I love KDE and all, but limiting your setup tools to a huge desktop environment is insane. How many floppies will you need for the initial setup if you're not booting from a CD? What if you like GNOME and prefer not to have the KDE libs around?
Personally, I like what SuSE did: make a scriptable setup framework (YaST2) with multiple frontends (Qt and ncurses, they look similar). It didn't need to be entirely KDE-based to be integrated into the KDE control-center, and it works under GNOME just fine without KDE dependencies. It still works fine if you don't even have X.
Let me reiterate: forcing a million dependencies just to run setup tools is a terrible thing.
Re:In The Days Before PC Boards - and Do-It-Yourse
on
A Hardware Threepack
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Toner transfer is my method of choice. I stuck transparencies, like you'd use in an overhead projector, into my laser printer. I crank up the darkness of the page, so it puts a lot of toner onto the transparency.
Then, I print my board layout, in mirror image, onto the transparency. Rest it on the blank, clean copper-clad board, and run a hot steam iron over it for a few minutes. With some practice, you'll be able to transfer enough of the toner onto the board that when you etch the blank board, your layout comes through.
I've done that before, but I found the results not-so-good. Then again, I was using those special transparencies designed for it.
Myself, I go a couple of steps further. I get the presensitised boards and print, using an inkjet printer (I found the Epsons *much* better than the HPs for this), on inkjet transparencies. I then create a sandwich of board, transparency, and some heavy glass on top. Expose to light (a cheap-o $20 desk flourescent has done me well) for a bit, drop it into diluted sodium hydroxide for a few seconds (drain cleaner will work in a pinch, but I don't really recommend that), wash, then etch. I've so far ethched only with ferric chloride, but I've been thinking about going ammonium persulfate, which is supposed to be quicker and easier to use, except that you have to heat it.
After etching, I simply wash with water. I don't bother cleaning off the remaining photoresist (green traces, cool). I simply spray the board with acrylic, drill using a Dremel (get the tiniest bit you can find!), scrape the acrylic off the pads with an X-acto knife, and solder it.
Yes, I'm one of the freaks that had a 'custom fishtank' made.
I've found the results to be extremely good. I've made boards with *really* thin traces and they've always came out perfect.
Of course, I'll have to chase that with some links:
I'm buying more games. I already have seven of them, which I enjoy very much.
If they are accepting pre-orders for Kohan, I'm plunking my CC# in and doing it. I'll have to buy their book now, which I wasn't planning on doing. I may even buy another copy of CivCTP, because I lost the CD I bought first.
I'll do this this despite living in Canada, where I'll end up paying a shitload of taxes across the border.
Somebody mentioned PayPal, which I was also thinking about when I read the headline. If that happens, I will donate and I'm sure others would, too. Isn't the whole point of the community helping each other out?
If they immediately die out and I don't receive anything, no big deal. I'm trying anyway. I don't have Windows and I'm not going to start using it just to play games. If I can't get games for Linux, I won't get games at all...
I got into the demo scene, like many others, after seeing Second Reality from Future Crew. I immediately went out and bought a GUS. I still have it, I recently plugged it into an Alpha but it doesn't seem to work...
Imagine my delight when I look under MP3-musiikki and find this. I downloaded it and I'm really impressed. They haven't done a big demo since Second Reality (a couple of mini-demos only) but I am totally happy that Purple Motion is still at it.
I'm going to have to try some of those demos at work tomorrow where I have access to a Windows box. If only they were all SDL like iXalance, which I found about a month ago...
He said RoadRunner. If it's anything like my RoadRunner setup, he's allowed to run web and FTP servers as long as he notifies them (to open up the ports on the cable modem).
In fact, I just wiped my webserver and I'm doing a major upgrade on it right now.
Check out Falcon's Eye. It is a visually pleasing version of Nethack that I've been totally addicted to. It even has a big intro and a soundtrack. How can you go wrong?
If anything, it got sysadmins everywhere into action to fix a hole that could have resulted in a real problem
As a tech-savvy guy, I often get asked, "Why do people do this?"
I realise that this is not the motivation for every virus or worm, but generally, each one raises some awareness in the consumer. The popular viruses get around and a lot of people see it. Every time, they "update" their virus scanner and feel safe until the next one. What I tell people is that it shows the inherent security problems in Windows. I chase that with, "What if a your company's competitor writes a virus targetted at your's and nobody else's? They have the power to grab all of your intellectual property and no virus scanner out there will save you because they only deal with 'popular' viruses. Once the damage is done, it's done. Virus scanners only superficially 'fix' the problem. The *real* threat is the inherent insecurity in Windows/Outlook that Microsoft seems unwilling to fix. These viruses you see are warnings and nobody is realising that. Few people are aware of the real problem."
This usually enlightens them. The big problem, as I see it, is that the popular media isn't saying it. As long as they aren't, the problem will continue to exist... *sigh*
Then again, I *am* known as the second most paranoid person at my place of work (the biggest paranoiac doesn't trust the use of kernel modules, and that is probably the only difference). I may be totally off base, but if you think I'm not, then, by all means, answer the inevitable question appropriately.
** I apologise for any incoherence in this post. I drank more than usual today as we were let out early to "enjoy" the day:-)* I hope you get the gist, though, as I can be quite passionate about the topic (and friggin' wordy, as well).
By accident, a week ago, I clicked on a link on the right side of the main/. page (Happy Penguin, I think) that was labelled, "Falcon's Eye." I immediately thought, "yet another alpha version of an SDL game that will go nowhere."
Boy, was I wrong. It's a 3d rendered isometric dungeon crawler. I kept reading and:
It *is* Nethack.
I don't mean, "based on," I mean "is." It is a fork of the code. I immediately downloaded it and it is very polished. It even has a big intro, reminiscent of the games from the 486 days, only with better graphics.
I've been playing this a lot lately, and I even have Loki games I recently bought that I haven't even started playing yet.
My only issue is that it sometimes 'stops' when I enter a shop. At first I was dismayed and killing it, so I was about to start debugging it. Interestingly enough, the game continues just fine when I start strace'ing threads. Odd.
I also had no trouble downloading a single floppy disk and installing SuSE directly from ftp.suse.com. It's a hell of a lot quicker than downloading the entire thing, including stuff you don't want, then burning 7 CDs, then switching them during each install.
If you want, download the FTP installation tree and stick it somewhere on a networked computer. Then you can do FTP installs *really* quickly. If you have a 100Mb network, it's a lot faster than a 7 CDROMs.
As for the *proprietary* nature of YaST, I recommend a reading of the license. The only thing you can't do is resell it. Big deal. I can still modify it if I want. Isn't that the *real* point?
You can copy the CDs all you want. What the license disallows is the selling of copied CDs or of works derived from YaST. You can hack up YaST all you want as well. The source code is there. In fact, YaST2 is a very nice framework for developing setups. You want to write a module that configures X package? Go for it.
I hate it when Slashdotters don't read licenses. Most haven't even read the GPL and go around telling untruths about it.
A specific real-world example (my own experience):
I played, and I still do, a *lot* of Civilization as a young lad. I later on read the works of Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince, The Discourses).
The truly scary thing is that I kept thinking of Civilization the entire time and the information made a lot more sense to me after playing all of those hours. (my conservative estimate: 3 or 4 months worth, but I hauled that number out of my ass)
I had a better understanding of his works simply because of my experience in that game and what's more, my strategies in said game have changed, so that I am a much better player because of it.
Of course, reading all of that has ruined me in that I now tend to write really long sentences, though I haven't yet achieved the one feat that I have only seen from Machiavelli and Dave Barry, which is, of course, the 1.5 page sentence, in which the author creates an extraordinarily long sentence, containing much information, all the while being grammatically correct, and conveying one basic idea in a surprisingly clear manner, such that the reader, after having read it, actually goes back to see where said sentence began, and reads it again, just to make sure that the sentence is, indeed, that long.
Witherspoon is at least a thousand times the actress as well.
I was never one to bash Katz, but this is getting ridiculous. He appears to be the one that's Clueless. I've seen bad reviews of movies before (that christian "save our children" guy being one primary offender) but to review a movie by talking about other movies?
He used to be too focused, and got bashed for it, now he's done a 180 and appears to have developed literary ADD.
That Ape musical is one of the richest bits of parody the Simpsons has ever produced, and it's one I point to when I want to illustrate that the Simpsons isn't just comedy - it's social commentary.
You're right, but I thought the "Betty Ford Clinic" musical was a better example.
Mainly because they double up on the commentary in that one and I simply enjoy bitterness.
Even better, how about the good doctor give Adobe a dollar, and the whole thing would be considered to have been settled out-of-court.
Essentially it already has, but no financial exchange has taken place. I was once given a dollar to sign an NDA when I started working at a new job to make it more official.
I have to concur here. I recently installed CygWin on a Win98 box and it's pretty impressive. Furthermore, you only listed the basic utilities that get installed. By default, you also get gcc, make, autoconf/automake, Python, Perl, CVS (In my copy, there's a strange CVS bug, where it performs the intended operation and hangs...), etc.
Many tarballs simply work when you configure&&make&&make install, too. I installed CURL without a single problem.
I got X working, but... it's weird. I didn't find it useful enough. I can't run X apps along with Win32 apps like you can with some commercial Win32 X servers.
No biggie. The other thing is that I couldn't compile mc. For some reason, I need GTK installed to compile a console app. There's no configure option for "just compile *real* mc and not that terrible WinExplorer ripoff that shares only a name with mc."
Try getting the price on 1000 km and compare *those* instead.
The high price of your tiny cable is not because of the fiber, but because of the connectors (5-10 bucks each, IIRC) and the labour, which was jacked up because fiber guys are very well paid.
Anybody can get a Cat5 crimper and a bag of cheap-o connectors and start cranking out cables. I've done fiber work and the equipment is *very* expensive, not to mention the attention to detail it requires to keep your signal losses minimised.
For those keeping score, that's yet another reason to consider the classic pre-dumbed-down SCUMM interface the pinnacle of adventure game UI design.
Actually, I *loved* the interface. I spent more money in my Windows days on Lucasarts games than anything else. Every once in awhile, I attempt to play those games under DOSemu as I no longer have any trace of MS on my hard drive...
I'm totally dissapointed that Loki releases nothing like it. There are way too many FPS games these days.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do they need to be written in KDE?
I love KDE and all, but limiting your setup tools to a huge desktop environment is insane. How many floppies will you need for the initial setup if you're not booting from a CD? What if you like GNOME and prefer not to have the KDE libs around?
Personally, I like what SuSE did: make a scriptable setup framework (YaST2) with multiple frontends (Qt and ncurses, they look similar). It didn't need to be entirely KDE-based to be integrated into the KDE control-center, and it works under GNOME just fine without KDE dependencies. It still works fine if you don't even have X.
Let me reiterate: forcing a million dependencies just to run setup tools is a terrible thing.
I've done that before, but I found the results not-so-good. Then again, I was using those special transparencies designed for it.
Myself, I go a couple of steps further. I get the presensitised boards and print, using an inkjet printer (I found the Epsons *much* better than the HPs for this), on inkjet transparencies. I then create a sandwich of board, transparency, and some heavy glass on top. Expose to light (a cheap-o $20 desk flourescent has done me well) for a bit, drop it into diluted sodium hydroxide for a few seconds (drain cleaner will work in a pinch, but I don't really recommend that), wash, then etch. I've so far ethched only with ferric chloride, but I've been thinking about going ammonium persulfate, which is supposed to be quicker and easier to use, except that you have to heat it.
After etching, I simply wash with water. I don't bother cleaning off the remaining photoresist (green traces, cool). I simply spray the board with acrylic, drill using a Dremel (get the tiniest bit you can find!), scrape the acrylic off the pads with an X-acto knife, and solder it.
Yes, I'm one of the freaks that had a 'custom fishtank' made.
I've found the results to be extremely good. I've made boards with *really* thin traces and they've always came out perfect.
Of course, I'll have to chase that with some links:
(that lameness filter gets lamer all the time, arrgh)
I'm buying more games. I already have seven of them, which I enjoy very much.
If they are accepting pre-orders for Kohan, I'm plunking my CC# in and doing it. I'll have to buy their book now, which I wasn't planning on doing. I may even buy another copy of CivCTP, because I lost the CD I bought first.
I'll do this this despite living in Canada, where I'll end up paying a shitload of taxes across the border.
Somebody mentioned PayPal, which I was also thinking about when I read the headline. If that happens, I will donate and I'm sure others would, too. Isn't the whole point of the community helping each other out?
If they immediately die out and I don't receive anything, no big deal. I'm trying anyway. I don't have Windows and I'm not going to start using it just to play games. If I can't get games for Linux, I won't get games at all...
Go here.
Enjoy!
Progressive and new wave music were popular in the 70's and early 80's.
If you are into progressive, like I am, then you *are* an old timer.
(also note the ancient form of emphasis I used up there, from the BBS/USENET days)
Now *that* is cool!
:-)*
...and now the hard part: finding those albums on this side of the pond
Anybody know of a source?
I got into the demo scene, like many others, after seeing Second Reality from Future Crew. I immediately went out and bought a GUS. I still have it, I recently plugged it into an Alpha but it doesn't seem to work...
Imagine my delight when I look under MP3-musiikki and find this. I downloaded it and I'm really impressed. They haven't done a big demo since Second Reality (a couple of mini-demos only) but I am totally happy that Purple Motion is still at it.
I'm going to have to try some of those demos at work tomorrow where I have access to a Windows box. If only they were all SDL like iXalance, which I found about a month ago...
He said RoadRunner. If it's anything like my RoadRunner setup, he's allowed to run web and FTP servers as long as he notifies them (to open up the ports on the cable modem).
In fact, I just wiped my webserver and I'm doing a major upgrade on it right now.
You want both?
Check out Falcon's Eye. It is a visually pleasing version of Nethack that I've been totally addicted to. It even has a big intro and a soundtrack. How can you go wrong?
As a tech-savvy guy, I often get asked, "Why do people do this?"
I realise that this is not the motivation for every virus or worm, but generally, each one raises some awareness in the consumer. The popular viruses get around and a lot of people see it. Every time, they "update" their virus scanner and feel safe until the next one. What I tell people is that it shows the inherent security problems in Windows. I chase that with, "What if a your company's competitor writes a virus targetted at your's and nobody else's? They have the power to grab all of your intellectual property and no virus scanner out there will save you because they only deal with 'popular' viruses. Once the damage is done, it's done. Virus scanners only superficially 'fix' the problem. The *real* threat is the inherent insecurity in Windows/Outlook that Microsoft seems unwilling to fix. These viruses you see are warnings and nobody is realising that. Few people are aware of the real problem."
This usually enlightens them. The big problem, as I see it, is that the popular media isn't saying it. As long as they aren't, the problem will continue to exist... *sigh*
Then again, I *am* known as the second most paranoid person at my place of work (the biggest paranoiac doesn't trust the use of kernel modules, and that is probably the only difference). I may be totally off base, but if you think I'm not, then, by all means, answer the inevitable question appropriately.
** I apologise for any incoherence in this post. I drank more than usual today as we were let out early to "enjoy" the day
Solitaire...
The reason Microsoft succeeded in the business market.
By accident, a week ago, I clicked on a link on the right side of the main /. page (Happy Penguin, I think) that was labelled, "Falcon's Eye." I immediately thought, "yet another alpha version of an SDL game that will go nowhere."
Boy, was I wrong. It's a 3d rendered isometric dungeon crawler. I kept reading and:
It *is* Nethack.
I don't mean, "based on," I mean "is." It is a fork of the code. I immediately downloaded it and it is very polished. It even has a big intro, reminiscent of the games from the 486 days, only with better graphics.
I've been playing this a lot lately, and I even have Loki games I recently bought that I haven't even started playing yet.
My only issue is that it sometimes 'stops' when I enter a shop. At first I was dismayed and killing it, so I was about to start debugging it. Interestingly enough, the game continues just fine when I start strace'ing threads. Odd.
Everyone should go download this right now: http://falconseye.sourceforge.net/.
Lot's of BS under this story...
I had no trouble downloading ISOs for Alpha.
I also had no trouble downloading a single floppy disk and installing SuSE directly from ftp.suse.com. It's a hell of a lot quicker than downloading the entire thing, including stuff you don't want, then burning 7 CDs, then switching them during each install.
If you want, download the FTP installation tree and stick it somewhere on a networked computer. Then you can do FTP installs *really* quickly. If you have a 100Mb network, it's a lot faster than a 7 CDROMs.
As for the *proprietary* nature of YaST, I recommend a reading of the license. The only thing you can't do is resell it. Big deal. I can still modify it if I want. Isn't that the *real* point?
You can copy the CDs all you want. What the license disallows is the selling of copied CDs or of works derived from YaST. You can hack up YaST all you want as well. The source code is there. In fact, YaST2 is a very nice framework for developing setups. You want to write a module that configures X package? Go for it.
I hate it when Slashdotters don't read licenses. Most haven't even read the GPL and go around telling untruths about it.
*sigh*
We all know it though.
A specific real-world example (my own experience):
I played, and I still do, a *lot* of Civilization as a young lad. I later on read the works of Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince, The Discourses).
The truly scary thing is that I kept thinking of Civilization the entire time and the information made a lot more sense to me after playing all of those hours. (my conservative estimate: 3 or 4 months worth, but I hauled that number out of my ass)
I had a better understanding of his works simply because of my experience in that game and what's more, my strategies in said game have changed, so that I am a much better player because of it.
Of course, reading all of that has ruined me in that I now tend to write really long sentences, though I haven't yet achieved the one feat that I have only seen from Machiavelli and Dave Barry, which is, of course, the 1.5 page sentence, in which the author creates an extraordinarily long sentence, containing much information, all the while being grammatically correct, and conveying one basic idea in a surprisingly clear manner, such that the reader, after having read it, actually goes back to see where said sentence began, and reads it again, just to make sure that the sentence is, indeed, that long.
Witherspoon is at least a thousand times the actress as well.
I was never one to bash Katz, but this is getting ridiculous. He appears to be the one that's Clueless. I've seen bad reviews of movies before (that christian "save our children" guy being one primary offender) but to review a movie by talking about other movies?
He used to be too focused, and got bashed for it, now he's done a 180 and appears to have developed literary ADD.
You're right, but I thought the "Betty Ford Clinic" musical was a better example.
Mainly because they double up on the commentary in that one and I simply enjoy bitterness.
That's the funniest damn thing I've seen all day.
Even better, how about the good doctor give Adobe a dollar, and the whole thing would be considered to have been settled out-of-court.
Essentially it already has, but no financial exchange has taken place. I was once given a dollar to sign an NDA when I started working at a new job to make it more official.
That bothered me for about 30 seconds before I got over it and realised that the language is highly advanced.
Now I'm writing it professionally.
I'm guessing you never even made a serious try to learn it. Your loss.
That's a great idea!
Maybe I should release a bunch of Win[whatever] programs for GNOME and KDE.
Of course, anything made will probably already be the name of a Win32 program.
Winamp... taken
WinCommander... taken
WinView... taken (I think)
WinExplorer... Damn this is hard
...AHA!...
WinRPMBuilder! That's it!
I have to concur here. I recently installed CygWin on a Win98 box and it's pretty impressive. Furthermore, you only listed the basic utilities that get installed. By default, you also get gcc, make, autoconf/automake, Python, Perl, CVS (In my copy, there's a strange CVS bug, where it performs the intended operation and hangs...), etc.
Many tarballs simply work when you configure&&make&&make install, too. I installed CURL without a single problem.
I got X working, but... it's weird. I didn't find it useful enough. I can't run X apps along with Win32 apps like you can with some commercial Win32 X servers.
No biggie. The other thing is that I couldn't compile mc. For some reason, I need GTK installed to compile a console app. There's no configure option for "just compile *real* mc and not that terrible WinExplorer ripoff that shares only a name with mc."
Try getting the price on 1000 km and compare *those* instead.
The high price of your tiny cable is not because of the fiber, but because of the connectors (5-10 bucks each, IIRC) and the labour, which was jacked up because fiber guys are very well paid.
Anybody can get a Cat5 crimper and a bag of cheap-o connectors and start cranking out cables. I've done fiber work and the equipment is *very* expensive, not to mention the attention to detail it requires to keep your signal losses minimised.
Actually, I *loved* the interface. I spent more money in my Windows days on Lucasarts games than anything else. Every once in awhile, I attempt to play those games under DOSemu as I no longer have any trace of MS on my hard drive...
I'm totally dissapointed that Loki releases nothing like it. There are way too many FPS games these days.
I say this as an owner of 7 Loki games, too.
Yeah, I remember the rumour when that game was new.
In fact, it was the first thing I thought of upon reading this story. I'll just file it in the "unlikely" pile in my brain.
It would be cool to see that story in something other than 320x240, though.