Ah - the "so easy to install" statements I made before do not cover any Centrino based stuff. I've heard some nasty stuff about centrino. I was considering buying a Sony TR1A but decided against it because of their idiotic anti-linux policy. If I'm not mistaken, when you buy a Centrino based IBM laptop you can specify a different, more linux friendly wireless chip (CISCO) instead of the Intel one. If I was buying a Centrino laptop, I would probably go for one of the IBM's since they seem to work a lot better under Linux (seems like IBM actually cared about that...though maybe not enough to get Microsoft pissed off;).
I did two laptop installs - the first was an IBM Thinkpad A21P. Excellent computer but maybe a year or two old by now. Second laptop was a Dell Inspiron 8200.
- Both laptops do 1600x1400 res (with absolutely fantastic image quality). - Get the 5400 rpm HD upgrade (for both of them). It's really worth it. - You get the biggest bang for the buck with the Dell Inspiron if compared to IBM. Four of my colleagues did their own research on which laptop to buy - we all ended up buying Inspiron 8200's, something we didnt notice until we all had purchased them. Four geeks making the same choice independently of each other must mean something. And we're still all happy with it.
- Both laptops are to be regarded as desktop replacements (they weigh a bit). They were both used as development workstations and for demo's and such. - I put RH8 on both laptops (work reasons) but switched to gentoo on the Dell when I given the chance (thats what I currently use).
Oh.. both laptops were/are used for SW development. I haven't played a computer game for a few years now.. so if you're looking for a gaming laptop, I wouldnt be the right person to ask.
I have never ever managed to install a windows machine without having to go off to look for drivers elsewhere. I've installed XP on four different machines during the past 12 months and I always had to do separate driver downloads. However, in most cases the only "external" downloads I've had to do when installing Linux were accelerated grfx drivers (svga has worked out of the box though).
Maybe you've got experience of installing on other hardware ? or maybe you're comparing to some old linuxdist ? or maybe youre using vendor customized windows install cds ? Must be, since my experience is exactly the opposite of yours.
... I installed XP on my Dell laptop (needed win2k but there were no win2k compatible drivers for my ati radeon card ! ). The installation took ages - had to download drivers separately for my: - graphics card - sound card - printer - networking card When installing linux on the very same laptop - it took me only 30 minutes. ALL hardware was supported without any additional downloads. Thats the difference.
When departing (intra european flight - ARN-ZRH) a friend of mine was first told off for carrying a pair of nailclippers in the carry on luggage. The blade of the clipper was approx 0.5 inches. They made him discard it before allowing him on board.
On his way back (ZRH-ARN)- he bought a swiss army knife with a blade of approx 5 inches. He showed it to the security staff and asked them what he should do with it (he bought it in the taxfree shop). They asked him where he was going - when he replied "Sweden" they just shrugged and said no problem! He was allowed to bring the knife onto the plane.
Amazing.
"Linux has a ways to go with proper support for laptops". - This is not relevant in this case. If you're a customer who's willing to buy 130000 laptops, you'd be surprised over how much support you can get. In many recent cases (ie Centrino) the spec's are not available to Opensource developers since MS is putting pressure on Intel.
- I think that this would be a good opportunity for the authorities to put their foot down and say no to centrino since that will lock you to XP. This would give Intel the elbowroom to push MS to abolish the current "XP-only" policy currently in effect for the Centrino family.
You might/might not want to run Linux/XP today, but choosing anything that uses Centrino results in a lock-in effect (to XP) that could turn out to be horrible in the future. What if the XP/Centrino combo wins and a virus chaos ensues? Due to the Intel-Microsoft Centrino relationship, you'd be screwed since only XP will run on it.
I hope that they consider: 1. Vendor lock-in 2. Supporting Open standards when deciding.
more relevant links regarding the XP-Centrino lock-in: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/2 9840.html
Oh - and PLEEEASE SIGN THIS: http://www.petitiononline.com/xanthan/petit ion-sig n.html/m
Hi ! it's me again. I just received this to that company that I was a co-founder of: company: Slashdot email: Info@Slashdot.org name: info@slashdot.org regarding: Are you aware that someone online is mentioning that they are affiliated with your company whilst spouting political rhetoric? Check: http://slashdot.org/~THEbwana
- What was it that upset you so much that you had to send this mail anonymously? Was it that I pointed out the many markets are quite regulated or the fact that I promoted the Economist as a good source of information ? Since my statement can be seen as a brief summary of what was discussed in the Economist - I guess you're at odds with more people than just me. Did you try alerting the Economist to the fact that they are "spouting political rethoric" as well?
If you're going to attempt to cause problems for someone within a company - please check their position within that company first. But then again - if you had half a brain I wouldn't be writing this.
- Whats free about a market where the government dictates prices, hinders you from using various financial instruments for mitigating risks etc.? The US electricity market is merely a bastardized version of the 5 year plans the USSR were so famous for. The same goes for most of the other so-called free markets. This is not the failure of a de-regulated market but more that of a failure to privatize them.
The Economist carried a few very enlightening articles recently on this - however, they were not free (so no url's for you):-(
...you could only get their "official" (j2me) development tools from Metrowerks... one thing though:they dont run under Linux (!). So - they expect you to develop platform independent java apps that deploys on a Linux based device by using a Windowsbased ide. Stupid or what? They should take a look at what Nokia is doing.. series 40/60 symbian ide? - download their ide (based on Forte/NetBeans) for free, develop under Linux and deploy to the device without having to artificially and needlessly introduce another OS in the equation.. Wake up Motorola!/m
The problem is that this student will leave university with a CV that reads MS-only. When I get a CV that is MS only (for SW developer, SW engineering positions) it goes straight in the dustbin as my previous experience tells me that hiring people with this type of CV results in improductive teams who have _one_ hammer that they are frantically trying to apply to every problem. In the real world - system environments are heterogenous. People who've only experienced one type of environment are like interpreters (in RL) who only know how to speak one language. Students should be exposed to one or two operating systems and their related development tools (including MS Windows) during each year of their studies.
We have as a population (here in the States) decided that the cost to the individual and society for tabacco smoking is such that we have decided to restrict its use. Mainly because the effects of second hand smoke and the increase in health problems raise everybodies insurance cost. Essentially we all pay for the habits of a few.
I recently saw a study that claimed that the costs associated with smoking (for society as a whole) would actually increase if all smokers would quit. This was due to the fact that smokers would end up in a coffin before they started to claim their pension.
yeah.. hmmm.. ok.. 2000th post!!:-) - The people I've talked to who've tried and failed obviously must have answered something wrong when configuring x, had a new graphic card or something similar. Basically they get everything installed and x fails. After this they have all given up since reconfiguring is beyond their knowledge. If configuring X or reconfiguring X was easy, I'm convinced that a lot more people would use Linux. Instead, they get the impression that Linux is simply beyond their grasp since everything must be as hard as configuring X (ie editing obscure config files etc.) Some of the people I've been talking to are Solaris admins - but they seem to hit that XFree86 wall anyway. This is not good. I handed one of them a copy of Knoppix today.. will see what happens..
Configuring X is the worst thing with Linux PERIOD. While accustomed users can get it to work - newbies are often left stranded before they even get to try out Linux. A lot of people really want to try Linux but they never get past the X config. Just think of the improvements in general usability over the last few years (gnome/kde etc.) and compare that to how XFree86 has been evolving.
This is probably going to trigger comments such as: why dont you contribute then?? - well: 1. Lack of time 2. Are contributions actually welcome? we read a lot of stuff now and again about how the XFree86 crowd are blocking patches, rumours of forking etc. When people are forced to fork just to get excellent patches in theres something wrong.
They dont migrate away from zos to linux. They migrate from win and various unices to linuximages running in lpars on zos machines.
- This means that they need zos operators to setup the zos environment and linuxadmins to run the linux images running on the zos machine. The problem lies in the availability of zos veterans who didnt stop learning things 10-20 years ago (and who are not retiring within the next couple of months). These veterans are needed to setup the system lpars, wlm, etc etc to provide the logical areas where linux is supposed to run. If this is not done properly, there will be no benefit in running Linux on zos compared to running Linux on i86 clusters -> IBM will sell less zos hardware.
The biggest problem for IBM (IMHO) is that it's so hard to get mainframe experience -> no one learns the platform -> they sell less hardware. I recently saw a WebSphere zos assignment in London paying 2500 GBP / day. That's roughly 90 000 usd / month, clearly reflecting the supply and demand situation in this market segment. If IBM wants to continue selling their zos hardware they will have to give the slashdot crowd an easy and cheap route to gaining mainframe skills./m
Re:cool..
on
FCC Goes WiFi
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
hehe.. or for concealing the identity of logged on people (by providing an anonymous service) - isn't that illegal in some states now ? I remember hearing the brouhaha about nat'ing becoming illegal due to this.. Would be fun if the first ISP to be tried in court was the FCC:-)/m
So they're becoming an Isp? - Great! Maybe that will give them some exposure to the legal/privacy problems arising from all those nutty anti-privacy and drm bills pushed through in Washington..
www.jobserve.com - took me three months to get a contract (based in europe - starting a new contract next week). - It would have taken me approx one month to get a permanent position (since that's as long as it took to get the first job offer). Most statistics I've seen relating to the unemployment level in the US shows that the rate of unemployment is lower in the US than in EU. - Something must be wrong? Do you live in a region with high unemployment? how about relocating to a different part of the US or to some other country? Your skillset?
Calculated on the same basis - using the same definitions of what constitutes unemployment (who is included in the survey to start with, what constitutes an active job seeker etc.), Sweden has approximately 16 % unemployment when using the same criterias as used when calculating the US statistic. You're comparing apples and pears here.
This is incredible. - As soon as some lawyer puts out a statement containing technical errors (usually in conjunction with copyright, p2p etc.) the Slashdot crowd berates that lawyer for not having done his/her research on the given technology. This is also the generally accepted way of asking newsgroups for help, when working with something for the first time (basic research first, then bother people on the mailinglists). However, as soon as it comes to a topic such as economics, all bets seem to be off. Without even trying to find relevant resources within the area of interest (in this case: international trade and its effects on an economy), people are throwing out their (mostly) useless opinions without even asking themselves if there might be some available relevant information on the subject at hand.
As I'm now seeing tons of these "protectionism will save us" posts, I have one comment: READ THE FUCKING MANUAL!! - international trade is (in most western countries) dealt with as a part of the introduction to economics. Read something like "International Economics" by Salvatore or even "Economics" by Parkin,King before starting to shoot your mouth off about things you obviously do not understand. Taking economy 101 would remove at least 90% of these postings by protectionists - the remaining 10% will never get it./m
Well...it started out kinda lame - but I think its interesting to see some info on whats available where (since I move around quite a lot). Regarding german translators.. its not enough if you're moving to a different continent. He needs advice - not advertisements.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah - the "so easy to install" statements I made before do not cover any Centrino based stuff. ;).
.. both laptops were/are used for SW development. I haven't played a computer game for a few years now.. so if you're looking for a gaming laptop, I wouldnt be the right person to ask.
I've heard some nasty stuff about centrino. I was considering buying a Sony TR1A but decided against it because of their idiotic anti-linux policy.
If I'm not mistaken, when you buy a Centrino based IBM laptop you can specify a different, more linux friendly wireless chip (CISCO) instead of the Intel one. If I was buying a Centrino laptop, I would probably go for one of the IBM's since they seem to work a lot better under Linux (seems like IBM actually cared about that...though maybe not enough to get Microsoft pissed off
I did two laptop installs - the first was an IBM Thinkpad A21P.
Excellent computer but maybe a year or two old by now.
Second laptop was a Dell Inspiron 8200.
- Both laptops do 1600x1400 res (with absolutely fantastic image quality).
- Get the 5400 rpm HD upgrade (for both of them). It's really worth it.
- You get the biggest bang for the buck with the Dell Inspiron if compared to IBM. Four of my colleagues did their own research on which laptop to buy - we all ended up buying Inspiron 8200's, something we didnt notice until we all had purchased them. Four geeks making the same choice independently of each other must mean something. And we're still all happy with it.
- Both laptops are to be regarded as desktop replacements (they weigh a bit). They were both used as development workstations and for demo's and such.
- I put RH8 on both laptops (work reasons) but switched to gentoo on the Dell when I given the chance (thats what I currently use).
Oh
I have never ever managed to install a windows machine without having to go off to look for drivers elsewhere. I've installed XP on four different machines during the past 12 months and I always had to do separate driver downloads.
However, in most cases the only "external" downloads I've had to do when installing Linux were accelerated grfx drivers (svga has worked out of the box though).
Maybe you've got experience of installing on other hardware ? or maybe you're comparing to some old linuxdist ? or maybe youre using vendor customized windows install cds ?
Must be, since my experience is exactly the opposite of yours.
... I installed XP on my Dell laptop (needed win2k but there were no win2k compatible drivers for my ati radeon card ! ). The installation took ages - had to download drivers separately for my:
- graphics card
- sound card
- printer
- networking card
When installing linux on the very same laptop - it took me only 30 minutes. ALL hardware was supported without any additional downloads.
Thats the difference.
When departing (intra european flight - ARN-ZRH) a friend of mine was first told off for carrying a pair of nailclippers in the carry on luggage. The blade of the clipper was approx 0.5 inches. They made him discard it before allowing him on board.
On his way back (ZRH-ARN)- he bought a swiss army knife with a blade of approx 5 inches. He showed it to the security staff and asked them what he should do with it (he bought it in the taxfree shop). They asked him where he was going - when he replied "Sweden" they just shrugged and said no problem! He was allowed to bring the knife onto the plane. Amazing.
"Linux has a ways to go with proper support for laptops".
2 9840.html
t ion-sig n.html /m
- This is not relevant in this case. If you're a customer who's willing to buy 130000 laptops, you'd be surprised over how much support you can get. In many recent cases (ie Centrino) the spec's are not available to Opensource developers since MS is putting pressure on Intel.
- I think that this would be a good opportunity for the authorities to put their foot down and say no to centrino since that will lock you to XP. This would give Intel the elbowroom to push MS to abolish the current "XP-only" policy currently in effect for the Centrino family.
You might/might not want to run Linux/XP today, but choosing anything that uses Centrino results in a lock-in effect (to XP) that could turn out to be horrible in the future. What if the XP/Centrino combo wins and a virus chaos ensues? Due to the Intel-Microsoft Centrino relationship, you'd be screwed since only XP will run on it.
I hope that they consider:
1. Vendor lock-in
2. Supporting Open standards
when deciding.
more relevant links regarding the XP-Centrino lock-in:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/
Oh - and PLEEEASE SIGN THIS:
http://www.petitiononline.com/xanthan/peti
Hi ! it's me again.
I just received this to that company that I was a co-founder of:
company: Slashdot
email: Info@Slashdot.org
name: info@slashdot.org
regarding: Are you aware that someone online is mentioning that they are affiliated with your company whilst spouting political rhetoric? Check: http://slashdot.org/~THEbwana
- What was it that upset you so much that you had to send this mail anonymously? Was it that I pointed out the many markets are quite regulated or the fact that I promoted the Economist as a good source of information ? Since my statement can be seen as a brief summary of what was discussed in the Economist - I guess you're at odds with more people than just me. Did you try alerting the Economist to the fact that they are "spouting political rethoric" as well?
If you're going to attempt to cause problems for someone within a company - please check their position within that company first. But then again - if you had half a brain I wouldn't be writing this.
Nail hit _into_ head.
:-(
- Whats free about a market where the government dictates prices, hinders you from using various financial instruments for mitigating risks etc.?
The US electricity market is merely a bastardized version of the 5 year plans the USSR were so famous for. The same goes for most of the other so-called free markets.
This is not the failure of a de-regulated market but more that of a failure to privatize them.
The Economist carried a few very enlightening articles recently on this - however, they were not free (so no url's for you)
...you could only get their "official" (j2me) development tools from Metrowerks... one thing though:they dont run under Linux (!). /m
So - they expect you to develop platform independent java apps that deploys on a Linux based device by using a Windowsbased ide. Stupid or what?
They should take a look at what Nokia is doing.. series 40/60 symbian ide? - download their ide (based on Forte/NetBeans) for free, develop under Linux and deploy to the device without having to artificially and needlessly introduce another OS in the equation..
Wake up Motorola!
The problem is that this student will leave university with a CV that reads MS-only. When I get a CV that is MS only (for SW developer, SW engineering positions) it goes straight in the dustbin as my previous experience tells me that hiring people with this type of CV results in improductive teams who have _one_ hammer that they are frantically trying to apply to every problem. In the real world - system environments are heterogenous. People who've only experienced one type of environment are like interpreters (in RL) who only know how to speak one language.
Students should be exposed to one or two operating systems and their related development tools (including MS Windows) during each year of their studies.
We have as a population (here in the States) decided that the cost to the individual and society for tabacco smoking is such that we have decided to restrict its use. Mainly because the effects of second hand smoke and the increase in health problems raise everybodies insurance cost. Essentially we all pay for the habits of a few. I recently saw a study that claimed that the costs associated with smoking (for society as a whole) would actually increase if all smokers would quit. This was due to the fact that smokers would end up in a coffin before they started to claim their pension.
yeah.. hmmm.. ok.. 2000th post!! :-)
- The people I've talked to who've tried and failed obviously must have answered something wrong when configuring x, had a new graphic card or something similar. Basically they get everything installed and x fails. After this they have all given up since reconfiguring is beyond their knowledge. If configuring X or reconfiguring X was easy, I'm convinced that a lot more people would use Linux. Instead, they get the impression that Linux is simply beyond their grasp since everything must be as hard as configuring X (ie editing obscure config files etc.)
Some of the people I've been talking to are Solaris admins - but they seem to hit that XFree86 wall anyway. This is not good. I handed one of them a copy of Knoppix today.. will see what happens..
Configuring X is the worst thing with Linux PERIOD.
.. first post? /m
While accustomed users can get it to work - newbies are often left stranded before they even get to try out Linux. A lot of people really want to try Linux but they never get past the X config.
Just think of the improvements in general usability over the last few years (gnome/kde etc.) and compare that to how XFree86 has been evolving.
This is probably going to trigger comments such as: why dont you contribute then?? - well:
1. Lack of time
2. Are contributions actually welcome? we read a lot of stuff now and again about how the XFree86 crowd are blocking patches, rumours of forking etc. When people are forced to fork just to get excellent patches in theres something wrong.
Just my 2c.. oh and
They dont migrate away from zos to linux. They migrate from win and various unices to linuximages running in lpars on zos machines.
/m
- This means that they need zos operators to setup the zos environment and linuxadmins to run the linux images running on the zos machine.
The problem lies in the availability of zos veterans who didnt stop learning things 10-20 years ago (and who are not retiring within the next couple of months). These veterans are needed to setup the system lpars, wlm, etc etc to provide the logical areas where linux is supposed to run. If this is not done properly, there will be no benefit in running Linux on zos compared to running Linux on i86 clusters -> IBM will sell less zos hardware.
The biggest problem for IBM (IMHO) is that it's so hard to get mainframe experience -> no one learns the platform -> they sell less hardware.
I recently saw a WebSphere zos assignment in London paying 2500 GBP / day. That's roughly 90 000 usd / month, clearly reflecting the supply and demand situation in this market segment. If IBM wants to continue selling their zos hardware they will have to give the slashdot crowd an easy and cheap route to gaining mainframe skills.
hehe.. or for concealing the identity of logged on people (by providing an anonymous service) - isn't that illegal in some states now ? :-) /m
I remember hearing the brouhaha about nat'ing becoming illegal due to this.. Would be fun if the first ISP to be tried in court was the FCC
So they're becoming an Isp? - Great! Maybe that will give them some exposure to the legal/privacy problems arising from all those nutty anti-privacy and drm bills pushed through in Washington..
It doesnt have to be like that. Come and join us in Switzerland - let someone else can pay for a change.
Grüss!
www.jobserve.com
- took me three months to get a contract (based in europe - starting a new contract next week). - It would have taken me approx one month to get a permanent position (since that's as long as it took to get the first job offer).
Most statistics I've seen relating to the unemployment level in the US shows that the rate of unemployment is lower in the US than in EU.
- Something must be wrong? Do you live in a region with high unemployment? how about relocating to a different part of the US or to some other country? Your skillset?
The only ones I know of who does this is the European Union (for all their permanent positions). /m
when I was in the army.. :-)
True innovation!
Calculated on the same basis - using the same definitions of what constitutes unemployment (who is included in the survey to start with, what constitutes an active job seeker etc.), Sweden has approximately 16 % unemployment when using the same criterias as used when calculating the US statistic. You're comparing apples and pears here.
This is incredible.
/m
- As soon as some lawyer puts out a statement containing technical errors (usually in conjunction with copyright, p2p etc.) the Slashdot crowd berates that lawyer for not having done his/her research on the given technology. This is also the generally accepted way of asking newsgroups for help, when working with something for the first time (basic research first, then bother people on the mailinglists).
However, as soon as it comes to a topic such as economics, all bets seem to be off. Without even trying to find relevant resources within the area of interest (in this case: international trade and its effects on an economy), people are throwing out their (mostly) useless opinions without even asking themselves if there might be some available relevant information on the subject at hand.
As I'm now seeing tons of these "protectionism will save us" posts, I have one comment: READ THE FUCKING MANUAL!!
- international trade is (in most western countries) dealt with as a part of the introduction to economics. Read something like "International Economics" by Salvatore or even "Economics" by Parkin,King before starting to shoot your mouth off about things you obviously do not understand. Taking economy 101 would remove at least 90% of these postings by protectionists - the remaining 10% will never get it.
Whats 411? /m
No - but it does make sound like one..
U got a point. Maybe exchange the volvo for a sauna. Or maybe get a SAAB/Sauna combo?
Well...it started out kinda lame - but I think its interesting to see some info on whats available where (since I move around quite a lot). Regarding german translators.. its not enough if you're moving to a different continent. He needs advice - not advertisements.