Sometimes you need to tell a program like Xfree86 what hardware it is talking too.
No. It should determine that on its own, afterall, the kernel supposably knows what it is.
I don't know what chipset my video card is using, nor do I care. The fact that I should open up my case and read off numbers of some dip inside is ludicrous. Granted, this has gotten better over the years, but it still isn't right.
Besides, Xfree86 is not linux and X.org is a better implementation of X based on Xfree86 so you probably should be using that.
You've highlighted the other problem with the community, the "You run that? You suck. You should throw away a perfectly functioning system, and run this instead!" Screw that. The idea that someone wouldn't like to constant throw away working software is alien to a large segment of the community.
Anyway, the earlier statement that "Linux isn't for the desktop" appears to be disproved by the fact that there are linux desktop systems.
Linux is also running on the ipod. That doesn't mean that it's meant for it. Windows is running complete with a taskbar and a semi-wimp interface of millions of pdas the world over. That doesn't mean that wince is the best approach. Just because someone has done it, it doesn't automatically make it a good idea.
Then get someone else to do it for you - you either spend the money or take the time.
That mindset is the problem. The idea that "There's nothing wrong. You suck. Just read the fucking manual." is the problem. The system should take care of itself. That's the whole idea behind plug-and-play, and now self-optimizing servers. I shouldn't need to know how it works. It should just work. The fact that many systems don't work this way doesn't invalidate the critism at all. It just means that all the available systems suck.
Unfortuntely some things in life are not obvious, sometimes you need to read the docs.
You mean docs that are either 3 versions behind, or better yet, 12 html pages of "FIXME"? We've all come across that level of "documentation".
Students sometimes expect to pass without going to the lectures, reading the texts, or doing any prac work - and we look at them as taking an unrealistic attitude. You still need to do your homework after you get your degree/diploma/MSCE.
I'm 29 years old and in grad school finishing a thesis. Prior to grad school I worked in industry at Motorola GSM. I know how the real world works. Don't assume everyone with a.edu email address is some snivelling 18 year old.
I've never come across an installation of windows that required more than simply pressing "finish". Sure once the base install was done, you had to install a bunch of oem drivers, but again it was just clicking "finish".
Debian is my distro of choice because of apt as well. Apt is great, but there's still problems with package configuration in debian. Too many packages install with broken configurations. Take for example hotplug. I'll never upgrade from usbdevfs and pcmcia-cs/cardmgr to hotplug. Why? "hotplug is now installed, but requires manual configuration before being usable." Screw that. usbdefvs and cardmgr works now, and works just fine. I'll upgrade when they pry my working configuration from my cold dead hands.
I see your arrogant, "You don't know what you're talking about" attitude, and will match it.
When I bought my digital camera, I had patch the kernel in order for it to be recognized
That is where the drivers live in linux.
I know how drivers work in linux, but apparently the word "patch" was lost on you. I'm not about even merely recompiling the kernel, but actually opening up vi, editing the source code, and then recompiling. This goes beyond the standard "compile the foo module". I had to edit unusual_devs.h before the USB storage device driver would properly mount. Tell me when the last time you had to do that.
It all depends on how you state the question - a little bit of tact goes a long way.
The ability to take criticism goes longer.
If learning the skills isn't going to get you anywhere or is of no intrest then you stay with what you know or get others to install your new mouse or whatever.
This is the mouse problem: XFree only allows you to define one mouse. Other mice are configured as SendCoreEvents, which means the device merely echos the same events as the primary mouse. If you don't have the primary mouse configured properly, XFree won't interpret the mouse events correctly.
The fun begins when you want to use an external MS Explorer mouse on a laptop. The mouse has a touchpad, which is interpreted as a simple two button ps/2 mouse. This mouse is always there, so you have to configure this as the primary mouse. The external usb mouse must be configured to simply SendCoreEvents. Now when you plug in the explorer mouse, the middle button, scrollwheel, and thumb buttons aren't configured properly. Now theoretically, you could fix this with some xmodmap magic, but oh no! XFree makes it nigh-impossible to configure different mice seperately. xmodmap only allows the user to configure the primary mouse, which in this case means modifing buttons 1, 2, and 3. Buttons 4, 5, 6, and 7, the buttons that aren't configured properly, simply don't exist.
I've got better things to do than fix someone else's software. Like, fixing my own software.
I like unix. I'm comfortable in unix. Unix let's me do my work
Cygwin gives you decent shells and unix tools on MS Windows - Redhat host the downloads these days.
I've been using Linux for longer than most, and I still completely agree with you. This is why I now use OS X on my desktop.
My laptop I used to post that, and this, is a mac. MacOSX is still very new to me, so I'm witholding judgement on it. It is pretty niffty once you add things like virtual desktops.
Linux isn't for the desktop and never will be until the driver issue is settled. When I bought my digital camera, I had patch the kernel in order for it to be recognized. It was a trivial patch, granted, but still I shouldn't have to do that.
As far as learning new skills to correct problems under linux, that's a bit of a canard. Linux problems tend to be a lot more arcane than problems under other oses. Patch the kernel. Edit/etc/foo restart init.d. That is bullshit.
I am not a fucking sysadmin. I do not enjoy fucking sysadmining. Trying to find out out why I have to manually load a module to get USB to work is not my idea of fun. I don't get my rocks off by screwing around with XF86Configs for a week only to get an image that almost fills the screen, and is almost straight across, and just has a little bit of white and black vertical lines in along the top and left edges. When I shove in my USB mouse, I want it to not only be recognized and made usable, but I want all 7 buttons to work damn it. For 10 years I've run linux as my primary OS, and not once in those 10 years has all my hardware worked.
Even if the driver issue is resolved. You then have to deal with the "community". Buggy software that if you ever say anything bad about it, you'll be shouted down as a heratic that should learn some respect for getting something for free. Releasing subpar software doesn't mean you're infallible, it just means you have a hobby. Then if the sofware ever gets to a usable state, the software will be rewritten "the right way" and the bug cycle starts all over again.
I like unix. I'm comfortable in unix. Unix let's me do my work, but these claims of linux apologists saying "Just wait! It will get better! Linux on the desktop is just around the corner! Linux is just a easy as windows! Linux is easy to install, it's windows that's difficult!" (That install line, is my all time favorite.) are getting old. I've heard them all before. Hell, I even used to spout that tripe. Then I grew up.
I didn't mean to imply that OO's interface wasn't a very large barrier. It is. I just mean to say that it's the second barrier to adoption. Most people won't even get far enough to even see the horrid interface.
In all seriousness, it's a Mac. The userbase is not going to accept an application that doesn't have a "pretty GUI" because the GUI is much of what the platform is about. Just see OpenOffice for an example of software that's underutilized for its lack of an effective Mac GUI.
The main reason openoffice isn't used, has nothing to do with it not having a "pretty gui". It's because it's an x11 app, and x11 isn't preinstalled, and the vast majority of the people won't bother installing it.
I second this. I used to work for a major cellphone manufacturer, and after about 9 months I became incredibly bored with my job. (I was hired in to a pretty sucky group.) I thought about transfering to another group, but the other groups didn't strike me as all that much better. I stuck around because I was just out of college, and I thought it was bad to leave in year. I my boredom eventually gave way to depression. I stayed to the end of my second year, and the quit. Now I'm in grad school, and feel much better.
Now, can you easily swap out MacOS X with another UNIX?
Yeah. If you don't want to use the proprietary apps anymore. You can get most of your settings out via the XML.plist files. Also since it's real unix, you can use any of the standard tools, and even use the preloaded Perl and Python.
Will all your apps continue to run?
Well I just converted my debian laptop to macosx, and with some minor conversions, (XBEL to nsHTML bookmarks, recompilation of locally developed apps, some path conversion, etc.) all my apps and files continue to run just fine.
All your X11 apps will (X11 under MacOSX works great); and you can get your data out of all the other proprietary apps to the extent of any other proprietary app, if not a bit more.
Fink and OpenDarwin provide precompiled ports of many popular opensource apps, so if you're already using opensource apps, you get to keep them. Also several propritary apps are available for MacOSX, o the "app churn" is mitigated.
Since MacOSX is real unix, there's more developers coming to it everyday.
Will your desktop look the same?
Well that's a pretty trival concern. Especially considering that none of the three linux systems I use almost daily look the same. Two are GNOME. One is KDE. They're different based on the software installed, and look different based on how they're used. MacOSX no different. And no, I'm not going take the canard that "KDE isn't free".
If any of those answers is no, then that's one of the freedoms you gave up when you migrated to MacOS X.
I gave up nothing than the anoyances if poorly supported hardware, and the shit job being my own sysadmin. You should take a look at it. It's not what you think.
Not everything is about functionality, remember, it's not called "Faster Software", nor "Slicker Software", it's called "Free Software", because it's goal is to bee Free to all it's users, and let the users be free to do whatever they wan with they computer without relying on big corporations managing their lifes and ideas.
That's not excuse for substandard software, and too often it is. People want software that works, so they can do what they want to do. This simple fact is lost on to many "free" software developers. Instead they expect everyone to stop what they're doing and spend their time and effort on the developers' pet project instead of the user's project. The best part of this arrogant attitude is that if someone refuses, the user is the one being unreasonable.
Let me illustrate my point with a play.
"Developer": Here's my new desktop environment. I hope you like it. Most importantly you have the source!
main() {/* FIXME */ ]
Potential User: Hey, I downloaded your environment. It doesn't work. It doesn't even compile.
"Developer": It's still under development. If you don't like it, it fix it yourself! I spent my time to give this to you, and you should appreciate that and give me some respect. I don't see you releasing a desktop environment.
That seige mentality and refusal to take honest criticism really garners users and developer respect.
As the saying goes, "Free software is only 'free' if your time is worthless."
The reality is that it's pragmatic to use and only use free software. Putting your business software in the hands of a proprietary software vendor is naive. You are hoping that the vendor doesn't screw you; either by deprecating the softare, or breaking it, or raising the price, or whatever. But to the very nature of capitalism, the vendors are constantly thinking of new ways to screw you!
I despise proprtary systems, particulary protocols and file formats, as well. That's the main atitude I got out of college. However, sometimes you have to go with a proprietary system, when the alternatives just aren't there.
It's a balancing act. For my desktop I'd been burnt so often by vendor lock-in and forced upgrades that I finally got sick of it and migrated to Linux (back in 1992). Now MacOS X is tempting, but not tempting enough that I'll give up the freedom I enjoy with Linux.
I've run linux as my primary os since november 1994. I'm a unix guy. I like eveything being a file. I like small tools that do one thing well. I like being able to have a variety of tools for each job. I like being able to have a choice of real scripting languages to dash off my own custom tools.
That said, I'm typing this on my new powerbook with MacOSX. MacOSX is bsd, well more precisely NeXTSTEP. It's real unix. You have nothing to lose but your hardware incompatabilities and your teletubies developed software. ("Let's rewrite the entire software...AGAIN!" "Let's change the filechooser...AGAIN!")
However with routing the value of IOS so exceeds the potential value with Linux that I'm willing to compromise freedom, secure in the knowledge that IOS is at least standards compliant.
Standards complience is what's more important because you're not locked in. It doesn't matter whether or not you can change the code on the router, since you're not going to do that anyway. What is important is that you can swap out your router and replace it with no ill effects.
Wearable and ubiquitous computing is an academic interest of mine.
2) On a system like this I'd imagine a GUI-centric OS is essential, and face it...Windows does this better than Linux. (Note: don't confuse this statement with anything even close to the word 'stability')
The main thing wearable computing provides is augmented reality. These devices are not general purpose machines, and therefore do not feature a traditional WIMP interface. The user doesn't have a mouse, nor a keyboard. He may have a joypad, but that's not exactly the same, the ease of moving a mouse pointer isn't the same. There has been research in finger tracking, so users select options by pointing at where they appear, but they have met with limited success.
Ideally, wearable computers are context aware, which means they automatically "do the right thing". To achive this, computer vision is needed to find the objects in the realworld, and then overlay a virtual world on top of it. This isn't that easy, since GPS systems don't have the resolution needed, and the camera isn't typically inline with the user's eyes. ith the users eyes.
3) In the event of a crash, I suspect on a system like this it's easier to hit the reboot button; rather than dumping the user to a Linux CLI where they have to have some access to a keyboard to restart whatever failed; whereas with Windows it's point-and-click.
Never messed with an embedded system in you life have you? When they crash, they reboot automatically. When they're really broken, that's all the machine will do.
Granted, research systems don't reboot automatically, because the user is the developer, and therefore needs to diagnose the problem. Most of these systems never leave the lab.
In the end, the are two probable reasons for XP. First, the military may have required it, but I kind of doubt it since these are standalone systems, and not really part of the general computing environment. More likely is, XP is what the company was most confortable with using.
because pre-1982 SBC history was AT&T history. Kinda funny how the student became the master
No. It's more like some sort of reincarnation myth, or maybe it's the Terminator 2. Ma Bell was split, and now the Baby Bells have reformed, as Ma Bell again.
You know, that's funny, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually true. A friend of mine owns an old sign to request ice from the iceman. The inside of the sign reads, "Zeigler Ice. Telephone: 7".
I'm sorry I gave you a one line smartass answer. You deserved better, so this it.
There's tons of propaganda coming from the left that says such policies help poor people. The right's answer to this seems to be "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. We won't give you a handout, but we also won't drag you down.".
But that's the thing, the right does drag you down. They make it harder for low income people to get by. When the republicans cut welfare, that doesn't mean the need goes away. It just means that the government isn't covering that need. Instead, that need is shoved off on to other organizations. These organizations, while doing their best, simply don't have the resources to meet the additional demand. This means, that needy people are turned away, and so they fall through the cracks.
Republicans work reforms to the bankruptcy laws to make sure people remain saddled with debt (and more importantly interest) they can't possibly repay. Dove tailing into this, are their reforms to weaken "predatory lending" laws, so that when someone does get into trouble, he's more likely to end up in a lot of trouble.
Laizzie-faire economics supporters, like Republicans and Libertarians, subscribe to the philosophy of social Darwinism. It can be sumed in a little quote too, "I've got mine. And I want yours too. If you want yours, come and take it." This philosophy is most popular with those who have the most.
If these people are used to working hard and living close to the land, they may prefer less government interference in their lives, even if that interference comes by way of a handout. I'm not about to fault them for that. Why are you?
Only someone who has never struggled economically would be out of touch to believe that people would choose to be poor. No one wants to be in debt. No one wants to worry that if they get injured, they'll lose everything because they have no insurance. No one wants to worry about the next paycheck. When given the choice between security and insecurity, people always choose security.
There's tons of propaganda coming from the left that says such policies help poor people. The right's answer to this seems to be "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. We won't give you a handout, but we also won't drag you down.".
It must feel pretty good to sweep in with your razor sharp wit and unparalleled insight and skewer pompus simpltons with a one line comment. Like a ninja with a sharp blade. Quick and deadly. The power. The unspoken respect you so deeply deserve, but so rarely get from others. You won't be pulled into a discussion. You're to smart for that. You like a Judo master. You use the weight of one's comments against him. They come in hard, but with a quick flick of the fingers, BAM they're down and you're standing. It's quite beautiful. Elegant, if you will. They don't understand you. No one does. Afterall, heavy is the head that wears the crown.
You do realize that abortion is considered by many to be tantamount to murder.
[...]
Don't write this behavior off to stupidity. These people are voting based on their personal ethics, not their pocketbooks.
My point is every election cycle the Republicans promise to do end abortion, or put state led prayer in public school, or prevent gays from marrying, or outlaw flag burning, or whatever, and yet every election cycle they don't. Instead they push their crony-capitalist agenda that results in lowering standards of living for the majority of Americans.
The reason why the Republicans never do anything about these social issues is that they need them to promote the idea of besiegement among their grassroot supporters. If Republicans ever did outlaw abortion, as they could today given that anti-abortion supporters currently control all three branches of the federal government, then the Republicans would lose one of their most powerful rallying cries of the past 30 years, and they're not about to do that. Instead the Republicans use abortion to get out the vote, and turn around and use that power for their wealthy backers.
Every year, the Republican grassroots are worse off than the year before. Workers are laid off, as companies take advantage of promiscuous trade policies. Every year, education cut is, so there is less opportunity of the worker to be retrained and get a new job. Every year welfare is cut, so now the worker can barely feed his kids. Every year health care costs rise. Every year, the worker falls further and further behind. Every year laws and programs that would help him are weakened. And every year, the worker laments that this year is worse than the previous one. Yet, every election he happily votes for the person who helped put him in that situation because THIS TIME he's going to "keep the sodomites down". He never realizes he's being taken advantage of, and that is dumb.
Finally, I would imagine that the cost of living in Kansas is lower than many other regions of the country. $30k might not support one person in New York City, but would probably be a nice wage in a small Kansas town.
I didn't make a comparison of the purchasing power of x dollars in one part of the country, than another. "Rich" and "poor" are relative terms, of course they are going to be defined for whatever domain (in this case geographic) you're talking about. For your information, according to the census bureau, the median household income is $40k, with a mean of $50k.
Here's a Kansan example of what I meant by the poor voting against their own interests. Kiowa County has a median household income 22% below the state average, 29% of which comes from government programs. Since 1995, it has received $40 million from farm subsidies alone Yet, that county is so desperate to get "big government off its back", in 1992, it voted to secede from Kansas. Every time they vote to eliminte these programs, they are quite literally voting to take money out of their own pockets.
As for education, don't confused schooling with learning. School is an excellent way to learn some ideas, but a very poor way to learn other ideas: Why do you think certain professions require apprenticeship? The average fulltime farmer isn't some ignorant country hick: He's a small businessman who needs to understand farming, science, finance and even a bit of law. There's a lot more to the job then digging a hole in the ground and dropping a few seeds.
It's quite interesting that you brought up the stereotype that everyone in Kansas is a farmer. They're not. In fact, one of the largest employers in Kansas is Boeing.
What really has touched me off about your "farmer's aren't dumb" comment, is that I'm willing to bet that between the two us, only one of us grew up with a cornfield less than a 100 feet from his bedroom window.
Yup. You might be interested in the book What's a Matter with Kansas? It talks about how the poorest and least educated vote against their own interests all in the name of the "culture wars". i.e. Vote to end abortion. Receive the elimination of Social Security.
So after much out cry over the file chooser in 2.6, they decided to change it again. The problem with the 2.6 dialog was that there wasn't a way to type in filenames. GNOME is the only framework that doesn't allow users to type in filenames. Almost 30 years of GUI research and development had this, but GNOME decided that was dumb. Now, GNOME did allow users to type in a directory names if they hit CTRL-L. The problem with that is that it's hidden from the user.
Now, GNOME has added typeahead find to the dialog. Well, that got rid of the CTRL-L nonsense, but it's still hidden functionality, and doesn't allow users to paste in filenames.
You make an important point. I don't feel comfortable at all charging 12 year-olds, especially disturbed 12-year-olds (you mentioned zoloft) as adults. If they had the full judgement and wisdom of "adults", shouldn't they be allowed to vote?
On the other hand, it's a pretty good judgement call that someone at 17 years and 364 days will have about the same reasoning ability as an 18 year-old, baring individual variability of course. Why should they "get away with murder" because they're under 18?
I completely agree. When I Asscend The Throne(tm) I would change the laws in this regard from an either-or proposition to a graduated scale. Maturity is a gradual process, and the laws should reflect this.
I think the point I'm trying to make is that yes our society does have a disconect when it comes to judging how responsible a minor should be for the things they do,
Yeah, that's my point.
but it doesn't have as big of a disconnect as it seems when it comes to sex. Yes, many minors know what they're doing and have a desire to have sex. However, the adults still need say a resounding NO if the subject comes up and the law will enforce the issue if they don't. Put another way, 16-year-olds can have sex with other 16-year-olds all day long and the law doesn't care. Keeping, often preditory, adults who probably have vast coersive powers out of the picture is still a very good thing.
As the more mature person, adults do have the responsibility in this case. But the law is written with this artificial boundrary which creates some interesting problems because of it. A couple of years ago (I'm sorry I can't find the link) an 18 year old boy was put on trial for having consensual sex with his 16 year old girl friend. (The girl's father pressed the charges for whatever reason.) The 18 year-old was convicted and was forced to become a registered sex offender. The good news is, that it did highlight where the law breaks down. Even the judge became one of the kids strongest allies for petitioning for a pardon. (I think the kid eventually got it.)
But, yes there is a big difference between a 40 year old with a 16 year old, and an 18 year old with a 16 year old.
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Sometimes you need to tell a program like Xfree86 what hardware it is talking too.
.edu email address is some snivelling 18 year old.
No. It should determine that on its own, afterall, the kernel supposably knows what it is.
I don't know what chipset my video card is using, nor do I care. The fact that I should open up my case and read off numbers of some dip inside is ludicrous. Granted, this has gotten better over the years, but it still isn't right.
Besides, Xfree86 is not linux and X.org is a better implementation of X based on Xfree86 so you probably should be using that.
You've highlighted the other problem with the community, the "You run that? You suck. You should throw away a perfectly functioning system, and run this instead!" Screw that. The idea that someone wouldn't like to constant throw away working software is alien to a large segment of the community.
Anyway, the earlier statement that "Linux isn't for the desktop" appears to be disproved by the fact that there are linux desktop systems.
Linux is also running on the ipod. That doesn't mean that it's meant for it. Windows is running complete with a taskbar and a semi-wimp interface of millions of pdas the world over. That doesn't mean that wince is the best approach. Just because someone has done it, it doesn't automatically make it a good idea.
Then get someone else to do it for you - you either spend the money or take the time.
That mindset is the problem. The idea that "There's nothing wrong. You suck. Just read the fucking manual." is the problem. The system should take care of itself. That's the whole idea behind plug-and-play, and now self-optimizing servers. I shouldn't need to know how it works. It should just work. The fact that many systems don't work this way doesn't invalidate the critism at all. It just means that all the available systems suck.
Unfortuntely some things in life are not obvious, sometimes you need to read the docs.
You mean docs that are either 3 versions behind, or better yet, 12 html pages of "FIXME"? We've all come across that level of "documentation".
Students sometimes expect to pass without going to the lectures, reading the texts, or doing any prac work - and we look at them as taking an unrealistic attitude. You still need to do your homework after you get your degree/diploma/MSCE.
I'm 29 years old and in grad school finishing a thesis. Prior to grad school I worked in industry at Motorola GSM. I know how the real world works. Don't assume everyone with a
If only I was a prof.
I've never come across an installation of windows that required more than simply pressing "finish". Sure once the base install was done, you had to install a bunch of oem drivers, but again it was just clicking "finish".
Debian is my distro of choice because of apt as well. Apt is great, but there's still problems with package configuration in debian. Too many packages install with broken configurations. Take for example hotplug. I'll never upgrade from usbdevfs and pcmcia-cs/cardmgr to hotplug. Why? "hotplug is now installed, but requires manual configuration before being usable." Screw that. usbdefvs and cardmgr works now, and works just fine. I'll upgrade when they pry my working configuration from my cold dead hands.
That is where the drivers live in linux.
I know how drivers work in linux, but apparently the word "patch" was lost on you. I'm not about even merely recompiling the kernel, but actually opening up vi, editing the source code, and then recompiling. This goes beyond the standard "compile the foo module". I had to edit unusual_devs.h before the USB storage device driver would properly mount. Tell me when the last time you had to do that.
It all depends on how you state the question - a little bit of tact goes a long way.
The ability to take criticism goes longer.
If learning the skills isn't going to get you anywhere or is of no intrest then you stay with what you know or get others to install your new mouse or whatever.
This is the mouse problem: XFree only allows you to define one mouse. Other mice are configured as SendCoreEvents, which means the device merely echos the same events as the primary mouse. If you don't have the primary mouse configured properly, XFree won't interpret the mouse events correctly.
The fun begins when you want to use an external MS Explorer mouse on a laptop. The mouse has a touchpad, which is interpreted as a simple two button ps/2 mouse. This mouse is always there, so you have to configure this as the primary mouse. The external usb mouse must be configured to simply SendCoreEvents. Now when you plug in the explorer mouse, the middle button, scrollwheel, and thumb buttons aren't configured properly. Now theoretically, you could fix this with some xmodmap magic, but oh no! XFree makes it nigh-impossible to configure different mice seperately. xmodmap only allows the user to configure the primary mouse, which in this case means modifing buttons 1, 2, and 3. Buttons 4, 5, 6, and 7, the buttons that aren't configured properly, simply don't exist.
I've got better things to do than fix someone else's software. Like, fixing my own software.
Cygwin gives you decent shells and unix tools on MS Windows - Redhat host the downloads these days.
So what? It's just lipstick on a pig.
I've been using Linux for longer than most, and I still completely agree with you. This is why I now use OS X on my desktop.
My laptop I used to post that, and this, is a mac. MacOSX is still very new to me, so I'm witholding judgement on it. It is pretty niffty once you add things like virtual desktops.
Linux isn't for the desktop and never will be until the driver issue is settled. When I bought my digital camera, I had patch the kernel in order for it to be recognized. It was a trivial patch, granted, but still I shouldn't have to do that.
/etc/foo restart init.d. That is bullshit.
As far as learning new skills to correct problems under linux, that's a bit of a canard. Linux problems tend to be a lot more arcane than problems under other oses. Patch the kernel. Edit
I am not a fucking sysadmin. I do not enjoy fucking sysadmining. Trying to find out out why I have to manually load a module to get USB to work is not my idea of fun. I don't get my rocks off by screwing around with XF86Configs for a week only to get an image that almost fills the screen, and is almost straight across, and just has a little bit of white and black vertical lines in along the top and left edges. When I shove in my USB mouse, I want it to not only be recognized and made usable, but I want all 7 buttons to work damn it. For 10 years I've run linux as my primary OS, and not once in those 10 years has all my hardware worked.
Even if the driver issue is resolved. You then have to deal with the "community". Buggy software that if you ever say anything bad about it, you'll be shouted down as a heratic that should learn some respect for getting something for free. Releasing subpar software doesn't mean you're infallible, it just means you have a hobby. Then if the sofware ever gets to a usable state, the software will be rewritten "the right way" and the bug cycle starts all over again.
I like unix. I'm comfortable in unix. Unix let's me do my work, but these claims of linux apologists saying "Just wait! It will get better! Linux on the desktop is just around the corner! Linux is just a easy as windows! Linux is easy to install, it's windows that's difficult!" (That install line, is my all time favorite.) are getting old. I've heard them all before. Hell, I even used to spout that tripe. Then I grew up.
I didn't mean to imply that OO's interface wasn't a very large barrier. It is. I just mean to say that it's the second barrier to adoption. Most people won't even get far enough to even see the horrid interface.
In all seriousness, it's a Mac. The userbase is not going to accept an application that doesn't have a "pretty GUI" because the GUI is much of what the platform is about. Just see OpenOffice for an example of software that's underutilized for its lack of an effective Mac GUI.
The main reason openoffice isn't used, has nothing to do with it not having a "pretty gui". It's because it's an x11 app, and x11 isn't preinstalled, and the vast majority of the people won't bother installing it.
I second this. I used to work for a major cellphone manufacturer, and after about 9 months I became incredibly bored with my job. (I was hired in to a pretty sucky group.) I thought about transfering to another group, but the other groups didn't strike me as all that much better. I stuck around because I was just out of college, and I thought it was bad to leave in year. I my boredom eventually gave way to depression. I stayed to the end of my second year, and the quit. Now I'm in grad school, and feel much better.
Now, can you easily swap out MacOS X with another UNIX?
.plist files. Also since it's real unix, you can use any of the standard tools, and even use the preloaded Perl and Python.
Yeah. If you don't want to use the proprietary apps anymore. You can get most of your settings out via the XML
Will all your apps continue to run?
Well I just converted my debian laptop to macosx, and with some minor conversions, (XBEL to nsHTML bookmarks, recompilation of locally developed apps, some path conversion, etc.) all my apps and files continue to run just fine.
All your X11 apps will (X11 under MacOSX works great); and you can get your data out of all the other proprietary apps to the extent of any other proprietary app, if not a bit more.
Fink and OpenDarwin provide precompiled ports of many popular opensource apps, so if you're already using opensource apps, you get to keep them. Also several propritary apps are available for MacOSX, o the "app churn" is mitigated.
Since MacOSX is real unix, there's more developers coming to it everyday.
Will your desktop look the same?
Well that's a pretty trival concern. Especially considering that none of the three linux systems I use almost daily look the same. Two are GNOME. One is KDE. They're different based on the software installed, and look different based on how they're used. MacOSX no different. And no, I'm not going take the canard that "KDE isn't free".
If any of those answers is no, then that's one of the freedoms you gave up when you migrated to MacOS X.
I gave up nothing than the anoyances if poorly supported hardware, and the shit job being my own sysadmin. You should take a look at it. It's not what you think.
Not everything is about functionality, remember, it's not called "Faster Software", nor "Slicker Software", it's called "Free Software", because it's goal is to bee Free to all it's users, and let the users be free to do whatever they wan with they computer without relying on big corporations managing their lifes and ideas.
/* FIXME */
That's not excuse for substandard software, and too often it is. People want software that works, so they can do what they want to do. This simple fact is lost on to many "free" software developers. Instead they expect everyone to stop what they're doing and spend their time and effort on the developers' pet project instead of the user's project. The best part of this arrogant attitude is that if someone refuses, the user is the one being unreasonable.
Let me illustrate my point with a play.
"Developer": Here's my new desktop environment. I hope you like it. Most importantly you have the source!
main()
{
]
Potential User: Hey, I downloaded your environment. It doesn't work. It doesn't even compile.
"Developer": It's still under development. If you don't like it, it fix it yourself! I spent my time to give this to you, and you should appreciate that and give me some respect. I don't see you releasing a desktop environment.
That seige mentality and refusal to take honest criticism really garners users and developer respect.
As the saying goes, "Free software is only 'free' if your time is worthless."
The reality is that it's pragmatic to use and only use free software. Putting your business software in the hands of a proprietary software vendor is naive. You are hoping that the vendor doesn't screw you; either by deprecating the softare, or breaking it, or raising the price, or whatever. But to the very nature of capitalism, the vendors are constantly thinking of new ways to screw you!
I despise proprtary systems, particulary protocols and file formats, as well. That's the main atitude I got out of college. However, sometimes you have to go with a proprietary system, when the alternatives just aren't there.
It's a balancing act. For my desktop I'd been burnt so often by vendor lock-in and forced upgrades that I finally got sick of it and migrated to Linux (back in 1992). Now MacOS X is tempting, but not tempting enough that I'll give up the freedom I enjoy with Linux.
I've run linux as my primary os since november 1994. I'm a unix guy. I like eveything being a file. I like small tools that do one thing well. I like being able to have a variety of tools for each job. I like being able to have a choice of real scripting languages to dash off my own custom tools.
That said, I'm typing this on my new powerbook with MacOSX. MacOSX is bsd, well more precisely NeXTSTEP. It's real unix. You have nothing to lose but your hardware incompatabilities and your teletubies developed software. ("Let's rewrite the entire software...AGAIN!" "Let's change the filechooser...AGAIN!")
However with routing the value of IOS so exceeds the potential value with Linux that I'm willing to compromise freedom, secure in the knowledge that IOS is at least standards compliant.
Standards complience is what's more important because you're not locked in. It doesn't matter whether or not you can change the code on the router, since you're not going to do that anyway. What is important is that you can swap out your router and replace it with no ill effects.
..a paperclip that bats its eyelids and talks to you when you click on it? We could call it Xlippy.
Sadly, openoffice thought that would be a good thing to clone to.
Wearable and ubiquitous computing is an academic interest of mine.
2) On a system like this I'd imagine a GUI-centric OS is essential, and face it...Windows does this better than Linux. (Note: don't confuse this statement with anything even close to the word 'stability')
The main thing wearable computing provides is augmented reality. These devices are not general purpose machines, and therefore do not feature a traditional WIMP interface. The user doesn't have a mouse, nor a keyboard. He may have a joypad, but that's not exactly the same, the ease of moving a mouse pointer isn't the same. There has been research in finger tracking, so users select options by pointing at where they appear, but they have met with limited success.
Ideally, wearable computers are context aware, which means they automatically "do the right thing". To achive this, computer vision is needed to find the objects in the realworld, and then overlay a virtual world on top of it. This isn't that easy, since GPS systems don't have the resolution needed, and the camera isn't typically inline with the user's eyes.
ith the users eyes.
3) In the event of a crash, I suspect on a system like this it's easier to hit the reboot button; rather than dumping the user to a Linux CLI where they have to have some access to a keyboard to restart whatever failed; whereas with Windows it's point-and-click.
Never messed with an embedded system in you life have you? When they crash, they reboot automatically. When they're really broken, that's all the machine will do.
Granted, research systems don't reboot automatically, because the user is the developer, and therefore needs to diagnose the problem. Most of these systems never leave the lab.
In the end, the are two probable reasons for XP. First, the military may have required it, but I kind of doubt it since these are standalone systems, and not really part of the general computing environment. More likely is, XP is what the company was most confortable with using.
because pre-1982 SBC history was AT&T history. Kinda funny how the student became the master
No. It's more like some sort of reincarnation myth, or maybe it's the Terminator 2. Ma Bell was split, and now the Baby Bells have reformed, as Ma Bell again.
Alexander Graham Bell's Phone Number: 1
You know, that's funny, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually true. A friend of mine owns an old sign to request ice from the iceman. The inside of the sign reads, "Zeigler Ice. Telephone: 7".
I'm sorry I gave you a one line smartass answer. You deserved better, so this it.
There's tons of propaganda coming from the left that says such policies help poor people. The right's answer to this seems to be "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. We won't give you a handout, but we also won't drag you down.".
But that's the thing, the right does drag you down. They make it harder for low income people to get by. When the republicans cut welfare, that doesn't mean the need goes away. It just means that the government isn't covering that need. Instead, that need is shoved off on to other organizations. These organizations, while doing their best, simply don't have the resources to meet the additional demand. This means, that needy people are turned away, and so they fall through the cracks.
Republicans work reforms to the bankruptcy laws to make sure people remain saddled with debt (and more importantly interest) they can't possibly repay. Dove tailing into this, are their reforms to weaken "predatory lending" laws, so that when someone does get into trouble, he's more likely to end up in a lot of trouble.
Laizzie-faire economics supporters, like Republicans and Libertarians, subscribe to the philosophy of social Darwinism. It can be sumed in a little quote too, "I've got mine. And I want yours too. If you want yours, come and take it." This philosophy is most popular with those who have the most.
If these people are used to working hard and living close to the land, they may prefer less government interference in their lives, even if that interference comes by way of a handout. I'm not about to fault them for that. Why are you?
Only someone who has never struggled economically would be out of touch to believe that people would choose to be poor. No one wants to be in debt. No one wants to worry that if they get injured, they'll lose everything because they have no insurance. No one wants to worry about the next paycheck. When given the choice between security and insecurity, people always choose security.
There's tons of propaganda coming from the left that says such policies help poor people. The right's answer to this seems to be "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. We won't give you a handout, but we also won't drag you down.".
Shouldn't they have boots first?
It must feel pretty good to sweep in with your razor sharp wit and unparalleled insight and skewer pompus simpltons with a one line comment. Like a ninja with a sharp blade. Quick and deadly. The power. The unspoken respect you so deeply deserve, but so rarely get from others. You won't be pulled into a discussion. You're to smart for that. You like a Judo master. You use the weight of one's comments against him. They come in hard, but with a quick flick of the fingers, BAM they're down and you're standing. It's quite beautiful. Elegant, if you will. They don't understand you. No one does. Afterall, heavy is the head that wears the crown.
Hope it works out for you Jimmy. I really do.
You do realize that abortion is considered by many to be tantamount to murder.
[...]
Don't write this behavior off to stupidity. These people are voting based on their personal ethics, not their pocketbooks.
My point is every election cycle the Republicans promise to do end abortion, or put state led prayer in public school, or prevent gays from marrying, or outlaw flag burning, or whatever, and yet every election cycle they don't. Instead they push their crony-capitalist agenda that results in lowering standards of living for the majority of Americans.
The reason why the Republicans never do anything about these social issues is that they need them to promote the idea of besiegement among their grassroot supporters. If Republicans ever did outlaw abortion, as they could today given that anti-abortion supporters currently control all three branches of the federal government, then the Republicans would lose one of their most powerful rallying cries of the past 30 years, and they're not about to do that. Instead the Republicans use abortion to get out the vote, and turn around and use that power for their wealthy backers.
Every year, the Republican grassroots are worse off than the year before. Workers are laid off, as companies take advantage of promiscuous trade policies. Every year, education cut is, so there is less opportunity of the worker to be retrained and get a new job. Every year welfare is cut, so now the worker can barely feed his kids. Every year health care costs rise. Every year, the worker falls further and further behind. Every year laws and programs that would help him are weakened. And every year, the worker laments that this year is worse than the previous one. Yet, every election he happily votes for the person who helped put him in that situation because THIS TIME he's going to "keep the sodomites down". He never realizes he's being taken advantage of, and that is dumb.
Finally, I would imagine that the cost of living in Kansas is lower than many other regions of the country. $30k might not support one person in New York City, but would probably be a nice wage in a small Kansas town.
I didn't make a comparison of the purchasing power of x dollars in one part of the country, than another. "Rich" and "poor" are relative terms, of course they are going to be defined for whatever domain (in this case geographic) you're talking about. For your information, according to the census bureau, the median household income is $40k, with a mean of $50k.
Here's a Kansan example of what I meant by the poor voting against their own interests. Kiowa County has a median household income 22% below the state average, 29% of which comes from government programs. Since 1995, it has received $40 million from farm subsidies alone Yet, that county is so desperate to get "big government off its back", in 1992, it voted to secede from Kansas. Every time they vote to eliminte these programs, they are quite literally voting to take money out of their own pockets.
As for education, don't confused schooling with learning. School is an excellent way to learn some ideas, but a very poor way to learn other ideas: Why do you think certain professions require apprenticeship? The average fulltime farmer isn't some ignorant country hick: He's a small businessman who needs to understand farming, science, finance and even a bit of law. There's a lot more to the job then digging a hole in the ground and dropping a few seeds.
It's quite interesting that you brought up the stereotype that everyone in Kansas is a farmer. They're not. In fact, one of the largest employers in Kansas is Boeing.
What really has touched me off about your "farmer's aren't dumb" comment, is that I'm willing to bet that between the two us, only one of us grew up with a cornfield less than a 100 feet from his bedroom window.
Why do you hate America?
Yup. You might be interested in the book What's a Matter with Kansas? It talks about how the poorest and least educated vote against their own interests all in the name of the "culture wars". i.e. Vote to end abortion. Receive the elimination of Social Security.
... and I don't see the need for the extra input field. It just confuses beginners and if I really want to type in a filename,
...
/) and Ctrl-V and that's it.
You mean confused like when they use windows, or macos, or solaris, or kde, or nextstep, or beos, or
I can always hit Ctrl-L (or even
And where did you learn about ctrl-L? Google? Because it sure as hell wasn't the dialog.
They probably should expose the ctrl+l somewhere, but your complaints sound pretty specific, why not submit two bugs
Bug 136541 Opened March 2004. They tend to worry about accessability and exposing functionality through APIs rather than actual usability.
(and maybe tone down the rhetoric... two minor complaints for a rather function-full component is hardly grounds declaring incompetence)?
Either everyone in the GUI world is wrong except for GNOME, or just GNOME is wrong. You take your pick.
So after much out cry over the file chooser in 2.6, they decided to change it again. The problem with the 2.6 dialog was that there wasn't a way to type in filenames. GNOME is the only framework that doesn't allow users to type in filenames. Almost 30 years of GUI research and development had this, but GNOME decided that was dumb. Now, GNOME did allow users to type in a directory names if they hit CTRL-L. The problem with that is that it's hidden from the user.
Now, GNOME has added typeahead find to the dialog. Well, that got rid of the CTRL-L nonsense, but it's still hidden functionality, and doesn't allow users to paste in filenames.
This is just incompetence.
You make an important point. I don't feel comfortable at all charging 12 year-olds, especially disturbed 12-year-olds (you mentioned zoloft) as adults. If they had the full judgement and wisdom of "adults", shouldn't they be allowed to vote?
On the other hand, it's a pretty good judgement call that someone at 17 years and 364 days will have about the same reasoning ability as an 18 year-old, baring individual variability of course. Why should they "get away with murder" because they're under 18?
I completely agree. When I Asscend The Throne(tm) I would change the laws in this regard from an either-or proposition to a graduated scale. Maturity is a gradual process, and the laws should reflect this.
I think the point I'm trying to make is that yes our society does have a disconect when it comes to judging how responsible a minor should be for the things they do,
Yeah, that's my point.
but it doesn't have as big of a disconnect as it seems when it comes to sex. Yes, many minors know what they're doing and have a desire to have sex. However, the adults still need say a resounding NO if the subject comes up and the law will enforce the issue if they don't. Put another way, 16-year-olds can have sex with other 16-year-olds all day long and the law doesn't care. Keeping, often preditory, adults who probably have vast coersive powers out of the picture is still a very good thing.
As the more mature person, adults do have the responsibility in this case. But the law is written with this artificial boundrary which creates some interesting problems because of it. A couple of years ago (I'm sorry I can't find the link) an 18 year old boy was put on trial for having consensual sex with his 16 year old girl friend. (The girl's father pressed the charges for whatever reason.) The 18 year-old was convicted and was forced to become a registered sex offender. The good news is, that it did highlight where the law breaks down. Even the judge became one of the kids strongest allies for petitioning for a pardon. (I think the kid eventually got it.)
But, yes there is a big difference between a 40 year old with a 16 year old, and an 18 year old with a 16 year old.
I think the book is actually pretty good. You guys just need to give it a chance.