I'm confused. You first seem to imply it is KDE/GNOME's fault for using a non-optimal drawing routine for X, but then seem to imply it is X for not being optimized to handle that drawing method well.
But I'm sure handing them Linux for free would be just fine and dandy, right? After all, giving out Microsoft software is the same as holding people at gunpoint and giving them a mirror of cocaine.
What happened to the level-headed Slashdot I used to visit in the late 90s?
Michael didn't say "from a manufacturing perspective." What he said was pure flamebait: "$1 billion retail, probably about $1 million wholesale." Please.
You somehow relate the fact that Nestle baby formula isn't as good as breast milk to Microsoft donating computer software. Congratulations on the wackiest stretch of an analogy I've ever witnessed.
I'll tell you exactly what this article translates to:
"Microsoft's profits are way up, but we'll sping it as a negative by vaguely quoting some mysterious analysts who say something about sustaining contracts, and we'll be sure to mention vague 'security concerns.' Also, Microsoft did something amazing and humanitarian by donating $1 billion worth of software, but because I'm an editor on a corporate-owned entity that pretends to not have a biased agenda (*cough* OSDN *cough), I'll editorialize that it's only worth $1 million, call it 'hooking the third world' even though Linux is also given away freely all over the world, and then act like a victim when people don't like me as an editor after I bitchslap their threads pointing out such."
Only in michael's bizarre world is it bad for a company to donate free things--it's "hooking" them, as though Microsoft is holding them at gunpoint to use it by giving it away.
I don't get Slashdot sometimes. Linux and its distros are given away freely everyday.
Why do you want to change the refresh rate anyway - because it was set wrong in the first place? Thats just a configuration issue. I can't seriously think of any reason why you'd actually want to switch back and forth between refresh rates in normal PC usage. That said it most likely can be done using the RnR extension, which allows you to change resolution on the fly (another pointless Windows concept).
Boneheaded questions like "why would you want to change the refresh rate anyway" are why X has taken about 20 years just to be able to change its own desktop resolution--and even that's still not fully implemented.
Guess what, people? Some people might want to change their resolution, refresh rate, or color depth without exiting the GUI. Horror of horrors! It's the principle of it, and that should be the end of the argument--it's something a supposedly modern GUI system should be able to do.
This is what I don't get. Linux people obsess over "choice," but then when someone dares suggest an alternative cut-paste system or an ability to change resolutions, people jump down their throats because they have a different method of using computers. "WHY WOULD YOU EVER CHANGE YOUR RESOLUTION? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR REFRESH RATE?" Those kinds of questions come from ignorance over the fact that for you, everything is fine, but for some one else--god forbid--they want to change those values in the GUI.
If you need practical reasons (and I know you do because you're a raving XFree86-fanboy who wants things to never change), here they are:
- Connecting to another monitor, or a project, or any other display device in which the refresh rate, color depth, or resolution would suddenly be wrong.
- Maybe I want to switch down to a lower color depth to speed up some 3D operations going on.
- Maybe I want to change resolutions to see what resolutions is best for my eyes. I seriously have to exit and edit a text file to do this?
- Maybe I like the idea that a GUI would be smart enough to actually change its video mode.
- Tons of other reasons having to do with someone's personal preference for using their GUI in ways that--gasp--differ from yours. Choice and flexibility, right?
- Here's the part where the dunderheaded "Ctrl-Backspace-+" combination comes in, which doesn't change the desktop size or color depth and requires you to scroll the edge of your screen. It's completely different.
Why do newbies keep calling for a replacement for XFree86? Because these insanely basic features that every other visual interface has been expected to have since the early 90s still doesn't happen in XFree86. And the people who support X on Slashdot hoot and holler about how none of it is necessary. So, most people just assume it's not possible for X to do it and so clamor for a replacement. It's X's fault, and the fault of the fanboys who defend it constantly.
(and that Windows' model is slowly transforming from the framebuffer to a more X-like approach)
How so? Explain. In fact the only real changing thing about the Windows model is that it will be using a 3D hardware-accelerated buffer to draw the screen with.
I have a feeling your post will be ignored, and the XFree86-heads will continue to call X's system of copy-paste "the most elegant they've ever seen," etc.
Yours is the most level-headed, rational criticism of X's copy-paste system I've ever seen, but as I've said before, X users have this bizarre fear of change and want things to stay the same for another 20 years.
Under X, you want to cut something and paste it to multiple applications, one after the other? In Windows, I cut once and can paste as many times as I want because it sits in a system-wide clipboard. In X, you have to do some of those steps manually.
The Windows GDI seems to change whenever the wind blows.
Name the last time it changed. Oh, you can't. There are function calls in Windows going back to 1.0. You can still run MS-DOS Executive--the file manager from Windows 1.0--under XP if you try.
It's not, and XP came out three years ago. None of the Office 2000 installs I've ever seen have had Clippy installed either--because the administrator didn't install him, or people turned him off.
I don't see the problem with Clippy because I never see him, period!
The problem wasn't necessarily the software we were using. Sure, it was horribly bad, and getting used to not pressing the enter key but instead pressing the "other" enter key took a lot of time. After a few days, I was quite used to the software and all the damned Ps and Qs and Ds and whatever else those letters represented next to the jobs.
It was the bizarre sequence the guy had settled into to get the jobs done that was the problem. Like you said, it was a training problem. I hated the guy. I got used to the interface, but I couldn't remember what to do. Like I said, it was literally step-after-step for on average five hours, and it involved several points where I would criss-cross the building doing things here and there. How he had packed all these insane quirks and processes into five hours, I can't even imagine, but he said he had very little training himself when I first took the job years ago. The guy before him was the one who set it all up.
There was no resting except for a 30-45 minute break somewhere a third of the way through. Near the end when jobs were being sent, you couldn't even take a break because they very often timed out, so there was constant monitoring and resending of various categories of jobs with arcane names that were difficult to memorize. And of course, the machine would sometimes crap out which required a restart. It was hell.
The whole time, I was sitting there thinking how 90% of it could be automated with a couple of Linux machines running shell scripts. Not good for my morale! But it was a good learning experience, and it was nice to see the old terminals some of you older Slashdotters talk about.:) I just wish it had been under better circumstances.
First half of last year, I answered a job in the paper asking for people with computer skills. I was told I would be coordinating some database backups and other miscellaneous things for local banks and ATMs. It seemed easy enough. It was a night job, from about 10 to 2 at the latest. I thought it would be fun to try. I was unemployed and needed the work.
After the very first night, I came home freaked. The mainframe was a big IBM OS/2 machine, but connected to it were several absolutely ancient terminals running custom-written FORTRAN operating applications. These things were so horrible that I felt as though I had been transported back in time 20 years. Green and black monochrome screens, strange keyboards with weird keys I'd never seen, and lists of tabular data with no sane cursor control--for instance, to set an option for a certain batch job, you would have to move the cursor down through the list to the two underline characters sitting to the left of it and enter it there. It was a free cursor you could move anywhere over any text--apparently the software just checked if there were characters typed at a certain location on the screen.
Along with that, you set things by typing in "P" or "Q" or whatever else into those little areas. There were entire sequences of function keys, letters to put next to jobs, certain ones to put in at certain times, and sitting beside these terminals a big tape drive machine. Behind me were two walls filled from floor to ceiling with garbled tape names like "PVADGH6," divided by day, week, and year. There was a sequence to these that I had to remember, or I would have to start all over. We're talking bank data here, so it would really fuck things up to get it wrong.
Along with learning that, there was a huge, massive printer I had to learn, and during the process, I also had to go over to some Windows 95 machines and use batch commands to dial in and update ATM machines. I also had to go to other rooms in the building and type in arcane commands to do certain things there, but dependent on other things. I'm barely skimming the surface here--there was an entire four-to-six hour process literally consisting of step after step after step after step, all completely arbitrary and insane. The only break was one of about 45 minutes somewhere in the middle.
The operator training me was a redneck guy who had been here so long, the entire process was completely memorized to him. He smoked smelly cigars, was annoyingly talkative, and was constantly making fun of the gay guy who worked next door and who would come in late sometimes to work on things. He kept trying to What's worse, he wasn't computer saavy at all--he had just had this process memorized, and it contained all his unintelligent quirks.
On my last day, about a week into it, he had decided to let me start tackling things by myself. I get the first few steps down, because that's how you learn after just a week--the first parts first. I'm still trying to remember crap like "set all P jobs to J, but make sure GH828G6 is in drive A before pressing F8, but only after the SHEV jobs have gone through by midnight," and I totally start fucking absolutely everything up with the tape back ups, with the job sends, with everything. He actually gets annoyed with me, and doesn't criticize me directly but says things as he fixes them, like "Now we have to wait because all this other shit is running." I think I was there until 6 or 7 in the morning. The sun was up when I got to the car.
I just didn't bother to show up the next Monday. I collected my check later and left. The boss handed me the check in the lobby, but before he did, he asked me if there had been any problems, if I had been treated nicely. I said everything was fine, but it made me wonder afterward why he would ask, as if he's seen this sort of reaction before. There was a young guy my age before me who also up and quit after a short time (the redneck loved to talk grudgingly about him...no doubt I've joined that
Actually, Embedded Windows spawned from the technology of the NT kernel, which was componentized in 2000, and continued even further in XP. Microsoft is now able to push stripped-down versions of Windows, and in Longhorn, you will even be able to write XML-based installation scripts that will let you determine what exactly you want installed with Longhorn and how--great for OEMs and power users.
Slashdot is the only place I know of where the BSOD is still a prevalent meme. It's one of those things everybody talks about happening constantly without ever really seeing. Sure, now and then someone gets one due to a driver, but let's get real.
It's the same with Clippy jokes, even though I haven't seen Clippy in close to six years in ANY Office installation, and he never installs by default anyway. Never mind that telling him to "Hide" always got rid of him anyway.
I noticed some Slashdotters displaying this ignorance in the last discussion on vaporware as well.
Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 are NOT vaporware and never were. They're going to ship and have had steady streams of screenshots, E3 appearances, interviews, and videos. Half-Life 2 had a release slip, but considering they have to rewrite STEAM and other multiplayer code now to avoid cheating, that's understandable.
Something like Daikatana would be a vaporware release. Why the sudden ignorance over what vaporware is?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm confused. You first seem to imply it is KDE/GNOME's fault for using a non-optimal drawing routine for X, but then seem to imply it is X for not being optimized to handle that drawing method well.
But I'm sure handing them Linux for free would be just fine and dandy, right? After all, giving out Microsoft software is the same as holding people at gunpoint and giving them a mirror of cocaine.
What happened to the level-headed Slashdot I used to visit in the late 90s?
Michael didn't say "from a manufacturing perspective." What he said was pure flamebait: "$1 billion retail, probably about $1 million wholesale." Please.
You somehow relate the fact that Nestle baby formula isn't as good as breast milk to Microsoft donating computer software. Congratulations on the wackiest stretch of an analogy I've ever witnessed.
I'll tell you exactly what this article translates to:
"Microsoft's profits are way up, but we'll sping it as a negative by vaguely quoting some mysterious analysts who say something about sustaining contracts, and we'll be sure to mention vague 'security concerns.' Also, Microsoft did something amazing and humanitarian by donating $1 billion worth of software, but because I'm an editor on a corporate-owned entity that pretends to not have a biased agenda (*cough* OSDN *cough), I'll editorialize that it's only worth $1 million, call it 'hooking the third world' even though Linux is also given away freely all over the world, and then act like a victim when people don't like me as an editor after I bitchslap their threads pointing out such."
Only in michael's bizarre world is it bad for a company to donate free things--it's "hooking" them, as though Microsoft is holding them at gunpoint to use it by giving it away.
I don't get Slashdot sometimes. Linux and its distros are given away freely everyday.
Actually, I think it was just proof that you were trolled...
Repeat: removing the networking code would not make X any faster.
Then answer it once and for all--what is it that makes KDE/GNOME so slow? So we can put this issue to rest by fixing it.
Why do you want to change the refresh rate anyway - because it was set wrong in the first place? Thats just a configuration issue. I can't seriously think of any reason why you'd actually want to switch back and forth between refresh rates in normal PC usage. That said it most likely can be done using the RnR extension, which allows you to change resolution on the fly (another pointless Windows concept).
Boneheaded questions like "why would you want to change the refresh rate anyway" are why X has taken about 20 years just to be able to change its own desktop resolution--and even that's still not fully implemented.
Guess what, people? Some people might want to change their resolution, refresh rate, or color depth without exiting the GUI. Horror of horrors! It's the principle of it, and that should be the end of the argument--it's something a supposedly modern GUI system should be able to do.
This is what I don't get. Linux people obsess over "choice," but then when someone dares suggest an alternative cut-paste system or an ability to change resolutions, people jump down their throats because they have a different method of using computers. "WHY WOULD YOU EVER CHANGE YOUR RESOLUTION? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR REFRESH RATE?" Those kinds of questions come from ignorance over the fact that for you, everything is fine, but for some one else--god forbid--they want to change those values in the GUI.
If you need practical reasons (and I know you do because you're a raving XFree86-fanboy who wants things to never change), here they are:
- Connecting to another monitor, or a project, or any other display device in which the refresh rate, color depth, or resolution would suddenly be wrong.
- Maybe I want to switch down to a lower color depth to speed up some 3D operations going on.
- Maybe I want to change resolutions to see what resolutions is best for my eyes. I seriously have to exit and edit a text file to do this?
- Maybe I like the idea that a GUI would be smart enough to actually change its video mode.
- Tons of other reasons having to do with someone's personal preference for using their GUI in ways that--gasp--differ from yours. Choice and flexibility, right?
- Here's the part where the dunderheaded "Ctrl-Backspace-+" combination comes in, which doesn't change the desktop size or color depth and requires you to scroll the edge of your screen. It's completely different.
Why do newbies keep calling for a replacement for XFree86? Because these insanely basic features that every other visual interface has been expected to have since the early 90s still doesn't happen in XFree86. And the people who support X on Slashdot hoot and holler about how none of it is necessary. So, most people just assume it's not possible for X to do it and so clamor for a replacement. It's X's fault, and the fault of the fanboys who defend it constantly.
(and that Windows' model is slowly transforming from the framebuffer to a more X-like approach)
How so? Explain. In fact the only real changing thing about the Windows model is that it will be using a 3D hardware-accelerated buffer to draw the screen with.
I have a feeling your post will be ignored, and the XFree86-heads will continue to call X's system of copy-paste "the most elegant they've ever seen," etc.
Yours is the most level-headed, rational criticism of X's copy-paste system I've ever seen, but as I've said before, X users have this bizarre fear of change and want things to stay the same for another 20 years.
Under X, you want to cut something and paste it to multiple applications, one after the other? In Windows, I cut once and can paste as many times as I want because it sits in a system-wide clipboard. In X, you have to do some of those steps manually.
The Windows GDI seems to change whenever the wind blows.
Name the last time it changed. Oh, you can't. There are function calls in Windows going back to 1.0. You can still run MS-DOS Executive--the file manager from Windows 1.0--under XP if you try.
Pure FUD in Windows' direction.
I think it's the same for Office XP
It's not, and XP came out three years ago. None of the Office 2000 installs I've ever seen have had Clippy installed either--because the administrator didn't install him, or people turned him off.
I don't see the problem with Clippy because I never see him, period!
Now I have a job where I make flyers and deliver fruit baskets for a real estate company. :) And get paid twice as much.
Give me fruit baskets over that crap any day.
The problem wasn't necessarily the software we were using. Sure, it was horribly bad, and getting used to not pressing the enter key but instead pressing the "other" enter key took a lot of time. After a few days, I was quite used to the software and all the damned Ps and Qs and Ds and whatever else those letters represented next to the jobs.
:) I just wish it had been under better circumstances.
It was the bizarre sequence the guy had settled into to get the jobs done that was the problem. Like you said, it was a training problem. I hated the guy. I got used to the interface, but I couldn't remember what to do. Like I said, it was literally step-after-step for on average five hours, and it involved several points where I would criss-cross the building doing things here and there. How he had packed all these insane quirks and processes into five hours, I can't even imagine, but he said he had very little training himself when I first took the job years ago. The guy before him was the one who set it all up.
There was no resting except for a 30-45 minute break somewhere a third of the way through. Near the end when jobs were being sent, you couldn't even take a break because they very often timed out, so there was constant monitoring and resending of various categories of jobs with arcane names that were difficult to memorize. And of course, the machine would sometimes crap out which required a restart. It was hell.
The whole time, I was sitting there thinking how 90% of it could be automated with a couple of Linux machines running shell scripts. Not good for my morale! But it was a good learning experience, and it was nice to see the old terminals some of you older Slashdotters talk about.
My last crappy job (I write about it elsewhere here) had a Hispanic supervisor who called Windows ME "Windows Mexican Edition."
First half of last year, I answered a job in the paper asking for people with computer skills. I was told I would be coordinating some database backups and other miscellaneous things for local banks and ATMs. It seemed easy enough. It was a night job, from about 10 to 2 at the latest. I thought it would be fun to try. I was unemployed and needed the work.
After the very first night, I came home freaked. The mainframe was a big IBM OS/2 machine, but connected to it were several absolutely ancient terminals running custom-written FORTRAN operating applications. These things were so horrible that I felt as though I had been transported back in time 20 years. Green and black monochrome screens, strange keyboards with weird keys I'd never seen, and lists of tabular data with no sane cursor control--for instance, to set an option for a certain batch job, you would have to move the cursor down through the list to the two underline characters sitting to the left of it and enter it there. It was a free cursor you could move anywhere over any text--apparently the software just checked if there were characters typed at a certain location on the screen.
Along with that, you set things by typing in "P" or "Q" or whatever else into those little areas. There were entire sequences of function keys, letters to put next to jobs, certain ones to put in at certain times, and sitting beside these terminals a big tape drive machine. Behind me were two walls filled from floor to ceiling with garbled tape names like "PVADGH6," divided by day, week, and year. There was a sequence to these that I had to remember, or I would have to start all over. We're talking bank data here, so it would really fuck things up to get it wrong.
Along with learning that, there was a huge, massive printer I had to learn, and during the process, I also had to go over to some Windows 95 machines and use batch commands to dial in and update ATM machines. I also had to go to other rooms in the building and type in arcane commands to do certain things there, but dependent on other things. I'm barely skimming the surface here--there was an entire four-to-six hour process literally consisting of step after step after step after step, all completely arbitrary and insane. The only break was one of about 45 minutes somewhere in the middle.
The operator training me was a redneck guy who had been here so long, the entire process was completely memorized to him. He smoked smelly cigars, was annoyingly talkative, and was constantly making fun of the gay guy who worked next door and who would come in late sometimes to work on things. He kept trying to What's worse, he wasn't computer saavy at all--he had just had this process memorized, and it contained all his unintelligent quirks.
On my last day, about a week into it, he had decided to let me start tackling things by myself. I get the first few steps down, because that's how you learn after just a week--the first parts first. I'm still trying to remember crap like "set all P jobs to J, but make sure GH828G6 is in drive A before pressing F8, but only after the SHEV jobs have gone through by midnight," and I totally start fucking absolutely everything up with the tape back ups, with the job sends, with everything. He actually gets annoyed with me, and doesn't criticize me directly but says things as he fixes them, like "Now we have to wait because all this other shit is running." I think I was there until 6 or 7 in the morning. The sun was up when I got to the car.
I just didn't bother to show up the next Monday. I collected my check later and left. The boss handed me the check in the lobby, but before he did, he asked me if there had been any problems, if I had been treated nicely. I said everything was fine, but it made me wonder afterward why he would ask, as if he's seen this sort of reaction before. There was a young guy my age before me who also up and quit after a short time (the redneck loved to talk grudgingly about him...no doubt I've joined that
It was released after years and years and years. It was vaporware.
ABANDON SHIP! Metallica is trying new things!
First the GC->GBA connectvity, which no game developer has been able to come up with a killer app for, and now handheld with two screens.
IGN List of GBA-Cube Connected Games
Actually, Embedded Windows spawned from the technology of the NT kernel, which was componentized in 2000, and continued even further in XP. Microsoft is now able to push stripped-down versions of Windows, and in Longhorn, you will even be able to write XML-based installation scripts that will let you determine what exactly you want installed with Longhorn and how--great for OEMs and power users.
Slashdot is the only place I know of where the BSOD is still a prevalent meme. It's one of those things everybody talks about happening constantly without ever really seeing. Sure, now and then someone gets one due to a driver, but let's get real.
It's the same with Clippy jokes, even though I haven't seen Clippy in close to six years in ANY Office installation, and he never installs by default anyway. Never mind that telling him to "Hide" always got rid of him anyway.
Sorry, Linus has a clear release date of "5 to 10 years." It is not vaporware.
I noticed some Slashdotters displaying this ignorance in the last discussion on vaporware as well.
Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 are NOT vaporware and never were. They're going to ship and have had steady streams of screenshots, E3 appearances, interviews, and videos. Half-Life 2 had a release slip, but considering they have to rewrite STEAM and other multiplayer code now to avoid cheating, that's understandable.
Something like Daikatana would be a vaporware release. Why the sudden ignorance over what vaporware is?