Its funny to see a slashdot user say that linux isn't good for some platform.
I've been a slashdot user for some time, and I use Linux regularly. I also have owned a Palm since before I started using Linux, and I have come to the conclusion that the explosion in Palm sales hasn't been due to whizbang features, good software, or the accessibility of the OS source. It's been about style, and popularity.
If all it took to win in the PDA market was a fast processor and some impress-your-friends functionality ("Look! The Star Wars trailer! Right here in the palm of my hand!") then WindowsCE would have walked away with the whole market years ago. Instead, Palm has introduced models at the low end to woo teenagers and college students, and models at the high end to attract fashion-conscious yuppies. You can even get a kit to mount your Palm in your luxury SUV or your golf cart. (I'm not kidding.) The OS is simple enough to use that you don't even have to worry about closing applications when you're done with them. Windows CE has had this problem until the most recent version. Desktop concepts of cascading menus, movable windows, and multiple-button clicking (how do I right-tap or middle-tap in X?) are lost on a pad-based device.
People already complain that too much software for Linux is really "Linux86," since it doesn't support SPARC, Alpha, or PPC. The pocket arena has a lot more limitations than any of those other desktop/server platforms. Don't expect to dump gcc on this thing and be able to compile programs right out of the box. In fact, with only 8MB of room, you wouldn't be able to fit very much source at all. Guess you'll have to hope it supports NFS mounting and networking -- over its serial port.
This device is pretty comparable to a Palm (up to 8MB RAM, 240x160 16-grey display) but the fact that it runs Linux sets it apart from the other $149 PDA's on the market. However, you'll find that Linux is no better than CE when it comes to handheld applications. Sure, you get decent power and an open source (insert obligatory drooling here) operating system, but what else? The few applications written for this thing are HUGE compared to Palm apps. 96KB for a Minesweeper game, instead of 20KB on a Palm. 200KB for a scientific calculator? You'll burn through that RAM much quicker than with a Palm, and there aren't even as many apps for it (yet).
Remember that Microsoft promised compatibility between Win32 apps and WinCE apps, due to some libraries and function calls being similar. Why, then, do WinCE apps lag so far behind Palm apps in breadth of functionality and quality?
Not to mention that for the Linux geeks here that love to tinker with hardware, the Agenda VR3 offers just serial and IR ports for communication and expandability. The keyboard looks every bit as cheap as the one made for the Palm-ripoff Royal DaVinci, which can be had for about $100.
Sorry, folks. Open source isn't taking Palm's place any time soon.
(But seriously, any guy whose supporters beat the crap out of Pat Buchanan supporters at their convention is OK by me. Maybe he'll steal some of Buchanan's precious 2% support.)
Re:Perhaps you should read the article?
on
Voteauction.com
·
· Score: 1
I already know everything. Reading is such an overrated trifle these days. People come to this site to read commentary by such people as me, not to get their daily reading list. What is this, the Oprah Winfrey show?
You can question my "logic" all you want, but I didn't write the book on time zones. If you built a house on the International Date Line, the kitchen and the living room could be 24 hours away. Of course, you'd need a system to deal with the water that would be constantly flooding your house, but that's another issue.
I'm at 1024x768, but I prefer to run multiple browser windows. Most Slashdot stories look just fine, but sometimes a poorly constructed header or troll will make the entire article scroll-happy until it's fixed or moderated down.
Here, I used the comments-only facility to filter out the header.
They can still make money off of Internet coverage, though. Just get a few of those "official Olympic sponsors" to pay extra for the privilege of having their ads run in a frame when you're watching video.
On top of it all, the quality of Internet video isn't exactly giving TV a run for its money. Can you imagine watching a race, only to see "Net congestion, buffering" as the runners approach the finish line neck-and-neck? Funny, that doesn't usually happen with TV...
Did you know that there's such a thing as the International Date Line? The same line that prevents you from going back in time by flying faster than the Earth's rotation also plays an important role in the usage of time zones. Take New York time and add 15 hours, and you get Australia time. (11:16 AM Thu -> 2:16 AM Fri, for example) Take New York time and subtract nine hours, and you get 11:16 AM Thu -> 2:16 AM Thu. Oh, and then account for the International Date Line. Whoops. That's 15 hours.
The IOC could have made millions allowing Internet sites like ESPN.com and Sportsline to buy rights to deliver content from the Olympics. They even refused to allow radio play-by-play coverage! Instead, they insist that NBC is the only authorized provider for the Olympics, shutting out many other partners.
I can't wait for the wonderful live-on-tape NBC coverage, like when they showed Kerri Strug's winning vault in '96 (in ATLANTA, in the SAME FRIGGIN TIME ZONE as New York) on tape. Meanwhile, Kerri was being interviewed on Larry King Live _before_ viewers even saw her vault on TV.
The story at the top didn't need to write out the entire URL of the CNN.com story -- a simple hyperlink would have sufficed. Now Slashdot has made me need to scroll horizontally to read all of these comments. And I am sad. Very sad. Almost sad enough to get some work done.
Last semester, I was working on a report (in Japanese) for my Japanese class using Word 2000. The cluster machines running Word 2000 with special input method editors had no problem, but my roommate's copy of Word 2000 had some problems. The Unicode characters displayed perfectly, but Word crashed when I wanted to print them. I had to trudge back across campus just to make one minor change and reprint the document.
But sometimes Fox's impulsiveness pays off. Yesterday they cancelled the who-wants-to-be-JonKatz show "American High" after two weeks and replaced it with reruns of "Futurama"! Yes!
Microsoft-bashing isn't always humor. This far down on the page, it's redundant and horribly unnecessary.
I don't want Microsoft apps on Linux! They'll give me the blue screen of death! Ha ha, get it? Blue screen? On Linux? Because of Microsoft? Ahahahahahaha! And then it'll run visual basic scripts and pop up a paper clip on the screen and open up security holes just like all Microsoft software! Stupid Microsoft -- Linux 0wnz j00.
This has already happened. I tried to open my resume, created in Word 2000 ("100% backward compatible with Word 97!") in Word 98 on the Mac. It was an absolute mess. Completely useless. Utterly unreadable. Oh, and it didn't display well either.;)
Don't want 'em? Don't use 'em. Unfortunately, many of us work in the real world, where Office documents are the de facto standards. Sorry if companies like Microsoft (and AOL, as discussed yesterday) are making Linux more palatable to the masses. Heaven forbid anyone actually finding Linux useful for their normal everyday tasks.
Yeah, they've got some nerve. I never install my RPM's as root. And because the programs never run afterwards, I'm also immune to all of the bugs and security holes that they might have!
Seriously, though, every software developer who uses RPM's has an installation procedure of "Just install this RPM as root." Get over it.
Google found this page (no dirty pictures, but your boss still might get the wrong idea if s/he sees you pull it up) on the subject. Apparently the "Hanky Code" is a system of wearing a colored handkerchief in your left or right pocket to indicate your gay sexual tastes.
As a side note, Chevrolete had a hard time selling the Chevy Nova in Latin America. Someone finnaly realised that Nova or "No Va" means "It Doesn't Go".
I used to think that as well, but I found out recently that it's an urban legend. The Chevy Nova sold well in Latin America, and "Nova" has a colloquial meaning as "new" (think "bossa nova," whatever that means).
I predict that a lot of script kiddies will be very disappointed when they get to Linux and are surrounded by free software. Already I've seen a few clueless groups proudly touting their "l33t 0-d@y l1nu>< d!$tr0z" on message boards and newsgroups, but there just isn't that much software people can pirate on Linux.
Not necessarily x86-only. If AOL wanted to make really cheap network appliances, nobody's stopping them from using ARM or another architecture. After all, they still support the PPC architecture with their Mac client (which was quite trendy when AOL was growing most rapidly) and they seem committed to supporting "AOL anywhere."
Already you can get some features on a Palm platform (68000-like) Windows CE (MIPS, ARM, or SH-3) and just about anything with a web browser. I've even seen Sprint PCS commercials touting AOL on cell phones.
Slashdot Mirror
Its funny to see a slashdot user say that linux isn't good for some platform.
I've been a slashdot user for some time, and I use Linux regularly. I also have owned a Palm since before I started using Linux, and I have come to the conclusion that the explosion in Palm sales hasn't been due to whizbang features, good software, or the accessibility of the OS source. It's been about style, and popularity.
If all it took to win in the PDA market was a fast processor and some impress-your-friends functionality ("Look! The Star Wars trailer! Right here in the palm of my hand!") then WindowsCE would have walked away with the whole market years ago. Instead, Palm has introduced models at the low end to woo teenagers and college students, and models at the high end to attract fashion-conscious yuppies. You can even get a kit to mount your Palm in your luxury SUV or your golf cart. (I'm not kidding.) The OS is simple enough to use that you don't even have to worry about closing applications when you're done with them. Windows CE has had this problem until the most recent version. Desktop concepts of cascading menus, movable windows, and multiple-button clicking (how do I right-tap or middle-tap in X?) are lost on a pad-based device.
People already complain that too much software for Linux is really "Linux86," since it doesn't support SPARC, Alpha, or PPC. The pocket arena has a lot more limitations than any of those other desktop/server platforms. Don't expect to dump gcc on this thing and be able to compile programs right out of the box. In fact, with only 8MB of room, you wouldn't be able to fit very much source at all. Guess you'll have to hope it supports NFS mounting and networking -- over its serial port.
You should press ENTER
After every line and use
Plain Text formatting.
This device is pretty comparable to a Palm (up to 8MB RAM, 240x160 16-grey display) but the fact that it runs Linux sets it apart from the other $149 PDA's on the market. However, you'll find that Linux is no better than CE when it comes to handheld applications. Sure, you get decent power and an open source (insert obligatory drooling here) operating system, but what else? The few applications written for this thing are HUGE compared to Palm apps. 96KB for a Minesweeper game, instead of 20KB on a Palm. 200KB for a scientific calculator? You'll burn through that RAM much quicker than with a Palm, and there aren't even as many apps for it (yet).
Remember that Microsoft promised compatibility between Win32 apps and WinCE apps, due to some libraries and function calls being similar. Why, then, do WinCE apps lag so far behind Palm apps in breadth of functionality and quality?
Not to mention that for the Linux geeks here that love to tinker with hardware, the Agenda VR3 offers just serial and IR ports for communication and expandability. The keyboard looks every bit as cheap as the one made for the Palm-ripoff Royal DaVinci, which can be had for about $100.
Sorry, folks. Open source isn't taking Palm's place any time soon.
Go ahead! Throw your vote away!
(But seriously, any guy whose supporters beat the crap out of Pat Buchanan supporters at their convention is OK by me. Maybe he'll steal some of Buchanan's precious 2% support.)
I already know everything. Reading is such an overrated trifle these days. People come to this site to read commentary by such people as me, not to get their daily reading list. What is this, the Oprah Winfrey show?
That's pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Duh.
You can question my "logic" all you want, but I didn't write the book on time zones. If you built a house on the International Date Line, the kitchen and the living room could be 24 hours away. Of course, you'd need a system to deal with the water that would be constantly flooding your house, but that's another issue.
I'm at 1024x768, but I prefer to run multiple browser windows. Most Slashdot stories look just fine, but sometimes a poorly constructed header or troll will make the entire article scroll-happy until it's fixed or moderated down.
Here, I used the comments-only facility to filter out the header.
They can still make money off of Internet coverage, though. Just get a few of those "official Olympic sponsors" to pay extra for the privilege of having their ads run in a frame when you're watching video.
On top of it all, the quality of Internet video isn't exactly giving TV a run for its money. Can you imagine watching a race, only to see "Net congestion, buffering" as the runners approach the finish line neck-and-neck? Funny, that doesn't usually happen with TV...
What about the new sports that women are breaking into, like pole vaulting and sumo wrestling?
(OK, I made the part about sumo up, but now I've got a vision in my head that's making me think twice about eating lunch today)
Did you know that there's such a thing as the International Date Line? The same line that prevents you from going back in time by flying faster than the Earth's rotation also plays an important role in the usage of time zones. Take New York time and add 15 hours, and you get Australia time. (11:16 AM Thu -> 2:16 AM Fri, for example) Take New York time and subtract nine hours, and you get 11:16 AM Thu -> 2:16 AM Thu. Oh, and then account for the International Date Line. Whoops. That's 15 hours.
Sorry, thanks for playing.
The IOC could have made millions allowing Internet sites like ESPN.com and Sportsline to buy rights to deliver content from the Olympics. They even refused to allow radio play-by-play coverage! Instead, they insist that NBC is the only authorized provider for the Olympics, shutting out many other partners.
I can't wait for the wonderful live-on-tape NBC coverage, like when they showed Kerri Strug's winning vault in '96 (in ATLANTA, in the SAME FRIGGIN TIME ZONE as New York) on tape. Meanwhile, Kerri was being interviewed on Larry King Live _before_ viewers even saw her vault on TV.
The story at the top didn't need to write out the entire URL of the CNN.com story -- a simple hyperlink would have sufficed. Now Slashdot has made me need to scroll horizontally to read all of these comments. And I am sad. Very sad. Almost sad enough to get some work done.
Last semester, I was working on a report (in Japanese) for my Japanese class using Word 2000. The cluster machines running Word 2000 with special input method editors had no problem, but my roommate's copy of Word 2000 had some problems. The Unicode characters displayed perfectly, but Word crashed when I wanted to print them. I had to trudge back across campus just to make one minor change and reprint the document.
Like Vigor, the paper clip assistant for vi? :)
IF YOU EVER MAKE FLIPPANT REMARKS ABOUT INDUCING VOMITING AGAIN I WILL KICK YOUR ASS
(damn lameness filter. how do the trolls post these all-caps messages, anyway?)
But sometimes Fox's impulsiveness pays off. Yesterday they cancelled the who-wants-to-be-JonKatz show "American High" after two weeks and replaced it with reruns of "Futurama"! Yes!
Microsoft-bashing isn't always humor. This far down on the page, it's redundant and horribly unnecessary.
I don't want Microsoft apps on Linux! They'll give me the blue screen of death! Ha ha, get it? Blue screen? On Linux? Because of Microsoft? Ahahahahahaha! And then it'll run visual basic scripts and pop up a paper clip on the screen and open up security holes just like all Microsoft software! Stupid Microsoft -- Linux 0wnz j00.
*barf*
This has already happened. I tried to open my resume, created in Word 2000 ("100% backward compatible with Word 97!") in Word 98 on the Mac. It was an absolute mess. Completely useless. Utterly unreadable. Oh, and it didn't display well either. ;)
Don't want 'em? Don't use 'em. Unfortunately, many of us work in the real world, where Office documents are the de facto standards. Sorry if companies like Microsoft (and AOL, as discussed yesterday) are making Linux more palatable to the masses. Heaven forbid anyone actually finding Linux useful for their normal everyday tasks.
Yeah, they've got some nerve. I never install my RPM's as root. And because the programs never run afterwards, I'm also immune to all of the bugs and security holes that they might have!
Seriously, though, every software developer who uses RPM's has an installation procedure of "Just install this RPM as root." Get over it.
Google found this page (no dirty pictures, but your boss still might get the wrong idea if s/he sees you pull it up) on the subject. Apparently the "Hanky Code" is a system of wearing a colored handkerchief in your left or right pocket to indicate your gay sexual tastes.
I learn something new every day...
As a side note, Chevrolete had a hard time selling the Chevy Nova in Latin America. Someone finnaly realised that Nova or "No Va" means "It Doesn't Go".
I used to think that as well, but I found out recently that it's an urban legend. The Chevy Nova sold well in Latin America, and "Nova" has a colloquial meaning as "new" (think "bossa nova," whatever that means).
I predict that a lot of script kiddies will be very disappointed when they get to Linux and are surrounded by free software. Already I've seen a few clueless groups proudly touting their "l33t 0-d@y l1nu>< d!$tr0z" on message boards and newsgroups, but there just isn't that much software people can pirate on Linux.
Not necessarily x86-only. If AOL wanted to make really cheap network appliances, nobody's stopping them from using ARM or another architecture. After all, they still support the PPC architecture with their Mac client (which was quite trendy when AOL was growing most rapidly) and they seem committed to supporting "AOL anywhere."
Already you can get some features on a Palm platform (68000-like) Windows CE (MIPS, ARM, or SH-3) and just about anything with a web browser. I've even seen Sprint PCS commercials touting AOL on cell phones.