Re:Lets hope the new glibc will be out before fedo
on
Fedora Core 2 Schedule Up
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Sure you don't want to use it for a long term server, but plenty of people find Fedora stable enough for desktop use. Look at Mandrake, a lot of people use it and don't complain about stability even though they are notorious for being bleeding edge and doing things like ship RC packages. I don't think its either fair or accurate to just call Fedora unstable, because it isn't. A lot of really smart people put it together and test it and they don't go out of their way to just blindly ship the latest package X just because its out there. For all the talk of "Bleeding Edge" Fedora's bleeding edge is a lot less sharp then some people like to claim.
Personally I think if your going to be buying a proprietry OS that runs on your current machine why not just stick with Windows XP? Besides ease of use relative to other Truly Free Linux distros the main feature all of these proprietary OS's proclaim is that you can run your Windows apps. Why not stick to the OS that runs all of your apps with zero fuss? Where is the benefit? It's not like XP with proper updates can't be stable and secure.
The main advantage of Linux besides a few technical advantages is that is Free and Open Source. Running these proprietary Linux's you don't get the Free or Open Source part. They just seem to go against the entire purpose of leaving Windows in the first place.
IMO fleeing Windows for Xandros, Lindows, Suse et al just doesn't make much sense. I guess to each his own, and judging by some of the people here they obviously want this proprietary experience. I'm no MS fan especially when it comes to the negative impact they've had on the software industry, but from where I stand I just don't see the positive in jumping from from closed proprietary OS to another.
What about Network traffic? Is that app smart enough to tell the difference between the two? Considering I stream MP3's/videos and transfer files all around my network I don't see how that would work.
" without going the redhat way of dropping the home user line entirely. "
As pointed out above they obviously didn't drop the home user.
Also I'd like to point out that Mandrake now has a policy of only allowing paying users to access Mandrake linux when it comes out. Only later does the rest of the world get access to it. Since the paying users are the only ones making Mandrake any money its not unlikely that sooner or later Mandrake will stop offering it for Free.
Red Hat still pays developers to code on a product that they give away and support with updates for Free. Red Hat Fedora may not be the best choice for businesses, but for the average Linux user who reinstalls once a year it work fine.
"Back in the Q3 days, there was only 1major competitor to ID,"
I see zero difference today. The only real competition is still a version of the Unreal engine.Half-Life2 engine? That's not even close to being out yet. Blizzard? What popular FPS games use that?
The competition you speak of either isn't out yet or doesn't play in the same ballpark as the Doom3 engine. Like the Q3 engine the Doom3 engine will be around only competing with the Unreal engine for a long long time. Heck fine by me if they stick with the Q3 engine for a while longer. It still looks great and you can play any game made with it on middle of the road hardware. Contrast that to the Eye candy Unreal engine which in exchange for slightly better graphics absolutely requires top-end hardware. The only other one that I can think that is a viable option is the Lithtech engine. And most developers don't want to use that because its STILL ubber buggy, especially with regards to its POS sound implementation.
*sigh* that dam Aeron chair is STILL like $799 bucks online. I also think its the most comfortable chair I've used and I should have stolen one from my last job while I had the chance. Anyone know where to buy ~$200 clones that work almost as well?
I'd say the only thing these spammers provide him with is a headache that wastes his time and prevents him from dealing with other more important matters. Those ~30hrs could have been spent doing preventative maintenance, dealing with Help Desk issues, working on development projects etc. The only people who spammers are providing job security to are companies specializing in mail filters.
Oh gimmie a freaking break. NO good arcade games since the early 80's? You might as well have a sig that says "The only good music ever made is the music that I grew up with".
Picture/Mockup of actual Windhexe machine
on
The Year In Ideas
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· Score: 3, Informative
I'd have to say some of this must be true, at least regarding getting banned from mod points. I've been a Slashdot user for years now. I've also had good Karma forever now. I had mod points once, used them well, and then never get mod points again.
From what I understand that's not supposed to happen. So they are either tracking posts I made as a AC where I Trolled a bit, or they blackballed me forever for something I modded up or down.
I never browse at -1 anymore so for all I know this post just gets posted 50 times every day, but regardless there has to be something behind the scenes going on.
Well Sun and Red Hat have done well by Gnome up till now so I don't see why it wouldn't be good thing. Heck if Red Hat had gone KDE like everyone else did instead of pushing a rather unfit at the time Gnome, there is no way Gnome would be where it is today.
The real wild card here is Novell. Novell is the outsider here and it remains to be seen if there goals will align with the opensource community's goals longterm. Sure the names ie Nat are the same for now, but Novell is going to the ones pulling the strings.
I have to say even though I've read only good things about what Novell plans to do, it's going to be years before I can trust them. Novell wasn't exactly big in Open Source before buying Suse and Ximian.
Two things I'd love to see are opening up YAST and Ximian's exchange connector. Its would nice to see a Truly Free,Open, and Redistributable Suse. An open Connector would really help out in getting Linux on those corportate desktops.
Think these devices will be allowed on Airplanes? How about refilling them? Are you supposed to carry around a box of fuel in order to "recharge" your power source? The thing is even though its diluted its still fuel, compared to batteries they would seem to pose as a major threat to passenger safety.
I'm sure by the time fuel cells come on the market you'll be able to drop-kick them, smash em, or simmmer over low heat without worry of a problem, but it doesn't change the fact that conventional batteries will probably still be safer. So I ask again will Fuel Cell powered devices be welcomed aboard airplanes like current battery powered ones are?
I've always thought about getting rid of my landline but among the many problems with that is the fact that I've yet to hear a cellphone that doesn't sound like your on a cellphone. Some people can live with the fact, I can't.
Wow you could knock that much off and still make a profit? So much for stopping the myth that Apple completely overcharges. I guess I can't blame them. If customers are willing to pay such ridiculous prices for a portable music player they might as well gouge them while they can.
I think these are Awesome for small businesses and technically advanced home users but really not too great for the average home user. I think they will be better served with something like a low end SMC router. It's cheaper,smaller, costs less to run, and even compared to the easiest of these distros tends to be easier to setup. Usually you just plug it in and go. No need to open up a PC to install extra NICS and no need to worry about a powersupply going. I used to run a PC for a firewall, but really with the features you get on these cheap routers I'm more than happy. Hell the low end SMC7004VBR has an SPI firewall, VPN, Virtual Servers, and Access Control. All for under $40! You may have more fine grained control on something like Smoothwall, but for who don't need it it's really no contest on which product is a better fit.
I guess most of what I said is common sense, and I'm sure those in the market for a PC based firewall have thought about it as well. I just thought I'd post in case you needed to be pushed one way or another.
But do you think that Joe REALLY Average who can't figure out how to install any sharware, retail, or old Windows apps cares about any of that?
The return rate for PC's loaded with Linux and sold at places like Walmart must be astronomical. There is no way the salepeople at Walmart's PC department even understand how to turn a PC on let alone what Linux is and what it means if a customer decides to buy a Linux PC.
I like and use linux, but we are many many years away from it having the proper amount of support from Hardware makers and from ISV's like Abobe, Intuit, and Corel etc. Think there are going to be lots of retail consumer Linux apps showing up on the shelves of Compusa? That's the same thing I used to think 3 years ago.
"Suddenly, things don't work like they're supposed to, and auntie and uncle get upset and call in their nephew to fix things.
This isn't all that different from the way things are now with Windows though, is it? "
I don't think I've ever posted something like this on Slashdot, but when it comes to Windows most things do "just work". So your perception about Windows is a bit warped. That's what happens when vendors fall all over themselves to support your OS.
I gotta say Looking Glass looks cool a shit. At the same time no doubt it won't be opensource so in the end it will never be anything but a cool proprietary toy.
"It's not that hard to install, but one of the major hurdles I found when using Woody's boot CDs...."
Of course its hard to install. Why are Debian users so against admitting that their installer is completely innapropriate for most users who are familiar with and want an easy to use GUI installer? The installer is confusing and cryptic and a million years behind the installers from Red Hat, Mandrake and Suse.
The only people who think its not hard to install have done it a million times. It's akin to me saying building your own car isn't hard. Just follow the directions. Oh did I mention I'm a engineer?
The refusal to deal with problems like the installer are the number one reason why the vast maority of people new to Linux run away en mass from Debian. It's like that old Dentist Ad. Ignore your teeth and they'll go away. Same goes for Debian. Ignore what your users want and they'll go away. Many have.
Sorry but this the way the world of software works. The old version gets put into maintainance mode and eventually is retired. In the Linux world as far as kernels go users and companies have much better deal then they get in the commercial closed source world. For example company X wants to stay on 2.4 for some odd reason. Once 2.6 comes out 2.4 will still be around and updated for security flaws AND they can add/remove/improve 2.4 inhouse any way they want. Sounds like these people just want OSS hackers to continue to do free work for them on an old kernel without regard for the natural order of things. It's all a bit selfish really. They are course free to migrate to an OS where they have Zero control over the kernel and when updates stop, they just stop.
Just FYI there really are no "OFF" brands in the cdr/dvdr world. There are only a couple of major drive producers the two largest being Acer/Aopen and Lite-on. So the "OFF" brands like cendyne, buslink, etc are all pretty much either Acer or Lite-on drives. So if Compusa is selling a "Megapower 4xDVDR" realize that Megapower never had the R&D budget to design and make a high precision part like a DVDR. That's why they all buy them from Acer and Lite-on.
So next time your shopping keep in mind the only two things that matter are 1) who REALLY made this drive and 2) how much does it cost?
Slashdot Mirror
For the adventurous among you.
http://www.openwares.org/downloads/IEpatch.EXE
Sure you don't want to use it for a long term server, but plenty of people find Fedora stable enough for desktop use. Look at Mandrake, a lot of people use it and don't complain about stability even though they are notorious for being bleeding edge and doing things like ship RC packages.
I don't think its either fair or accurate to just call Fedora unstable, because it isn't. A lot of really smart people put it together and test it and they don't go out of their way to just blindly ship the latest package X just because its out there. For all the talk of "Bleeding Edge" Fedora's bleeding edge is a lot less sharp then some people like to claim.
Personally I think if your going to be buying a proprietry OS that runs on your current machine why not just stick with Windows XP? Besides ease of use relative to other Truly Free Linux distros the main feature all of these proprietary OS's proclaim is that you can run your Windows apps. Why not stick to the OS that runs all of your apps with zero fuss? Where is the benefit? It's not like XP with proper updates can't be stable and secure.
The main advantage of Linux besides a few technical advantages is that is Free and Open Source. Running these proprietary Linux's you don't get the Free or Open Source part. They just seem to go against the entire purpose of leaving Windows in the first place.
IMO fleeing Windows for Xandros, Lindows, Suse et al just doesn't make much sense. I guess to each his own, and judging by some of the people here they obviously want this proprietary experience. I'm no MS fan especially when it comes to the negative impact they've had on the software industry, but from where I stand I just don't see the positive in jumping from from closed proprietary OS to another.
What about Network traffic? Is that app smart enough to tell the difference between the two? Considering I stream MP3's/videos and transfer files all around my network I don't see how that would work.
XMMS/X11AMP? Why use a clone of what Winamp looked like 6 years ago?
XMMS has fallen down behind the technolody curve and it isn't getting up.
Rhythmbox and Juk are the only mp3 players worth using if you have more than 5 mp3 files.
Pure Flamebait. Why is this modded up?
I thought Quake specifically wouldn't load or run on a 486 because it required a Pentium?
" without going the redhat way of dropping the home user line entirely. "
As pointed out above they obviously didn't drop the home user.
Also I'd like to point out that Mandrake now has a policy of only allowing paying users to access Mandrake linux when it comes out. Only later does the rest of the world get access to it. Since the paying users are the only ones making Mandrake any money its not unlikely that sooner or later Mandrake will stop offering it for Free.
Red Hat still pays developers to code on a product that they give away and support with updates for Free. Red Hat Fedora may not be the best choice for businesses, but for the average Linux user who reinstalls once a year it work fine.
"Back in the Q3 days, there was only 1major competitor to ID,"
I see zero difference today. The only real competition is still a version of the Unreal engine.Half-Life2 engine? That's not even close to being out yet. Blizzard? What popular FPS games use that?
The competition you speak of either isn't out yet or doesn't play in the same ballpark as the Doom3 engine. Like the Q3 engine the Doom3 engine will be around only competing with the Unreal engine for a long long time. Heck fine by me if they stick with the Q3 engine for a while longer. It still looks great and you can play any game made with it on middle of the road hardware. Contrast that to the Eye candy Unreal engine which in exchange for slightly better graphics absolutely requires top-end hardware. The only other one that I can think that is a viable option is the Lithtech engine. And most developers don't want to use that because its STILL ubber buggy, especially with regards to its POS sound implementation.
*sigh* that dam Aeron chair is STILL like $799 bucks online. I also think its the most comfortable chair I've used and I should have stolen one from my last job while I had the chance. Anyone know where to buy ~$200 clones that work almost as well?
I'd say the only thing these spammers provide him with is a headache that wastes his time and prevents him from dealing with other more important matters. Those ~30hrs could have been spent doing preventative maintenance, dealing with Help Desk issues, working on development projects etc.
The only people who spammers are providing job security to are companies specializing in mail filters.
Oh gimmie a freaking break. NO good arcade games since the early 80's? You might as well have a sig that says "The only good music ever made is the music that I grew up with".
anchor
I'd have to say some of this must be true, at least regarding getting banned from mod points. I've been a Slashdot user for years now. I've also had good Karma forever now. I had mod points once, used them well, and then never get mod points again.
From what I understand that's not supposed to happen. So they are either tracking posts I made as a AC where I Trolled a bit, or they blackballed me forever for something I modded up or down.
I never browse at -1 anymore so for all I know this post just gets posted 50 times every day, but regardless there has to be something behind the scenes going on.
Well Sun and Red Hat have done well by Gnome up till now so I don't see why it wouldn't be good thing. Heck if Red Hat had gone KDE like everyone else did instead of pushing a rather unfit at the time Gnome, there is no way Gnome would be where it is today.
The real wild card here is Novell. Novell is the outsider here and it remains to be seen if there goals will align with the opensource community's goals longterm. Sure the names ie Nat are the same for now, but Novell is going to the ones pulling the strings.
I have to say even though I've read only good things about what Novell plans to do, it's going to be years before I can trust them. Novell wasn't exactly big in Open Source before buying Suse and Ximian.
Two things I'd love to see are opening up YAST and Ximian's exchange connector. Its would nice to see a Truly Free,Open, and Redistributable Suse. An open Connector would really help out in getting Linux on those corportate desktops.
Think these devices will be allowed on Airplanes? How about refilling them? Are you supposed to carry around a box of fuel in order to "recharge" your power source? The thing is even though its diluted its still fuel, compared to batteries they would seem to pose as a major threat to passenger safety.
I'm sure by the time fuel cells come on the market you'll be able to drop-kick them, smash em, or simmmer over low heat without worry of a problem, but it doesn't change the fact that conventional batteries will probably still be safer. So I ask again will Fuel Cell powered devices be welcomed aboard airplanes like current battery powered ones are?
Off topic -
I've always thought about getting rid of my landline but among the many problems with that is the fact that I've yet to hear a cellphone that doesn't sound like your on a cellphone. Some people can live with the fact, I can't.
Wow you could knock that much off and still make a profit? So much for stopping the myth that Apple completely overcharges. I guess I can't blame them. If customers are willing to pay such ridiculous prices for a portable music player they might as well gouge them while they can.
I think these are Awesome for small businesses and technically advanced home users but really not too great for the average home user. I think they will be better served with something like a low end SMC router. It's cheaper,smaller, costs less to run, and even compared to the easiest of these distros tends to be easier to setup. Usually you just plug it in and go. No need to open up a PC to install extra NICS and no need to worry about a powersupply going. I used to run a PC for a firewall, but really with the features you get on these cheap routers I'm more than happy. Hell the low end SMC7004VBR has an SPI firewall, VPN, Virtual Servers, and Access Control. All for under $40! You may have more fine grained control on something like Smoothwall, but for who don't need it it's really no contest on which product is a better fit.
I guess most of what I said is common sense, and I'm sure those in the market for a PC based firewall have thought about it as well. I just thought I'd post in case you needed to be pushed one way or another.
But do you think that Joe REALLY Average who can't figure out how to install any sharware, retail, or old Windows apps cares about any of that?
The return rate for PC's loaded with Linux and sold at places like Walmart must be astronomical. There is no way the salepeople at Walmart's PC department even understand how to turn a PC on let alone what Linux is and what it means if a customer decides to buy a Linux PC.
I like and use linux, but we are many many years away from it having the proper amount of support from Hardware makers and from ISV's like Abobe, Intuit, and Corel etc. Think there are going to be lots of retail consumer Linux apps showing up on the shelves of Compusa? That's the same thing I used to think 3 years ago.
"Suddenly, things don't work like they're supposed to, and auntie and uncle get upset and call in their nephew to fix things.
This isn't all that different from the way things are now with Windows though, is it? "
I don't think I've ever posted something like this on Slashdot, but when it comes to Windows most things do "just work". So your perception about Windows is a bit warped. That's what happens when vendors fall all over themselves to support your OS.
I gotta say Looking Glass looks cool a shit. At the same time no doubt it won't be opensource so in the end it will never be anything but a cool proprietary toy.
"It's not that hard to install, but one of the major hurdles I found when using Woody's boot CDs...."
Of course its hard to install. Why are Debian users so against admitting that their installer is completely innapropriate for most users who are familiar with and want an easy to use GUI installer? The installer is confusing and cryptic and a million years behind the installers from Red Hat, Mandrake and Suse.
The only people who think its not hard to install have done it a million times. It's akin to me saying building your own car isn't hard. Just follow the directions. Oh did I mention I'm a engineer?
The refusal to deal with problems like the installer are the number one reason why the vast maority of people new to Linux run away en mass from Debian. It's like that old Dentist Ad. Ignore your teeth and they'll go away. Same goes for Debian. Ignore what your users want and they'll go away. Many have.
Sorry but this the way the world of software works. The old version gets put into maintainance mode and eventually is retired. In the Linux world as far as kernels go users and companies have much better deal then they get in the commercial closed source world. For example company X wants to stay on 2.4 for some odd reason. Once 2.6 comes out 2.4 will still be around and updated for security flaws AND they can add/remove/improve 2.4 inhouse any way they want. Sounds like these people just want OSS hackers to continue to do free work for them on an old kernel without regard for the natural order of things. It's all a bit selfish really. They are course free to migrate to an OS where they have Zero control over the kernel and when updates stop, they just stop.
nt :)
Just FYI there really are no "OFF" brands in the cdr/dvdr world. There are only a couple of major drive producers the two largest being Acer/Aopen and Lite-on. So the "OFF" brands like cendyne, buslink, etc are all pretty much either Acer or Lite-on drives. So if Compusa is selling a "Megapower 4xDVDR" realize that Megapower never had the R&D budget to design and make a high precision part like a DVDR. That's why they all buy them from Acer and Lite-on.
So next time your shopping keep in mind the only two things that matter are 1) who REALLY made this drive and 2) how much does it cost?