a line if you want a temporary login to try the system out...
DaC
DaC
Michael, in your "editorializing" on this submission, you managed to sum up pretty much everything that bugs me about Slashdot. Thanks for that.
Did you even read the Portal of Evil post? Apparently not. If you had, you'd realize this particular brand of spyware is installed without the users' consent. "When will people learn?"?!? When will Slashdot editors learn to read articles first, and cast their pompus, overbearing comments later? Like a lot later. Like maybe never.
This software affects Windows users, and therefore, not the sort of user that goes around compiling his or her own kernels on a daily basis. I believe this, and this alone, is the reason it upsets you so much. You're the kind of guy that will scoff at an everyday Windows user who accidentally opens a virus attachment, then goes on to pay his mechanic $500 dollars for what should have been a routine $50 repair without batting an eyelid. In short, you're a dick.
Comments like yours are typical of the smug, unbearable technodweeb -- the kind doomed to spend the rest of his life relegated to the back room with his precious computers, far away from those people who actually use them.
Do me a favor from now on. Post the damn story, and shut up.
Regards;
DaC
Companies don't want well rounded tools, they want sharp cutting tools to perform particular tasks.
I've hired people in the past, and when I do, I don't look for Tools. A Tool is great for one particular task, yes; but the tasks required in tech are dynamic. I need people who can be dynamic with those constantly changing requirements. In short, I need people who can learn and think quickly.
Furthermore, judging by the number of companies that require a degree, I have to assume they don't want Tools either.
Regards;
DaC
This has been said already in this forum, but I think it worth pointing out again.
The difference between tech school and college is tech school teaches you how to do a particular task, and college teaches you how to think about things.
When you go to college and take your first CS class, I think you'll be surprised at how inapplicible all your years of on-the-job programming experience actually are. A real CS program at an accredited school is not interested in churning out programmers which will succeed in the business world, as would be a tech school. Rather, they are interested in producing individuals who have the capacity to solve problems which haven't been even described yet. People who can look at a problem and see multiple ways to solve it. People that are adaptable.
Of course, schools don't always succeed in this lofty task, but that's not the point. The thing for you to remember is that higher education, in and of itself, is worth quite a lot more than the piece of paper you get at the end. Do not take a college CS class and worry yourself with, "how will this class help me in my next job," you will drive yourself nuts. The benefits are a little more abstract than that, but also more rewarding.
I really shouldn't be one to talk: I don't have a degree myself. I attended University of Minnesota pursuing a IT/CS degree for 2 1/2 years before getting lured into the business world, never to return and finish my degree. I can tell you this though, the knowledge I gained from my time in college definitely, without question, puts me ahead of those people with only tech school or no higher education.
DaC
In other words, I want an electronic format which keeps the _entire_disk_ intact as a single entity. Think of your classical or electronica discs where there are no breaks from track to track: once converted to mp3 (or whatever), I found it impossible to play the album the way it was meant to be heard. No matter what I tried, I still got a slight break in-between the tracks.
Also, wouldn't it be nice if there was an open electronic format that retained things like the liner pages, etc, from the CD? Maybe I'm the only one who cares about such esoteric issues, but to me, the concept of the "album" itself is important and needs to be retained.
My solution? I, along with some other people, created a system which allows me to integrate my Sony CD changers with my Linux/Apache web server. Now, I can control my jukeboxes from a web page. I am running a streaming server, so I can listen to my collection from work or wherever, and the concept of an "album" is retained throughout. You can see my work here:
Discs
You won't be able to control the changer, as a login is required to do that part. If you're interested in a demo, drop me an email and I'll set you up with a login.
Regards;
DaC
I've got to believe that the designer of this sexy little toy intended it to be the "big ugly putty box" killer. That's what the nano-PC should be marketed as: the future of the desktop computer.
And about friggin' time too. Computer cases in general are my pet peeve. Why is it that I can buy a piece of home audio equipment for $200 with the most kickassedly(tm) designed case you've ever seen, but when I spend $2000 on a computer I get some putty-colored moster made out the cheapest, crappiest, ugliest plastic the manufacturer could find? OOH IT HAS A BLINKING GREEN LIGHT I'M SO IMPRESSED. Meanwhile, my crappy $300 car stereo can do this waay-fscked-up laser show that makes it just about impossible for me to see oncoming traffic at night. What is wrong with this picture?!?
Why do you think Apple has been so successful with the iMac? They managed to come up with a case design only slighty less vomit-inducing than your average PC case, and the entire computing world lost its collective mind like a pre-teen staring at a copy of "Plumpers Magazine" for the first time.
I think it goes without saying that the nano-PC is only about 1,000,000 times cooler sitting on your desk than an iMac. Actually, even one of those stupid miniature fridges from thinkgeek is cooler sitting on your desk than an iMac, but that is not my point.
For once you've caught the big desktop manufacturers with their pants down. Your Prime Directive is clear: destroy them all while there is still time.
And while you're at it, would it KILL you guys to put a real video card in the thing?!?
DaC
Hi Junks: I think you've read more into my statement than I actually meant by it. Rather than making a grandiose statement about how fast technology itself moves, I was referencing the phenomena whereby the first time *one* hacker publicly accomplishes a feat, there is generally a time period of rapid growth where other hackers attempt to trump the initial accomplishment. So therefore, the fact that the first publicly known web server running the Hurd was about a year ago, I'd expect some rapid advancement since then. For example: a production site running HURD with a significant amount of daily traffic, perhaps. Regards; DaC