FreeBSD has 99% of what Debian has. Of that remaining 1%, they're 99% Linux-only programs. Who needs linuxconf on *BSD anyway?
I had FreeBSD on my desktop for three months (and I still use it on servers) and I'm using Debian Linux testing now for long time so I've some experience with both systems. Belive me there are tons of software which I use and which are not in FreeBSD's port collection but are avialable as Debian packages. It is not 1% and is not Linux specific.
And anyway I belive quality of packages in Debian is higher. At least I have seen much more problems with FreeBSD ports than with Debian packages.
Re:Transition
on
Debian NetBSD
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Funny but I've switched my desktop OS in slightly different order:
RedHat -> Slackware -> FreeBSD -> Debian
For desktop OS I find Debian Linux more convient than FreeBSD for two reasons:
Linux have better support for multimedia devices than FreeBSD
Debian have more prepackaged software than FreeBSD and in general quality of debian packages is better than FreeBSD ports thanks for Debian strict packaging policy.
How can one even HAVE a mailing list with 1500+ messages/day?
Well, usually nobody needs to read all these emails. The trick is having good mailer which can help to sort all that email and find what you do want or need to read.
It is not a problem with good mailer which supports threading and kill lists (or Scoring). I've been subscribed on a number of maillists with more than 2000+ message/day in total and I could easily read them with Gnus.
They could have backup but it could be lost in the fire also. Very often backups do exist but they stored on devices which are phisically located closely.
Indead. I rely on google a lot in my daily work. But sometimes I start to worry what we all will do if something bad will happen with google (god forgive me). It seems that there is no alternative for them if some day they stop their services.
I don't know about bugs but as for license issues frankly speaking I don't care. As final user who doesn't distribute downloaded.debs I see zero difference between downloading binaries or compling from sources. In both cases I end up with some installed debian packages (I usually turn all software compiled from sources into debian packages with dh-make for my own convinience).
Now if only the same thing would happen with OpenBSD -- we could write tomcat based web apps, and wouldn't have to worry so much about being hacked.
OpenBSD is not a silver bullet. It just comes with more sane defaults and its core have seen more audits probably. It doesn't magically protect applications your wrote and it doesn't protect applications installed from ports from hacks. Your code still have to be audited for bugs and your admin still have to patch installed applications if they show up on bugtraq.
Having seen different style projects I strongly dislike "Database centric" design (i.e. very weak or missing middle layer). I'm not sure if you talking about such design but it looks like you mean it.
Bad programmers can write cryptic Perl but for good developers it is not a problem to develop clean middle layer and frontend layer in Perl. Perl is full featured language which can be used to build big OO projects. On other side I always was under impression that PHP is quite limited language because initially it was designed as quite niche language (embeding in HTML web pages). This is why I think that Perl have more potential than PHP for large scale projects.
I can understand when people say that Java is better than Perl for large scale systems (I don't agree but I understand why people think so). But PHP??? Why do you think it is better suited for large scale systems than Perl?
When I have a problem of such type and I cannot solve it myself I usually find relevant maillist and ask where. If problem is not very hard chances are that it will be answered in minutes.
I just don't get why editors pass such submissions and people submit them. It just doesn't make any sense. If you post in PostgreSQL maillist chances that in the future another person with same problem will find solution in its archives. But who in good state of mind will search for solution of PostgreSQL very specific problem on Slashdot? On the other side I'm sure that submitter of this query will have to wait longer for reply which could solve his problems (probably forever).
Well, I've not used OE for long time. Sorry for non-intential FUD.
But wait.... Can it do.... hmm... scoring ?! Quite powerful feature. For example my Gnus is configured to show only first message from each thread. If I find start of thread intreasting I manually increase score for it so all its messages will be shown. If I do nothing with thread I just don't see other messages in it. Also if I post message any replies have additional score so they are shown on top. And finally messages from some authors are moded up or down so either they are on top also (and can be shown even if I've not selected thread) or they never shown (there are always some trolls on high volume newsgroups). Can OE do something similar?
But IMHO this is a powerfull NNTP client, as it offers all I need to get, read, and post to a NNTP server.
Well, if it satisfies your need it doesn't means that it a powerfull NNTP client. Actually it only provides basic functionality. IMHO NNTP client can not be called powerfull unless it supports at least kill lists.
Do not think I'm trolling. My point is that powerfull NNTP client should have much more features than OE.
Will these ports of KDE make it into CVS so that windows will be just another build target for KDE?
As I understand KDE itself is not a problem since it almost do not require patching. It is already very portable. What needs patches is Cygwin.
That would be really nice, however I heard that QT wasn't releasing a free version of 3.0 for windows which would prevent KDE 3.0 running under windows.
They have ported Unix version of QT which is avialable as GPL.
Tell me something about the reason why this should be have done ?
Somebody asked me, why one should port all this software to this X&%$? windows ? Another one told me, that this would be perverse. Why are we doing this real ?
I think, that kde is a great desktop and has the oppertunity to be a big player in gui apps and desktop area. Especially because of the famous qt library, which is designed very platform independed and already ported to many operation systems, porting kde application to other unix based operation systems isn't very much work. The one currently left operation system is windows.
Windows is the standard os in many companies. How could this fact be used to enforce kde propagation ? The answer is simple: Build something that allow kde application running on top on windows. This goal we try to reach with this project.
UNIX version of QT is avialable as GPL. It means that anybody can port it back to Win32 and it is still GPL.
Look at the project page. I've not seen mention that they have been ported UNIX version of QT to Cygwin but since they require X server it is very likely. So there should be no problem with licensing.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you bothered to read my comment? It was about FreeBSD and Debian Linux.
I had FreeBSD on my desktop for three months (and I still use it on servers) and I'm using Debian Linux testing now for long time so I've some experience with both systems. Belive me there are tons of software which I use and which are not in FreeBSD's port collection but are avialable as Debian packages. It is not 1% and is not Linux specific.
And anyway I belive quality of packages in Debian is higher. At least I have seen much more problems with FreeBSD ports than with Debian packages.
RedHat -> Slackware -> FreeBSD -> Debian
For desktop OS I find Debian Linux more convient than FreeBSD for two reasons:
Well, usually nobody needs to read all these emails. The trick is having good mailer which can help to sort all that email and find what you do want or need to read. It is not a problem with good mailer which supports threading and kill lists (or Scoring). I've been subscribed on a number of maillists with more than 2000+ message/day in total and I could easily read them with Gnus.
They could have backup but it could be lost in the fire also. Very often backups do exist but they stored on devices which are phisically located closely.
Indead. I rely on google a lot in my daily work. But sometimes I start to worry what we all will do if something bad will happen with google (god forgive me). It seems that there is no alternative for them if some day they stop their services.
I don't know about bugs but as for license issues frankly speaking I don't care. As final user who doesn't distribute downloaded .debs I see zero difference between downloading binaries or compling from sources. In both cases I end up with some installed debian packages (I usually turn all software compiled from sources into debian packages with dh-make for my own convinience).
deb http://marillat.free.fr/ stable main
In real world many "admins" don't care even about changing default passwords. And you asking them to configure firewall :)
OpenBSD is not a silver bullet. It just comes with more sane defaults and its core have seen more audits probably. It doesn't magically protect applications your wrote and it doesn't protect applications installed from ports from hacks. Your code still have to be audited for bugs and your admin still have to patch installed applications if they show up on bugtraq.
Perl6?
Bad programmers can write cryptic Perl but for good developers it is not a problem to develop clean middle layer and frontend layer in Perl. Perl is full featured language which can be used to build big OO projects. On other side I always was under impression that PHP is quite limited language because initially it was designed as quite niche language (embeding in HTML web pages). This is why I think that Perl have more potential than PHP for large scale projects.
Indead. I'd like to extend this advice:
I can understand when people say that Java is better than Perl for large scale systems (I don't agree but I understand why people think so). But PHP??? Why do you think it is better suited for large scale systems than Perl?
use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper(\@LoH);
When I have a problem of such type and I cannot solve it myself I usually find relevant maillist and ask where. If problem is not very hard chances are that it will be answered in minutes.
I just don't get why editors pass such submissions and people submit them. It just doesn't make any sense. If you post in PostgreSQL maillist chances that in the future another person with same problem will find solution in its archives. But who in good state of mind will search for solution of PostgreSQL very specific problem on Slashdot? On the other side I'm sure that submitter of this query will have to wait longer for reply which could solve his problems (probably forever).
I heard it was writen in Self. Sorry no real evidence - it almost impossible to find anything relevant with 'Java Self' on google. Only this link.
But wait .... Can it do .... hmm ... scoring ?! Quite powerful feature. For example my Gnus is configured to show only first message from each thread. If I find start of thread intreasting I manually increase score for it so all its messages will be shown. If I do nothing with thread I just don't see other messages in it. Also if I post message any replies have additional score so they are shown on top. And finally messages from some authors are moded up or down so either they are on top also (and can be shown even if I've not selected thread) or they never shown (there are always some trolls on high volume newsgroups). Can OE do something similar?
Well, if it satisfies your need it doesn't means that it a powerfull NNTP client. Actually it only provides basic functionality. IMHO NNTP client can not be called powerfull unless it supports at least kill lists.
Do not think I'm trolling. My point is that powerfull NNTP client should have much more features than OE.
Show me at least one tip in that article. I wonder - what the hell? Have editor who passed this submission looked at that article at all?
Here quote from that page:
The Qt Free Edition is provided under both the Q Public License ("QPL") and the GPL.
As I understand KDE itself is not a problem since it almost do not require patching. It is already very portable. What needs patches is Cygwin.
That would be really nice, however I heard that QT wasn't releasing a free version of 3.0 for windows which would prevent KDE 3.0 running under windows.
They have ported Unix version of QT which is avialable as GPL.
Tell me something about the reason why this should be have done ?
Somebody asked me, why one should port all this software to this X&%$? windows ? Another one told me, that this would be perverse. Why are we doing this real ?
I think, that kde is a great desktop and has the oppertunity to be a big player in gui apps and desktop area. Especially because of the famous qt library, which is designed very platform independed and already ported to many operation systems, porting kde application to other unix based operation systems isn't very much work. The one currently left operation system is windows.
Windows is the standard os in many companies. How could this fact be used to enforce kde propagation ? The answer is simple: Build something that allow kde application running on top on windows. This goal we try to reach with this project.
Look at the project page. I've not seen mention that they have been ported UNIX version of QT to Cygwin but since they require X server it is very likely. So there should be no problem with licensing.