Linux is clearly not ready for the desktop. Tell them not to bother wasting their time by installing it.
Sorry, but I don't know what your family does with their computers, but Office, Quicken/Money, and the games are far superior than anything Linux currently has.
Linux is NOT the market leader. Windows is still on 90% of the desktop computers out there. Linux is rising, but to claim them as a leader is foolish.
Point is, in time 5GB's will be nothing. 5 years ago transferring a CD was thought to be crazy. Now it's not. 5 years from now, transferring a 5GB movie might not be so extreme. Companies are trying to protect themselves for the future, not the present. By the time the protection is widely in place, transferring a DVD movie might not be so difficult.
I believe people want something that is as easy to interact with as interacted with another human. There are tons of researchers working on making machines act, think, and respond just like humans.
We've certainly got a lot done on computers without VR so far.
Just because we've done a lot without VR, doesn't mean a thing. It's advancement in this technology that will make computers easier to interact with.
Sure VR is not ripe NOW, however in time, with improvements in VR, it will become as easy to interact with a machine as it is another human. This is inevitable. Twenty years ago people didn't think computers would be as powerful as they are today. Twenty years from now, won't be any different.
With portable devices on the verge, more time and money will be spent on UI, because as others have stated, a keyboard is no longer a viable solution.
Imagine a world where paper and pencil are no longer needed. A keyboard and mouse are devices of the past. This will happen. This doesnt mean mice and keyboards won't exist, I just dont believe you will NEED them like you do today.
Carry a machine around for a day and talk to it. Try it for ten minutes even. Not pleasing.
Sure, if you think in terms of TODAYS technology. Tomorrows technology will be much better.
Look at the research being done with AI and robots. Intelligent machines that interact with people as if they were people.
The wireless LANS here in the US are 2Mb/s, that's not new. However I was under the impression that Europe was a few years behind the US in terms of broadband technology.
At least that's what the stock analysts are saying.
Voice recognition as we know it today, has some problems. However, I believe that since humans interact by ways of speech, in order to close the gap between man and machine, we need to interact with the machine in the same way we interact with other humans. Speech.
Companies like Lernout & Hauspie (L&H) are making great inroads into voice recognition. I worked at a company developing a voice recognition GPS navigation system. It had it's problems with the voice recognition, but was still pretty darn good. In time, the hurdles we see now, we'll laugh at and wonder why it was so hard to develop a true interactive device.
Large companies are doing extensive research on voice recognition. From IBM, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Dragon, and L&H.
Give it time. Voice recognition will be the way we interact with portable, and non portable devices.
. Can they really be afraid that we are going to pirate a disc of such immense filesize that it would fill our hard drives, or that we are going to re-create them on media that doesn't exist?
It's already happening. All those warez sites that people talk about, are now carrying movies which, from what I've seen run around 300 MB's to 600 MB's.
As broadband becomes more popular, and drives become larger in size, this is going to become a lot more popular.
I disagree. It's very easy for a 20-something year old to be distracted. They're on their own after high school. Adding to these distractions just makes it harder for someone to stay focused.
Take the distractions away, and a lot of students will having nothing to do, and will resort to studying. I was one of them.
I hated studying, and the times that I actually sat down with a book and my notes, was when there was absolutely nothing to do. (This was in the early 90's before the explosion of the internet).
Developing production software is a lot more expensive than just 'make bsd'. There's the cost of QA, filtering out bugs in the BSD version, and even setting up the development environment for another OS takes some time.
But the linux kernel gets RELEASED. When was the last time slash was released. It's about doing things in a timely manner.
Tar up the damn directory and throw it somewhere. It takes 10 minutes of someones time. Don't give me this bullshit that noone at Andover has 10 minutes.
Open Source programs like ANY OTHER PROGRAMS are buggy. Open Source is supposed to fix that. If what you guys are saying is true, and open source is not about creating bug-free software, then open source is a waste of time and will never work. BTW, how is this redundant since it was the 10th post and I didn't see anyone else state that before me. Wonderful moderators.
We've decided to squash the bugs and make a clean release rather than rush it.
Isn't this one of the MAIN reasons Open Source is supposed to be so good?
Let the community fix the bugs. Obviously if it's good enough to serve the number of pages you do a day, it's good enough for Joe Schmoe to run it on his server.
Slashdot Mirror
After installing XP it will ask you for a product ID. If you don't have it, it will expire within 14 days.
Why?
Linux is clearly not ready for the desktop. Tell them not to bother wasting their time by installing it.
Sorry, but I don't know what your family does with their computers, but Office, Quicken/Money, and the games are far superior than anything Linux currently has.
Linux is NOT the market leader. Windows is still on 90% of the desktop computers out there. Linux is rising, but to claim them as a leader is foolish.
Point is, in time 5GB's will be nothing. 5 years ago transferring a CD was thought to be crazy. Now it's not. 5 years from now, transferring a 5GB movie might not be so extreme. Companies are trying to protect themselves for the future, not the present. By the time the protection is widely in place, transferring a DVD movie might not be so difficult.
I believe people want something that is as easy to interact with as interacted with another human. There are tons of researchers working on making machines act, think, and respond just like humans.
We've certainly got a lot done on computers without VR so far.
Just because we've done a lot without VR, doesn't mean a thing. It's advancement in this technology that will make computers easier to interact with.
Sure VR is not ripe NOW, however in time, with improvements in VR, it will become as easy to interact with a machine as it is another human. This is inevitable. Twenty years ago people didn't think computers would be as powerful as they are today. Twenty years from now, won't be any different.
With portable devices on the verge, more time and money will be spent on UI, because as others have stated, a keyboard is no longer a viable solution.
Imagine a world where paper and pencil are no longer needed. A keyboard and mouse are devices of the past. This will happen. This doesnt mean mice and keyboards won't exist, I just dont believe you will NEED them like you do today.
Carry a machine around for a day and talk to it. Try it for ten minutes even. Not pleasing.
Sure, if you think in terms of TODAYS technology. Tomorrows technology will be much better.
Look at the research being done with AI and robots. Intelligent machines that interact with people as if they were people.
The wireless LANS here in the US are 2Mb/s, that's not new. However I was under the impression that Europe was a few years behind the US in terms of broadband technology.
At least that's what the stock analysts are saying.
If someone were smart, they would push all that warm air to heat the building. The $5.50/hour could be reduced from the offset in heating bills.
;)
Voice recognition as we know it today, has some problems. However, I believe that since humans interact by ways of speech, in order to close the gap between man and machine, we need to interact with the machine in the same way we interact with other humans. Speech.
Companies like Lernout & Hauspie (L&H) are making great inroads into voice recognition. I worked at a company developing a voice recognition GPS navigation system. It had it's problems with the voice recognition, but was still pretty darn good. In time, the hurdles we see now, we'll laugh at and wonder why it was so hard to develop a true interactive device.
Large companies are doing extensive research on voice recognition. From IBM, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Dragon, and L&H.
Give it time. Voice recognition will be the way we interact with portable, and non portable devices.
There's only so many hours in the day.
. Can they really be afraid that we are going to pirate a disc of such immense filesize that it would fill our hard drives, or that we are going to re-create them on media that doesn't exist?
It's already happening. All those warez sites that people talk about, are now carrying movies which, from what I've seen run around 300 MB's to 600 MB's.
As broadband becomes more popular, and drives become larger in size, this is going to become a lot more popular.
A person who writes a 20-line C++ program is a programmer (they have written a program; the very act of doing so defines them as one).
If I change the oil in my car, am I a mechanic?
If I pop a zit on my face, am I a dermatologist?
If I handle my father's stocks, am I a stock broker?
Why then is a person who can write a 20 line C++ program, a programmer?
I don't buy it.
There are some programs floating around that actually hide the banners. Free money without having to view the banners.
Ohh, did I say that???
I disagree. It's very easy for a 20-something year old to be distracted. They're on their own after high school. Adding to these distractions just makes it harder for someone to stay focused.
Take the distractions away, and a lot of students will having nothing to do, and will resort to studying. I was one of them.
I hated studying, and the times that I actually sat down with a book and my notes, was when there was absolutely nothing to do. (This was in the early 90's before the explosion of the internet).
Besides, anyone who knows anything about Hollywood, knows that most screenplays don't even make it to production.
No, as chairman of the board of directors, Gates still has power.
A CEO reports to the board of directors, which Bill is the head of.
Given that a port of the library is done properly
That's the problem. In running a successful business, you should never ASSUME something is done properly. You need to test it.
What DNS server are you pointing at?
Developing production software is a lot more expensive than just 'make bsd'. There's the cost of QA, filtering out bugs in the BSD version, and even setting up the development environment for another OS takes some time.
QA is not cheap.
But the linux kernel gets RELEASED. When was the last time slash was released. It's about doing things in a timely manner.
Tar up the damn directory and throw it somewhere. It takes 10 minutes of someones time. Don't give me this bullshit that noone at Andover has 10 minutes.
Open Source programs like ANY OTHER PROGRAMS are buggy. Open Source is supposed to fix that. If what you guys are saying is true, and open source is not about creating bug-free software, then open source is a waste of time and will never work. BTW, how is this redundant since it was the 10th post and I didn't see anyone else state that before me. Wonderful moderators.
Amen.
We've decided to squash the bugs and make a clean release rather than rush it.
Isn't this one of the MAIN reasons Open Source is supposed to be so good?
Let the community fix the bugs. Obviously if it's good enough to serve the number of pages you do a day, it's good enough for Joe Schmoe to run it on his server.
-Hypocricy
Wow, impressive.
The guy that everyone is bashing on, actually has a valid point.
Slashdot has gone down hill in the last year. I used to enjoy coming here to see what's going on, but now it's just a waste of time.
I find myself checking this site fewer and fewer times each week.
Let's face it, open forums with anonymity causes chaos. Every environment needs some sort of order to it, and slashdot has none.
(Yes, my threshold is set to 1, and I still read a bunch of crap. Setting it to 2 just makes the threads incohesive.)
Slashdot *is* the Slashdot crew
Give me a break, anyone can sort through a bunch of subissions and post them.
Here, here. I've thought about this a lot. It's about time this subject came up.
W2k Pro runs fine on my P 200 with 64MB of RAM as well.