I am sorry, but you are just being polemic, and you should know it. debian-unstable doesn't even install half of the time (especially at the beginning of a release cycle), and the same also happened to debian-testing (rarely, but it did). Once it is installed, debian-testing is usually pretty solid, and good enough for the advanced user desktop, but I don't think that it can beat an ubuntu release.
> To me the problem is why did a fix that was available for months take so long to get into the normal update stream?
volatile is the normal update stream. It deals with all the changes that are not bug fixes, but become necessary because the environment changes. Which is exactly what this is about.
> When processes fail to serve your customers you have a problem with your process.
I think Debian decided long ago to rather do it right than to serve the masses (if both are conflicting). And I think it did pay off: Debian is extremely reliable. If you want a more pragmatic approach, go with Ubuntu.
It it were only happening with B-trees. I have seen projects that even ignored libc, and had their on memory management, special logging and tracing routines, and even time zone conversion.
Of course sometimes the API of libc is rather cumbersome, but the code is still hard to beat.
> My brother is using the 64 bit version of Vista for his video production work (since 32 bit Vista is capped at 3 GB of RAM), so I know that there's a lot more headaches with 64 bit Vista.
Indeed. I wonder whether 64bit will ever be ready for the mainstream. At some time it will have to be, I guess, but when is that? Certainly not before 32bit become rather painful.
The main problem with Windows and 64bit is that you need all new drivers, because pretty much every driver is in kernel space. And then there is the horridness of the 32bit subsystem: 32bit libraries go into WoW64, 64bit libraries go into System32. Sounds like Alice in Wonderland, doesn't it? Dropping the 16bit subsystem didn't help either, because it seems a lot of installers still need it.
Of course Linux has it own problems with 64bit. RedHat tries to be as compatible as possible, but only to RedHat. And Debian goes "pure64", with no compatibility whatsoever, and certainly not to RedHat. Until this problem is resolved, 64bit Linux will go nowhere either.
> Speaking of which.. Anyone know of a decent OSS replacement for Visio? And no, dia doesn't count. It's nowhere near what Visio does. Nor does it save a Visio compatible file.
I would still say the answer is dia. It is not very powerful, but what it does is done well. Ok, this is very much unlike "jack of all trades" Visio.
If you need more power, there are three main alternatives. Skencil has many drawing options, but it does not have the "object based" approach of Visio, and difficulties with connection lines. Inkscape tries to do everything (plus nice gradients and transparency), but it can be a bit unstable at times. And finally you should have a look at OpenOffice Draw. It is actually a very nice drawing program, quite like Visio. Unfortunately, import and export are virtually non-existing.
> While I don't know what the terms of the license agreement was, I have a feeling that the blood suckers made sure that if the service ever ended that Virgin Digital would not be legally obligated to do anything to refund the subscribers/customers or fix their more-broken-than-before files.
> There is no warranty, express or implied, as to the content, quality, availability, fitness (including but not limited to technical compatibility) for a particular purpose of the Virgin Digital Player Website, Services or the Content, Download, Stream, Clip, Track or Radio Free Virgin in particular.
How is a treaty relevant here? It is an agreement between nations, protection one nation from other nations. However, the question of take-off is internal to one country. So unless this treaty has been ratified (put into national law, which I very much doubt), it is not actually applicable.
Of course, IANAL, so if you want to go to the moon, GYOL (get your own laywer).
> How do we even know Google isn't already in bed with the government?
Absolutely. After all, it is not really up to Google. If the government calls, they have to answer. And a fake answer along the lines of "sorry, our search technology is not up to this questions" does not sound very plausible, hm?
There is only one problem with this approach: once you install a white list, you no longer have a general computing device (short: computer), but an embedded device. You are limited in what you can do by what is on the list.
Developers will be the first to notice: you can still write and compile a program, but you cannot test it. But the typical user will also be affected: what about the useful firefox extension you like? Bummer, not on the list. Want to use facebook? Sorry, the javascript in the new version is not approved.
The white list is a pretty futile anyway, because you can program on several levels. Javascript is only an example: what if the browser is approved, but your javascript code does nasty things? Or what about a heap overflow in the browser? Suddenly you are running custom code, but how is the white list going to notice this?
> really raise serious questions as to OpenBSD's long term viability. Cooler heads need to prevail, and make a commitment to fork the project should its current leadership continue to spiral out of control.
You can't be serious. Another fork of BSD? I mean there are only 4 widely recognised free forks out there, plus lots more that may not be open, not recognizable as BSD, or not significant...
Actually I have the feeling that you are a secret Linux agent, trying to splinter the forces of BSD. Yes, that would make sense.
I completely agree, WiFi cannot possibly compete with a proper network infrastructure.
But assume that you have a new office, and I wonder whether you have to spend all the money of network connectors, or whether you can just use wireless. In a technical discipline, the answer is most likely no. But say you consider admin staff, or a group of journalists (that prefer to work from Starbucks anyway). I think a WiFi access point could be a lot cheaper than a switch, 10 wires, patch panels, connectors etc.
> The Parliament of the EU has issued a directive in 1999 - to be implemented by the member countries by 2002 (1999/44/EC, see > http:////www.ugal.be/docs/en/pdf/docum/jol171-garant-e.pdf) that imposes high standard consumer protection laws on resellers.
I am glad someone mentions this. The directive gives excellent protection to the customer, and you can absolutely rely on it. (Incidentally, this bill also offers excellent protection for the retail outlet: they can get full compensation from the manufacturer. So PC world is being really stupid here.)
In fact, because the legal situation is so amazingly clear, you could probably sue PC world and ask for damages, legal fees, punishment, money back etc. Which is what I would do in your case: get the money back. If one hinge fails after 5 months, chances are that the other one is not much more reliable, and next time you may have to pay for the repair. Get the money, go to a different shop, and get a nice new notebook.
Apples and oranges. A gas heater can easily reach 95% efficiency, but a gas power plant hits a limit around 50%. Combined heat and power production does both, so you cannot compare it to the efficiency of a pure power plant.
Having said that, combined heat and power production is certainly a reasonable thing to do. But who needs heat in the summer, and all the ACs are sucking up the electricity?
I think the price tag is a bit funny. Apart from the gaming, I have more or less the same requirements, but I only spent 65 Euro to upgrade my five year old Athlon XP. Maybe it helps that I am using Linux?
Anyway, I reused an Athlon64 3000+ from a previous upgrade, and for single threaded applications it is still very close to the top performing CPUs. In the end I only had to buy a new main board (45 Euro) and a new memory module (15 Euro on ebay), and the rest found itself.
> I switched from Mandrake to Ubuntu last year, so I can tell you what the difference is: Ubuntu works.
I have not tried Mandrake, but I still like your point. Ubuntu just does what the users want, and it does it properly. It is not so much that Ubuntu is perfect, but it does not have a strong argument going against it. Every other distribution seems to have that:
RedHat is very expensive, or Fedore is very incomplete. SuSE used to be a good choice, but since Novell is trying to "improve" it, it is going downhill. Debian is technically usually excellent, but the "holly than the pope" attitude has scared more than a few users.
And Ubuntu is just like Debian without the attitude, or SuSE without the commercial issues.
> In the United States there is such a thing as criminal copyright infringement
Yes, there is, and that would be my line in this matter. However, neither of the two cases apply here. (1) does not apply, because there is no financial gain, and (2) would require distribution beyond the company.
I think what the guy is asked for is only a license violation, which falls under contract or privat law. And in that case he is shielded completely as an employee. The license contract is between Microsoft and his employer, so he is not involved at all. Well, at least that is how it should be.
It wants its news back. Seriously, this has already been shown on evening news on BBC. It seems like slashdot is bloating like Mozilla, or why does that take so long?
Linux works reasonably well for this. 2.6 does ok support for handling several keyboards, but it is still easier if one terminal uses PS/2, and the other one uses USB. Several graphics cards have been working for a long time, and with some graphics cards you can even use the two output for separate sessions. And with PCI-E you can also use two graphics cards without loosing any performance.
But the main questions remains: what do you gain? You still need two keyboards, two mice, two screens, two graphics cards, twice the RAM, and probably a faster processor. The only thing you can save is one harddisk and some space. Although with Linux, you can easily run a system of the server without any local hard disk.
There is no reason why you could not implement subtags. But somehow Google choose not to, so we seem to be stuck without them for the time being. My list of tags is getting pretty long nowadays!
I did. It is impressive, but with the separation into front end and back end it is everything that MySQL usually isn't:
* difficult to set up * high latency * limited by memory
No, I want powerful replication with a database as simple as MySQL. Otherwise I could just as well use Oracle. Yes, that is technically challenging, but it should be possible.
Slashdot Mirror
> I for one welcome our new Chinese/English speaking overlords
:-)
Don't worry about the Chinese. Bad English is still the most widely spoken language
Oh, and did you notice how X.25 is dying out? He have to do something to preserve it. Not.
> Stability-wise:
> debian/stable > debian/testing > debian>unstable > ubuntu/released > debian/experimental > ubuntu/unreleased
I am sorry, but you are just being polemic, and you should know it. debian-unstable doesn't even install half of the time (especially at the beginning of a release cycle), and the same also happened to debian-testing (rarely, but it did). Once it is installed, debian-testing is usually pretty solid, and good enough for the advanced user desktop, but I don't think that it can beat an ubuntu release.
> To me the problem is why did a fix that was available for months take so long to get into the normal update stream?
volatile is the normal update stream. It deals with all the changes that are not bug fixes, but become necessary because the environment changes. Which is exactly what this is about.
> When processes fail to serve your customers you have a problem with your process.
I think Debian decided long ago to rather do it right than to serve the masses (if both are conflicting). And I think it did pay off: Debian is extremely reliable. If you want a more pragmatic approach, go with Ubuntu.
> just write your own b-tree library.
It it were only happening with B-trees. I have seen projects that even ignored libc, and had their on memory management, special logging and tracing routines, and even time zone conversion.
Of course sometimes the API of libc is rather cumbersome, but the code is still hard to beat.
> My brother is using the 64 bit version of Vista for his video production work (since 32 bit Vista is capped at 3 GB of RAM), so I know that there's a lot more headaches with 64 bit Vista.
Indeed. I wonder whether 64bit will ever be ready for the mainstream. At some time it will have to be, I guess, but when is that? Certainly not before 32bit become rather painful.
The main problem with Windows and 64bit is that you need all new drivers, because pretty much every driver is in kernel space. And then there is the horridness of the 32bit subsystem: 32bit libraries go into WoW64, 64bit libraries go into System32. Sounds like Alice in Wonderland, doesn't it? Dropping the 16bit subsystem didn't help either, because it seems a lot of installers still need it.
Of course Linux has it own problems with 64bit. RedHat tries to be as compatible as possible, but only to RedHat. And Debian goes "pure64", with no compatibility whatsoever, and certainly not to RedHat. Until this problem is resolved, 64bit Linux will go nowhere either.
> Speaking of which.. Anyone know of a decent OSS replacement for Visio? And no, dia doesn't count. It's nowhere near what Visio does. Nor does it save a Visio compatible file.
I would still say the answer is dia. It is not very powerful, but what it does is done well. Ok, this is very much unlike "jack of all trades" Visio.
If you need more power, there are three main alternatives. Skencil has many drawing options, but it does not have the "object based" approach of Visio, and difficulties with connection lines. Inkscape tries to do everything (plus nice gradients and transparency), but it can be a bit unstable at times. And finally you should have a look at OpenOffice Draw. It is actually a very nice drawing program, quite like Visio. Unfortunately, import and export are virtually non-existing.
> While I don't know what the terms of the license agreement was, I have a feeling that the blood suckers made sure that if the service ever ended that Virgin Digital would not be legally obligated to do anything to refund the subscribers/customers or fix their more-broken-than-before files.
Well, you would have thought so, but I cannot find an early termination clause in http://www.virgindigital.co.uk/footer/termsandconditions.htm that would work without any wrongdoing of the customer. Of course there is the usual
> There is no warranty, express or implied, as to the content, quality, availability, fitness (including but not limited to technical compatibility) for a particular purpose of the Virgin Digital Player Website, Services or the Content, Download, Stream, Clip, Track or Radio Free Virgin in particular.
which is of course completely illegal in Europe.
> 'It's like a biped with a walking stick.'
Or a crutch?
How is a treaty relevant here? It is an agreement between nations, protection one nation from other nations. However, the question of take-off is internal to one country. So unless this treaty has been ratified (put into national law, which I very much doubt), it is not actually applicable.
Of course, IANAL, so if you want to go to the moon, GYOL (get your own laywer).
> How do we even know Google isn't already in bed with the government?
Absolutely. After all, it is not really up to Google. If the government calls, they have to answer. And a fake answer along the lines of "sorry, our search technology is not up to this questions" does not sound very plausible, hm?
There is only one problem with this approach: once you install a white list, you no longer have a general computing device (short: computer), but an embedded device. You are limited in what you can do by what is on the list.
Developers will be the first to notice: you can still write and compile a program, but you cannot test it. But the typical user will also be affected: what about the useful firefox extension you like? Bummer, not on the list. Want to use facebook? Sorry, the javascript in the new version is not approved.
The white list is a pretty futile anyway, because you can program on several levels. Javascript is only an example: what if the browser is approved, but your javascript code does nasty things? Or what about a heap overflow in the browser? Suddenly you are running custom code, but how is the white list going to notice this?
> According to Wikipedia the English term is epicaricacy.
Isn't that just a Greek word instead of a German word? (And one that nobody understands, too?)
> A yard is the distance between King George's nose and the tip of his finger.
Wouldn't you have a rather hard time convincing King George to lift his arm?
> really raise serious questions as to OpenBSD's long term viability. Cooler heads need to prevail, and make a commitment to fork the project should its current leadership continue to spiral out of control.
You can't be serious. Another fork of BSD? I mean there are only 4 widely recognised free forks out there, plus lots more that may not be open, not recognizable as BSD, or not significant...
Actually I have the feeling that you are a secret Linux agent, trying to splinter the forces of BSD. Yes, that would make sense.
I completely agree, WiFi cannot possibly compete with a proper network infrastructure.
But assume that you have a new office, and I wonder whether you have to spend all the money of network connectors, or whether you can just use wireless. In a technical discipline, the answer is most likely no. But say you consider admin staff, or a group of journalists (that prefer to work from Starbucks anyway). I think a WiFi access point could be a lot cheaper than a switch, 10 wires, patch panels, connectors etc.
> The Parliament of the EU has issued a directive in 1999 - to be implemented by the member countries by 2002 (1999/44/EC, see
> http:////www.ugal.be/docs/en/pdf/docum/jol171-garant-e.pdf) that imposes high standard consumer protection laws on resellers.
I am glad someone mentions this. The directive gives excellent protection to the customer, and you can absolutely rely on it. (Incidentally, this bill also offers excellent protection for the retail outlet: they can get full compensation from the manufacturer. So PC world is being really stupid here.)
In fact, because the legal situation is so amazingly clear, you could probably sue PC world and ask for damages, legal fees, punishment, money back etc. Which is what I would do in your case: get the money back. If one hinge fails after 5 months, chances are that the other one is not much more reliable, and next time you may have to pay for the repair. Get the money, go to a different shop, and get a nice new notebook.
Good luck! Use the force!
> It's energy used for a useful purpose.
Apples and oranges. A gas heater can easily reach 95% efficiency, but a gas power plant hits a limit around 50%. Combined heat and power production does both, so you cannot compare it to the efficiency of a pure power plant.
Having said that, combined heat and power production is certainly a reasonable thing to do. But who needs heat in the summer, and all the ACs are sucking up the electricity?
I think the price tag is a bit funny. Apart from the gaming, I have more or less the same requirements, but I only spent 65 Euro to upgrade my five year old Athlon XP. Maybe it helps that I am using Linux?
Anyway, I reused an Athlon64 3000+ from a previous upgrade, and for single threaded applications it is still very close to the top performing CPUs. In the end I only had to buy a new main board (45 Euro) and a new memory module (15 Euro on ebay), and the rest found itself.
> I switched from Mandrake to Ubuntu last year, so I can tell you what the difference is: Ubuntu works.
I have not tried Mandrake, but I still like your point. Ubuntu just does what the users want, and it does it properly. It is not so much that Ubuntu is perfect, but it does not have a strong argument going against it. Every other distribution seems to have that:
RedHat is very expensive, or Fedore is very incomplete.
SuSE used to be a good choice, but since Novell is trying to "improve" it, it is going downhill.
Debian is technically usually excellent, but the "holly than the pope" attitude has scared more than a few users.
And Ubuntu is just like Debian without the attitude, or SuSE without the commercial issues.
> Sounds like 'Sphere'.
It does, but remember that Solaris was 25 years earlier. Even the movie for Solaris predates the book Sphere.
> In the United States there is such a thing as criminal copyright infringement
Yes, there is, and that would be my line in this matter. However, neither of the two cases apply here. (1) does not apply, because there is no financial gain, and (2) would require distribution beyond the company.
I think what the guy is asked for is only a license violation, which falls under contract or privat law. And in that case he is shielded completely as an employee. The license contract is between Microsoft and his employer, so he is not involved at all. Well, at least that is how it should be.
It wants its news back. Seriously, this has already been shown on evening news on BBC. It seems like slashdot is bloating like Mozilla, or why does that take so long?
Linux works reasonably well for this. 2.6 does ok support for handling several keyboards, but it is still easier if one terminal uses PS/2, and the other one uses USB. Several graphics cards have been working for a long time, and with some graphics cards you can even use the two output for separate sessions. And with PCI-E you can also use two graphics cards without loosing any performance.
But the main questions remains: what do you gain? You still need two keyboards, two mice, two screens, two graphics cards, twice the RAM, and probably a faster processor. The only thing you can save is one harddisk and some space. Although with Linux, you can easily run a system of the server without any local hard disk.
> Ahh, good point about subfolders
There is no reason why you could not implement subtags. But somehow Google choose not to, so we seem to be stuck without them for the time being. My list of tags is getting pretty long nowadays!
> You should look at mysql cluster.
I did. It is impressive, but with the separation into front end and back end it is everything that MySQL usually isn't:
* difficult to set up
* high latency
* limited by memory
No, I want powerful replication with a database as simple as MySQL. Otherwise I could just as well use Oracle. Yes, that is technically challenging, but it should be possible.