I completely agree with you. A good keyboard controlled UI is really what's needed, it can still be graphical of course, but every function should be able to reach keyboard-wise. Either using the menus (ALT-) or a regular shortcut. Many of the "organic" interfaces don't even seem to have a menubar, and no keyboard shortcuts either (I'm not sure how this application works, it might be nice, but it looks like many other organic apps).
Apple: Having an UI that makes users want lick on their screen is not only good. The screen can get dirty;-)// Simon
RedHat just isn't what it used to be... It should
really embarass them to release a product with
a bug like this one...
I'm beginning to wonder weather RedHat, and
a few other distros, are racing each other to
have the highest version-number. Sacrifing testing
too in the process, iot seems. It up at 7.0 now,
when will we have 10.0?
Debian on the other hand is still on 2.2, and
seems VERY stable. I'm sticking with debian:-)
On the shutdown-menu, where's the possibility to use the keyboard to check an option? That has been possible in windows forever, but it seems they have removed the keyboard shortcuts there... Oh my.
Another thing... Have anyone managed to go to the themes.org-site? I'm having trouble with all VA-powered sites, linux.com, themes.org and sourceforge.net... Or is it just me?
Knowing that you are one of the original Emacs developers, what features/enhancments are we to expect from Emacs in the near future? Also, how is development affected when working on such an old project? Things like coding-style and such?// Simon
Arthur C. Clarke is a really good author. I've read just about everything he've done, and most of it is just excellent. If you'd ask me he had his best days in the late 60's through to the early 70ies when he published 2001 (read the book to understand the film!) and Rendezvouz with Rama.
Arthur C. Clarke is also a rather cool person. He were using global computer communication long before WWW and such. Add to all this that he really knows what he's writing about, as he has some sort of Ph.D (not sure in what, but he was one was involved in the early development of the Radar).
I think the price of developing software for a supercomputer could be quite high, and using Linux could potentially be a LOT cheaper than developing an entierly own OS, or buying SGIs stuff..
X isnt fast on a 486, but what GUI is? WinNT is certainly NOT faster than X is.
One area where Linux really can make a change is for computing in developing countries. Ok, this was a supercomputer, and the main cost here is probably hardware related.
However, in the more general case Linux has a real advantage because it is free. First, buying a commercial OS with source code is likely to be VERY expensive. Linux, free in both senses of the word, on the other hand, comes with the complete source ready for tweaking.
Another good thing about Linux is that it runs on cheap hardware, which I would believe to be good for developing countries. You'd get a lot of 486:s for the price of one Athlon-blabla mhz computer.
So hopefully Linux will make the world smaller and more accessible for people without the material wealth of western europe / USA.
The thing is not about China, but about the chinese government. Chinese endorsment can certainly be a good thing, but government backing from china isn't always that good....
Well, I wouldn't expect the Chineese to ban W2000 than I'd expect USA to ban all forms of Linux. Still, if the adoption of Linux would be true - despite the rumours about W200 - it would certainly be rather interesting politically.
The government in China is certainly not a nice government, and to have Linux associated with it would be somewhat unpleasant. There is a more than a little socialist (NOT in the chinese sense, mind you) touch to Linux, mostly because it strives due to the "communal ownership of code". But at the same time, free software is highly libertarian too, which does not go well with communism.
Had linux been a political system, this mixture of libertarian and socialist ideas would be rather interesting. But I think one should see Linux as essentially non-political (in the general sense) because it deals with technology and not society. The ideas embraced by Linux has been around for a long time in the political system, and Linux has merely transferred it to the technological arena - and proven to be a big success.
Still - the growth of Linux would be tremendous if it was introduced on a government scale in china...
Since I've stopped playing games other than nibbles, tetris and such gems, the mhz-race is something I watch and giggle somewhat at.
What you really need for ordinary desktop apps is MEMORY (goes for Linux too, only slightly less than in Windows), not more mhz. And even so - Mhz is not everything for a processor, a well designed processor with slightly less Mhz can be faster than a poorly designed Mhz-rich processor.
// Simon, remembers his 1-Mhz 8-bit computer...
Re:Functionality Makes It To A Linux GUI
on
The ROX Desktop
·
· Score: 1
You are completely right here. But still, I think my fvwm2-desktop - which has no dnd, which doesn't bother me as I try to minimise the mouse-usage - works really well.
It sometimes feels like the newer wm's merely extends the LOOK of the older ones, while forgetting to implement the FEEL of the old ones. That is a drawback, even if you have drag and drop. There's more to the perfect desktop than dnd for sure!
// Simon
Re:Is GPL the new name for throw-away?
on
Verge2 GPLed
·
· Score: 2
Still is better than not getting the code at all, right? Theese people deserve the same credit as John Carmac gets when releasing Quake under the GPL...
One area where I'd really like to see more things GPL'd is among the device drivers. Having the source for those, I believe, would probably speed up hardware compability for Linux/*BSD significantly, even if it is windows drivers.
All this technology is pretty cool, but I think it will prove unpractival in time. I especially see talking to the computer as slowing things done. Sure, it's good in telephone systems and the likes where there are no good keyboard, but when it comes to the average desktop computer - it would only be a nuiceance. Even in the telephone appliances it can be boring, here in Sweden the railroad has speach recog. ticket orderings, which gets the most crazy ideas about where one would like to go.
Antoher thing about speaking is that, when the user wants a written report or something about that, she / he would generally produce better material writing than speaking (which gives no time to think about things...).
Handwriting recognition should be more useful, but, as someone else said here, keyboard recognition is probably much faster (and uses fewer resources - plus the ability to backspace;-) ).
If it has to be a software person, Stallman ranks high on my list to. The father of Emacs should rank high on ANY list, as far as I'm concerned.
The person of the century in general would be, in my case, Mahatma Ghandi. Ghandi showed the way to change things, for cross-cultural understanding and other things. He's my pick, and certainly not some corporate excecutive...
Great! I havent tried mozilla for the latest monthts. I still think they will make a good browser some day, but it was too unstable when I tested it last time.
One thing that has to change in Netscape / Mozilla, is the speed. Go to freshmeat with netscape, and witness with pain the slowness with which the page is rendered. MUCH faster in IE.
Netscape is also TOO unstable, it can be made to crash just by switching between different netscape windows while loading them fast enough. I still like netscape better than IE, but I can certainly see why lots of people prefer IE under Windows.
Hopefully, and this is my belief, all this will change with Mozilla (once ready). With a fast, stable, clean and small (well..) browser, the free OS'es will have gone a long way towards the desktops.
Banning theese games seems like a gross over reaction, the games are certainly not the real question here. However, the games reflect, in some way, the society as a whole, and that should be bothersome..
I haven't played games for a while (Quake II proably the most recent), and one have to wonder - where is the fun in games like Postal? It seems that fast 3D games have become synonyms for fast gory violent games. Seems unessesary to me.
I agree totally. The only time I use the mouse is in Netscape and Gimp. And really, I those case you're probably better off with the mouse anyway.
I too use Fvwm2, and I've configured it so that I have keyboard shortcuts for moving and rezising windows, much faster with the keys. I also have multiple desktops, so that anyone of them never gets too clutterd with windows (no problem with focus). Further, I tend to choose programs that work keyboard-wise, like Emacs and such, I dont like to be forced to use the mouse to select in menus.
I agree with you completely. QT is much more than a GUI toolkit, and I've found much use for QString , QFile and some other tools. Made some quick hacks without GUI using QT, and It rocks.
QT is through-out consistent, and lets you program in a nice OO way. Much like Java, I believe.
QT free edition lets you release programs under the GPL, and while it's sad that it's non-free under Windows, I think I can live with that...
I especially like Alan's comment about Linux and the third world. Linux is certainly a good alternative, not only because it's cheap, but also because it runs on old (cheap) software. Of course, this not only applies to the third world, but also the poorer contignent of the first world.
Slashdot Mirror
"Chris Gilbert has added experimental ABLE firmware support on cats, please see his mail to port-cats for more information."
We now wait for the port-dogs to emerge...
Apple: Having an UI that makes users want lick on their screen is not only good. The screen can get dirty ;-) // Simon
really embarass them to release a product with
a bug like this one...
I'm beginning to wonder weather RedHat, and
a few other distros, are racing each other to
have the highest version-number. Sacrifing testing
too in the process, iot seems. It up at 7.0 now,
when will we have 10.0?
Debian on the other hand is still on 2.2, and :-)
seems VERY stable. I'm sticking with debian
// Simon
What is this?!
On the shutdown-menu, where's the possibility to use the keyboard to check an option? That has been possible in windows forever, but it seems they have removed the keyboard shortcuts there... Oh my.
Another thing... Have anyone managed to go to the themes.org-site? I'm having trouble with all VA-powered sites, linux.com, themes.org and sourceforge.net... Or is it just me?
Knowing that you are one of the original Emacs developers, what features/enhancments are we to expect from Emacs in the near future? Also, how is development affected when working on such an old project? Things like coding-style and such? // Simon
Songs of distant earth sure is a good book. One of the more interesting ones politically too...
Clarke and Asimov describe society in a way i'd want to have it. Equal, free and enlighted..
// Simon
Arthur C. Clarke is a really good author. I've read just about everything he've done, and most of it is just excellent. If you'd ask me he had his best days in the late 60's through to the early 70ies when he published 2001 (read the book to understand the film!) and Rendezvouz with Rama.
Arthur C. Clarke is also a rather cool person. He were using global computer communication long before WWW and such. Add to all this that he really knows what he's writing about, as he has some sort of Ph.D (not sure in what, but he was one was involved in the early development of the Radar).
// Simon
I think the price of developing software for a supercomputer could be quite high, and using Linux could potentially be a LOT cheaper than developing an entierly own OS, or buying SGIs stuff..
X isnt fast on a 486, but what GUI is? WinNT is certainly NOT faster than X is.
// Simon
This is great news!
One area where Linux really can make a change is for computing in developing countries. Ok, this was a supercomputer, and the main cost here is probably hardware related.
However, in the more general case Linux has a real advantage because it is free. First, buying a commercial OS with source code is likely to be VERY expensive. Linux, free in both senses of the word, on the other hand, comes with the complete source ready for tweaking.
Another good thing about Linux is that it runs on cheap hardware, which I would believe to be good for developing countries. You'd get a lot of 486:s for the price of one Athlon-blabla mhz computer.
So hopefully Linux will make the world smaller and more accessible for people without the material wealth of western europe / USA.
// Simon Kågström
The thing is not about China, but about the chinese government. Chinese endorsment can certainly be a good thing, but government backing from china isn't always that good....
// Simon
Well, I wouldn't expect the Chineese to ban W2000 than I'd expect USA to ban all forms of Linux. Still, if the adoption of Linux would be true - despite the rumours about W200 - it would certainly be rather interesting politically.
The government in China is certainly not a nice government, and to have Linux associated with it would be somewhat unpleasant. There is a more than a little socialist (NOT in the chinese sense, mind you) touch to Linux, mostly because it strives due to the "communal ownership of code". But at the same time, free software is highly libertarian too, which does not go well with communism.
Had linux been a political system, this mixture of libertarian and socialist ideas would be rather interesting. But I think one should see Linux as essentially non-political (in the general sense) because it deals with technology and not society. The ideas embraced by Linux has been around for a long time in the political system, and Linux has merely transferred it to the technological arena - and proven to be a big success.
Still - the growth of Linux would be tremendous if it was introduced on a government scale in china...
// Simon Kågström
800 mhz...
Since I've stopped playing games other than nibbles, tetris and such gems, the mhz-race is something I watch and giggle somewhat at.
What you really need for ordinary desktop apps is MEMORY (goes for Linux too, only slightly less than in Windows), not more mhz. And even so - Mhz is not everything for a processor, a well designed processor with slightly less Mhz can be faster than a poorly designed Mhz-rich processor.
// Simon, remembers his 1-Mhz 8-bit computer...
You are completely right here. But still, I think my fvwm2-desktop - which has no dnd, which doesn't bother me as I try to minimise the mouse-usage - works really well.
It sometimes feels like the newer wm's merely extends the LOOK of the older ones, while forgetting to implement the FEEL of the old ones. That is a drawback, even if you have drag and drop. There's more to the perfect desktop than dnd for sure!
// Simon
Still is better than not getting the code at all, right? Theese people deserve the same credit as John Carmac gets when releasing Quake under the GPL...
One area where I'd really like to see more things GPL'd is among the device drivers. Having the source for those, I believe, would probably speed up hardware compability for Linux/*BSD significantly, even if it is windows drivers.
// Simon
All this technology is pretty cool, but I think it will prove unpractival in time. I especially see talking to the computer as slowing things done. Sure, it's good in telephone systems and the likes where there are no good keyboard, but when it comes to the average desktop computer - it would only be a nuiceance. Even in the telephone appliances it can be boring, here in Sweden the railroad has speach recog. ticket orderings, which gets the most crazy ideas about where one would like to go.
...).
;-) ).
Antoher thing about speaking is that, when the user wants a written report or something about that, she / he would generally produce better material writing than speaking (which gives no time to think about things
Handwriting recognition should be more useful, but, as someone else said here, keyboard recognition is probably much faster (and uses fewer resources - plus the ability to backspace
// Simon Kågström. Enters his text keyboard-wise.
If it has to be a software person, Stallman ranks high on my list to. The father of Emacs should rank high on ANY list, as far as I'm concerned.
The person of the century in general would be, in my case, Mahatma Ghandi. Ghandi showed the way to change things, for cross-cultural understanding and other things. He's my pick, and certainly not some corporate excecutive...
// Simon
Great! I havent tried mozilla for the latest monthts. I still think they will make a good browser some day, but it was too unstable when I tested it last time.
One thing that has to change in Netscape / Mozilla, is the speed. Go to freshmeat with netscape, and witness with pain the slowness with which the page is rendered. MUCH faster in IE.
Netscape is also TOO unstable, it can be made to crash just by switching between different netscape windows while loading them fast enough. I still like netscape better than IE, but I can certainly see why lots of people prefer IE under Windows.
Hopefully, and this is my belief, all this will change with Mozilla (once ready). With a fast, stable, clean and small (well..) browser, the free OS'es will have gone a long way towards the desktops.
// Simon
Banning theese games seems like a gross over reaction, the games are certainly not the real question here. However, the games reflect, in some way, the society as a whole, and that should be bothersome..
;-)
I haven't played games for a while (Quake II proably the most recent), and one have to wonder - where is the fun in games like Postal? It seems that fast 3D games have become synonyms for fast gory violent games. Seems unessesary to me.
(Go Tetris! Go Boulder Dash! Go nibbles!)
// Simon
I agree totally. The only time I use the mouse is in Netscape and Gimp. And really, I those case you're probably better off with the mouse anyway.
:-)
I too use Fvwm2, and I've configured it so that I have keyboard shortcuts for moving and rezising windows, much faster with the keys. I also have multiple desktops, so that anyone of them never gets too clutterd with windows (no problem with focus). Further, I tend to choose programs that work keyboard-wise, like Emacs and such, I dont like to be forced to use the mouse to select in menus.
My setup is further explained on my homepage
// Simon
I agree with you completely. QT is much more than a GUI toolkit, and I've found much use for QString , QFile and some other tools. Made some quick hacks without GUI using QT, and It rocks.
QT is through-out consistent, and lets you program in a nice OO way. Much like Java, I believe.
QT free edition lets you release programs under the GPL, and while it's sad that it's non-free under Windows, I think I can live with that...
// Simon
I especially like Alan's comment about Linux and the third world. Linux is certainly a good alternative, not only because it's cheap, but also because it runs on old (cheap) software. Of course, this not only applies to the third world, but also the poorer contignent of the first world.
// Simon
How does XFree86 compare with other commercial X-servers? I am thinking about features, not hardware-support.
// Simon
This is just what happend with Java... WHY do they do such things???
// Simon
Pentium-optimization is cool, I wish RedHat could do that too. Perhaps Debian could release optimized versions of their distribution...?
// Simon