Seeing as HURD didn't exist in 1991, nor has it ever really been released (maybe I'm wrong on this; I've never even seen the most ubergeek on Slashdot claim to be running a GNU/HURD system), I'd say calling the GNU tools an OS is a bit of a stretch.
How about "a kernel that was combined with some excellent, already existing free software tools to create an OS".
Firstly, you could try running a version of Linux that's less than 3 years old, but as the comparison to the now 5 years old XP will be made, I'll grant you that one.
Mostly though, you should understand that compiling programs from source is simply a stupid idea in both Linux AND Windows. No one in their right mind would try to manually compile Firefox for Windows and then try to sort out dependency issues by hand - unless they specifically wanted to spend the time you obviously don't want to spend (neither do I, for the record).
In Windows, you'd download a binary installer, which contains what you need in order to run Firefox. Guess what? The exact same creature exists in Linux. For your RedHat system, it's called an RPM. No unzipping, no untarring. You install software in the exact same way that you would in Windows - either double clicking what you've downloaded, and letting the system handle it all, or you go through a control panel type applet (in Linux, this is your package manager).
You can whine about the "usual replies" all you like, but the fact is, if you can't install Firefox on any recent (last few years) Linux system, you're going out of your way to do something wrong. RPM/APT/YUM/whatever work for major software. They also work for very obscure packages only 5 people on the planet use. You *might* have to play around with source/dependencies if you're trying to run Joe Bob's Personal Fun Program, but again, guess what? Software like this exists for Windows too. Source only, and here's a how-to for compiling it, and here's how you resolve DLL requirements.
I've never seen anyone run into a "graphics lib" requirement for Firefox that hasn't been handled in the background by the package manager, unless they're a) running Gentoo, or b) trying to prove a point that "Linux is hard" by intentionally doing things the wrong way.
Seriously. Fearmongering has always been popular, and always will be.
Lately, though, it's a LOT easier. Everyone's ascairt of the nearly non-existent boogeymen. Besides, you were far more likely to have been raped by one of your parents - but which parent is going to stand up and protest protecting children from THEMSELF?
Parents, your teenage girls are people who can make choices, and if left to their own devices with the knowledge that you trust them, they will make the right choices. Also, keeping your children from contact with the other sex, even if this contact was asablished online, is seriously fucked up.
I couldn't agree more.
Plus, if the fear of these mostly imaginary 50 year old perverts is really scaring that many parents, I have some statistics for them:
Your child is orders of magnitude more likely to be molested/abused by someone in the family - especially YOU.
Your child is also far more likely to be date-raped by their equally-aged boyfriend.
Teach your children how to handle themselves when they get into trouble, don't just blindly hope you can prevent it all - because you can't. And for the love of god, give your kids some privacy, and the ability to get in at least a bit of trouble from time to time. Their college grades will thank you for it.
Stan had nothing to do with Venom, which was a character created over a decade after he got out of the creative side of Marvel comics. He didn't even have anything to do with the black suit of Spider-Man's that was Venom's origin - that was Jim Shooter trying to change everything that Stan, Jack and Steve had created, and make Marvel his own.
I think I'm actually getting geekier by the post with this story:(
The issue of regular humans attempting to contorl the behaviour of superheroes has been covered dozens of times over the past 40 years, very prominently in one of the most popluar comic series of all time, the X-Men.
As another poster already commented, I'm such a geek.
I couldn't get Gnome to let me change the file associations for files on an SMB share. And, it's absolutely opaque how to change them for regular files too without resorting to editing text files in/usr/share/blahblah
I'm not sure if you're explaining this right, or maybe there's some bizarre bug I've never seen in years of using Linux, but file assocations have nothing whatsoever to do with SMB shares. What program to launch when a file is opened is controlled by your window manager/desktop environment (Gnome) - and to Gnome, a local file is identical to a file hosted on an SMB share. About the only issue you might run into is permissioning, as some filesystems (FAT32) don't support the same sort of permissions that your Linux machine might expect (might explain your issue with Evolution).
As to how to change this for "regular" files (and again, keep in mind that to your machine a file hosted locally is no different than a file on an SMB share), at least in KDE (and I assume still in Gnome) it's the same sort of process as in Windows - right click on the file, there's a property sheet with a fairly obvious method to change it. No editing of text files whatsoever. The only time you get into this is if something goes haywire, which is exactly what can happen on a Windows system - except there you fix it up in the registry.
I may not be the person to answer your other questions, however - to me the lack of proper Flash support is a feature:)
Ever tried getting at data on an NTFS partition with Fedora? ZOMG! Fedora is trying to lock out Windows!
Nope. This is still Microsoft trying to lock out everyone else (including Fedora). Until the NTFS specs are published in enough detail.
It works in reverse, too. Windows still can't read any other filesystem other than FAT/NTFS. The ext/reiser/xfs/afs/hfs/whatever specs are out there, Microsoft just has no interest in working with them.
Someone makes this comment in virtually every YRO story. Slashdot, since the inception of YRO stories, has ALWAYS included stories about "your rights" that have nothing to do with the online world. But Slashdot is a website, and therein lies the "online" part.
when a certain character says she remembers he real mother when she was very young, but in a prequel we find out the woman died in childbirth?
You know, it's always possible that she remembered someone who she only *thought* was her real mother. After all, she did have adopted parents. Maybe the adopted mother died when she was 3.
Why this one seems to stick out in people's minds as a continuity error is beyond me. It's not like children have perfect memories from their early years anyway.
He continues to go on for about 5 minutes about how he got it for his dads computer never had any problems
And after you agree to purchase said item, he immediately launched into the "every piece of electronic equipment is guaranteed to break at least twice in the next 3 years, so buy our extended warranty" spiel, right?:)
One was even a computer science major fresh out of university
Having finished a comp sci degree recently, I can tell you this doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot. Well more than half of the kids I was in classes with had never used an OS other than Windows, had never even installed an OS, and most certainly had never built their own computers. At least up here in the Great White North, there are sill a TON of people going into comp sci because "it pays well". Of course, up here it still typically does:)
There were the 5-10% of us ubergeeks who built 6 machines over the 4 year degree and coded compilers in our spare time, but the vast majority of comp sci students never see so much as a screwdriver, let alone a soldering iron.
Joke's on you. As others have mentioned, quite a lot of cheaper PCs used to be sold with the CPU soldered to the motherboard. e-Machines, PC Chips, and several other manufacturers have done this. Some to reduce cost, some to intentionally prevent upgrading.
Of course, seeing as hardly anyone ever upgrades a CPU (hell, most geeks don't even bother), it's a moot point anyway.
Remember that time you called me late one evening because something was acting up on your servers? Tough shit, I'm no longer on the clock.
You want me to work a few minutes late to help keep a client happy? Sorry, it's 5:01 pm, and you're not paying me to work one second more than 9-5.
You're a bit short-staffed just when I have some time off planned? Aww, too bad. This is my vacation time, and there's simply no way I'm willing to be flexible about anything involving my personal life.
I'll tell ya what - when I'm on MY time, using MY car, or in MY house - then I tell YOU what I can and can not do. If you don't like it, then use YOUR time, YOUR car, and YOUR skillset..
My advice: Grow up. Be professional. This cuts both ways. The employer who runs a punch clock sweatshop is just as much of an ass as the employee who thinks they can surf the Internet for 5 hours a day while at work. Oh, and you have some seriously incompetent employees, and management, if you've honestly improved working conditions with your act.
After seeing the results of a decade of young people growing up with the Internet, and now entering the workforce by the millions, I predict that one of the higher paying jobs in the future will be Proofreader.
No lie, I met someone the other day who works for the quality control department for a very large corporation. She thinks apostrophes are used for pluralization. Now imagine how rich certain smart lawyers are going to get when they realize a contract full of IM-style chatter isn't worth the paper it's printed on:)
Having an successful Internet business doesn't make an interesting in and of itself.
No, but having a successful Internet business in an industry that is used by millions of people daily, perfectly legal, and yet the guy still has to hide what he does IS interesting.
Hence, "YRO".
I think it's a very interesting comment on our society (at least, American society). Even with no government censorship, the societal sanctions we impose on others have a great deal of influence. Parents won't let their kids play with his kids? What do they think Mr. Lightspeed does - porn films displayed 7x24 in his home? I guess they also figure someone who works for a gun manufacturer uses his kids as target practice...
Slashdot Mirror
Seeing as HURD didn't exist in 1991, nor has it ever really been released (maybe I'm wrong on this; I've never even seen the most ubergeek on Slashdot claim to be running a GNU/HURD system), I'd say calling the GNU tools an OS is a bit of a stretch.
How about "a kernel that was combined with some excellent, already existing free software tools to create an OS".
Firstly, you could try running a version of Linux that's less than 3 years old, but as the comparison to the now 5 years old XP will be made, I'll grant you that one.
Mostly though, you should understand that compiling programs from source is simply a stupid idea in both Linux AND Windows. No one in their right mind would try to manually compile Firefox for Windows and then try to sort out dependency issues by hand - unless they specifically wanted to spend the time you obviously don't want to spend (neither do I, for the record).
In Windows, you'd download a binary installer, which contains what you need in order to run Firefox. Guess what? The exact same creature exists in Linux. For your RedHat system, it's called an RPM. No unzipping, no untarring. You install software in the exact same way that you would in Windows - either double clicking what you've downloaded, and letting the system handle it all, or you go through a control panel type applet (in Linux, this is your package manager).
You can whine about the "usual replies" all you like, but the fact is, if you can't install Firefox on any recent (last few years) Linux system, you're going out of your way to do something wrong. RPM/APT/YUM/whatever work for major software. They also work for very obscure packages only 5 people on the planet use. You *might* have to play around with source/dependencies if you're trying to run Joe Bob's Personal Fun Program, but again, guess what? Software like this exists for Windows too. Source only, and here's a how-to for compiling it, and here's how you resolve DLL requirements.
I've never seen anyone run into a "graphics lib" requirement for Firefox that hasn't been handled in the background by the package manager, unless they're a) running Gentoo, or b) trying to prove a point that "Linux is hard" by intentionally doing things the wrong way.
The answer is obvious:
We must immediately separate all children from their parents, family members, and any close friends.
If our REAL concern is the safety and well-being of children, this is the only solution.
Discuss. I expect to see legislation passed by next Tuesday.
Sega where are you!? ...
ridiculously high price point (reminds me of the Saturn)
Sega was on life support after the Saturn. Sony's massive hype machine surrounding the PS2 effectively pulled the plug.
The Dreamcast didn't have a built-in web browser. The browser came on a disc that was included with the console.
9-11
Seriously. Fearmongering has always been popular, and always will be.
Lately, though, it's a LOT easier. Everyone's ascairt of the nearly non-existent boogeymen. Besides, you were far more likely to have been raped by one of your parents - but which parent is going to stand up and protest protecting children from THEMSELF?
Parents, your teenage girls are people who can make choices, and if left to their own devices with the knowledge that you trust them, they will make the right choices. Also, keeping your children from contact with the other sex, even if this contact was asablished online, is seriously fucked up.
I couldn't agree more.
Plus, if the fear of these mostly imaginary 50 year old perverts is really scaring that many parents, I have some statistics for them:
Your child is orders of magnitude more likely to be molested/abused by someone in the family - especially YOU.
Your child is also far more likely to be date-raped by their equally-aged boyfriend.
Teach your children how to handle themselves when they get into trouble, don't just blindly hope you can prevent it all - because you can't. And for the love of god, give your kids some privacy, and the ability to get in at least a bit of trouble from time to time. Their college grades will thank you for it.
So in short:
Societal taboos with no real reason, other than "it makes people uncomfortable" and "most people don't/didn't used to do it".
Like most things we want to legislate these days.
Stan had nothing to do with Venom, which was a character created over a decade after he got out of the creative side of Marvel comics. He didn't even have anything to do with the black suit of Spider-Man's that was Venom's origin - that was Jim Shooter trying to change everything that Stan, Jack and Steve had created, and make Marvel his own.
:(
I think I'm actually getting geekier by the post with this story
Sentinels.
The issue of regular humans attempting to contorl the behaviour of superheroes has been covered dozens of times over the past 40 years, very prominently in one of the most popluar comic series of all time, the X-Men.
As another poster already commented, I'm such a geek.
Methinks you need to review your understanding of the concept of sarcasm.
Hey, good thing he didn't have to go editing some obscure text file in /etc!
:)
Thank god for Windows user-friendliness
Playing trivial pursuit a few years back, I got to ask a friend this question:
This late president's last words were "Oh dear, I think I have a headache".
Friend thinks for a second, then says "Hope it wasn't Kennedy..."
What?
Too soon?
How about a tattoo? Or maybe getting yourself pierced?
:)
you need to learn something about Individualism and why it is a Good Thing
Heh. Conformist rebellion is soooo cute
I couldn't get Gnome to let me change the file associations for files on an SMB share. And, it's absolutely opaque how to change them for regular files too without resorting to editing text files in /usr/share/blahblah
:)
I'm not sure if you're explaining this right, or maybe there's some bizarre bug I've never seen in years of using Linux, but file assocations have nothing whatsoever to do with SMB shares. What program to launch when a file is opened is controlled by your window manager/desktop environment (Gnome) - and to Gnome, a local file is identical to a file hosted on an SMB share. About the only issue you might run into is permissioning, as some filesystems (FAT32) don't support the same sort of permissions that your Linux machine might expect (might explain your issue with Evolution).
As to how to change this for "regular" files (and again, keep in mind that to your machine a file hosted locally is no different than a file on an SMB share), at least in KDE (and I assume still in Gnome) it's the same sort of process as in Windows - right click on the file, there's a property sheet with a fairly obvious method to change it. No editing of text files whatsoever. The only time you get into this is if something goes haywire, which is exactly what can happen on a Windows system - except there you fix it up in the registry.
I may not be the person to answer your other questions, however - to me the lack of proper Flash support is a feature
Ever tried getting at data on an NTFS partition with Fedora? ZOMG! Fedora is trying to lock out Windows!
:)
Nope. This is still Microsoft trying to lock out everyone else (including Fedora). Until the NTFS specs are published in enough detail.
It works in reverse, too. Windows still can't read any other filesystem other than FAT/NTFS. The ext/reiser/xfs/afs/hfs/whatever specs are out there, Microsoft just has no interest in working with them.
See how easy it is to bash Microsoft?
Insert a comma for clarity: Your Rights, Online.
Someone makes this comment in virtually every YRO story. Slashdot, since the inception of YRO stories, has ALWAYS included stories about "your rights" that have nothing to do with the online world. But Slashdot is a website, and therein lies the "online" part.
when a certain character says she remembers he real mother when she was very young, but in a prequel we find out the woman died in childbirth?
You know, it's always possible that she remembered someone who she only *thought* was her real mother. After all, she did have adopted parents. Maybe the adopted mother died when she was 3.
Why this one seems to stick out in people's minds as a continuity error is beyond me. It's not like children have perfect memories from their early years anyway.
He continues to go on for about 5 minutes about how he got it for his dads computer never had any problems
:)
And after you agree to purchase said item, he immediately launched into the "every piece of electronic equipment is guaranteed to break at least twice in the next 3 years, so buy our extended warranty" spiel, right?
One was even a computer science major fresh out of university
:)
Having finished a comp sci degree recently, I can tell you this doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot. Well more than half of the kids I was in classes with had never used an OS other than Windows, had never even installed an OS, and most certainly had never built their own computers. At least up here in the Great White North, there are sill a TON of people going into comp sci because "it pays well". Of course, up here it still typically does
There were the 5-10% of us ubergeeks who built 6 machines over the 4 year degree and coded compilers in our spare time, but the vast majority of comp sci students never see so much as a screwdriver, let alone a soldering iron.
Joke's on you. As others have mentioned, quite a lot of cheaper PCs used to be sold with the CPU soldered to the motherboard. e-Machines, PC Chips, and several other manufacturers have done this. Some to reduce cost, some to intentionally prevent upgrading.
Of course, seeing as hardly anyone ever upgrades a CPU (hell, most geeks don't even bother), it's a moot point anyway.
My advice: Grow up. Be professional.
I agree fully.
Remember that time you called me late one evening because something was acting up on your servers? Tough shit, I'm no longer on the clock.
You want me to work a few minutes late to help keep a client happy? Sorry, it's 5:01 pm, and you're not paying me to work one second more than 9-5.
You're a bit short-staffed just when I have some time off planned? Aww, too bad. This is my vacation time, and there's simply no way I'm willing to be flexible about anything involving my personal life.
I'll tell ya what - when I'm on MY time, using MY car, or in MY house - then I tell YOU what I can and can not do. If you don't like it, then use YOUR time, YOUR car, and YOUR skillset..
My advice: Grow up. Be professional. This cuts both ways. The employer who runs a punch clock sweatshop is just as much of an ass as the employee who thinks they can surf the Internet for 5 hours a day while at work. Oh, and you have some seriously incompetent employees, and management, if you've honestly improved working conditions with your act.
After seeing the results of a decade of young people growing up with the Internet, and now entering the workforce by the millions, I predict that one of the higher paying jobs in the future will be Proofreader.
:)
No lie, I met someone the other day who works for the quality control department for a very large corporation. She thinks apostrophes are used for pluralization. Now imagine how rich certain smart lawyers are going to get when they realize a contract full of IM-style chatter isn't worth the paper it's printed on
Cut the rope.
:)
(joke is a bit older than the emo fad, so works equally well with their goth predecessors
Having an successful Internet business doesn't make an interesting in and of itself.
No, but having a successful Internet business in an industry that is used by millions of people daily, perfectly legal, and yet the guy still has to hide what he does IS interesting.
Hence, "YRO".
I think it's a very interesting comment on our society (at least, American society). Even with no government censorship, the societal sanctions we impose on others have a great deal of influence. Parents won't let their kids play with his kids? What do they think Mr. Lightspeed does - porn films displayed 7x24 in his home? I guess they also figure someone who works for a gun manufacturer uses his kids as target practice...