Yeah. I may have overstated the "like a rock" part. Plus, I was refering to most of the benchmarks that I've read, which seem to pit Intel P4's w/ Intel chipsets against AMD Athlon's w/ Via chipsets. I think it may be a Via issue more than anything, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
And just to prove I'm not making this up, heres what Tom's Hardware had to say in this article:
Another factor is the stability and product quality of a system: while all Athlon processors suffered from occasional instability in our tests, the Pentium 4 platform ran without a glitch. Reasons for this behaviour might not lie in the processor itself, but rather in the motherboard design and the chipset used.
I've not read the article because it's still/.'ed, but...
I was wondering about the stability of P4 vs. Athlon platforms. The awsome overclock-ability of the P4's has gotten me very interested in them, so I've been reading up on the recent reviews. Reading them carefully, I've caught a few interesting lines about the Athlon systems locking up some when running benchmarks, but the P4 system running like a rock. Makes me wonder if a P4 wouldn't be a better choice when you want performance and stability, with the Athlon being a better choice when you want performance and low cost. While this doesn't sound like a big deal, it is if you're like me and like to leave your computer running 24/7.
Just wondering if anyone had any comments on this as it's not something that I've seen anybody mention anyplace and it seems very relevent.
I read the interview and just went back over it again just to be sure. I don't understand what you're talking about with the 'one set of CD's for $30'. The 2.9 CD's are only $30, but the 3.0 CD's are $40. And I have to agree with the above poster on this one. $40 is a lot of money for three CD's. Even coming down to $30 for the CD's would be a big improvement. So, could you please explain what you mean, please?
You forgot one major issue: upgrades. Your assesment assumes that no one *ever* upgrades. Um, right. There are not enough similairities between different versions of MS Office. Upgrade, and using your figures, you'll basically have to retrain about 95% of your staff. Because, as you said, they are not learning how to use the office suite 'the hard way'. The way I see it, the argument for going to Open source stuff is when you upgrade. Why upgrade to Office 2k, from Office 97, when you can just "upgrade" (crossgrade?) to KOffice 1.1, or StarOffice. Your going to have to retrain some of your staff anyway, or at least suffer a period of time of reduced efficientcy while everyone learns the new quirks of whatever they are using. Why not then go to something that has a lower software cost and is going to continue to be low cost for future upgrades?
Open source may not be the right answer for the majority of people. But, it may work for some. And any argument about training just doesn't jive to me, if you look at the costs of everything in the medium term (2 to 5 years).
I have yet to find a good voice mail system for linux and have kept all my voice mail functions on a windows system.
This sounds like a job for Asterisk PBX. A very cool Linux, software based PBX. A local (to me) Linux company has developed/is developing this. I've been at some demonstrations for it and it works great as a PBX. Check it out. I wouldn't be suprised if it would work for your voice mail system.
Both Microsoft's and Logitech's products tend to be overhyped. There's plenty of good products by other companies that are just as good and almost always cheaper. Go check out the stuff from Belkin, Kensington, or Keytronic. They all make great stuff. Intel also makes some interesting wired and wireless keyboards and mice. But, really, what's the point of a wireless mouse? You still have to have it on your desk. I can kind of see the point of a wireless keyboard since you can put in your lap, but still. Point is, unless you have some aesthetic reason for getting a Logitech or Microsoft keyboard or mouse, there's pleny of other options out there.
I use a (very cool and blue/silver) Kensington mouse and a great Keytronic keyboard. I love the combination. And I picked up a pair of the mice in closeout for $11 total, recently. Pretty neat.
And that's not even mentioning some of the more 'boutique' mice and keyboards out there, such as the BAT chording keyboard or the Kinesis Ergo keyboard. They can carry quite a premium, but I tend to think they would be worth it.
That's interesting. The only counter argument I can make is that Quark is the standard in the local print houses and I'm sure it's standard lots of other places. So, if it's so inferior, why is it used like it is?
I've used Quark and liked it better than PageMaker. I've not run into any of it's limitations, but then I've not used it very much. I'll definitely be looking into Ventura and CorelDraw some more. Got anything to say about Microsoft's Publisher? Good or bad? *grins* Also, have you ever used any of the programs based on Latex?
The address for the pdf doesn't seem to be working for me. Could you double check the address, please? I'd like to read that.
CorelDraw for PageMaker and InDesign??? What are you smoking? No, the replacement for InDesign, and even PageMaker to a certain degree, is QuarkXpress.
I also think GoLive should have been in your list. It can replaced by Macromedia's Dreamweaver, though. Also, don't forget about Premiere and AfterEffects. Not sure what could replace them.
Just wondering, but is there a replacement for all their fonts and font related programs?
Well, if you look at who all is invloved, it becomes pretty clear why RPM was chosen. Let's see, there's Redhat, Suse, Mandrake, Turbolinux, Caldera, Corel and Debian. I think the Debian guys were outnumbered by the RPM guys 5 to 2 there.
Also, I remember looking at the spec back at like 0.8 and RPM had already been chosen as the standard package format. Why? Because the two major non-RPM distributions, Debian and Slackware, already had programs that allowed them to turn RPMs into their own package formats. Those programs being Alien and rpm2tgz, respectively. So, in effect, Debian and Slackware and others could be compliant with the LSB with the exception of the package format.
And don't forget that apt has already been ported to work with RPM based distros, thanks to Conectiva.
Well, I have to say, I don't think you can judge the Linux Community by posts on Slashdot. Sure, there are a lot of GNU/Linux zealots running around, but that isn't necissarily indicative of the greater community. And the ones saying silly things probably aren't the zealots, they're probably the MS whores that always seem to spew nonsense.
I for one would really mourn the loss of VA. Not so much because I care about their business or their products, but because of their web prescence. Look around. There's OSDN, SourceForge.net, Linux.com, Freshmeat, and of course Slashdot. All of these are owned and run by VA Linux. I visit these sites all the time. Sure they may be bought up if VA went out of business, but it would be a major blow to everyone during the time when everything gets moved around.
And lest anyone forgets, VA employs Rasterman, the author of the very cool Enlightenment WM. He's working on getting E17 out and it looks fscking awsome. Can't wait till it's out.
It does mention printing. It mentions getting HP to make USB drivers for its printer for the PS2. I really don't see that happening, though. What I do see the posibility of happening, is Sony getting HP to make a small and fairly cheap Deskjet that's all black, to match the PS2. Then branding them Sony and putting them on sale in electronics stores right next to all the accesory controllers and such. But, Sony, being as big as they are, could just about as easily make their own printers. But for some reason I don't see that fairing to well in America, if for no other reason than finding extra ink cartridges for the thing.
Well, in a totalatarian system, the government is business. So, in a sense, Big Brother was also business.
Anyway, I have some major issues with 1984 and I could go off on a political rant, but I won't. But, right now I'm in the middle of reading Snowcrash and I am coming to the opinion that the biggest threat to personal freedom is not the government, but big business. Business that seems to be above the law. Or just find ways to simply bypass the law with technological means. Which kind of explains it.
But that's beside the point. I was trying to make a joke. Guess it didn't work.;-)
Yeah. That's the "it's business" argument. Like I said, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in this context. Look at the facts: You can install it via ftp; You can download installation iso's for every other architecture that Suse supports; All the other major distros allow you to download iso's, as well as install via ftp. So, I'm asking, why doesn't Suse provide installation iso's?
I don't think I said it wasn't legal. The GPL also deals with distribution, though. As in, you can freely redistribute the work or derivative works, with the only stipulation being that the source code also has to be included as well. You cannot redistribute Suse the distro, or YAST, without permission from Suse the company. They have not been released under the GPL. They've been released under a different license. They're the only things Suse does that aren't released under the GPL. Why?
And so what if Caldera is not in favor of the GPL? How are they proprietary? Ransom Love said that he *was* in favor of BSD-style licensing. I was under the impression that everything will still be open source, just not GPL. We were talking about Suse, not Caldera anyway.
Caldera releases stuff under the GPL. Caldera the company may not be in favor of the GPL, but Caldera the Linux distro company doesn't have any problems with it. Caldera is trying to become a Unix software company, with Linux thrown in for good measure. As far as I know, all of Caldera Linux is under the GPL. And anyway, Caldera isn't abandoning the GPL. All their stuff will be open source and I'm sure their Linux distro will remain GPL.
I just don't get Suse, the company. Their YAST and YAST2 programs are under their own, non-GPL license. I believe the distribution as a whole is under a funny license as well. They refuse to release installation iso's for 7.0 or 7.1 for x86. If you frequent LinuxIso.org you know what I'm talking about. But Suse released "live evaluation" iso's of 7.0 and 7.1. You can install Suse from ftp. You can even download installation iso's for every other arcitechture that they support. But not for x86. It just baffles me.
Linux Central just recently added a Suse 7.0 disc to their Linux Cental CD-Roms selection. But not 7.1. I know I could roll my own and stuff, but the new Redhat, Conectiva, and Debian beckon to come and try them out as well. Rather waste my time messing with getting Linux From Scratch working, than trying to get Suse installed.
I know. The patent answer is "It's business, stupid", but that argument doesn't make much sense when *all* of your competition is offering 'free samples', but you're not. As a dumb American, what's the reason for going with Suse instead of Redhat or Mandrake, or even Storm or Progeny? I just don't get it.
One other thing, if anyone can help me. One of the most annoying things right now for me is the lack of good fonts in web pages under Konq. Do the boxed distros include fonts that aren't included in the download versions? I haven't bought a boxed distro in almost six months and it's about time to get one. I'll definately get one sooner than later if I can get some better fonts.
And finally, I feel the need to pimp some of the very cool distros I've come across. I've haven't been able to try these out yet (doh. got to get a cd burner.) but they do look cool. First, Caldera has released a beta for their upcoming 3.1 workstation release. Their is a review of it at Linux Planet. The coolest transistion distro I've found is Redmond Linux. Tries to focus on the destop and do away with the need for the command line. There is also Demudi. The Debian Multimedia Distribution. The name says it all. Then there's a few of the more hardcore, hacker type distros: Rock Linux, Stampede Linux, and Linux From Scratch. And last, but not least. The most vaporous of them all. Microsoft Linux.
What? If the FSF loses, then everyone knows the GPL isn't a valid, legal license the way everyone wants it to be. So they write another one. Most GPL licensing that I've read reads like "this software is released under version 2 of the GPL or under any later versions of the GPL." So, then, all GPL code is immediately covered by the new license, which would then have to be tested again in court.
And if the FSF wins, they don't gain much? Have you ever heard of legal precedence? If they win, it makes it that much more easier to defend against other violators of the GPL. They set a legal precedence of the GPL being a perfectly valid and defendable licese. That seems like an awful lot to me. A lot more than "GPL source will be liberated from the commercial DVD ripper", don't you think?
It doesn't matter who wins. The FSF can't really lose. They just get setback a little bit if they lose. But there's an awful lot to gain if they win.
Re:sounds like you want the BSD liscence
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The BSD license allows you to use their source and add to and modify it like you want and then release it under some other license if you want.
The thing that I hate is that people think that they have some God give right to use open source software any way they damn well choose. People making closed source programs complain about the inability to use GPL stuff in their closed-source apps. Sorry, but this was exactly the type of situation that the GPL was written for. Go find some other program that's under the BSDL that you can use, or write what you need for yourself. Don't go complaining that the GPL sucks because you can't use it in your closed-source program.
I've read about people saying that the BSDL is a much more "open" liscense, and I would tend to agree. But you have to realize, there are some people out there who want to help others, but also do not want other's making money off of their hard work by using there code in closed-source programs. These people use the GPL. They want to help people who use their programs, or if you just want to help others as well, you can use their code as much as you want, provided your code is also GPL. These people aren't interested in making some career programmer's job easier by allowing them to borrow their code. Again, that's why they released their code under the GPL in the first place. If they didn't care too much, or wanted people to use their code, for interoperability reasons or otherwise, they would have released their program under the BSDL or similiar license.
The idea of 'intellectual property' is so screwed up, it's not even funny. That's a whole article in and of itself. The GPL is very much against the idea of intellectual property. Like it or not, that's the way it is. What it isn't against is copyright and trying to make some money off of software. But it is, of course, against making money the closed source way.;-)
Also don't forget that there is also a groupware client for KDE that looks to be coming along nicely. It's called Aethera and currently at version 0.9.1. From what I've read it's a fork of a very early version of Magellan, which is more of a KDE PIM application.
I've never used any of the programs mentioned, I've just been reading all the talk about them. But everyone seems to be focusing on GNOME and Evolution without any mention of KDE or Aethera or Magellan. So I'm mentioning them here.:-)
You could also try the ComputerHelper Guy. He's got all kinds of stuff, including Ximian Gnome CD's. I haven't done business with him, but it looks like that he would burn CD's of anything that he can get his hands on, including Ximian Gnome 1.4. It looks like he only charges $5 for each CD. No tax and no shipping charges, but it's an extra $5 if you want express delivery. Not too bad of a deal.
Even today, I'm not sure what exactly they have to offer (though I do know about their firewall stuff). More important is the fact that I don't know of any reason why I would choose Stormix over another product.
Stormix's problem wasn't that they had bad marketing, but that they never had a market they were trying to sell to. They never had a niche that they fit into to. Unless you count the part about the "commercial Debian" market.;-).
Look at all the major commercial distros. They all have a specific niche that they fill. Mandrake: the desktop market. Red Hat and Suse: "enterprise servers" in the US and Europe, respectively, with Turbo Linux trying to do the same thing in Japan. Caldera: they have the Novell compatability. Slackware: powerful servers for people who know what they are doing, and not too far removed from the BSD's. Even Progeny is working on a niche besides being another "commercial Debian". They are working on something they call Linux NOW (Network On Workstations) which tries to combine the qualities of the server/pc network with the mainframe/thin client network, thus turning a network of commodity PC's into a single entity. Sounds like a great idea, aimed squarely at the "enterprise desktop". Of course there is some major overlap with all the distros, but they all do have a well defined niche that their marketing departments can and do cover.
I just never saw Stormix having that niche that they needed to be able to make enough money to survive. Someone else mentioned that they had a lack of corporate focus. That seems right on target. There just wasn't any obvious reason to use Storm over any other distro, for much anything. True, they did have the Storm Firewall, but that came a little too late and, IMO, wouldn't have been enough anyway. Great product, good company, but no market and therefore nowhere to market to and nothing to market to. This really can't be blamed on the marketing department.
Stormix did have some cool software. I've read about strmpkg (I think) which is a graphical frontend to apt-get, which is supposed to be pretty cool and being worked into Debian. Also, from all accounts that I've heard, their installer was a work of art (Haven't tried it myself recently, but will be doing so very soon.). I just hope that their stuff, particularly the installer, is under the GPL or somesuch license. It would be very cool if the Stormix installer made it into Debian in the near future, if only to stop all the complaints about Debian 'being hard to install'. But I've never heard anything about this, so I may be dreaming.
Anyway, that's the ultra double plus simple version of the way I see things.
Yeah. I've heard about E-Smith. I'm just not sure that it has support for PPPoE connections. It also is a server distro. It says on their website that it wipes out the hard drive of the computer that you install it on. Not good and definately not a workstation distro.
I might use it if I ever come into an older computer to use, but I can't do that at the moment. Thanks, though.
Well, ah, what the fuck are you talking about? Are you talking about installing over Cable? Not sure I could do that with my DSL, but I don't really care to. I just want to actually be able to surf the net and download the occasional.rpm or.tar.gz. I haven't been able to do that under Red Hat 7.0. I was wondering if there was going to be an easier way to setup the connection with Red Hat 7.1.
As for Suse, they haven't broken the GPL as far as I know. But they are acting like a traditional proprietary software company with the non-release of installation iso's of 7.0 and 7.1 and letting the cat out of the bag that the Suse Linux OS and their setup software, YAST, is not under any free software license, but under their own Suse-YAST license. Part of it says that you can't copy and freely redistribute copies of Suse Linux or their YAST setup software. You have to get permission from Suse to do that.
I had never heard this until the recent release of 7.1. If you want to read about it check out the news section at LinuxISO.org. It was news to me and completely turned me off to Suse. While this may not contradict the letter of the GPL, in my mind it contradicts the spirit of the GPL, and I don't agree with it.
On a side note, I find it funny that people bash Red Hat, when, as far as I know, all the software they make is under a free software license. Yet, Suse can away with crap like this without anyone saying a thing.
I've got a home DSL connection (DHCP with PPPoE) with an external modem connected to a NIC and I'll probably switch to Cable when it becomes available in my area. I've not been able to get the DSL working with Red Hat 7.0. I tried everything I could find, but I never did get it working. I recently switched to Mandrake 7.2 and it setup my DSL on installation. I was very impressed. It looks like Mandrake would also setup a Cable connection without too much fuss.
My problem: I very much dislike most everything else about Mandrake and after trying most other major distros (execpt for Debian) I've not found one I like better than Red Hat. I've been looking foward to Red Hat 7.1 and its finally here, but I don't see any mention of Cable or DSL connections. Will it allow me to set up a non-static IP DSL or Cable connection with some ease?
Does anyone know of a Linux distro that has an easy setup of a DSL or Cable connection besides Mandrake 7.2 and Suse 7.1? If not, I may have to go with Suse (as much as I'd hate to, with there non-GPL compliance) or just say fsck it and switch to Debian unstable and proceed to become a Linux God. Any suggestions appreciated.
You should look at Mandrake 7.2. It has a reputation for being the nicest home desktop distro. I just recently installed it and have to agree. And I've tried all the major ones, execept Debian, which I haven't been able to install yet, with most of my experience being with Red Hat and Mandrake, beause I like them the best. Red Hat 7.0 might also be a good choice if you are on a network. I'm on DSL and I never got it working with Red Hat after a couple of months, but Mandrake set it up on the install and it works. But Red Hat would be incredibly easy if you were on a network, i.e. a campus network or something.
That said, I'd take a look at www.linux.org and go to the distro page and check out some of the distros claiming to be easy to use. One of the ones I'd keep an eye on is Redmond Linux (http://www.redmondlinux.org/). They are claiming to have a distro that the user does not need to touch the command line to use. My biggest gripe with it is that it is going to be KDE centric, and I'm more of a GNOME user. But, I will run through the streets naked with joy when I can get a GNOME biased distro with a GTK web browser and without the need for the command line. Until then I'll be playing around with Ximian and Nautilus and with every distro I can get my hands on.
Lastly, I'd say that if you haven't checked out the lastest releases of the most well know distros, you should. They have all gotten considerably better in just the last few months, due to KDE 2.0 coming out and GNOME getting alot more applications for it. If you have, and they weren't up to snuff for you, wait six months and try again. Linux just might be ready for you by then.
Ben Porter.
Linux[ because the best things in life are free ];
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Yeah. I may have overstated the "like a rock" part. Plus, I was refering to most of the benchmarks that I've read, which seem to pit Intel P4's w/ Intel chipsets against AMD Athlon's w/ Via chipsets. I think it may be a Via issue more than anything, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
And just to prove I'm not making this up, heres what Tom's Hardware had to say in this article:
So, there you go.I've not read the article because it's still /.'ed, but...
I was wondering about the stability of P4 vs. Athlon platforms. The awsome overclock-ability of the P4's has gotten me very interested in them, so I've been reading up on the recent reviews. Reading them carefully, I've caught a few interesting lines about the Athlon systems locking up some when running benchmarks, but the P4 system running like a rock. Makes me wonder if a P4 wouldn't be a better choice when you want performance and stability, with the Athlon being a better choice when you want performance and low cost. While this doesn't sound like a big deal, it is if you're like me and like to leave your computer running 24/7.
Just wondering if anyone had any comments on this as it's not something that I've seen anybody mention anyplace and it seems very relevent.
I read the interview and just went back over it again just to be sure. I don't understand what you're talking about with the 'one set of CD's for $30'. The 2.9 CD's are only $30, but the 3.0 CD's are $40. And I have to agree with the above poster on this one. $40 is a lot of money for three CD's. Even coming down to $30 for the CD's would be a big improvement. So, could you please explain what you mean, please?
You forgot one major issue: upgrades. Your assesment assumes that no one *ever* upgrades. Um, right. There are not enough similairities between different versions of MS Office. Upgrade, and using your figures, you'll basically have to retrain about 95% of your staff. Because, as you said, they are not learning how to use the office suite 'the hard way'. The way I see it, the argument for going to Open source stuff is when you upgrade. Why upgrade to Office 2k, from Office 97, when you can just "upgrade" (crossgrade?) to KOffice 1.1, or StarOffice. Your going to have to retrain some of your staff anyway, or at least suffer a period of time of reduced efficientcy while everyone learns the new quirks of whatever they are using. Why not then go to something that has a lower software cost and is going to continue to be low cost for future upgrades?
Open source may not be the right answer for the majority of people. But, it may work for some. And any argument about training just doesn't jive to me, if you look at the costs of everything in the medium term (2 to 5 years).
I have yet to find a good voice mail system for linux and have kept all my voice mail functions on a windows system.
This sounds like a job for Asterisk PBX. A very cool Linux, software based PBX. A local (to me) Linux company has developed/is developing this. I've been at some demonstrations for it and it works great as a PBX. Check it out. I wouldn't be suprised if it would work for your voice mail system.
Both Microsoft's and Logitech's products tend to be overhyped. There's plenty of good products by other companies that are just as good and almost always cheaper. Go check out the stuff from Belkin, Kensington, or Keytronic. They all make great stuff. Intel also makes some interesting wired and wireless keyboards and mice. But, really, what's the point of a wireless mouse? You still have to have it on your desk. I can kind of see the point of a wireless keyboard since you can put in your lap, but still. Point is, unless you have some aesthetic reason for getting a Logitech or Microsoft keyboard or mouse, there's pleny of other options out there.
I use a (very cool and blue/silver) Kensington mouse and a great Keytronic keyboard. I love the combination. And I picked up a pair of the mice in closeout for $11 total, recently. Pretty neat.
And that's not even mentioning some of the more 'boutique' mice and keyboards out there, such as the BAT chording keyboard or the Kinesis Ergo keyboard. They can carry quite a premium, but I tend to think they would be worth it.
That's interesting. The only counter argument I can make is that Quark is the standard in the local print houses and I'm sure it's standard lots of other places. So, if it's so inferior, why is it used like it is?
I've used Quark and liked it better than PageMaker. I've not run into any of it's limitations, but then I've not used it very much. I'll definitely be looking into Ventura and CorelDraw some more. Got anything to say about Microsoft's Publisher? Good or bad? *grins* Also, have you ever used any of the programs based on Latex?
The address for the pdf doesn't seem to be working for me. Could you double check the address, please? I'd like to read that.
CorelDraw for PageMaker and InDesign??? What are you smoking? No, the replacement for InDesign, and even PageMaker to a certain degree, is QuarkXpress.
I also think GoLive should have been in your list. It can replaced by Macromedia's Dreamweaver, though. Also, don't forget about Premiere and AfterEffects. Not sure what could replace them.
Just wondering, but is there a replacement for all their fonts and font related programs?
Well, if you look at who all is invloved, it becomes pretty clear why RPM was chosen. Let's see, there's Redhat, Suse, Mandrake, Turbolinux, Caldera, Corel and Debian. I think the Debian guys were outnumbered by the RPM guys 5 to 2 there.
Also, I remember looking at the spec back at like 0.8 and RPM had already been chosen as the standard package format. Why? Because the two major non-RPM distributions, Debian and Slackware, already had programs that allowed them to turn RPMs into their own package formats. Those programs being Alien and rpm2tgz, respectively. So, in effect, Debian and Slackware and others could be compliant with the LSB with the exception of the package format.
And don't forget that apt has already been ported to work with RPM based distros, thanks to Conectiva.
Well, I have to say, I don't think you can judge the Linux Community by posts on Slashdot. Sure, there are a lot of GNU/Linux zealots running around, but that isn't necissarily indicative of the greater community. And the ones saying silly things probably aren't the zealots, they're probably the MS whores that always seem to spew nonsense.
I for one would really mourn the loss of VA. Not so much because I care about their business or their products, but because of their web prescence. Look around. There's OSDN, SourceForge.net, Linux.com, Freshmeat, and of course Slashdot. All of these are owned and run by VA Linux. I visit these sites all the time. Sure they may be bought up if VA went out of business, but it would be a major blow to everyone during the time when everything gets moved around.
And lest anyone forgets, VA employs Rasterman, the author of the very cool Enlightenment WM. He's working on getting E17 out and it looks fscking awsome. Can't wait till it's out.
It does mention printing. It mentions getting HP to make USB drivers for its printer for the PS2. I really don't see that happening, though. What I do see the posibility of happening, is Sony getting HP to make a small and fairly cheap Deskjet that's all black, to match the PS2. Then branding them Sony and putting them on sale in electronics stores right next to all the accesory controllers and such. But, Sony, being as big as they are, could just about as easily make their own printers. But for some reason I don't see that fairing to well in America, if for no other reason than finding extra ink cartridges for the thing.
Well, in a totalatarian system, the government is business. So, in a sense, Big Brother was also business.
Anyway, I have some major issues with 1984 and I could go off on a political rant, but I won't. But, right now I'm in the middle of reading Snowcrash and I am coming to the opinion that the biggest threat to personal freedom is not the government, but big business. Business that seems to be above the law. Or just find ways to simply bypass the law with technological means. Which kind of explains it.
But that's beside the point. I was trying to make a joke. Guess it didn't work. ;-)
And don't forget, either, what "MSNBC" stands for:
The Microsoft National Broadcasting Comapny
If that doesn't put the fear of God in you, or at least bring loud cries of "Big Brother", I don't know what will.
Yeah. That's the "it's business" argument. Like I said, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in this context. Look at the facts: You can install it via ftp; You can download installation iso's for every other architecture that Suse supports; All the other major distros allow you to download iso's, as well as install via ftp. So, I'm asking, why doesn't Suse provide installation iso's?
I don't think I said it wasn't legal. The GPL also deals with distribution, though. As in, you can freely redistribute the work or derivative works, with the only stipulation being that the source code also has to be included as well. You cannot redistribute Suse the distro, or YAST, without permission from Suse the company. They have not been released under the GPL. They've been released under a different license. They're the only things Suse does that aren't released under the GPL. Why?
And so what if Caldera is not in favor of the GPL? How are they proprietary? Ransom Love said that he *was* in favor of BSD-style licensing. I was under the impression that everything will still be open source, just not GPL. We were talking about Suse, not Caldera anyway.
Caldera releases stuff under the GPL. Caldera the company may not be in favor of the GPL, but Caldera the Linux distro company doesn't have any problems with it. Caldera is trying to become a Unix software company, with Linux thrown in for good measure. As far as I know, all of Caldera Linux is under the GPL. And anyway, Caldera isn't abandoning the GPL. All their stuff will be open source and I'm sure their Linux distro will remain GPL.
I just don't get Suse, the company. Their YAST and YAST2 programs are under their own, non-GPL license. I believe the distribution as a whole is under a funny license as well. They refuse to release installation iso's for 7.0 or 7.1 for x86. If you frequent LinuxIso.org you know what I'm talking about. But Suse released "live evaluation" iso's of 7.0 and 7.1. You can install Suse from ftp. You can even download installation iso's for every other arcitechture that they support. But not for x86. It just baffles me.
Linux Central just recently added a Suse 7.0 disc to their Linux Cental CD-Roms selection. But not 7.1. I know I could roll my own and stuff, but the new Redhat, Conectiva, and Debian beckon to come and try them out as well. Rather waste my time messing with getting Linux From Scratch working, than trying to get Suse installed.
I know. The patent answer is "It's business, stupid", but that argument doesn't make much sense when *all* of your competition is offering 'free samples', but you're not. As a dumb American, what's the reason for going with Suse instead of Redhat or Mandrake, or even Storm or Progeny? I just don't get it.
One other thing, if anyone can help me. One of the most annoying things right now for me is the lack of good fonts in web pages under Konq. Do the boxed distros include fonts that aren't included in the download versions? I haven't bought a boxed distro in almost six months and it's about time to get one. I'll definately get one sooner than later if I can get some better fonts.
And finally, I feel the need to pimp some of the very cool distros I've come across. I've haven't been able to try these out yet (doh. got to get a cd burner.) but they do look cool. First, Caldera has released a beta for their upcoming 3.1 workstation release. Their is a review of it at Linux Planet. The coolest transistion distro I've found is Redmond Linux. Tries to focus on the destop and do away with the need for the command line. There is also Demudi. The Debian Multimedia Distribution. The name says it all. Then there's a few of the more hardcore, hacker type distros: Rock Linux, Stampede Linux, and Linux From Scratch. And last, but not least. The most vaporous of them all. Microsoft Linux.
What? If the FSF loses, then everyone knows the GPL isn't a valid, legal license the way everyone wants it to be. So they write another one. Most GPL licensing that I've read reads like "this software is released under version 2 of the GPL or under any later versions of the GPL." So, then, all GPL code is immediately covered by the new license, which would then have to be tested again in court. And if the FSF wins, they don't gain much? Have you ever heard of legal precedence? If they win, it makes it that much more easier to defend against other violators of the GPL. They set a legal precedence of the GPL being a perfectly valid and defendable licese. That seems like an awful lot to me. A lot more than "GPL source will be liberated from the commercial DVD ripper", don't you think? It doesn't matter who wins. The FSF can't really lose. They just get setback a little bit if they lose. But there's an awful lot to gain if they win.
The BSD license allows you to use their source and add to and modify it like you want and then release it under some other license if you want.
The thing that I hate is that people think that they have some God give right to use open source software any way they damn well choose. People making closed source programs complain about the inability to use GPL stuff in their closed-source apps. Sorry, but this was exactly the type of situation that the GPL was written for. Go find some other program that's under the BSDL that you can use, or write what you need for yourself. Don't go complaining that the GPL sucks because you can't use it in your closed-source program.
I've read about people saying that the BSDL is a much more "open" liscense, and I would tend to agree. But you have to realize, there are some people out there who want to help others, but also do not want other's making money off of their hard work by using there code in closed-source programs. These people use the GPL. They want to help people who use their programs, or if you just want to help others as well, you can use their code as much as you want, provided your code is also GPL. These people aren't interested in making some career programmer's job easier by allowing them to borrow their code. Again, that's why they released their code under the GPL in the first place. If they didn't care too much, or wanted people to use their code, for interoperability reasons or otherwise, they would have released their program under the BSDL or similiar license.
The idea of 'intellectual property' is so screwed up, it's not even funny. That's a whole article in and of itself. The GPL is very much against the idea of intellectual property. Like it or not, that's the way it is. What it isn't against is copyright and trying to make some money off of software. But it is, of course, against making money the closed source way. ;-)
Also don't forget that there is also a groupware client for KDE that looks to be coming along nicely. It's called Aethera and currently at version 0.9.1. From what I've read it's a fork of a very early version of Magellan, which is more of a KDE PIM application.
The link for Aethera is: http://www.thekompany.com/projects/aethera/
And for Magellan: http://zamolxe.csis.ul.ie/
I've never used any of the programs mentioned, I've just been reading all the talk about them. But everyone seems to be focusing on GNOME and Evolution without any mention of KDE or Aethera or Magellan. So I'm mentioning them here. :-)
You could also try the ComputerHelper Guy. He's got all kinds of stuff, including Ximian Gnome CD's. I haven't done business with him, but it looks like that he would burn CD's of anything that he can get his hands on, including Ximian Gnome 1.4. It looks like he only charges $5 for each CD. No tax and no shipping charges, but it's an extra $5 if you want express delivery. Not too bad of a deal.
I blame that on the marketing department.
Even today, I'm not sure what exactly they have to offer (though I do know about their firewall stuff). More important is the fact that I don't know of any reason why I would choose Stormix over another product.
Stormix's problem wasn't that they had bad marketing, but that they never had a market they were trying to sell to. They never had a niche that they fit into to. Unless you count the part about the "commercial Debian" market. ;-).
Look at all the major commercial distros. They all have a specific niche that they fill. Mandrake: the desktop market. Red Hat and Suse: "enterprise servers" in the US and Europe, respectively, with Turbo Linux trying to do the same thing in Japan. Caldera: they have the Novell compatability. Slackware: powerful servers for people who know what they are doing, and not too far removed from the BSD's. Even Progeny is working on a niche besides being another "commercial Debian". They are working on something they call Linux NOW (Network On Workstations) which tries to combine the qualities of the server/pc network with the mainframe/thin client network, thus turning a network of commodity PC's into a single entity. Sounds like a great idea, aimed squarely at the "enterprise desktop". Of course there is some major overlap with all the distros, but they all do have a well defined niche that their marketing departments can and do cover.
I just never saw Stormix having that niche that they needed to be able to make enough money to survive. Someone else mentioned that they had a lack of corporate focus. That seems right on target. There just wasn't any obvious reason to use Storm over any other distro, for much anything. True, they did have the Storm Firewall, but that came a little too late and, IMO, wouldn't have been enough anyway. Great product, good company, but no market and therefore nowhere to market to and nothing to market to. This really can't be blamed on the marketing department.
Stormix did have some cool software. I've read about strmpkg (I think) which is a graphical frontend to apt-get, which is supposed to be pretty cool and being worked into Debian. Also, from all accounts that I've heard, their installer was a work of art (Haven't tried it myself recently, but will be doing so very soon.). I just hope that their stuff, particularly the installer, is under the GPL or somesuch license. It would be very cool if the Stormix installer made it into Debian in the near future, if only to stop all the complaints about Debian 'being hard to install'. But I've never heard anything about this, so I may be dreaming.
Anyway, that's the ultra double plus simple version of the way I see things.
Yeah. I've heard about E-Smith. I'm just not sure that it has support for PPPoE connections. It also is a server distro. It says on their website that it wipes out the hard drive of the computer that you install it on. Not good and definately not a workstation distro.
I might use it if I ever come into an older computer to use, but I can't do that at the moment. Thanks, though.
Well, ah, what the fuck are you talking about? Are you talking about installing over Cable? Not sure I could do that with my DSL, but I don't really care to. I just want to actually be able to surf the net and download the occasional .rpm or .tar.gz. I haven't been able to do that under Red Hat 7.0. I was wondering if there was going to be an easier way to setup the connection with Red Hat 7.1.
As for Suse, they haven't broken the GPL as far as I know. But they are acting like a traditional proprietary software company with the non-release of installation iso's of 7.0 and 7.1 and letting the cat out of the bag that the Suse Linux OS and their setup software, YAST, is not under any free software license, but under their own Suse-YAST license. Part of it says that you can't copy and freely redistribute copies of Suse Linux or their YAST setup software. You have to get permission from Suse to do that. I had never heard this until the recent release of 7.1. If you want to read about it check out the news section at LinuxISO.org. It was news to me and completely turned me off to Suse. While this may not contradict the letter of the GPL, in my mind it contradicts the spirit of the GPL, and I don't agree with it.
On a side note, I find it funny that people bash Red Hat, when, as far as I know, all the software they make is under a free software license. Yet, Suse can away with crap like this without anyone saying a thing.
I've got a home DSL connection (DHCP with PPPoE) with an external modem connected to a NIC and I'll probably switch to Cable when it becomes available in my area. I've not been able to get the DSL working with Red Hat 7.0. I tried everything I could find, but I never did get it working. I recently switched to Mandrake 7.2 and it setup my DSL on installation. I was very impressed. It looks like Mandrake would also setup a Cable connection without too much fuss.
My problem: I very much dislike most everything else about Mandrake and after trying most other major distros (execpt for Debian) I've not found one I like better than Red Hat. I've been looking foward to Red Hat 7.1 and its finally here, but I don't see any mention of Cable or DSL connections. Will it allow me to set up a non-static IP DSL or Cable connection with some ease?
Does anyone know of a Linux distro that has an easy setup of a DSL or Cable connection besides Mandrake 7.2 and Suse 7.1? If not, I may have to go with Suse (as much as I'd hate to, with there non-GPL compliance) or just say fsck it and switch to Debian unstable and proceed to become a Linux God. Any suggestions appreciated.
You should look at Mandrake 7.2. It has a reputation for being the nicest home desktop distro. I just recently installed it and have to agree. And I've tried all the major ones, execept Debian, which I haven't been able to install yet, with most of my experience being with Red Hat and Mandrake, beause I like them the best. Red Hat 7.0 might also be a good choice if you are on a network. I'm on DSL and I never got it working with Red Hat after a couple of months, but Mandrake set it up on the install and it works. But Red Hat would be incredibly easy if you were on a network, i.e. a campus network or something.
That said, I'd take a look at www.linux.org and go to the distro page and check out some of the distros claiming to be easy to use. One of the ones I'd keep an eye on is Redmond Linux (http://www.redmondlinux.org/). They are claiming to have a distro that the user does not need to touch the command line to use. My biggest gripe with it is that it is going to be KDE centric, and I'm more of a GNOME user. But, I will run through the streets naked with joy when I can get a GNOME biased distro with a GTK web browser and without the need for the command line. Until then I'll be playing around with Ximian and Nautilus and with every distro I can get my hands on.
Lastly, I'd say that if you haven't checked out the lastest releases of the most well know distros, you should. They have all gotten considerably better in just the last few months, due to KDE 2.0 coming out and GNOME getting alot more applications for it. If you have, and they weren't up to snuff for you, wait six months and try again. Linux just might be ready for you by then.
Ben Porter.
Linux[ because the best things in life are free ];