I'll second that - 2D performance is horrible compared to the nvidia cards, as well.
Of course, that was once I got the display to turn on - it seems several of the low-end ATI cards have 'incompatibilities' with many Via motherboards that mean you have to unplug the power cord and plug it back in again every time you power on the machine.
Does anyone out there own one of these? I'm considering replacing my PoS home built AMD box with one (once I get a job, of course:() but I'd be interested in Slashdotter's opinion of them. Are they really as good as they say?
I have this sweet Gnome desktop... but I have just spent a day trying to get my printer to work, with NO help from the GUI.
The Ubuntu gnome desktop uses ximian's printer tools and they're pretty good - it's similar to the Windows wizard, but a bit easier to use. There are a few teething problems, but it's definitely an improvement over the web-page CUPS configuration.
Education to keep checking the dialout numbers isn't the point.
Education to not use software that's so vulnerable to spyware drive-by installations, to switch off scripting and html rendering in email clients etc. however would cut down the problem.
Hick's law - more options in a UI -> deciding between them takes longer (time is roughly proportional to log2(n)).
By having more buttons everywhere and not laying out menu options logically, you make every UI action interfere with the user's train of thought. The user isn't using the desktop environment - they're trying to get some work done.
If they have to keep breaking their concentration to figure out where the zoom out button is because it's hidden amongst loads of other icons, and looks just like the font icon on another KDE app, they're going to get annoyed.
Turning a KDE desktop into a usable system used to take me about half an hour of searching through menus and options: increasing icon sizes, arranging them logically, switching to good fonts. The defaults are painful to use, yet that's exactly what new users will see. Of course, I only needed to do that a few times when I reinstalled a a system, but the effort required is to much.
Admittedly, this isn't an especially good usability test. It would have been better to let them use the desktop for a while, then time how long it takes them to perform certain tasks - find files, write emails.
I've recently switched away from KDE, and I have to say that many of the points they make are the reasons I switched.
An example of KDE having too many options:
There is actually an option "draw borders around maximized windows" and it's on by default. It's not actually called that of course, it's called "allow moving and resizing of maximized windows", but it has no effect on moving any more.
Why would anyone want a border around a maximized window, making the fitt's law violations even worse? Let alone an option for it. Why not just replace the option with a sensible default.
Hmm, I think I just hit a Firefox bug - I copy and pasted that link to my address bar and it appeared with all the text overlapping. And then crashed my X server. Maybe it was a stupid thing to do, but not an X-crashingly stupid thing to do.
There's a form pointing at a cgi script at the bottom of the page for "removing your email". I wonder if a scrip that kept calling that might take up a bit more CPU for them?
I think it depends on how you call it - I could never get sa-learn data to have any effect using spamc/spamd, but just piping to/usr/bin/spamassassin in my procmailrc seemed to work. YMMV.
Yes, the "not running as root" argument is a bit silly.
if someone discovered a flaw in a piece of popular software that runs on most linux machines
Of course, we shouldn't get complacent, as this is quite easily possible. But the last OSS-targeting worm was 2 years ago, and it only targeted (IIRC) unpatched apache servers running on FreeBSD. There is sendmail, of course, but the less said about that the better.
The point is, there are many thousands of installations of Linux/*BSD+apache/mysql/postfix/qmail etc out there (more than there are IIS installs) and yet a *much* smaller level of worm traffic.
Ah, but can they prove that they didn't just switch the movie files for the current files and fiddle the access timestamps when they got the takedown letter?
In fact, can you prove you didn't have illegal material on your hard disk yesterday? I foresee a philosophical minefield...
Just how big a house do people expect in the US? 800 square feet is a two floor house 20' on a side, right?
My current place (UK, suburbs of Cambridge, so hardly 'inner-city') I consider large for the two of us living here and is two floors, approx 15' x 26' (~780 sq. ft). It would be fine for a small family (one kid/dog etc).
I was at a computing in engineering conference recently and during a question a senior professor stood up to make the point that "Microsoft standards such as TCP/IP are very important in IT and we should use them". Scary.
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and the people for whom benefits have run out
Benefits run out? What kind of crazy system is that?
I'll second that - 2D performance is horrible compared to the nvidia cards, as well.
Of course, that was once I got the display to turn on - it seems several of the low-end ATI cards have 'incompatibilities' with many Via motherboards that mean you have to unplug the power cord and plug it back in again every time you power on the machine.
KDE has dcop. Type this at the command line in KDE:
dcop kwin default setCurrentDesktop 4
for example, and watch your desktop switch. Every app exports actions (checkmail, go to URL etc.)
1024 processors from SGI.
Best Deals: United States
Best Deals: Politics
Political comment from a keyword matching algorithm. Classic.
With the trash in the charts these days, "Toy Piano Solo by Mr Music Company Executive" would probably be an improvement.
Does anyone out there own one of these? I'm considering replacing my PoS home built AMD box with one (once I get a job, of course :() but I'd be interested in Slashdotter's opinion of them. Are they really as good as they say?
You mean you don't
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Like reading
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information like
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this? I can't
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imagine why not.
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I have this sweet Gnome desktop... but I have just spent a day trying to get my printer to work, with NO help from the GUI.
The Ubuntu gnome desktop uses ximian's printer tools and they're pretty good - it's similar to the Windows wizard, but a bit easier to use. There are a few teething problems, but it's definitely an improvement over the web-page CUPS configuration.
Education to keep checking the dialout numbers isn't the point.
Education to not use software that's so vulnerable to spyware drive-by installations, to switch off scripting and html rendering in email clients etc. however would cut down the problem.
Hick's law - more options in a UI -> deciding between them takes longer (time is roughly proportional to log2(n)).
By having more buttons everywhere and not laying out menu options logically, you make every UI action interfere with the user's train of thought. The user isn't using the desktop environment - they're trying to get some work done.
If they have to keep breaking their concentration to figure out where the zoom out button is because it's hidden amongst loads of other icons, and looks just like the font icon on another KDE app, they're going to get annoyed.
Turning a KDE desktop into a usable system used to take me about half an hour of searching through menus and options: increasing icon sizes, arranging them logically, switching to good fonts. The defaults are painful to use, yet that's exactly what new users will see. Of course, I only needed to do that a few times when I reinstalled a a system, but the effort required is to much.
Admittedly, this isn't an especially good usability test. It would have been better to let them use the desktop for a while, then time how long it takes them to perform certain tasks - find files, write emails.
I've recently switched away from KDE, and I have to say that many of the points they make are the reasons I switched.
far too many options shown by default:
An example of KDE having too many options:
There is actually an option "draw borders around maximized windows" and it's on by default. It's not actually called that of course, it's called "allow moving and resizing of maximized windows", but it has no effect on moving any more. Why would anyone want a border around a maximized window, making the fitt's law violations even worse? Let alone an option for it. Why not just replace the option with a sensible default.
Seems to be changing rapidly...
Except that wouldn't that also slow down connections for other net users in the same block?
Not exactly very ethical.
Hmm, I think I just hit a Firefox bug - I copy and pasted that link to my address bar and it appeared with all the text overlapping. And then crashed my X server.
Maybe it was a stupid thing to do, but not an X-crashingly stupid thing to do.
There's a form pointing at a cgi script at the bottom of the page for "removing your email". I wonder if a scrip that kept calling that might take up a bit more CPU for them?
I think it depends on how you call it - I could never get sa-learn data to have any effect using spamc/spamd, but just piping to /usr/bin/spamassassin in my procmailrc seemed to work. YMMV.
Yes, the "not running as root" argument is a bit silly.
if someone discovered a flaw in a piece of popular software that runs on most linux machines
Of course, we shouldn't get complacent, as this is quite easily possible. But the last OSS-targeting worm was 2 years ago, and it only targeted (IIRC) unpatched apache servers running on FreeBSD. There is sendmail, of course, but the less said about that the better.
The point is, there are many thousands of installations of Linux/*BSD+apache/mysql/postfix/qmail etc out there (more than there are IIS installs) and yet a *much* smaller level of worm traffic.
They're all a bunch of convicts anyway. Worse still - Pinko Commy Free-software convicts. Bound to be guilty.
(I'm joking, before the local Australian mafia come round and barby my face)
I just contributed my bit. I knew that fancy university edumacashun would come in handy one day.
Ah, but can they prove that they didn't just switch the movie files for the current files and fiddle the access timestamps when they got the takedown letter?
In fact, can you prove you didn't have illegal material on your hard disk yesterday? I foresee a philosophical minefield...
I wouldn't believe everything Steve Gibson says.
No, off Newmarket Rd near the airport. Considering my last place was a 350-400 sq ft place in central london, this feels like a palace to me.
Just how big a house do people expect in the US? 800 square feet is a two floor house 20' on a side, right?
My current place (UK, suburbs of Cambridge, so hardly 'inner-city') I consider large for the two of us living here and is two floors, approx 15' x 26' (~780 sq. ft). It would be fine for a small family (one kid/dog etc).
I was at a computing in engineering conference recently and during a question a senior professor stood up to make the point that "Microsoft standards such as TCP/IP are very important in IT and we should use them". Scary.