Having looked at ALSA's web site, I'd say that it has a way to go before it replaces OSS/Free. It still does not support many soundcards (or at least, the list on their site isn't particularly long) and the fact that the latest release (this month) is still a 0.x probably shouldn't fill anyone with confidence.
Aside: Linus has adopted Microsoft version numbering, he's just not telling anybody. That '.' between the two and the four really stands for '00' - which means, of course, that the 2.4 kernel will actually be released in 2006.
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I think this is inevitable. Quite a few people (including myself) wouldn't dream of putting a x.[N*2+1].y kernel on machines they expect to do any standard work on, because they are known to be "unstable". As a net result these kernels probably aren't subjected to the same kind of rigorous beta (or pilot?) testing as their "current" (to steal from the FreeBSD jargon) counterparts, so it's inevitable that hitherto unnoticed bugs will be found.
Though I take your point. My experience with FreeBSD taught me not to trust version-zero releases and wait at least for the first or second round of patches before installing them on any machine that is going to do any real work. A case in point was the release of 3.0 (and 3.1 was still a bit flaky), not least because in the early 3.x releases they were still migrating from a.out to ELF. (And the equally flaky USB support that IIRC disappeared in 3.2 due to popular frustration.)
Having said that - the sooner and the more people install 2.4.0(? I assume), the sooner the bugs will be found and fixed. I would be _very_ surprised if any remaining bugs were really significant. But then, I'm probably just being naïve...;)
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"In effect, it turns the low voltage segment of the existing power distribution infrastructure into an Intranet and the customer is provided with a Local Area Network for home or office use."
Nuff zed. =)
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Now I got this question, what about those companies that buy domain names and then sell them for -a lot of- money ?
A company called "One in a Million" tried this in the UK some years ago, buying up a number of '.co.uk' domain names and attempting to sell them at an inflated price to the companies in question. There was a big court battle between them and a number of large companies, including Virgin and BT. The outcome was fairly predictable, I think. (Wired also has an old news article about it, as does Boardwatch.)
Windows has failed to go into a whole bunch of markets (POS, Banks, ATMs, etc.) that are still dominated by green screens because the PC/Windows TCO (think maintenance) is way too high.
The National Westminster Bank (in the UK) some time ago installed, and for all I know still has, Windows NT running on its ATMs.
I chuckled the day I went to get some money out, and every NatWest cashpoint I could find had bluescreened.....
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A load of tripe about numerology in that article. So what if 9/9/1999 => 9+9+1+9+9+9 = 46 = 4+6 = 10 = 1? Only about, oh, one in nine dates add up to '1'.
Sheesh.
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I disagree with you. Recently this site has seen a number of informed, well judged and thought-out posts and interesting articles from all camps, including (but not limited to) users of (and developers on) *BSD, commercial UNIX systems, Windows 9x/NT, BeOS and MacOS. Historically this has been overrun with the evangelist trolls from the Linux camp. That is a problem. Moderation should be an attempt to rid this site of those (futile) trolls. And I am willing to assist in that worthwhile task.
[;) for the humour-impaired.... ]
Seriously though, while/. is mainly (and historically) a Linux forum, it is no longer exclusively a Linux clique. It has become bigger than it was, embracing (or often flaming) techies and hackers from all walks of life - even those who have sold their soul to the Dark Lord of Redmond, WA.
If that doesn't persuade you, consider this: hearts and minds is what it's all about. Every user of another OS is a potential convert. Flaming them isn't going to win them over.:)
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1) Moderators need more points, or more people need to be moderators.
The all-too-frequent occasions where Score: 5 is seen on a post which was "okay, but not that great" would suggest that we probably already have enough moderators (see my earlier post #255 in this discussion). Giving moderators more points may help - assuming those points are used wisely, though this is what MM is supposed to tackle.
2) Letting everyone see the moderation controls [i.e. controls always visible] would just cause problems.....
Agreed. This has been covered adequately elsewhere, so I won't add to it.
3) If straight AC posting (not logged in) goes away, there should be a time delay implemented for the creation of new accounts.....
Nice idea, difficult to work in practice though. If I (as a troll) wanted to circumvent this, I would create many new accounts early, wait a day, thus having many valid accounts with which to troll (anonymously, if I choose). If the accounts get zapped or Bad Karma'd into oblivion, I create some more before I start running out of accounts.
Unfortunately, the most effective ways around this include a validation process (where you must fill in some kind of registration information in order to create a new account, which is then eyeballed by a human before it is "validated"), and measures to block hosts or entire domains where multiple accounts are being created purely for the purposes of spam/trolls/flamage.....
Considering the views of a rather vociferous number of people on/. on free speech, this would probably go down like a lead balloon. Sad to say though, I fear it may be necessary in the end if no other means of control have any measure of success.
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.....I'll be dammed if I'll suck up to the faceless moderators.....
This comment is seen a lot. What people tend to forget is this: sometimes, that "faceless moderator" is you.
Though I agree on the issue of moderation points - I think they should last longer, not least because it's perfectly possible to keep reasonably up-to-date with the more newsworthy articles on/. and yet only read it once or twice a week. And if people have longer to spend their moderation points, they might moderate in a more well-judged manner. (Who else has done the "only one day left for these moderation points, better use them quick?" *raises hand guiltily*)
I must add the obligatory "me-too" to the recent posts expressing horror at the idea of moderation controls being always visible, as well.
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.....a reasonably insightful comment that deserved a 3, that had a 5.....
I imagine a lot of the reason for this is the same reason you often see several (redundant) answers to the same question - that is, that the post started off with a score of 1 or 2, several moderators saw it at once, liked it and upped it. Unfortunately there's no way to change your mind and un-moderate something you've moderated (except by posting of course!) so the 4 moderators who pounced on the same post at once inadvertantly end up giving the post an overinflated score.
That's the Web for you. Interactive medium it ain't, however much people try to make it so.
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Posting restrictions: A good writer would take about five minutes to write up a good post, with nessisary proof backing up the claim...... [sniip!]
This is a ghastly idea.
For the record, folks, it _is_ possible to make a perfectly valid point without writing a 2000 word essay. Those of us with slow connections, and work to do, appreciate it more when people can be concise _and_ make sense.:)
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1.6 Gh mmmm that is getting a bit dangerous, hope they shield it well, or you either be cooked from the inside (du to the microwave radiation) or become impotent cause them radio waves will kill ya sperms
No more chance of that than if you keep a cellphone in your pocket, I'll bet.
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Hear hear. What a lot of/.'ers seem to forget is that while Win3.x/95/98 may be buggy as all Hell, it's nothing like a hacker's dream OS, and no-one is particularly fond of the company that brought it to us, as far as the average Joe is concerned, it's relatively easy to use for all that. Same goes for MacOS. You may not like it, but it's a damn sight friendlier to use.
_When_ one of the Linux distros has reached the point of being able to install from CD with a nice gooey (sic) interface that sets everything up for you without asking you a million questions about what packages you want installed, when installing new software/drivers is as easy as sticking a CD in the machine, when we start seeing full (as opposed to adequate) hardware support (Rage 128 anyone?), _then_ we might have an alternative for the less computer-literate. Linux/GNU/XFree86/... (and *BSD et al) have got a long way to go yet if they are seriously to challenge the Microsofts and Apples of the desktop OS world.
This is not to slam Linux. It's a good effort, but it still hasn't escaped the hacker niche, IMO.
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If your points never expire, you might not use them for "unimportant" threads, instead waiting for a thread you really care about.
Except that if you really care about the thread, you're more likely to post there, in which case the moderator points are bunk anyway. (New AC system notwithstanding.) The little moderation I've done has generally been in topics I wasn't that interested in, for that very reason.
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it just seems to me another futile attempt to make a quick buck. *sigh*
While many here disapprove of Microsoft's business practices, I'd hardly call their attempts to make money "futile". They seem to be quite good at that part. It would be nice to see them do as well in developing the product they're so good at selling people.;)
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You're not the only one who feels this way. But I guess that the bottom line is that the members of/. are, in the main, Linux people. Thus, if moderators are effectively drawn by lot, you're going to end up with a lot of pro-Linux moderators.
(This, fwiw, is probably why we have politicians instead of people drawn by lot in the same way as jury service to run our countries. We'd have GTW in three weeks otherwise, I expect.)
Those few of us who are in the "other" camps (be you a BSD, Apple, Be, Microsoft or other advocate) and find ourselves with some moderator points, probably find ourselves torn between wanting to moderate up the pro-BSD (etc. as above) posts to redress the balance and wanting to post.
On the anonymous posts issue - would it not be possible to insist that users have accounts, but allow them to _post_ anonymously? [Apologies if this view has already been aired elsewhere, there are just _too_ many comments here!]
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Out of a class of about 100, there were about 40 of us who all borrowed code from the first person to get something working. You know, little things like getting the xterm into Curses mode without segfaulting.
But plagiarism from the "first person who got it to work" is standard procedure for any given CS class, isn't it?;)
I think a rethink of partition tables might be necessary at that point. Unless people have a LOT of nested extended partitions or something.... which is pretty bad, as an extended partition wastes at least one cylinder IIRC.
Slashdot Mirror
VFAT is read/write in RH6.0 (2.2.5-15) IIRC.
Having looked at ALSA's web site, I'd say that it has a way to go before it replaces OSS/Free. It still does not support many soundcards (or at least, the list on their site isn't particularly long) and the fact that the latest release (this month) is still a 0.x probably shouldn't fill anyone with confidence.
Aside: Linus has adopted Microsoft version numbering, he's just not telling anybody. That '.' between the two and the four really stands for '00' - which means, of course, that the 2.4 kernel will actually be released in 2006.
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I think this is inevitable. Quite a few people (including myself) wouldn't dream of putting a x.[N*2+1].y kernel on machines they expect to do any standard work on, because they are known to be "unstable". As a net result these kernels probably aren't subjected to the same kind of rigorous beta (or pilot?) testing as their "current" (to steal from the FreeBSD jargon) counterparts, so it's inevitable that hitherto unnoticed bugs will be found.
;)
Though I take your point. My experience with FreeBSD taught me not to trust version-zero releases and wait at least for the first or second round of patches before installing them on any machine that is going to do any real work. A case in point was the release of 3.0 (and 3.1 was still a bit flaky), not least because in the early 3.x releases they were still migrating from a.out to ELF. (And the equally flaky USB support that IIRC disappeared in 3.2 due to popular frustration.)
Having said that - the sooner and the more people install 2.4.0(? I assume), the sooner the bugs will be found and fixed. I would be _very_ surprised if any remaining bugs were really significant. But then, I'm probably just being naïve...
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My brain has melted today. Ignore previous post.
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Erm.... did you read the information on Norweb's site?
"In effect, it turns the low voltage segment of the existing power distribution infrastructure into an Intranet and the customer is provided with a Local Area Network for home or office use."
Nuff zed. =)
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(Not directly linked from the original news article - irritating)
http://home4.americanexpress.com/b lue/splash.asp
Nothing unfortunately in the way of technical information to speak of.
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Now I got this question, what about those companies that buy domain names and then sell them for -a lot of- money ?
A company called "One in a Million" tried this in the UK some years ago, buying up a number of '.co.uk' domain names and attempting to sell them at an inflated price to the companies in question. There was a big court battle between them and a number of large companies, including Virgin and BT. The outcome was fairly predictable, I think. (Wired also has an old news article about it, as does Boardwatch.)
In the USA, the rules are a little murkier, it would seem - as this old Slashdot article shows.
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Windows has failed to go into a whole bunch of markets (POS, Banks, ATMs, etc.) that are still dominated by green screens because the PC/Windows TCO (think maintenance) is way too high.
The National Westminster Bank (in the UK) some time ago installed, and for all I know still has, Windows NT running on its ATMs.
I chuckled the day I went to get some money out, and every NatWest cashpoint I could find had bluescreened.....
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A load of tripe about numerology in that article. So what if 9/9/1999 => 9+9+1+9+9+9 = 46 = 4+6 = 10 = 1? Only about, oh, one in nine dates add up to '1'.
Sheesh.
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.....is that it's getting close to Christmas again. September onwards is traditionally a bad time to be buying PC hardware.
;)
I'm more inclined to believe that than another permutation of the "chip factory fire" line, at any rate.
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I believe it's in the works.
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It will be interesting to see how Red Hat fare in Europe.
They're selling Red Hat 6.0 on the shelves in PC World (large computer hardware + software chain) in the UK.
ObNote: That typeface looks horribly familiar.
*holds up RH6.0 distro box*
*holds up Win98 distro box*
Hmm......
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I disagree with you. Recently this site has seen a number of informed, well judged and thought-out posts and interesting articles from all camps, including (but not limited to) users of (and developers on) *BSD, commercial UNIX systems, Windows 9x/NT, BeOS and MacOS. Historically this has been overrun with the evangelist trolls from the Linux camp. That is a problem. Moderation should be an attempt to rid this site of those (futile) trolls. And I am willing to assist in that worthwhile task.
;) for the humour-impaired.... ]
/. is mainly (and historically) a Linux forum, it is no longer exclusively a Linux clique. It has become bigger than it was, embracing (or often flaming) techies and hackers from all walks of life - even those who have sold their soul to the Dark Lord of Redmond, WA.
:)
[
Seriously though, while
If that doesn't persuade you, consider this: hearts and minds is what it's all about. Every user of another OS is a potential convert. Flaming them isn't going to win them over.
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1) Moderators need more points, or more people need to be moderators.
/. on free speech, this would probably go down like a lead balloon. Sad to say though, I fear it may be necessary in the end if no other means of control have any measure of success.
The all-too-frequent occasions where Score: 5 is seen on a post which was "okay, but not that great" would suggest that we probably already have enough moderators (see my earlier post #255 in this discussion). Giving moderators more points may help - assuming those points are used wisely, though this is what MM is supposed to tackle.
2) Letting everyone see the moderation controls [i.e. controls always visible] would just cause problems.....
Agreed. This has been covered adequately elsewhere, so I won't add to it.
3) If straight AC posting (not logged in) goes away, there should be a time delay implemented for the creation of new accounts.....
Nice idea, difficult to work in practice though. If I (as a troll) wanted to circumvent this, I would create many new accounts early, wait a day, thus having many valid accounts with which to troll (anonymously, if I choose). If the accounts get zapped or Bad Karma'd into oblivion, I create some more before I start running out of accounts.
Unfortunately, the most effective ways around this include a validation process (where you must fill in some kind of registration information in order to create a new account, which is then eyeballed by a human before it is "validated"), and measures to block hosts or entire domains where multiple accounts are being created purely for the purposes of spam/trolls/flamage.....
Considering the views of a rather vociferous number of people on
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.....I'll be dammed if I'll suck up to the faceless moderators.....
/. and yet only read it once or twice a week. And if people have longer to spend their moderation points, they might moderate in a more well-judged manner. (Who else has done the "only one day left for these moderation points, better use them quick?" *raises hand guiltily*)
This comment is seen a lot. What people tend to forget is this: sometimes, that "faceless moderator" is you.
Though I agree on the issue of moderation points - I think they should last longer, not least because it's perfectly possible to keep reasonably up-to-date with the more newsworthy articles on
I must add the obligatory "me-too" to the recent posts expressing horror at the idea of moderation controls being always visible, as well.
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.....a reasonably insightful comment that deserved a 3, that had a 5.....
I imagine a lot of the reason for this is the same reason you often see several (redundant) answers to the same question - that is, that the post started off with a score of 1 or 2, several moderators saw it at once, liked it and upped it. Unfortunately there's no way to change your mind and un-moderate something you've moderated (except by posting of course!) so the 4 moderators who pounced on the same post at once inadvertantly end up giving the post an overinflated score.
That's the Web for you. Interactive medium it ain't, however much people try to make it so.
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Posting restrictions: A good writer would take about five minutes to write up a good post, with nessisary proof backing up the claim...... [sniip!]
:)
This is a ghastly idea.
For the record, folks, it _is_ possible to make a perfectly valid point without writing a 2000 word essay. Those of us with slow connections, and work to do, appreciate it more when people can be concise _and_ make sense.
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1.6 Gh mmmm that is getting a bit dangerous, hope they shield it well, or you either be cooked from the inside (du to the microwave radiation) or become impotent cause them radio waves will kill ya sperms
No more chance of that than if you keep a cellphone in your pocket, I'll bet.
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Hear hear. What a lot of /.'ers seem to forget is that while Win3.x/95/98 may be buggy as all Hell, it's nothing like a hacker's dream OS, and no-one is particularly fond of the company that brought it to us, as far as the average Joe is concerned, it's relatively easy to use for all that. Same goes for MacOS. You may not like it, but it's a damn sight friendlier to use.
_When_ one of the Linux distros has reached the point of being able to install from CD with a nice gooey (sic) interface that sets everything up for you without asking you a million questions about what packages you want installed, when installing new software/drivers is as easy as sticking a CD in the machine, when we start seeing full (as opposed to adequate) hardware support (Rage 128 anyone?), _then_ we might have an alternative for the less computer-literate. Linux/GNU/XFree86/... (and *BSD et al) have got a long way to go yet if they are seriously to challenge the Microsofts and Apples of the desktop OS world.
This is not to slam Linux. It's a good effort, but it still hasn't escaped the hacker niche, IMO.
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If your points never expire, you might not use them for "unimportant" threads, instead waiting for a thread you really care about.
Except that if you really care about the thread, you're more likely to post there, in which case the moderator points are bunk anyway. (New AC system notwithstanding.) The little moderation I've done has generally been in topics I wasn't that interested in, for that very reason.
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it just seems to me another futile attempt to make a quick buck. *sigh*
;)
While many here disapprove of Microsoft's business practices, I'd hardly call their attempts to make money "futile". They seem to be quite good at that part. It would be nice to see them do as well in developing the product they're so good at selling people.
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You're not the only one who feels this way. But I guess that the bottom line is that the members of /. are, in the main, Linux people. Thus, if moderators are effectively drawn by lot, you're going to end up with a lot of pro-Linux moderators.
(This, fwiw, is probably why we have politicians instead of people drawn by lot in the same way as jury service to run our countries. We'd have GTW in three weeks otherwise, I expect.)
Those few of us who are in the "other" camps (be you a BSD, Apple, Be, Microsoft or other advocate) and find ourselves with some moderator points, probably find ourselves torn between wanting to moderate up the pro-BSD (etc. as above) posts to redress the balance and wanting to post.
On the anonymous posts issue - would it not be possible to insist that users have accounts, but allow them to _post_ anonymously? [Apologies if this view has already been aired elsewhere, there are just _too_ many comments here!]
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Or perhaps (in the same vein) Rdhat.
(Apologies to users without euro currency symbols)
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> a lobotomized clone (slashdot buzzword #2)
slashdot flame #3398427, surely?
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Out of a class of about 100, there were about 40 of us who all borrowed code from the first person to get something working. You know, little things like getting the xterm into Curses mode without segfaulting.
;)
But plagiarism from the "first person who got it to work" is standard procedure for any given CS class, isn't it?
"What do you want to boot today?"
I can see it now:
mithy:/dev> ls wd0*
/dev/wd0s0
/dev/wd0s0a
/dev/wd0s0c
/dev/wd0s1
.
.
.
/dev/wd0s976
I think a rethink of partition tables might be necessary at that point. Unless people have a LOT of nested extended partitions or something.... which is pretty bad, as an extended partition wastes at least one cylinder IIRC.
"What do you want to boot today?"