The list of judges is impressive, so it's probably not just some new company seeking publicity. However, the question is, why do they want to replace the tools in question? The existing tools already have 90% or more of the required functionality, so why not just extend them as appropriate?
Certainly autoconf needs some work to tidy it up (particularly the generated configure script), but it's not as bad as they make out. As for it being the last major application to use m4, I guess they've forgotten about sendmail...
Similarly, make has some deficiencies, but again, it's mostly there, and what it does lack can be fairly easily added. It needs a simple GUI front end for newbies more than it needs rewriting.
Overall, it's not a bad idea, but I think that the effort should have been put into more pressing areas, such as having an embeddable editor API for X (so that individual apps can have an editable text area, and the users gets to choose which editor is actually used).
I can't help thinking that perhaps this is part of Guido's grand plan for Python to take over the world (not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but I'm always suspicious of things with political motives).
I find it hard to believe that you think that the Game Boy version of Tetris sucks, especially considering that this was the first version of the game ever released.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Go away, and come back when you've studied your history a bit better. Tetris had been around for some time before the gameboy was released.
Or at least, Tetris on the Gameboy does. I've played an awful lot of versions of Tetris, and the Gameboy one is probably the worst of the lot (sadly, the arcade version is not far behind).
Probably the best version is Mirrorsoft's (IIRC) one for the Amiga. Twintris was always a bit of a laugh, too, although having the blocks rotate in the wrong direction wasn't so clever.
G/E is TOTALLY configurable to my speciifications. As of yetr, there has been no setting that i wanted to change that i have been unable to change.
So does someone want to tell me how to change the menus in Enlightenment? Or sawmill, for that matter. Seems I can change just about everything else...
I suppose this is kinda dumb and irrelevant, but if you ever get your laptop out and use it in a public place, have you noticed how so many of the ladies strolling by just love the Libretto?
Yep, mine gets attention from women and technophiles (both sexes). The only problem I have
is that it's getting too slow. I could *really* do
with one of the newer ff1100V models to replace
my aging 50CT, but I haven't been able to find one
in the UK. JPD are the only people I can find
to import a Japanese one, and they're quoting
extortionate prices for it:-(
So I'm not the only sad one surfing today, then:-) But I do have a couple of legitimate excuses:
I celebrate midwinter, not Christmas, so it's not such a special day for me.
I've got to try and find out some details about this fscking ICL monitor I'm using, so I can configure X to run at more than 640x480:-)
PS. Tried to post this using the Opera beta, but it crashed. It's probably a bit too early to be releasing it as a beta, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out when finished. Mozilla M11 was pretty good too, but it's becoming a bit of a bloated mess:-( It does at least render HTML 4.0 correctly, though, unlike most other browsers.
My girlfriend suffers from back and shoulder pain which is amplified significantly if she can't sit in a sensible position when typing. After complaining to her HR department for ages, they eventually got a government inspector to come and assess her (they get a grant for providing her with a suitable chair if she's found to need it). Her conditions were considered unacceptable, and she was recommended to get a Herman Miller chair. The company forked out the money, she got the chair, and hasn't had a single problem since. The company has easily got their money back in the extra productivity it's gained them.
We're trying to save up to get one for her at home, too...
What are your feelings on RPM vs. dpkg? Would it be better for Debian to add any missing functionality to RPM, and then switch to that? In what way might Debian users benefit from sticking with dpkg over a modified RPM with equivalent functionality? From personal experience, the thing that really stood out in Debian was dselect, but that could sit on top of RPM just as well as it does on dpkg. Presumably the same applies to apt (although I haven't looked at Debian recently enough to know about apt).
I hate it when companies decide to port to only one Linux architecture(i386) and not to the other popular hardware architectures
As a long time Sparc Linux user, I couldn't agree more. It really bugs me when people say "we support Linux", when they actually mean "we support Linux/x86".
Nearly, but not quite. IMHO, all versions should be focused on browsing. Oddly enough, my primary requirement for a web browser is that it browse the web. Mail, news, instant messaging etc., are done perfectly well in their own standalone packages. Integrated solutions almost invariably suck (witness Communicator, StarOffice, etc.) I'm not saying it's impossible to do a decent integrated solution, but it should be done with dynamically loadable components, so you don't have bloated executables when you're not using the optional bits. Sadly, all too few apps work this way:-(
I'm incredibly pleased to see Sparc Linux support. When closed-source programs do support a non-x86 Linux platform, it's almost invariably Alpha and/or PPC. This is great news for those of us running Linux on a Sparc.
I'm assuming that you're proposing converting their existing salary directly to the equivalent hourly rate for a standard 8-hour day. If so, the only benefits of being paid one way of the other are when it comes to overtime. In my experience, unpaid overtime (as is common for salaried workers here in the UK) sucks. It becomes expected, and you end up having to work longer and longer hours for no pay. That really starts affecting staff morale, which is the absolute worst thing that can happen to a techie department. So basically, what I'm saying is, pay for overtime, for both salaried and hourly paid workers. Also, overtime should be treated as something extra -- your staff are doing you a favour by working over and above their normal hours, and should be paid accordingly. Jobs that pay overtime at the normal hourly rate similarly affect morale. Time and a half won't cost you that much extra, and it'll do wonders for morale.
At that price I'd consider getting them shipped over (my girlfriend works for an international courier, so it wouldn't be too expensive:-) Where are you getting them from?
OK, so it was flamebait, but I'm replying anyway:-)
So I'm a dense RH user/sheep, am I? I was using Linux when it was just a root/boot disk combo (kernel 0.12), and my first real distro was MCC (kernel 0.99pl8+). What was yours? At various times, I've run most of the major distributions. I settled on Red Hat because I felt most comfortable with it -- purely techincal reasons, nothing to do with market share or anything else. After trying the available options, I picked the one I liked best. Can you say the same?
Personally I've got a soft spot for Sun pizza style cases
Yep, the SS4/5/20 form factor is not far short of ideal. I was very disappointed with the bloated Ultra 2 design (nice machines, though, other than that!).
improbably huge 24bit framebuffer cards
And equally improbably priced. Mind you, even if I could afford one, my poxy SS4 only has one SBUS slot, so I couldn't use it anyway. Oh to have my SS20/HyperSPARC back again. I'm writing this on a crappy little IPX:-(
Debian is the nicest distro to admin. (Ever try to trace your way thru RedHat's initscripts, each one sourcing 18 different files each sourcing yet others based on variable set in yet another bunch... )
Interesting... I feel completely the opposite. I found the RH init scripts infinitely more logical and easier to admin than Debian's. In particular, network configuration was miles better in Red Hat with all the relevant details for each interface in a config file in/etc/sysconfig, rather than hardcoded into an rc.d script. Still, that's one of the great things about Linux (and indeed, free software in general). Everyone is free to use what they're most comfortable with.
Disclaimer: I haven't looked at Debian since 1.3, so things may have improved since then. Also, much as I like Red Hat, I freely admit it's not perfect.
Will there be language bindings for developers who would rather use other languages when developing KDE apps?
Arse! This was basically my question, but slashdot was so slow this afternoon that I couldn't submit it. I wanted to know about more than just language bindings, though. I want to be able to make KDE compliant apps using whatever language and toolkit I want. Are there any plans to make KDE more language and toolkit independent? How can I make my C/Gtk app KDE compliant? What if I'm just using Xlib directly? Or even FORTRAN and Motif? What do I need to provide KDE from my app in order to be considered KDE compliant, and what steps are being taken to let me do that from outside of C++/Qt?
Then go and download a precompiled kernel and bootloader from http://www.linas.org/linux/i370.html. Note that this is a port that Linas Vepstas and others have been working on for some time now -- it's different to the rumoured "official" Linux port by IBM to which this story refers.
What's the real difference between Wolf3D, Doom and Quake? Nothing.
Wrong. There's actually quite a big difference: gameplay. Wolf3D was a nice, groundbreaking game with decent playability. Then came Doom, with more gameplay than virtually any other game before or since. The only possible exceptions that I can think of are Space Invaders (yes, really), Angband, Tetris and Elite. Quake had an awesome 3D engine (for the time), but the gameplay sucked bigtime.
Think about the acid test. How often do you play each of the three today? I, and most people I know, still go back for the odd game of Doom. Good though it was at the time, I don't do the same for Wolf3D, and I definitely don't for Quake.
I'm sure Alpha-Linux ans Sparc-Linux fans would really go for Quake also!
Don't be so sure. Whilst I love my Sparc Linux box to bits (those who have only ever encountered x86 hardware really don't know what they're missing), it's never going to be able to play Q3A. Sure, Sun make boxes that are capable of doing so, but they cost 8-10 times as much as an equivalent (at least in terms of playing Quake) x86 box. The sort of people that are going to spend that much money on a Sparc aren't generally going to be playing quake.
That said, it is an important point. Non-x86 platforms are being left behind in terms of commercial Linux software. While it may not be able to play Quake, my Sparc is perfectly capable of running StarOffice, Insure++, RealPlayer, etc -- but they're only available for Linux/x86. Maybe I should take another look at Solaris binary emulation:-) I can still use all the free software on my Sparc (if nothing else, I can compile it myself), and I can also remotely display stuff to the Sparc from my Linux/x86 box, but that's kind of missing the point...
Interesting to see the number of replies that assume I'm running Linux, and was complaining because it's not a Linux related story. As it happens, I run many OSes (of which, yes, Linux is one). My point was meant to be that/. isn't a virus alert forum. There are plenty of other places that are meant for that sort of thing. Yes, the first mention of this particular virus was vaguely interesting because it uses a new method of transmission. However, I stand by my view that the fact it's out in the wild is neither news for nerds nor stuff that matters.
Someone please tell Roblimo to stop posting about Windows viruses. They're neither news for nerds, nor stuff that matters. Slashdot readers are extremely likely to know about the dangers of viruses, and what measures to take to prevent catching them. Most of us just sit and watch in amusement as the MS world infects itself. It really isn't interesting, so why post about it?
The original plan was to be between 512K and 2M, but they've shelved plans for anything higher than 512K for the moment. It'll arrive eventually, but I wouldn't like to say when. BT's bulk pricing to ISPs will start at £40/month. The ISP will then add their own markup on that to get to an end-user price. As for BT's ADSL site giving up to date details, I wish it would. Sadly, though, it hasn't been unpdated for over 3 months.
You'd be out of luck then. BT dropped it to 512Kb downstream last month (and hiked the price up at the same time!). Mass roll out will only be at 512K, although 2Mb should follow at a later date.
Slashdot Mirror
Certainly autoconf needs some work to tidy it up (particularly the generated configure script), but it's not as bad as they make out. As for it being the last major application to use m4, I guess they've forgotten about sendmail...
Similarly, make has some deficiencies, but again, it's mostly there, and what it does lack can be fairly easily added. It needs a simple GUI front end for newbies more than it needs rewriting.
Overall, it's not a bad idea, but I think that the effort should have been put into more pressing areas, such as having an embeddable editor API for X (so that individual apps can have an editable text area, and the users gets to choose which editor is actually used).
I can't help thinking that perhaps this is part of Guido's grand plan for Python to take over the world (not necessarily a bad thing in itself, but I'm always suspicious of things with political motives).
Wow. I haven't found another version where the control is remotely as badly done.
I'm kind of insulted you don't like the Gameboy one
Don't be. I'm merely expressing an opinion. I don't get insulted when people have different opinions to me, so why should you?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Go away, and come back when you've studied your history a bit better. Tetris had been around for some time before the gameboy was released.
Probably the best version is Mirrorsoft's (IIRC) one for the Amiga. Twintris was always a bit of a laugh, too, although having the blocks rotate in the wrong direction wasn't so clever.
So does someone want to tell me how to change the menus in Enlightenment? Or sawmill, for that matter. Seems I can change just about everything else...
Yep, mine gets attention from women and technophiles (both sexes). The only problem I have is that it's getting too slow. I could *really* do with one of the newer ff1100V models to replace my aging 50CT, but I haven't been able to find one in the UK. JPD are the only people I can find to import a Japanese one, and they're quoting extortionate prices for it :-(
PS. Tried to post this using the Opera beta, but it crashed. It's probably a bit too early to be releasing it as a beta, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out when finished. Mozilla M11 was pretty good too, but it's becoming a bit of a bloated mess :-( It does at least render HTML 4.0 correctly, though, unlike most other browsers.
We're trying to save up to get one for her at home, too...
What are your feelings on RPM vs. dpkg? Would it be better for Debian to add any missing functionality to RPM, and then switch to that? In what way might Debian users benefit from sticking with dpkg over a modified RPM with equivalent functionality? From personal experience, the thing that really stood out in Debian was dselect, but that could sit on top of RPM just as well as it does on dpkg. Presumably the same applies to apt (although I haven't looked at Debian recently enough to know about apt).
As a long time Sparc Linux user, I couldn't agree more. It really bugs me when people say "we support Linux", when they actually mean "we support Linux/x86".
Nearly, but not quite. IMHO, all versions should be focused on browsing. Oddly enough, my primary requirement for a web browser is that it browse the web. Mail, news, instant messaging etc., are done perfectly well in their own standalone packages. Integrated solutions almost invariably suck (witness Communicator, StarOffice, etc.) I'm not saying it's impossible to do a decent integrated solution, but it should be done with dynamically loadable components, so you don't have bloated executables when you're not using the optional bits. Sadly, all too few apps work this way :-(
I'm incredibly pleased to see Sparc Linux support. When closed-source programs do support a non-x86 Linux platform, it's almost invariably Alpha and/or PPC. This is great news for those of us running Linux on a Sparc.
I'm assuming that you're proposing converting their existing salary directly to the equivalent hourly rate for a standard 8-hour day. If so, the only benefits of being paid one way of the other are when it comes to overtime. In my experience, unpaid overtime (as is common for salaried workers here in the UK) sucks. It becomes expected, and you end up having to work longer and longer hours for no pay. That really starts affecting staff morale, which is the absolute worst thing that can happen to a techie department. So basically, what I'm saying is, pay for overtime, for both salaried and hourly paid workers. Also, overtime should be treated as something extra -- your staff are doing you a favour by working over and above their normal hours, and should be paid accordingly. Jobs that pay overtime at the normal hourly rate similarly affect morale. Time and a half won't cost you that much extra, and it'll do wonders for morale.
At that price I'd consider getting them shipped over (my girlfriend works for an international courier, so it wouldn't be too expensive :-) Where are you getting them from?
OK, so it was flamebait, but I'm replying anyway :-)
So I'm a dense RH user/sheep, am I? I was using Linux when it was just a root/boot disk combo (kernel 0.12), and my first real distro was MCC (kernel 0.99pl8+). What was yours? At various times, I've run most of the major distributions. I settled on Red Hat because I felt most comfortable with it -- purely techincal reasons, nothing to do with market share or anything else. After trying the available options, I picked the one I liked best. Can you say the same?
Yep, the SS4/5/20 form factor is not far short of ideal. I was very disappointed with the bloated Ultra 2 design (nice machines, though, other than that!).
improbably huge 24bit framebuffer cards
And equally improbably priced. Mind you, even if I could afford one, my poxy SS4 only has one SBUS slot, so I couldn't use it anyway. Oh to have my SS20/HyperSPARC back again. I'm writing this on a crappy little IPX :-(
Interesting... I feel completely the opposite. I found the RH init scripts infinitely more logical and easier to admin than Debian's. In particular, network configuration was miles better in Red Hat with all the relevant details for each interface in a config file in /etc/sysconfig, rather than hardcoded into an rc.d script. Still, that's one of the great things about Linux (and indeed, free software in general). Everyone is free to use what they're most comfortable with.
Disclaimer: I haven't looked at Debian since 1.3, so things may have improved since then. Also, much as I like Red Hat, I freely admit it's not perfect.
Arse! This was basically my question, but slashdot was so slow this afternoon that I couldn't submit it. I wanted to know about more than just language bindings, though. I want to be able to make KDE compliant apps using whatever language and toolkit I want. Are there any plans to make KDE more language and toolkit independent? How can I make my C/Gtk app KDE compliant? What if I'm just using Xlib directly? Or even FORTRAN and Motif? What do I need to provide KDE from my app in order to be considered KDE compliant, and what steps are being taken to let me do that from outside of C++/Qt?
Then go and download a precompiled kernel and bootloader from http://www.linas.org/linux/i370.html. Note that this is a port that Linas Vepstas and others have been working on for some time now -- it's different to the rumoured "official" Linux port by IBM to which this story refers.
Wrong. There's actually quite a big difference: gameplay. Wolf3D was a nice, groundbreaking game with decent playability. Then came Doom, with more gameplay than virtually any other game before or since. The only possible exceptions that I can think of are Space Invaders (yes, really), Angband, Tetris and Elite. Quake had an awesome 3D engine (for the time), but the gameplay sucked bigtime.
Think about the acid test. How often do you play each of the three today? I, and most people I know, still go back for the odd game of Doom. Good though it was at the time, I don't do the same for Wolf3D, and I definitely don't for Quake.
Don't be so sure. Whilst I love my Sparc Linux box to bits (those who have only ever encountered x86 hardware really don't know what they're missing), it's never going to be able to play Q3A. Sure, Sun make boxes that are capable of doing so, but they cost 8-10 times as much as an equivalent (at least in terms of playing Quake) x86 box. The sort of people that are going to spend that much money on a Sparc aren't generally going to be playing quake.
That said, it is an important point. Non-x86 platforms are being left behind in terms of commercial Linux software. While it may not be able to play Quake, my Sparc is perfectly capable of running StarOffice, Insure++, RealPlayer, etc -- but they're only available for Linux/x86. Maybe I should take another look at Solaris binary emulation :-) I can still use all the free software on my Sparc (if nothing else, I can compile it myself), and I can also remotely display stuff to the Sparc from my Linux/x86 box, but that's kind of missing the point...
Interesting to see the number of replies that assume I'm running Linux, and was complaining because it's not a Linux related story. As it happens, I run many OSes (of which, yes, Linux is one). My point was meant to be that /. isn't a virus alert forum. There are plenty of other places that are meant for that sort of thing. Yes, the first mention of this particular virus was vaguely interesting because it uses a new method of transmission. However, I stand by my view that the fact it's out in the wild is neither news for nerds nor stuff that matters.
Someone please tell Roblimo to stop posting about Windows viruses. They're neither news for nerds, nor stuff that matters. Slashdot readers are extremely likely to know about the dangers of viruses, and what measures to take to prevent catching them. Most of us just sit and watch in amusement as the MS world infects itself. It really isn't interesting, so why post about it?
The original plan was to be between 512K and 2M, but they've shelved plans for anything higher than 512K for the moment. It'll arrive eventually, but I wouldn't like to say when. BT's bulk pricing to ISPs will start at £40/month. The ISP will then add their own markup on that to get to an end-user price. As for BT's ADSL site giving up to date details, I wish it would. Sadly, though, it hasn't been unpdated for over 3 months.
You'd be out of luck then. BT dropped it to 512Kb downstream last month (and hiked the price up at the same time!). Mass roll out will only be at 512K, although 2Mb should follow at a later date.