Even more fun; imagine a worm that 'swaps' keys each time it finds a new computer to infect. Millions of genuine installs would end up with a pirate key, about the same number of pirates would end up with a legitimate key, and any further attemps at WGA would become about as effective as 'toss a coin and guess'
Perhaps I'm just lucky, certainly it was not by choice since I retrieved most of my current computer from dumpster-diving and my laptop as thanks for setting up a replacement laptop.
On this machine everything works out of the box, to a degree. Sound, video, network, TV tuner and CD burner are all supported by free drivers and configured themselves automatically when I installed ubuntu. I do run the non-free nvidia drivers so that I can have the compiz/xgl desktop, but for most of what I do on my computer the free, unaccelerated drivers would have been quite acceptable.
On my laptop, a Dell Lattitude CPx, everything works completely. All of the inbuilt hardware down to irda which I don't even use. The SMC wireless card which I bought because it was the cheapest available. The Xircom network card and Xircom network/modem card which I picked up at a local thrift shop both work 'automagically' as does the USB2.0 card I was recently given. My Canon camera and memory drive work like a dream.
The majority of the hardware I have and most of the hardware I encounter fixing other people's computers works automatically in Linux. And I have plenty of hardware that is still perfectly functional (in Windows 98 and Linux) which has become 'useless' because there are no drivers for XP.
sorry I posted too soon, should probably have said Free Software Foundation rather than GPL, and should have backed it up with a URL
Soundcards they list only a few cards using the emu10k chipset.
Wired networking they have nothing. Wireless networking they list a few cards using the realtek and ralink chipsets.
Their information about all other hardware categories is equally sparse.
"If you have a contribution to make to this section, please send it to."
"We are looking for volunteers to help us maintain this section, by doing research and reviewing reports we receive. If you would like to volunteer to help build this important resource, let us know at the above address."
Could someone please inform them about the thousands of devices and chipsets supported by GPL drivers under linux?
The GPL websites 'hardware compatability page" lists about 5 soundcards (one chipset) and three network cards (one chipset) that are known to be compatable with free software. And that's just about all they have.
It's the usual UNIX philosophy; do one job and do it well.
If you want to record desktop video, use istanbul. That's what it does and from what I can tell it does a fairly good job of it (my CPU is a little underpowered to run it properly)
For editing and cropping the video, use a video editor. For streaming the resulting video, use a streaming tool. For recording presentations.. hell, why record them as bulky video clips when OpenOffice can save them directly to a flash file anyhow?!!
I first tried Linux with a 30-floppy distribution called SLS I started seriously using it with Slackware 1.0 I switched to Linux as my main desktop somewhere around redhat4, keeping windows only for compatibility testing.
Since breezy I've been completely windows free. The KiaoraCD project (OSS software for windows) has been dropped so I don't need to test it, I'm migrating friends to Dapper instead of reinstalling their broken Windows, and I'm writing websites to strict HTML/CSS standards. I no longer test for MSIE compatibility, although I do try and limit the features I use so MSIE shouldn't have too many issues. I don't do websites for a living anyhow.
What the hell is wrong with Istanbul Desktop Video Recorder? It's open source, it's in the repositories, and it records directly to ogg-video (with an option of recording raw if you have more free drivespace than CPU power).
And if you want to do editing afterwards, try kino.
* Allows users to disable the 'phone home'/background update features
No problem in Ubuntu.
* Novell Evolution
Ubuntu comes with Evolution by default. I prefer thunderbird.
* Multimedia features that don't require root login:
o Integrated codecs or easy access to codecs to support AVI, Quicktime, Realplayer, DiVX, XViD
Easyubuntu will install all the win32 codecs for you. This machine plays just about everything including quicktime and realmedia. mplayer even handles most streams and can save them to file..
o A relatively muss-free GUI-based DVD decrypter application available for it (similar to CloneAD) and a decent re-encoder application (similar to DVD Shrink)
k9copy possibly qualifies, it will decrypt, recompress, and save to ISO or another disk. acidrip will let you easily rip most DVD's to divx or any other format you have a codec for.
o A decent GUI-based burner application (similar to Nero)
There's a number of different programs but I'm not too familiar with them, most people seem to like k3b. I just use the nautilus inbuilt features; when you insert a blank CD in ubuntu it asks if you want to burn music or data and gives you a simple drag-and-drop window. For ISO's just right-click and pick burn-to-CD from the menu.
o A decent GUI-based DVD viewer application
Yes. Not sure which player it was, but at least one of them handles all of the menus and language choices and subtitles. I think it was totem. Of course as soon as you install libdvdcss2 every media player can suddenly play DVD's to some extent, and all are region-free.
* Out-of-the-box support for most 802.11=g NICs
Not familiar with that. Ubuntu has out-of-the box supported far more hardware than XP ever did. OTOH with Windows you usually only need to download a driver. With ubuntu if it's not working out of the box it's probably never going to work, except possibly under ndiswrapper which is a half-assed and unstable solution.
WindizUpdate (plaintext http://windowsupdate.62nds.com/) might be want you want. Download a small utility and get automated Windows updates without needing ActiveX or using MSIE. I believe you can also download and apply individual updates from the same site.
There's many ways to get rid of WGA. Here are the two easiest;
Option one: Start in safe mode and find the file/WINDOWS/System32/WgaLogon.dll. Edit the file properties and remove the execute and write permissions for all users including System. The daily checkin and the WGA System Tray tool are both started from this DLL so making it non-executable kills the whole WGA Notification system. Making it read-only stops windows update from 'repairing it' and installing future versions.
Option two: Download and burn Ubuntu Dapper Drake or order a FREE CD from shipit.ubuntu.com (downloading is quicker). Back up your important documents and completely replace Windows.
Personally I chose option two many years ago, but I continue to watch Microsoft's antics with a degree of detatched amusement.
Perhaps I need to combine the first two sentences for you.
"popularity-contest" is a program that reports back the name of every package installed on your computer, plus how often and when the program was last used.
It's not a Windows program. It's a Linux program (originally just Debian) and is installed by default in Ubuntu.
This is a program that reports back the name of every package installed on your computer, plus how often and when the program was last used. Microsoft can only dream of installing something this invasive in Windows. The backlash would kill them.
It's installed by default on Ubuntu, although not enabled by default.
I still remember the announcement on Auckland International Airport's website, one of the first in the world to make the transition into y2k. They were very pleased to announce that midnight had come and passed without a hitch.
The really wonderful thing about DRM is that everything is already encrypted. The next big virus doesn't need to spend housr zero-wipeing your harddrive, it can spend a matter of seconds zero-wiping your decryption keys and you are totally screwed.
And you won't be allowed to have a backup of your decryption keys. That's kinda the point of DRM.
Rip a CD to 128kbps MP3 using CDex and LAME. Almost nobody can tell the difference between the mp3 and the original CD.
Rip the same CD to 128kbps MP3 using Windows Media Player. Now anybody with reasonably good hearing can tell the difference.
I haven't done the full double-blind test or anything scientific but I've done a few "don't look at the screen, what am I playing?" tests and I'm convinced the difference is real.
Perhaps you can tell me this then; is it true (as I have heard) that you get the same 'warnings' when you do something as trivial as remove a shortcut from your desktop?
Do you honestly think training people to blindly click 'yes' or 'next' or 'ok' every time a dialog box comes up is really going to improve security?
I'm not sure if the first virus was for apple, that depends how you define a virus.
Some of the early virus-like programs were for multiuser Unix and/or VMS systems; There was a self-propigating game of Animals and a christmas greeting that mailed itself to everyone which I think completely predate 'personal computers'
And of coruse the first internet worm (the Morris worm) was for Unix systems.
The first humans to start using this drug will probably take half of the prescribed course and stop as soon as they're feeling better, thus helping to evolve a new generation of superbug resistant to this 'superantibiotic'
Slashdot Mirror
2275 8844 3239 4090 4511 2395 5545 8334 0305 2007 7373
Even more fun; imagine a worm that 'swaps' keys each time it finds a new computer to infect. Millions of genuine installs would end up with a pirate key, about the same number of pirates would end up with a legitimate key, and any further attemps at WGA would become about as effective as 'toss a coin and guess'
Perhaps I'm just lucky, certainly it was not by choice since I retrieved most of my current computer from dumpster-diving and my laptop as thanks for setting up a replacement laptop.
On this machine everything works out of the box, to a degree. Sound, video, network, TV tuner and CD burner are all supported by free drivers and configured themselves automatically when I installed ubuntu. I do run the non-free nvidia drivers so that I can have the compiz/xgl desktop, but for most of what I do on my computer the free, unaccelerated drivers would have been quite acceptable.
On my laptop, a Dell Lattitude CPx, everything works completely. All of the inbuilt hardware down to irda which I don't even use. The SMC wireless card which I bought because it was the cheapest available. The Xircom network card and Xircom network/modem card which I picked up at a local thrift shop both work 'automagically' as does the USB2.0 card I was recently given. My Canon camera and memory drive work like a dream.
The majority of the hardware I have and most of the hardware I encounter fixing other people's computers works automatically in Linux. And I have plenty of hardware that is still perfectly functional (in Windows 98 and Linux) which has become 'useless' because there are no drivers for XP.
sorry I posted too soon, should probably have said Free Software Foundation rather than GPL, and should have backed it up with a URL
."
Soundcards they list only a few cards using the emu10k chipset.
Wired networking they have nothing. Wireless networking they list a few cards using the realtek and ralink chipsets.
Their information about all other hardware categories is equally sparse.
"If you have a contribution to make to this section, please send it to
"We are looking for volunteers to help us maintain this section, by doing research and reviewing reports we receive. If you would like to volunteer to help build this important resource, let us know at the above address."
Could someone please inform them about the thousands of devices and chipsets supported by GPL drivers under linux?
In your dreams..
The GPL websites 'hardware compatability page" lists about 5 soundcards (one chipset) and three network cards (one chipset) that are known to be compatable with free software. And that's just about all they have.
Perhaps you're thinking of the Music and Film Industry Ass. Of America?
I am reminded (once again) of the recurring theme in Peanuts where Lucy holds the ball for Charlie brown to kick it.
how many times do you need to fall flat on your ass before you learn?
It's the usual UNIX philosophy; do one job and do it well.
If you want to record desktop video, use istanbul. That's what it does and from what I can tell it does a fairly good job of it (my CPU is a little underpowered to run it properly)
For editing and cropping the video, use a video editor.
For streaming the resulting video, use a streaming tool.
For recording presentations.. hell, why record them as bulky video clips when OpenOffice can save them directly to a flash file anyhow?!!
Fine, nitpick....
I first tried Linux with a 30-floppy distribution called SLS
I started seriously using it with Slackware 1.0
I switched to Linux as my main desktop somewhere around redhat4, keeping windows only for compatibility testing.
Since breezy I've been completely windows free. The KiaoraCD project (OSS software for windows) has been dropped so I don't need to test it, I'm migrating friends to Dapper instead of reinstalling their broken Windows, and I'm writing websites to strict HTML/CSS standards. I no longer test for MSIE compatibility, although I do try and limit the features I use so MSIE shouldn't have too many issues. I don't do websites for a living anyhow.
No Linux replacement?
What the hell is wrong with Istanbul Desktop Video Recorder? It's open source, it's in the repositories, and it records directly to ogg-video (with an option of recording raw if you have more free drivespace than CPU power).
And if you want to do editing afterwards, try kino.
* Allows users to disable the 'phone home'/background update features
No problem in Ubuntu.
* Novell Evolution
Ubuntu comes with Evolution by default. I prefer thunderbird.
* Multimedia features that don't require root login:
o Integrated codecs or easy access to codecs to support AVI, Quicktime, Realplayer, DiVX, XViD
Easyubuntu will install all the win32 codecs for you. This machine plays just about everything including quicktime and realmedia. mplayer even handles most streams and can save them to file..
o A relatively muss-free GUI-based DVD decrypter application available for it (similar to CloneAD) and a decent re-encoder application (similar to DVD Shrink)
k9copy possibly qualifies, it will decrypt, recompress, and save to ISO or another disk. acidrip will let you easily rip most DVD's to divx or any other format you have a codec for.
o A decent GUI-based burner application (similar to Nero)
There's a number of different programs but I'm not too familiar with them, most people seem to like k3b. I just use the nautilus inbuilt features; when you insert a blank CD in ubuntu it asks if you want to burn music or data and gives you a simple drag-and-drop window. For ISO's just right-click and pick burn-to-CD from the menu.
o A decent GUI-based DVD viewer application
Yes. Not sure which player it was, but at least one of them handles all of the menus and language choices and subtitles. I think it was totem. Of course as soon as you install libdvdcss2 every media player can suddenly play DVD's to some extent, and all are region-free.
* Out-of-the-box support for most 802.11=g NICs
Not familiar with that. Ubuntu has out-of-the box supported far more hardware than XP ever did. OTOH with Windows you usually only need to download a driver. With ubuntu if it's not working out of the box it's probably never going to work, except possibly under ndiswrapper which is a half-assed and unstable solution.
WindizUpdate (plaintext http://windowsupdate.62nds.com/) might be want you want. Download a small utility and get automated Windows updates without needing ActiveX or using MSIE. I believe you can also download and apply individual updates from the same site.
There's many ways to get rid of WGA. Here are the two easiest;
/WINDOWS/System32/WgaLogon.dll. Edit the
Option one:
Start in safe mode and find the file
file properties and remove the execute and write permissions for all users
including System. The daily checkin and the WGA System Tray tool are both
started from this DLL so making it non-executable kills the whole WGA
Notification system. Making it read-only stops windows update from 'repairing
it' and installing future versions.
Option two:
Download and burn Ubuntu Dapper Drake or order a FREE CD from
shipit.ubuntu.com (downloading is quicker). Back up your important documents and
completely replace Windows.
Personally I chose option two many years ago, but I continue to watch Microsoft's antics with a degree of detatched amusement.
When I first saw this on google news the headline was something about Windows for Supercomputers..
My first thought was "Oh, they've finally announced the real hardware requirements to run Vista"
This also completely solves the problem of ATM fraud, since none of your customers will ever escape the building with a working ATM card!!
Genuine Advantage Notification won't install until you accept the EULA. Microsoft are not _completely_ evil! :-)
Perhaps I need to combine the first two sentences for you.
"popularity-contest" is a program that reports back the name of every package installed on your computer, plus how often and when the program was last used.
It's not a Windows program. It's a Linux program (originally just Debian) and is installed by default in Ubuntu.
You might want to look into 'popularity-contest'
This is a program that reports back the name of every package installed on your computer, plus how often and when the program was last used. Microsoft can only dream of installing something this invasive in Windows. The backlash would kill them.
It's installed by default on Ubuntu, although not enabled by default.
You really trust that windows TCP/IP stack won't just ignore any blocking or special routing for Microsoft's IP address blocks?
You might want to go read this article and reconsider.
I still remember the announcement on Auckland International Airport's website, one of the first in the world to make the transition into y2k. They were very pleased to announce that midnight had come and passed without a hitch.
The announcement was dated 1st Jan 20100.
The really wonderful thing about DRM is that everything is already encrypted. The next big virus doesn't need to spend housr zero-wipeing your harddrive, it can spend a matter of seconds zero-wiping your decryption keys and you are totally screwed.
And you won't be allowed to have a backup of your decryption keys. That's kinda the point of DRM.
Or windows media player's mp3 support.
Rip a CD to 128kbps MP3 using CDex and LAME. Almost nobody can tell the difference between the mp3 and the original CD.
Rip the same CD to 128kbps MP3 using Windows Media Player. Now anybody with reasonably good hearing can tell the difference.
I haven't done the full double-blind test or anything scientific but I've done a few "don't look at the screen, what am I playing?" tests and I'm convinced the difference is real.
Perhaps you can tell me this then; is it true (as I have heard) that you get the same 'warnings' when you do something as trivial as remove a shortcut from your desktop?
Do you honestly think training people to blindly click 'yes' or 'next' or 'ok' every time a dialog box comes up is really going to improve security?
I'm not sure if the first virus was for apple, that depends how you define a virus.
Some of the early virus-like programs were for multiuser Unix and/or VMS systems; There was a self-propigating game of Animals and a christmas greeting that mailed itself to everyone which I think completely predate 'personal computers'
And of coruse the first internet worm (the Morris worm) was for Unix systems.
The first humans to start using this drug will probably take half of the prescribed course and stop as soon as they're feeling better, thus helping to evolve a new generation of superbug resistant to this 'superantibiotic'