On a side note, I'm going to comment this move from apple is in all honestly a major stride toward becoming exclusive with a certain segment of computer users; it appears now they will be making no effort whatsoever to enter the sub $1k market, something the imacs were doing before this new beast came along. This is probably not the best thing Apple could have done, IMHO, you know, because there are markets out there that do try for sub $1k before takes and everything. Dismissing that market as unimportant to Apple is bull shit, plain and simple, because there are people out there who want the apple experience but don't want to pay high prices -- older imacs were ideal for those folks (well, ideal being in the of the beholder -- hopefully theirs).
Me, personally, i could never stand the idea of buying a system with a 15" screen as part of the price, albeit flat with all the claims to faim perfectly valid. I'm spoiled by a $400 19" inch and I also don't believe the I'm missing out on anything major. I really do want an Apple in later years, as I think UNIX backed by commercial applications we'll never see in Linux sounds quite quite exciting.
ObDissapointment of the weekend: 2.4.16 w/ XFS patches applied don't compile with either GCC-3.0 or GCC-2.95. god damn it, SGI; comments in makefile telling us to install gcc2.96 for chrissakes...
Seriously, this question has been asked countless times on ask Slashdot. And the answer is always the same: OSX uses a proprietary interface -- it is not open and certainly not available on Linux and the BSDs. What other answers are there? Or, better stated, what answers are being looked for? The vast Microsoft conspiracy prevents this from being acheived? Is GNUstep the answer to the porting issue? Etc, etc, etc...
Instead of hoping for the impossible, mabye people should learn to make do with what is currently available. That also means to cease making impossible goals for an operating system with a stronger community than commercial "desktop" software backing. If you can't except this fact, you probably shouldn't be running Linux in the first place.
Why this idiotic question continues to appear on ask slashdot is beyond me.
In my experience, KDE and/or GNOME can run decently enough on a 233 mhz system (which was an overclocked 133 mhz). It really depends on the users perspective. Realizing that it runs slower than Windows on the same system due to the fact Linux wasn't designed with a GUI built into the kernel helps a little bit. On a side note, I think GNOME runs significantly faster than KDE under most circumstances -- might be a good choice because KDE seems to have lots of random crashes that can kill the entire X session. Also, any recommendation of Netscape 4.x has to be taken with a grain of salt; even with 4.79, netscape tends to crash randomly, quite frequently, and has no future whatsoever. Any browsers that use moz-embedded might be a good option. Lastly, I see a lot of comments dismissing mainstream distributions because of the bloat "included". The ten disk (I think) debian installation is excellent and you basically use apt-get to obtain the stuff essential for system operation (I never even bothered to learn dselect). One thing to remember with Debian and the dependency twilight zone: You can edit files in/var/lib/dpkg/info (eg./var/lib/dpkg/info/zlib1g.list) and remove the lines for files conflicting with other packages. That alone solves a lot of the problems encountered.
I'm sure a few people out there can remember the politics surrounding the BBS "scene" -- that is to say, a certain segment of the community that did everything possible to be considered "elite". Some will say speak for your own experience; that's fine, but it doesn't dismiss the phenomenon that couldn't possibly have been local to my area only...
So much of it being a competition likely didn't help the matter -- who had the most warez, who could get the most artwork, who could do the best set up, who could hold the best networks, who had the best users, etc etc. There was so much hate in some of these people, too. Not just out of competition, either. The fact warboards even existed only goes to verify this. As I got older, I realized the silliness of it all, as I'm sure other people did too. To say some people took it too seriously would be an understatement.
I always take the conference of BBS nostalgia with a grain of salt. It was fun, but there were just so many unpleasant folks out there they ruined the experience for everyone. They know who they are, and they didn't contribute shit other than efforts overshadowed by ugly attitudes.
Do you know how difficult it would be to have the computer programmed and interfaced in a manner complimentary to it being capable of understanding what the human brain is thinking? Sure, it could *send* stimuli, but I highly doubt it could provide any type of an "interactive" experience. We're not advanced enough for that (yet!) I think this stuff is possible, it just involves a massive amount of intelligence we don't yet have.
Regarding it being moral, I see nothing immoral about it so long as our world doesn't become like an apocolyptic sci-fi novel.;)
No offense intended to the original poster -- I think it's outrageous the parent is modded up to a 4 as the answer to this vapid question is so incredibly simple. I haven't read responses to this particular post, but there are a few things to keep in mind with regards to the notion UNIX having the untapped ability to dominate in the operating system market.
1. Past and present division of UNIX amongst vendors. There has never been one UNIX, nor has there ever been "a few". Look at the UNIX history tree for perfect visualization of this point. Division between the different versions/flavors was inevitable and a malady to programmers and consumers alike (atleast, a few years ago.)
2. UNIX was mainly targetted at high end systems/corporate environments. There were a few exceptions near the beginning of the nineties but they cost. In short, it wasn't as accessible.
3. Consumer demand. Microsoft's DOS was pathetically underpowered, lacking and limited... But it wasn't as complicated and had more developer support. And when Windows came out, albeit a cheap hack/shell, the vast majority of computer users were willing to settle for something simplistic and graphical. When did UNIX start having desktop environments and window managers that were actually easy to use and didn't require complicated text file configuration?
To question why UNIX hasn't gained more marketshare is silly and the answer is not as simple as "Microsoft is such a ruthless company"... It's always been more geared toward high end computing and servers. Microsoft started out with a product geared toward the average end user while UNIX was targetted at a completely different audience. Certain flavors of UNIX will gain noteworthy popularity (OSX in particular) but I doubt Microsoft, for atleast another five to ten years, will ever have a major competitor -- mainly because they have, and always have had, such a strong hold on the computer industry.
appeared. And the "debate" over file systems has been going on and on. The article I cited above is recent and perhaps not as relevant, but I think a lot of people who wrote replies were both sensible and informative when it came to the merits of the two most available journaling systems for Linux (as is the case with this debate. I don't see a whole lot of chilish flaming.)
First off, have we seen any source code whatsoever? Any papers regarding any APIs? Any standards documentation?
I've seen quite a few of these "projects" announced on Slashdot turning out to be vaporware projects/products. And, I must add, quite a poorly named one.
Sounding overly ambitious, one thing I noticed is the website portion mentioning goals denotes ReiserFS, stating in exact words "a complete system needs to be done" for a better standard in their system. While ReiserFS may not be that great, by the time [and if] they actually have an alpha release, XFS will (and, despite it's current kernel updating latency, I truly believe this) be up to date in terms of patches (or perhaps even integration into the kernel tree itself. This, I'd very much like to seee, as I'm really excited about this high profile technology we could see in Windows. They must have a lot of time to waste.
My question is this: Does anyone actually have access to the Consortium Area and would like to invalidate my comment; saying, perhaps, they have atleast started work? It's easy and common to get excited over a dream computer related, believe me..... but sitting down and actually doing it is much, much different. This fantasizing goes too far when people put up pages boasting of their work but don't have anything whatsoever to show for it.
Notice I will not tell BeOS programmers and users to "look elsewhere", I just despise the idea of people continuing to cling onto what was a failure of an operating system via being mislead by shit like this. My attitude will change when they have something to talk about.
I don't understand your comment. If you feel it will be impossible to tinker the Linux kernel and libraries (and, yes, very x86 linux specific ones are needed for game playing -- whoever decides to program this beast will need open specs and is that entirely likely?) to accomodate game playing on Linux, why do you think this will be even a *valid* development environment?
I, for one, don't think Slashdot should go a subscription route (nor do I think it's completely possible) -- while I'm certainly not an avid poster or member of the community, I've probably been reading Slashdot since 1998 and I thus have some insight. What made Slashdot Slashdot? The open door it presented to anyone who was interested in the topics presented. Gaining new people would be difficult if the door was closed and -- this is where I do throw the flame -- I doubt a lot of people out there would be willing to pay for what is essentially regurgitated news.
But, an even greater point, Isn't Slashdot focused on "openness"? I
From a more positive perspective: if Slashdot did become a subscription service, it would serve to further attract more users to alternative web sites (i.e. Kuroshin.) So, in a way, it wouldn't be a *horrible* curse to the community -- it would actually bring about more of a variety in web browsing habits, perhaps.
Also, I think it's very possible mirrors can be set up for a project like this.
"I say the browser war is over. It died with AOL bought NS."
Besides the majority of your post being an obvious troll, is there any way you could substantiate this statement? The reason AOL didn't include Mozilla with their software is pretty simple -- IE is a more complete version of software that is more widely supported amongst Windows users. Mozilla development continues to this day.
IE runs on Windows, Mac, Sparc Solaris and HPUX. That's not a lot of platforms when you take into account all the different ones there are out there. Mozilla, while far from perfect, is atleast out there for the mass of people who have been "forgotten" by Microsoft.
Treating your post as though it was half-serious, one more point. You say you are a web-designer. Part of your job is making pages standards compliant -- that alone should stop some of your troubles. But the most obvious shortcoming in the argument you are trying to pursue is a point made in regards to your acting as though you don't owe support to those browsing with a browser apart from a company currently under legal battle because of monopolistic practices. I think you have forgotten what made the Internet, and thus made your job position, present to such a stupendous extent -- the countless "other" operating systems out there that don't run Internet Explorer and yet drive so much of the Internet.
And, while some would point out I may have been trolled, I still think this is a noteworthy point to those who share your thinking.
I think it should be clear that after 2-3 years of failed hype, scarce commercial products -- and all mediocre -- designed for the desktop, etc, Linux will not become a respected option for mainstream users (read: average). That silly pipe dream should be disregarded.
A desktop environment does not make an operating system suitable for "desktop" use, or, as people are so found of saying, "average user" use. It's the applications that do it and, obviously, we haven't seen enough mainstream applications ported. With the current economic downturn, especially in the technology sector, I find it highly unlikely many of the big companies are going to invest the time in porting an end-user application to what is best known as a server operating system.
Your blaming X for Linux' inability to make it as a mainstream operating system is really quite illogical.
Lastly, I really tire of hearing people complain about how Linux isn't world-dominating enough. Get over it. How many non-tech types do you think give a shit Windows starts up on their computer as opposed to an operating system created by a group of individuals rather than a fascist company?
I would assume the swap problem you describe as a memory leak. Memory leaks are, I beileve, the fault of a poorly written program. Today my computer (2.4.9, X 4.1.x, deb unstable) actually became totally unresponsive in X due to what I am sure was a memory leak.. Had to hit reset because I wasn't getting anywhere with the usual keys.
There ought to be some sort of mechanism in the swap code one can activate in kernel config (yes, I am not a coder, but this is pretty goddamn true. I even know the excuse: Why/how limit? This isn't limiting, this is a safety check, check to see if the fucking thing has been writing for an indecent amount of pages.) that detects when the system is getting overwhelmed to the point of it becoming frozen (I listened to my poor HD churn for three hours, for crissakes) and TAKE DOWN THE goddamn offending program(s). I'd gladly enable that option -- in response to you fucking brainwashed knee-jerk response zealouts out there, I won't code the goddamn thing. That's up to people far far more talented at programming then I am.
Linux is not the ultimate icon of human teamwork, dedication and moral ideals in the technical field. Linux has problems just like all the other operating systems out there. It's also becoming a little too political for my tastes. Here's some real sacriledge: I'm starting to wonder if the XP install I have wouldn't be half bad with Cygwin for file manipulation and other nifty programs that are appreciatable.
I find it disturbing so many people out there are for bombing whatever country is associated with this *highly concentrated* group of people. Most of these people haven't fought in a war, haven't been on a front line, and wouldn't know what had hit them had they been forced to fight in a war. I'm sorry, but this is not an opinion situation where you can have your cake and eat it to. You have no right to champion viciousness when all you do is sit behind a television screen and watch what is essentially glorified entertainment for America and horror (just like the horror we experienced) for another country.
The United States may be a super power, but the people of the US certainly don't have their head on straight if they think a bomb is going to magically make this right. That's a very, very childish mentality and, IMNSHO, makes one wonder if America might not atleast slightly deserve the cinders from the fire if it can't act on anything but rage (and, as so many of you out there know, acting on rage leads to stupid actions).
How does the "music industry" screw them [the truly talented] over? By ignoring anything that isn't "100% commercial"?
Look at all the smaller record labels out there. They are all sorts of them out there and they do a great service to both musician and those who like non-mainstream music. To disregard (ie. declare screwed over) those who aren't on one of the big labels is stupid -- producing a top 100 song is something a lot of unique bands out there aren't capable of, thus the refusal of contract with a larger label. And so what? -- not every band out there *needs* to generate millions and millions of dollars.
The stuff most people are exposed to these days is pure shit, plain and simple. That pure shit is *the stuff* that makes millions of dollars, obtains rampant radio play, etc. If you think art is solely based on money, think again. Sure, exposure to the masses may be solely based on money, but what the fuck do they know? -- listen to a few radio stations out there for supreme example of this.
If you'll believe this I guess you also believe the Bible's need to address concerns torward bestiality.
"He gave up his own infinite life for our salvation."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Jesus a human incanation of God? How was he to live infinitely?
"[Jesus] How are we to meet him in Heaven if we've got these `infinite life rings' keeping us here on Earth."
What, exactly, is with Christians and their fixation with heaven? What goes on in heaven? Strumming of harps all day? Marriages to validate sexual activity the Bible (otherwise the word of your God) condemns outside thereof? Retrospectively, how is enjoyment possible when there is no opposite? Theoretically and human nature in mind, it would become unspeakably monotonous and make for a residency of masochists.
OK, that's enough responding to a Christian-bot, as such is usually a waste of viable thought cycles, not to mention time.
Whether or not you believed in the concept behind Napster or disliked it, the fact remained: Napster users were obtaining and disbanding copyrighted materials on a very, very large scale.
Call the US government's judiciary actions agaisnt Napster what you want too -- in your case, with a sort of whiney ultra-libertarian rheotoric that any halfwit could identify as poppycock -- but I think most people will agree that while it was a shame, it was inevitable. This sort of business about "people reclaiming their rights" -- "rights of the majority" -- "tragedy of the commons with respect to government" -- declarations of injustice way out of proportion with due respect to anything Napster truly stood for. Napster was something relatively small-time that once media made out to be something giantic it became that in public eye; retrospectively, people like yourself make it out to be this martyr of a computer project when in actuality the indirect purpose it was to serve (and yes, I say indirect because I know the whole "P2P is a technical idea, not piracy" argument) wasn't one most people would consider noble.
I don't like modern music one iota. From my perspective its quality does call for blantant copyright disregard. Unfortunately, that's not the way a lot of people think and feel.
Lastly, it won't resemble or be in any way like the old service. Napster was equated with free. All it is now is a brand name.
Re:Cross-platform thanks to Apple...
on
GIMP And OS X
·
· Score: 1
Well,
with Open Source becoming such an attractive [buzzword] method for software development, it doesn't seem suprising atleast one major company responsible for OS development would embrace it for atleast certain aspects of the OS. ie a free compiler, a backend, a kernel....etc. Apple is doing nothing more then incorporating open source [hype] into their operating system to attract more people. Despite lots of companies failing to profit from open source projects, the ideals and what open source/GNU/UNIX has to offer is vast... an apple ripe for the picking, IMHO.
BTW, last I checked, OS9.x didn't even have preemptive multitasking. You can call their migration a result of forethought, but I think most people would call it necessity.
Dvorak cites cost as a primary strength for dialup. And that's about it. Let's debunk this.
Anyone who uses the Internet for dialup will be paying $10-$20 for a basic anytime dialup Internet account. What Dvorak fails to mention is this does require a phone line. An extra phone line jacks the cost of your phone bill up I'd say $10 (very BEST case scenario) to $20. So basically, you are going to be paying $40 for what is a second rate connection.
Now how much is Cable & DSL? You will pay about $53 with tax and modem rent with ATT broadband (formerly Comcast @home.) That extra money enables us who run Internet-centric (ie. Debian; apt-get on broadband just feels so good) operating systems he calls niche operating systems to keep our systems running new and improved software all the time.
However, the above is just an example of the many vast benefits broadband offers. There are too many things -- like having a static IP and being able to receive mail directly to your machine -- that make broadband worth what it is.
Since this is a competitive, fast moving industry, Dvorak [from one perspective] partially invalidates the claim about broadband not catching on via stating dialup trends increasing; I would certainly expect broadband to do everything within it's capacity to compete more and more, even if that would mean lowering prices. I will not be suprised when we see cable drop down to $40 a month.
Also, last but not least (and to end this tired rant) Dvorak is completely ignoring the fact dialup ISPs are being eaten up left and right by other ones larger than them. Put two and two together; they're obviously not making that great of a profit. Hence, the desire to move into broadband. Retrospectively, we will need regulations to get the phone and cable companies to release their hold.
John, how exactly does bad airline service, the network addiction, etc, correlate with perl harbor?
We stood by and let Germans kill millions of Jews. But when it came to our boys, it suddenly mattered.
That's a major, major crock if I've ever heard one, John, and you should be ashamed of yourself. NO PART OF WAR is excusable, ignorable, and without effect on emotion.
It's no big wonder you can't seem to catch on anywhere other then here. And, oh yeah, you seem to lessen the quality.
From what I have read thus far on ReiserFS and how they are planning on charging for plugins in the future along with ports, XFS seems like a slightly better choice for those concerned with the aesthetics of a project. I don't mean to be a "FREE!" bigot, but I wouldn't want to run something on my system next to the very core of Linux that didn't match the philosophy of it's neighboring code. I hope XFS finds a place in the kernel -- it deserves it a lot more -- and politics casts ReiserFS out. I know the argument: "People have to eat!" Well, that's fine and dandy, Certainly ReiserFS should be available. I just don't think XFS should be left out of the tree if it is embracing more platforms and has no commercial "options" (thus, making it more free.)
From the ReiserFS FAQ: "15.Can I use ReiserFS on other architectures than i386? Yes, on DEC Alpha. You may be able to easily bribe us to do the port though...."
From the XFS FAQ: "Q: Does it run on platforms other than i386? The current XFS tree seems to work just fine on ppc now (aside from some trivial compile fixes). It also runs well and is getting sporadically tested on the alpha, sparc64 and ia64. But on all of those platforms it is
not as well tested as on i386, but so far there are no major problems on those platforms known. All in all it looks like XFS will be running across a lot of platforms fine soon (with all the platforms above we have 32/64bit and little/big-endian architectures supported. If you run it on a platform not mentioned here please
let me know so that i can add it. Also an important note is that XFS is inherently platform independent in the on disk layout - so it should be possible to move a XFS disk from one linux platform to another out of the box."
He is simply stating that it will make ReiserFS *expandable* like plugins did for photoshop. He is not really concerned with the specifics of the program he is citing as an example. There is nothing to nitpick over because yes, anyone can write bad plugins for whatever program allows them.
RE: "To the user, the result is tha Linux will compile 10% faster, but have a GUI unusualbly unresponsive. When Windows2000 is more reponsive than our OS, you know you're doing something terribly wrong."
You are wrong and nothing is being done wrong. I have read the following before and it sums up the way things are very well: The main priority of Windows is to update the screen and be responsive to user input. It is not that way under Linux (one of the factors that makes it a server OS.) I'm sure there's a way to hack it to your licking ("nice" is a good example of the ability to modify a program's priority) but why bother when a pretty face is a lot less important then whatever is taking CPU cycles.
RE: "Clue: Linux apps should not need to include "drivers" fo the various sound systems. One OS should == one API. And don't even get me started on all the X toolkits."
Such is the nature of Linux. Different libraries result from there being no specific standard enforced on an OS level. There are libraries for everything. Libraries aren't always giantic resource-hogs. AND, you don't HAVE to run esound or aRts for many things. Also, X toolkits. Each programmer makes the choice; no one can make it for him. To force programming in only ONE toolkit/API wouldn't agree with principles the community believes in.
Also, you seem to like to promote BeOS. With some due respect, BeOS is a bigger failure then Linux could ever be under the worst of circumstances. It may seem speedier for certain things but BeOS didn't have hardly any of the prerequisites Linux did (since BeOS isn't really a UNIX.)
Slashdot Mirror
On a side note, I'm going to comment this move from apple is in all honestly a major stride toward becoming exclusive with a certain segment of computer users; it appears now they will be making no effort whatsoever to enter the sub $1k market, something the imacs were doing before this new beast came along. This is probably not the best thing Apple could have done, IMHO, you know, because there are markets out there that do try for sub $1k before takes and everything. Dismissing that market as unimportant to Apple is bull shit, plain and simple, because there are people out there who want the apple experience but don't want to pay high prices -- older imacs were ideal for those folks (well, ideal being in the of the beholder -- hopefully theirs).
Me, personally, i could never stand the idea of buying a system with a 15" screen as part of the price, albeit flat with all the claims to faim perfectly valid. I'm spoiled by a $400 19" inch and I also don't believe the I'm missing out on anything major. I really do want an Apple in later years, as I think UNIX backed by commercial applications we'll never see in Linux sounds quite quite exciting.
ObDissapointment of the weekend: 2.4.16 w/ XFS patches applied don't compile with either GCC-3.0 or GCC-2.95. god damn it, SGI; comments in makefile telling us to install gcc2.96 for chrissakes...
Seriously, this question has been asked countless times on ask Slashdot. And the answer is always the same: OSX uses a proprietary interface -- it is not open and certainly not available on Linux and the BSDs. What other answers are there? Or, better stated, what answers are being looked for? The vast Microsoft conspiracy prevents this from being acheived? Is GNUstep the answer to the porting issue? Etc, etc, etc...
Instead of hoping for the impossible, mabye people should learn to make do with what is currently available. That also means to cease making impossible goals for an operating system with a stronger community than commercial "desktop" software backing. If you can't except this fact, you probably shouldn't be running Linux in the first place.
Why this idiotic question continues to appear on ask slashdot is beyond me.
In my experience, KDE and/or GNOME can run decently enough on a 233 mhz system (which was an overclocked 133 mhz). It really depends on the users perspective. Realizing that it runs slower than Windows on the same system due to the fact Linux wasn't designed with a GUI built into the kernel helps a little bit. On a side note, I think GNOME runs significantly faster than KDE under most circumstances -- might be a good choice because KDE seems to have lots of random crashes that can kill the entire X session. Also, any recommendation of Netscape 4.x has to be taken with a grain of salt; even with 4.79, netscape tends to crash randomly, quite frequently, and has no future whatsoever. Any browsers that use moz-embedded might be a good option. Lastly, I see a lot of comments dismissing mainstream distributions because of the bloat "included". The ten disk (I think) debian installation is excellent and you basically use apt-get to obtain the stuff essential for system operation (I never even bothered to learn dselect). One thing to remember with Debian and the dependency twilight zone: You can edit files in /var/lib/dpkg/info (eg. /var/lib/dpkg/info/zlib1g.list) and remove the lines for files conflicting with other packages. That alone solves a lot of the problems encountered.
I'm sure a few people out there can remember the politics surrounding the BBS "scene" -- that is to say, a certain segment of the community that did everything possible to be considered "elite". Some will say speak for your own experience; that's fine, but it doesn't dismiss the phenomenon that couldn't possibly have been local to my area only...
So much of it being a competition likely didn't help the matter -- who had the most warez, who could get the most artwork, who could do the best set up, who could hold the best networks, who had the best users, etc etc. There was so much hate in some of these people, too. Not just out of competition, either. The fact warboards even existed only goes to verify this. As I got older, I realized the silliness of it all, as I'm sure other people did too. To say some people took it too seriously would be an understatement.
I always take the conference of BBS nostalgia with a grain of salt. It was fun, but there were just so many unpleasant folks out there they ruined the experience for everyone. They know who they are, and they didn't contribute shit other than efforts overshadowed by ugly attitudes.
Do you know how difficult it would be to have the computer programmed and interfaced in a manner complimentary to it being capable of understanding what the human brain is thinking? Sure, it could *send* stimuli, but I highly doubt it could provide any type of an "interactive" experience. We're not advanced enough for that (yet!) I think this stuff is possible, it just involves a massive amount of intelligence we don't yet have.
;)
Regarding it being moral, I see nothing immoral about it so long as our world doesn't become like an apocolyptic sci-fi novel.
No offense intended to the original poster -- I think it's outrageous the parent is modded up to a 4 as the answer to this vapid question is so incredibly simple. I haven't read responses to this particular post, but there are a few things to keep in mind with regards to the notion UNIX having the untapped ability to dominate in the operating system market.
1. Past and present division of UNIX amongst vendors. There has never been one UNIX, nor has there ever been "a few". Look at the UNIX history tree for perfect visualization of this point. Division between the different versions/flavors was inevitable and a malady to programmers and consumers alike (atleast, a few years ago.)
2. UNIX was mainly targetted at high end systems/corporate environments. There were a few exceptions near the beginning of the nineties but they cost. In short, it wasn't as accessible.
3. Consumer demand. Microsoft's DOS was pathetically underpowered, lacking and limited... But it wasn't as complicated and had more developer support. And when Windows came out, albeit a cheap hack/shell, the vast majority of computer users were willing to settle for something simplistic and graphical. When did UNIX start having desktop environments and window managers that were actually easy to use and didn't require complicated text file configuration?
To question why UNIX hasn't gained more marketshare is silly and the answer is not as simple as "Microsoft is such a ruthless company"... It's always been more geared toward high end computing and servers. Microsoft started out with a product geared toward the average end user while UNIX was targetted at a completely different audience. Certain flavors of UNIX will gain noteworthy popularity (OSX in particular) but I doubt Microsoft, for atleast another five to ten years, will ever have a major competitor -- mainly because they have, and always have had, such a strong hold on the computer industry.
Just a few days ago,
1 22 5&mode=nested
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/162
appeared. And the "debate" over file systems has been going on and on. The article I cited above is recent and perhaps not as relevant, but I think a lot of people who wrote replies were both sensible and informative when it came to the merits of the two most available journaling systems for Linux (as is the case with this debate. I don't see a whole lot of chilish flaming.)
First off, have we seen any source code whatsoever? Any papers regarding any APIs? Any standards documentation?
I've seen quite a few of these "projects" announced on Slashdot turning out to be vaporware projects/products. And, I must add, quite a poorly named one.
Sounding overly ambitious, one thing I noticed is the website portion mentioning goals denotes ReiserFS, stating in exact words "a complete system needs to be done" for a better standard in their system. While ReiserFS may not be that great, by the time [and if] they actually have an alpha release, XFS will (and, despite it's current kernel updating latency, I truly believe this) be up to date in terms of patches (or perhaps even integration into the kernel tree itself. This, I'd very much like to seee, as I'm really excited about this high profile technology we could see in Windows. They must have a lot of time to waste.
My question is this: Does anyone actually have access to the Consortium Area and would like to invalidate my comment; saying, perhaps, they have atleast started work? It's easy and common to get excited over a dream computer related, believe me..... but sitting down and actually doing it is much, much different. This fantasizing goes too far when people put up pages boasting of their work but don't have anything whatsoever to show for it.
Notice I will not tell BeOS programmers and users to "look elsewhere", I just despise the idea of people continuing to cling onto what was a failure of an operating system via being mislead by shit like this. My attitude will change when they have something to talk about.
I don't understand your comment. If you feel it will be impossible to tinker the Linux kernel and libraries (and, yes, very x86 linux specific ones are needed for game playing -- whoever decides to program this beast will need open specs and is that entirely likely?) to accomodate game playing on Linux, why do you think this will be even a *valid* development environment?
I, for one, don't think Slashdot should go a subscription route (nor do I think it's completely possible) -- while I'm certainly not an avid poster or member of the community, I've probably been reading Slashdot since 1998 and I thus have some insight. What made Slashdot Slashdot? The open door it presented to anyone who was interested in the topics presented. Gaining new people would be difficult if the door was closed and -- this is where I do throw the flame -- I doubt a lot of people out there would be willing to pay for what is essentially regurgitated news.
But, an even greater point, Isn't Slashdot focused on "openness"? I
From a more positive perspective: if Slashdot did become a subscription service, it would serve to further attract more users to alternative web sites (i.e. Kuroshin.) So, in a way, it wouldn't be a *horrible* curse to the community -- it would actually bring about more of a variety in web browsing habits, perhaps.
Also, I think it's very possible mirrors can be set up for a project like this.
"I say the browser war is over. It died with AOL bought NS."
Besides the majority of your post being an obvious troll, is there any way you could substantiate this statement? The reason AOL didn't include Mozilla with their software is pretty simple -- IE is a more complete version of software that is more widely supported amongst Windows users. Mozilla development continues to this day.
IE runs on Windows, Mac, Sparc Solaris and HPUX. That's not a lot of platforms when you take into account all the different ones there are out there. Mozilla, while far from perfect, is atleast out there for the mass of people who have been "forgotten" by Microsoft.
Treating your post as though it was half-serious, one more point. You say you are a web-designer. Part of your job is making pages standards compliant -- that alone should stop some of your troubles. But the most obvious shortcoming in the argument you are trying to pursue is a point made in regards to your acting as though you don't owe support to those browsing with a browser apart from a company currently under legal battle because of monopolistic practices. I think you have forgotten what made the Internet, and thus made your job position, present to such a stupendous extent -- the countless "other" operating systems out there that don't run Internet Explorer and yet drive so much of the Internet.
And, while some would point out I may have been trolled, I still think this is a noteworthy point to those who share your thinking.
And, now, an interjection drawn from reality.
I think it should be clear that after 2-3 years of failed hype, scarce commercial products -- and all mediocre -- designed for the desktop, etc, Linux will not become a respected option for mainstream users (read: average). That silly pipe dream should be disregarded.
A desktop environment does not make an operating system suitable for "desktop" use, or, as people are so found of saying, "average user" use. It's the applications that do it and, obviously, we haven't seen enough mainstream applications ported. With the current economic downturn, especially in the technology sector, I find it highly unlikely many of the big companies are going to invest the time in porting an end-user application to what is best known as a server operating system.
Your blaming X for Linux' inability to make it as a mainstream operating system is really quite illogical.
Lastly, I really tire of hearing people complain about how Linux isn't world-dominating enough. Get over it. How many non-tech types do you think give a shit Windows starts up on their computer as opposed to an operating system created by a group of individuals rather than a fascist company?
I would assume the swap problem you describe as a memory leak. Memory leaks are, I beileve, the fault of a poorly written program. Today my computer (2.4.9, X 4.1.x, deb unstable) actually became totally unresponsive in X due to what I am sure was a memory leak.. Had to hit reset because I wasn't getting anywhere with the usual keys.
There ought to be some sort of mechanism in the swap code one can activate in kernel config (yes, I am not a coder, but this is pretty goddamn true. I even know the excuse: Why/how limit? This isn't limiting, this is a safety check, check to see if the fucking thing has been writing for an indecent amount of pages.) that detects when the system is getting overwhelmed to the point of it becoming frozen (I listened to my poor HD churn for three hours, for crissakes) and TAKE DOWN THE goddamn offending program(s). I'd gladly enable that option -- in response to you fucking brainwashed knee-jerk response zealouts out there, I won't code the goddamn thing. That's up to people far far more talented at programming then I am.
Linux is not the ultimate icon of human teamwork, dedication and moral ideals in the technical field. Linux has problems just like all the other operating systems out there. It's also becoming a little too political for my tastes. Here's some real sacriledge: I'm starting to wonder if the XP install I have wouldn't be half bad with Cygwin for file manipulation and other nifty programs that are appreciatable.
Is there a reason you keep plugging your psuedo-intellectual essay and is there equal reason people keep modding this crap up?
I find it disturbing so many people out there are for bombing whatever country is associated with this *highly concentrated* group of people. Most of these people haven't fought in a war, haven't been on a front line, and wouldn't know what had hit them had they been forced to fight in a war. I'm sorry, but this is not an opinion situation where you can have your cake and eat it to. You have no right to champion viciousness when all you do is sit behind a television screen and watch what is essentially glorified entertainment for America and horror (just like the horror we experienced) for another country.
The United States may be a super power, but the people of the US certainly don't have their head on straight if they think a bomb is going to magically make this right. That's a very, very childish mentality and, IMNSHO, makes one wonder if America might not atleast slightly deserve the cinders from the fire if it can't act on anything but rage (and, as so many of you out there know, acting on rage leads to stupid actions).
How does the "music industry" screw them [the truly talented] over? By ignoring anything that isn't "100% commercial"?
Look at all the smaller record labels out there. They are all sorts of them out there and they do a great service to both musician and those who like non-mainstream music. To disregard (ie. declare screwed over) those who aren't on one of the big labels is stupid -- producing a top 100 song is something a lot of unique bands out there aren't capable of, thus the refusal of contract with a larger label. And so what? -- not every band out there *needs* to generate millions and millions of dollars.
The stuff most people are exposed to these days is pure shit, plain and simple. That pure shit is *the stuff* that makes millions of dollars, obtains rampant radio play, etc. If you think art is solely based on money, think again. Sure, exposure to the masses may be solely based on money, but what the fuck do they know? -- listen to a few radio stations out there for supreme example of this.
"Cain lived to be 500 years old..."
If you'll believe this I guess you also believe the Bible's need to address concerns torward bestiality.
"He gave up his own infinite life for our salvation."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Jesus a human incanation of God? How was he to live infinitely?
"[Jesus] How are we to meet him in Heaven if we've got these `infinite life rings' keeping us here on Earth."
What, exactly, is with Christians and their fixation with heaven? What goes on in heaven? Strumming of harps all day? Marriages to validate sexual activity the Bible (otherwise the word of your God) condemns outside thereof? Retrospectively, how is enjoyment possible when there is no opposite? Theoretically and human nature in mind, it would become unspeakably monotonous and make for a residency of masochists.
OK, that's enough responding to a Christian-bot, as such is usually a waste of viable thought cycles, not to mention time.
Whether or not you believed in the concept behind Napster or disliked it, the fact remained: Napster users were obtaining and disbanding copyrighted materials on a very, very large scale.
Call the US government's judiciary actions agaisnt Napster what you want too -- in your case, with a sort of whiney ultra-libertarian rheotoric that any halfwit could identify as poppycock -- but I think most people will agree that while it was a shame, it was inevitable. This sort of business about "people reclaiming their rights" -- "rights of the majority" -- "tragedy of the commons with respect to government" -- declarations of injustice way out of proportion with due respect to anything Napster truly stood for. Napster was something relatively small-time that once media made out to be something giantic it became that in public eye; retrospectively, people like yourself make it out to be this martyr of a computer project when in actuality the indirect purpose it was to serve (and yes, I say indirect because I know the whole "P2P is a technical idea, not piracy" argument) wasn't one most people would consider noble.
I don't like modern music one iota. From my perspective its quality does call for blantant copyright disregard. Unfortunately, that's not the way a lot of people think and feel.
Lastly, it won't resemble or be in any way like the old service. Napster was equated with free. All it is now is a brand name.
Well,
... an apple ripe for the picking, IMHO.
with Open Source becoming such an attractive [buzzword] method for software development, it doesn't seem suprising atleast one major company responsible for OS development would embrace it for atleast certain aspects of the OS. ie a free compiler, a backend, a kernel....etc. Apple is doing nothing more then incorporating open source [hype] into their operating system to attract more people. Despite lots of companies failing to profit from open source projects, the ideals and what open source/GNU/UNIX has to offer is vast
BTW, last I checked, OS9.x didn't even have preemptive multitasking. You can call their migration a result of forethought, but I think most people would call it necessity.
Dvorak cites cost as a primary strength for dialup. And that's about it. Let's debunk this.
Anyone who uses the Internet for dialup will be paying $10-$20 for a basic anytime dialup Internet account. What Dvorak fails to mention is this does require a phone line. An extra phone line jacks the cost of your phone bill up I'd say $10 (very BEST case scenario) to $20. So basically, you are going to be paying $40 for what is a second rate connection.
Now how much is Cable & DSL? You will pay about $53 with tax and modem rent with ATT broadband (formerly Comcast @home.) That extra money enables us who run Internet-centric (ie. Debian; apt-get on broadband just feels so good) operating systems he calls niche operating systems to keep our systems running new and improved software all the time.
However, the above is just an example of the many vast benefits broadband offers. There are too many things -- like having a static IP and being able to receive mail directly to your machine -- that make broadband worth what it is.
Since this is a competitive, fast moving industry, Dvorak [from one perspective] partially invalidates the claim about broadband not catching on via stating dialup trends increasing; I would certainly expect broadband to do everything within it's capacity to compete more and more, even if that would mean lowering prices. I will not be suprised when we see cable drop down to $40 a month.
Also, last but not least (and to end this tired rant) Dvorak is completely ignoring the fact dialup ISPs are being eaten up left and right by other ones larger than them. Put two and two together; they're obviously not making that great of a profit. Hence, the desire to move into broadband. Retrospectively, we will need regulations to get the phone and cable companies to release their hold.
How big of a laugh have you had from your site?
John, how exactly does bad airline service, the network addiction, etc, correlate with perl harbor?
We stood by and let Germans kill millions of Jews. But when it came to our boys, it suddenly mattered.
That's a major, major crock if I've ever heard one, John, and you should be ashamed of yourself. NO PART OF WAR is excusable, ignorable, and without effect on emotion.
It's no big wonder you can't seem to catch on anywhere other then here. And, oh yeah, you seem to lessen the quality.
RE: ReiserFS, revolutionary...
From what I have read thus far on ReiserFS and how they are planning on charging for plugins in the future along with ports, XFS seems like a slightly better choice for those concerned with the aesthetics of a project. I don't mean to be a "FREE!" bigot, but I wouldn't want to run something on my system next to the very core of Linux that didn't match the philosophy of it's neighboring code. I hope XFS finds a place in the kernel -- it deserves it a lot more -- and politics casts ReiserFS out. I know the argument: "People have to eat!" Well, that's fine and dandy, Certainly ReiserFS should be available. I just don't think XFS should be left out of the tree if it is embracing more platforms and has no commercial "options" (thus, making it more free.)
From the ReiserFS FAQ: "15.Can I use ReiserFS on other architectures than i386? Yes, on DEC Alpha. You may be able to easily bribe us to do the port though...."
From the XFS FAQ: "Q: Does it run on platforms other than i386? The current XFS tree seems to work just fine on ppc now (aside from some trivial compile fixes). It also runs well and is getting sporadically tested on the alpha, sparc64 and ia64. But on all of those platforms it is
not as well tested as on i386, but so far there are no major problems on those platforms known. All in all it looks like XFS will be running across a lot of platforms fine soon (with all the platforms above we have 32/64bit and little/big-endian architectures supported. If you run it on a platform not mentioned here please
let me know so that i can add it. Also an important note is that XFS is inherently platform independent in the on disk layout - so it should be possible to move a XFS disk from one linux platform to another out of the box."
He is simply stating that it will make ReiserFS *expandable* like plugins did for photoshop. He is not really concerned with the specifics of the program he is citing as an example. There is nothing to nitpick over because yes, anyone can write bad plugins for whatever program allows them.
RE: "To the user, the result is tha Linux will compile 10% faster, but have a GUI unusualbly unresponsive. When Windows2000 is more reponsive than our OS, you know you're doing something terribly wrong."
You are wrong and nothing is being done wrong. I have read the following before and it sums up the way things are very well: The main priority of Windows is to update the screen and be responsive to user input. It is not that way under Linux (one of the factors that makes it a server OS.) I'm sure there's a way to hack it to your licking ("nice" is a good example of the ability to modify a program's priority) but why bother when a pretty face is a lot less important then whatever is taking CPU cycles.
RE: "Clue: Linux apps should not need to include "drivers" fo the various sound systems. One OS should == one API. And don't even get me started on all the X toolkits."
Such is the nature of Linux. Different libraries result from there being no specific standard enforced on an OS level. There are libraries for everything. Libraries aren't always giantic resource-hogs. AND, you don't HAVE to run esound or aRts for many things. Also, X toolkits. Each programmer makes the choice; no one can make it for him. To force programming in only ONE toolkit/API wouldn't agree with principles the community believes in.
Also, you seem to like to promote BeOS. With some due respect, BeOS is a bigger failure then Linux could ever be under the worst of circumstances. It may seem speedier for certain things but BeOS didn't have hardly any of the prerequisites Linux did (since BeOS isn't really a UNIX.)