I also found an xmms replacement in the form of the latest amarok beta on KDE 3.2 -- the playlist editor is brilliant. The ability to type in a simple character filter to temporarily "make" new mini-playlists out of a larger one is just beautiful.
I just wish arts would get dumped (here's hoping for KDE 4:)). Seriously, when everything else on my system can use sound without skipping at high load, why does arts need suid to perform even half-decently at low/medium load?
It's nice that amarok is getting gstreamer support (currently not good enough -- the analyzer doesn't work yet). When gstreamer support stabilizes, I'm switching over.
Thank the heavenly motha-fscking GOD someone said this! Clearly, there is ALMOST NO POINT in putting x86 in a consumer device if it isn't the cheapest solution, as it is certainly not the best. If you're putting linux on the thing, it isn't even a requisite, so I don't really see why you would consider it unless you can find a small and cheap x86 setup. Since the poster has indicated that they can't, I think they've pretty well self-answered that part of their own Ask Slashdot question. NEAT.
I doubt locate would be as useful in that situation -- if you're doing an ls in only directory, the time difference will be minimal and the results more up-to-date than locate's. If you're doing a find over multiple dirs, on the other hand, then you'd probably have need to look for a faster solution (ie, locate) -- so long as what you're looking for existed the last time locate's db was updated.
Hmm, I disagree with some of your choices:). Firstly, ternary and such derivatives would not be used if you wanted to follow the pattern set by "bit". Otherwise "bits" would be called "sits" or "sets", which they clearly are not.
Secondly, "TRT" would not be used, instead it would be "TRIT". This is because "BIT" (if not using the Binary digIT methodlogy) is more likely based on the prefix bi-, not "the first two letters of binary". Since the prefix to denote three is tri-, "TRIT" would be the correct name using the method prefix + T.
In summary, the possibilities are: 1. TIT (Trinary digIT). 2. TRIT (TRInary digiT).
I can't imagine that C++ is harder to learn for a C programmer than some OO-workaround.
You obviously misunderstood. The parent was refering to the widespread phenomenon of language fanboy zealotry. To put it another way: C++ was harder to learn than a C-based kludge because C++ isn't C.
As far as I know, the conventional wisdom is that the serifs help "guide" your eyes along the letters, making them easier to read. It does seem easier to me, whatever the reason.
It may depend on what version of mandrake you are running on and what sources you have setup. When I ran mdk9.1, I had about 7 unoffical package sources and there were some problems like this -- mainly due to conflicting versions of the same package on different sources. In mdk9.2, however, I only use main, update (both official), contribs (officially "hosted" but not "supported" IIRC) and PLF (unofficial). These are the well-maintained sources, and I haven't had any problems in 9.2 with them. I think, although I wouldn't quote me on this, that urpmi's conflict resolution with multiple packages has gotten much better in recent versions -- occasionally it will ask "do you want to install this package or this other package" when multiple possibilities exist instead of just getting confused:).
The only other possibility is that you are using a poor mirror. I know that mirrors.secsup.org has some problems (missing packages ?) that confuse urpmi.
How many times do I have to respond "The people putting the packages together matter more than the final interface used to install the packages."?
Indeed, I agree -- using apt on *RedHat* is a chore because of this (believe me, I used to use that combination). However, you should not lump all RPM-based distros into this category. Mandrake (with urpmi) works beautifully, and the main reason is they have employed an intelligent package-naming and dependency scheme (like Debian's, I believe) and have a tool (urpmi) specifically built for it.
I personally find it annoying when people break out the "RPM's are terrible" arguments -- like you say, the way the packages are put together matters much more. With Mandrake, you get well-thought out package names, and a huge range of packages (even more if you setup PLF and contrib sources). Frankly, I don't see apt as a motivator for me to switch my distro to Debian; Mandrake already has an equally good (if not better) solution.
...this is probably standard practice for large Microsoft contracts.
Indeed, and it goes like this:
MS: So, we're going to sell you our lock-in software at inflated prices because you obviously have no other alternative; then be prepared for a mandatory accelerating upgrade cycle combined with price hikes.
Customer: So.... we were thinking maybe of using open-source softw-
MS: We can do software individually wrapped with gold foil and a complementary kiss on the ass.
I'm also in Ontario (Peterborough, specifically) and I've got (monopolist Cogeco's:) ) cable for ~$40 canadian. All in all, I think that's probably one of the best deals I've seen in these comments -- it works out to under $30 US for great speeds -- around 4 or 5 Mbit/s top-end so far as I can tell, usually around 2 or 3 (and rarely under 1). I think they may have been improving their systems (or dropping BW caps) lately as my top speeds have been increasing.
a listing on UK online retailer Amazon.co.uk suggested GTA 4: Sin City, but this has subsequently been found to be incorrect.
I, for one, am glad they were intelligent enough not to follow-up GTA: Flat-boring-city-with-two-long-roads with GTA: Flat-boring-city-with-one-long-road. Don't get me wrong, Vice City was a great game, but its map was severely lacking compared to the GTA3 map. I think perhaps Rockstar realized this, however, as GTA:San Andreas seems to present more opportunity for a dynamic, interesting city. Las Vegas, however many pretty lights there are, isn't really a good candidate for the kind of level that made GTA3 great.
Thank GOD someone else mentioned that. I spent a few moments thinking.... what the hell, I didn't even know IM clients could use HTTP. And then I realized what they meant to say was *internet*, not web! Ah well, in that case, not really surprising.
Im just more worried about the 0.0481298833079654997463216641 seconds after 2004...
Not to nitpick, but that would be 0.0481298833079654997463216641 years. And besides, your calculation is a little off because you appear to have used 365 days per year:).
Unfortunately, whenever I show the GTK selector to someone who has never used linux before, their instant reaction is BLETCH! My brother, for example, does not use linux (unless on my system for a brief period), but has used the GTK selector before. He is an artist and is comfortable with Photoshop, but that file selector alone gave him the impression of the gimp being archaic and poorly written -- indeed, he inferred this onto most linux apps because of his experiences with the gimp.
I don't find his reaction to be an uncommon one, either. Nor is it particulary conducive to linux adoption on the desktop -- likely one reason why companies looking to woo average users steer clear of GTK.
As anyone who follows linux polls would know, KDE generally is preferred over GNOME. The first two things I could come up with googling are:
1. Linux Journal's Annual Reader's Choice Awards. A quote from 2003's edition: With 44% of the votes, KDE is the winner for the sixth consecutive year. GNOME holds on to second place with 23% of the votes.
2. LinuxQuestions.org's Annual Awards, in wihch KDE also regularly beats GNOME (as far as I remember). This one is perhaps slightly more interesting since the site is meant for linux newbies.
As a last thought, there is probably a reason why all of the linux distributions made for the desktop (Lycoris, Xandros, Lindows, etc) use KDE. It has always been (IMHO) the more complete, integrated, and polished desktop -- the fact that it has had a usable file selector for years, and GNOME has just decided to try to fix theirs (although it doesn't seem to be much of an improvement) is just one example of why KDE is more inviting to average users.
On the usability front, here's a dot.kde.org article about a usability survey that found KDE and Windows XP to be comparable for the corporate desktop in terms of usability: http://dot.kde.org/1060717024/. A quote: The usability of Linux as a desktop system has been experienced as nearly equal to Windows XP. A couple of tasks were, in fact, easier and faster to solve on Linux.
Frankly, the only thing I can say is: suck it up! It may seem harsh, but it doesn't really matter that you lost a few mod points. I'm sure you'll get some more soon enough (and if you don't, stop posting comments for a little bit and you'll get some, ironically). The desire of a few impatient people to have mod points stick around really isn't a good reason to allow mod point buildup -- in which case, I'd probably have about 100 by now through lack of use. In other words, I (and others) could do some pretty interesting things if I was (or they were) feeling nefarious:).
Nah, just make an "I AM DEAD" mailing list on Yahoo Groups or one of the other free mailing list providers. Then you maintain the list, and the email is sent there when youre gone.
I can't really comment much on the hardware detection stuff. In my experience (and what other people seem to say on forums/etc), when you get into the "fringes" of linux hardware support, getting a distro that works on a given box seems to be more hit-and-miss. I've had systems on which RedHat failed to setup something properly, but Mandrake did it with ease (an integrated sound card is one thing I recall causing problems).
In the RPM front, I still don't see this as a problem. Mandrake has a greater desktop software selection than RedHat to begin with (this isn't a subjective opinion, just take a look at their respective repositories) and addon sources like PLF make it basically complete as far as most "known" open source software is concerned. I've installed a number of binary RPMs made for RedHat on my system as well. In theory you might think there would be conflicts, but I haven't encountered any. I've been using Mandrake for quite some time, and I haven't had problems with RPMs -- and that is the trues test, for me. I used RedHat for years, and became proficient at solving RPM problems (even when using the tacked-on apt system there were conflicts). In Mandrake, now, I don't have to lift a finger.
And, if we're talking about end users, RedHat does not come with a useful package management system (Apt doesn't count; URPMI on the other hand comes with Mandrake and has a frontend). I don't have to deal with dependencies now that I've switched to Mandrake (no --force, no --nodeps, just "urpmi packagename" or "urpmi package.rpm" and it does the rest.) There's GUI urpmi stuff but I am used to my good ol' CLI:)
Hmmm, despite the obviously trollish nature of you post, I'll try to answer a few of your.... ahem.... reservations with Mandrake.
On the subject of filesystem "standards": Mandrake has always followed the RedHat "lump-everything-under-/usr" "standard":).
On the RPM issue, I meant third-party, NOT system RPMs. RedHat's system rpms don't really work because it seems Mandrake has gone to a much saner Debian-style naming system for their packages, which basically makes urpmi (an apt equivalent) work better. Besides that, they are different distributions: you can't really expect many system-level rpms to be interchangeable. Any third party RPMs I've tried for Mandrake work (this includes things like Mozilla binaries, Sun's Java, codeweavers wine (long ago), and some other things I can't recall). I'm sure there are third-party rpms out there that don't work, too; but I haven't found any that don't also have source packages.
You say I'd have a lot more trouble finding an apt repository? That doesn't really matter; Mandrake comes with urpmi and their own large repository; which works just as well (or better; it's officially supported!). There are also other URPMI sources for Mandrake that provide anything else you'd probably want, this site will help you configure them easily, and pclinuxonline.com has a list of around 6 of them. No need to use apt, it's got urpmi!
As for docs, I haven't used them extensively but what I have had to use seemed up-to-date (though honestly I can't really make an informed opinion about this). I have always found the configuration panel to present a useful amount of options; it would be overkill to go much further than they did (and in some cases I think it could be simplified).
As for hardware detection, what exactly didn't it detect for you? (This is an honest question). Anyone I have heard talk about it says it has great detection, and indeed it worked perfectly on both my desktop and laptop.
I have used RedHat on and off between Mandrake (RedHat used to be my distro of choice). RedHat always seemed to be a little behind in terms of its software selection and user-friendliness (which was why I switched in the end). What was the latest version of Mandrake you have tried?
As a final PS: You seem to be getting pretty worked up over this. Did Mandrake do something to you? Relax, really; it's just a distribution:)
I'm looking forward to a nifty Linux distro that's easy to use and that I can sink my teeth into without having to jump through hoops.
I would suggest you try Mandrake 9.2. It is by far the best linux distro I've ever used. It is extremely powerful (software installation is made easy by urpmi and urpmi-based tools, similar to apt-get), and it can run de facto "industry-standard" RedHat software with ease (since it was originally based on RedHat). And, as of the latest version (I've been using it for a couple of releases on my desktop system) it is quite user-friendly. The 9.x releases have been good, but 9.2 truly is excellent in the usability department IMHO.
My guess is that the Real World really isn't the Real World
Ummm, no. The movie explains (sorry, I don't remember where) that Neo has a link to the source. Thus, in the real world he has powers over the machines (which are also connected to the source). Notice how (a) Neo's "powers" in the real world are only over machines and (b) After being blinded, Neo can only see machines/machine "stuff" (the "power lines" etc). They aren't in another matrix, Neo's powers are limited by his connection to the machine world.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. Yes it does.
I also found an xmms replacement in the form of the latest amarok beta on KDE 3.2 -- the playlist editor is brilliant. The ability to type in a simple character filter to temporarily "make" new mini-playlists out of a larger one is just beautiful.
:)). Seriously, when everything else on my system can use sound without skipping at high load, why does arts need suid to perform even half-decently at low/medium load?
I just wish arts would get dumped (here's hoping for KDE 4
It's nice that amarok is getting gstreamer support (currently not good enough -- the analyzer doesn't work yet). When gstreamer support stabilizes, I'm switching over.
Thank the heavenly motha-fscking GOD someone said this! Clearly, there is ALMOST NO POINT in putting x86 in a consumer device if it isn't the cheapest solution, as it is certainly not the best. If you're putting linux on the thing, it isn't even a requisite, so I don't really see why you would consider it unless you can find a small and cheap x86 setup. Since the poster has indicated that they can't, I think they've pretty well self-answered that part of their own Ask Slashdot question. NEAT.
I doubt locate would be as useful in that situation -- if you're doing an ls in only directory, the time difference will be minimal and the results more up-to-date than locate's. If you're doing a find over multiple dirs, on the other hand, then you'd probably have need to look for a faster solution (ie, locate) -- so long as what you're looking for existed the last time locate's db was updated.
Hmm, I disagree with some of your choices :). Firstly, ternary and such derivatives would not be used if you wanted to follow the pattern set by "bit". Otherwise "bits" would be called "sits" or "sets", which they clearly are not.
Secondly, "TRT" would not be used, instead it would be "TRIT". This is because "BIT" (if not using the Binary digIT methodlogy) is more likely based on the prefix bi-, not "the first two letters of binary". Since the prefix to denote three is tri-, "TRIT" would be the correct name using the method prefix + T.
In summary, the possibilities are:
1. TIT (Trinary digIT).
2. TRIT (TRInary digiT).
Besides, how do you pronounce TRT?
I can't imagine that C++ is harder to learn for a C programmer than some OO-workaround.
You obviously misunderstood. The parent was refering to the widespread phenomenon of language fanboy zealotry. To put it another way: C++ was harder to learn than a C-based kludge because C++ isn't C.
As far as I know, the conventional wisdom is that the serifs help "guide" your eyes along the letters, making them easier to read. It does seem easier to me, whatever the reason.
It may depend on what version of mandrake you are running on and what sources you have setup. When I ran mdk9.1, I had about 7 unoffical package sources and there were some problems like this -- mainly due to conflicting versions of the same package on different sources. In mdk9.2, however, I only use main, update (both official), contribs (officially "hosted" but not "supported" IIRC) and PLF (unofficial). These are the well-maintained sources, and I haven't had any problems in 9.2 with them. I think, although I wouldn't quote me on this, that urpmi's conflict resolution with multiple packages has gotten much better in recent versions -- occasionally it will ask "do you want to install this package or this other package" when multiple possibilities exist instead of just getting confused :).
The only other possibility is that you are using a poor mirror. I know that mirrors.secsup.org has some problems (missing packages ?) that confuse urpmi.
How many times do I have to respond "The people putting the packages together matter more than the final interface used to install the packages."?
Indeed, I agree -- using apt on *RedHat* is a chore because of this (believe me, I used to use that combination). However, you should not lump all RPM-based distros into this category. Mandrake (with urpmi) works beautifully, and the main reason is they have employed an intelligent package-naming and dependency scheme (like Debian's, I believe) and have a tool (urpmi) specifically built for it.
I personally find it annoying when people break out the "RPM's are terrible" arguments -- like you say, the way the packages are put together matters much more. With Mandrake, you get well-thought out package names, and a huge range of packages (even more if you setup PLF and contrib sources). Frankly, I don't see apt as a motivator for me to switch my distro to Debian; Mandrake already has an equally good (if not better) solution.
Indeed, and it goes like this:
MS: So, we're going to sell you our lock-in software at inflated prices because you obviously have no other alternative; then be prepared for a mandatory accelerating upgrade cycle combined with price hikes.
Customer: So.... we were thinking maybe of using open-source softw-
MS: We can do software individually wrapped with gold foil and a complementary kiss on the ass.
Customer: SOLD!
I'm also in Ontario (Peterborough, specifically) and I've got (monopolist Cogeco's :) ) cable for ~$40 canadian. All in all, I think that's probably one of the best deals I've seen in these comments -- it works out to under $30 US for great speeds -- around 4 or 5 Mbit/s top-end so far as I can tell, usually around 2 or 3 (and rarely under 1). I think they may have been improving their systems (or dropping BW caps) lately as my top speeds have been increasing.
a listing on UK online retailer Amazon.co.uk suggested GTA 4: Sin City, but this has subsequently been found to be incorrect.
I, for one, am glad they were intelligent enough not to follow-up GTA: Flat-boring-city-with-two-long-roads with GTA: Flat-boring-city-with-one-long-road. Don't get me wrong, Vice City was a great game, but its map was severely lacking compared to the GTA3 map. I think perhaps Rockstar realized this, however, as GTA:San Andreas seems to present more opportunity for a dynamic, interesting city. Las Vegas, however many pretty lights there are, isn't really a good candidate for the kind of level that made GTA3 great.
Thank GOD someone else mentioned that. I spent a few moments thinking.... what the hell, I didn't even know IM clients could use HTTP. And then I realized what they meant to say was *internet*, not web! Ah well, in that case, not really surprising.
Amen to that!
Anything less is uncivilEYEzed.
.
.
.
oh dear got what have I done.
As another example, Lindows also supports KDE-Look (a KDE desktop theming site) which IIRC couldn't pay for its hosting until Lindows sponsored them.
Anyway, it's nice to know that a pay-only Linux distribution is still contributing to the community (though I do not use Lindows either).
Im just more worried about the 0.0481298833079654997463216641 seconds after 2004...
Not to nitpick, but that would be 0.0481298833079654997463216641 years. And besides, your calculation is a little off because you appear to have used 365 days per year :).
How 'bout this:
2^30seconds / 60seconds/minute / 60minutes/hour / 24hours/day / 365.242199days/year = 34.025551925361years
34.025551925361years + 1970 = 2004.0255519254
0.0255519254years * 365.242199days/year = 9.3326414074074days
0.3326414074074days * 24hours/day = 7.9833937777782hours
0.9833937777782hours * 60minutes/hour = 59.003626666694
0.003626666694minutes * 60seconds/minute = 0.21760000161308seconds
OR, on January 9, 2004 at 07:59:00.21760000161308, the world will come to an end.
Approximately.
Unfortunately, whenever I show the GTK selector to someone who has never used linux before, their instant reaction is BLETCH! My brother, for example, does not use linux (unless on my system for a brief period), but has used the GTK selector before. He is an artist and is comfortable with Photoshop, but that file selector alone gave him the impression of the gimp being archaic and poorly written -- indeed, he inferred this onto most linux apps because of his experiences with the gimp.
I don't find his reaction to be an uncommon one, either. Nor is it particulary conducive to linux adoption on the desktop -- likely one reason why companies looking to woo average users steer clear of GTK.
As anyone who follows linux polls would know, KDE generally is preferred over GNOME. The first two things I could come up with googling are:
1. Linux Journal's Annual Reader's Choice Awards. A quote from 2003's edition: With 44% of the votes, KDE is the winner for the sixth consecutive year. GNOME holds on to second place with 23% of the votes.
2. LinuxQuestions.org's Annual Awards, in wihch KDE also regularly beats GNOME (as far as I remember). This one is perhaps slightly more interesting since the site is meant for linux newbies.
As a last thought, there is probably a reason why all of the linux distributions made for the desktop (Lycoris, Xandros, Lindows, etc) use KDE. It has always been (IMHO) the more complete, integrated, and polished desktop -- the fact that it has had a usable file selector for years, and GNOME has just decided to try to fix theirs (although it doesn't seem to be much of an improvement) is just one example of why KDE is more inviting to average users.
On the usability front, here's a dot.kde.org article about a usability survey that found KDE and Windows XP to be comparable for the corporate desktop in terms of usability: http://dot.kde.org/1060717024/. A quote: The usability of Linux as a desktop system has been experienced as nearly equal to Windows XP. A couple of tasks were, in fact, easier and faster to solve on Linux.
And by Linux, they mean KDEFrankly, the only thing I can say is: suck it up! It may seem harsh, but it doesn't really matter that you lost a few mod points. I'm sure you'll get some more soon enough (and if you don't, stop posting comments for a little bit and you'll get some, ironically). The desire of a few impatient people to have mod points stick around really isn't a good reason to allow mod point buildup -- in which case, I'd probably have about 100 by now through lack of use. In other words, I (and others) could do some pretty interesting things if I was (or they were) feeling nefarious :).
Why don't you just make the server password protected? Then it's no longer public, so you don't have to worry about it.
Nah, just make an "I AM DEAD" mailing list on Yahoo Groups or one of the other free mailing list providers. Then you maintain the list, and the email is sent there when youre gone.
I can't really comment much on the hardware detection stuff. In my experience (and what other people seem to say on forums/etc), when you get into the "fringes" of linux hardware support, getting a distro that works on a given box seems to be more hit-and-miss. I've had systems on which RedHat failed to setup something properly, but Mandrake did it with ease (an integrated sound card is one thing I recall causing problems).
:)
In the RPM front, I still don't see this as a problem. Mandrake has a greater desktop software selection than RedHat to begin with (this isn't a subjective opinion, just take a look at their respective repositories) and addon sources like PLF make it basically complete as far as most "known" open source software is concerned. I've installed a number of binary RPMs made for RedHat on my system as well. In theory you might think there would be conflicts, but I haven't encountered any. I've been using Mandrake for quite some time, and I haven't had problems with RPMs -- and that is the trues test, for me. I used RedHat for years, and became proficient at solving RPM problems (even when using the tacked-on apt system there were conflicts). In Mandrake, now, I don't have to lift a finger.
And, if we're talking about end users, RedHat does not come with a useful package management system (Apt doesn't count; URPMI on the other hand comes with Mandrake and has a frontend). I don't have to deal with dependencies now that I've switched to Mandrake (no --force, no --nodeps, just "urpmi packagename" or "urpmi package.rpm" and it does the rest.) There's GUI urpmi stuff but I am used to my good ol' CLI
On the subject of filesystem "standards": Mandrake has always followed the RedHat "lump-everything-under-/usr" "standard" :).
On the RPM issue, I meant third-party, NOT system RPMs. RedHat's system rpms don't really work because it seems Mandrake has gone to a much saner Debian-style naming system for their packages, which basically makes urpmi (an apt equivalent) work better. Besides that, they are different distributions: you can't really expect many system-level rpms to be interchangeable. Any third party RPMs I've tried for Mandrake work (this includes things like Mozilla binaries, Sun's Java, codeweavers wine (long ago), and some other things I can't recall). I'm sure there are third-party rpms out there that don't work, too; but I haven't found any that don't also have source packages.
You say I'd have a lot more trouble finding an apt repository? That doesn't really matter; Mandrake comes with urpmi and their own large repository; which works just as well (or better; it's officially supported!). There are also other URPMI sources for Mandrake that provide anything else you'd probably want, this site will help you configure them easily, and pclinuxonline.com has a list of around 6 of them. No need to use apt, it's got urpmi!
As for docs, I haven't used them extensively but what I have had to use seemed up-to-date (though honestly I can't really make an informed opinion about this). I have always found the configuration panel to present a useful amount of options; it would be overkill to go much further than they did (and in some cases I think it could be simplified).
As for hardware detection, what exactly didn't it detect for you? (This is an honest question). Anyone I have heard talk about it says it has great detection, and indeed it worked perfectly on both my desktop and laptop.
I have used RedHat on and off between Mandrake (RedHat used to be my distro of choice). RedHat always seemed to be a little behind in terms of its software selection and user-friendliness (which was why I switched in the end). What was the latest version of Mandrake you have tried?
As a final PS: You seem to be getting pretty worked up over this. Did Mandrake do something to you? Relax, really; it's just a distribution :)
I would suggest you try Mandrake 9.2. It is by far the best linux distro I've ever used. It is extremely powerful (software installation is made easy by urpmi and urpmi-based tools, similar to apt-get), and it can run de facto "industry-standard" RedHat software with ease (since it was originally based on RedHat). And, as of the latest version (I've been using it for a couple of releases on my desktop system) it is quite user-friendly. The 9.x releases have been good, but 9.2 truly is excellent in the usability department IMHO.
Ummm, no. The movie explains (sorry, I don't remember where) that Neo has a link to the source. Thus, in the real world he has powers over the machines (which are also connected to the source). Notice how (a) Neo's "powers" in the real world are only over machines and (b) After being blinded, Neo can only see machines/machine "stuff" (the "power lines" etc). They aren't in another matrix, Neo's powers are limited by his connection to the machine world.