[NASAL VOICE] It was physically impossible for the apollo rockets to even leave the eliptical that to believe that it could reach the moon is preposterous. [/NASAL VOICE]
IT'S NOT A FOIL HAT, IT PROTECTS ME FROM ANY EMF RADIATION THAT COULD DRIVE ME INSANE. [/INSANITY]
Whew, now that that's over with. I don't quite see how any attempt to get human beings back to the moon could be lauded by anyone. The moon is a nearly limitless basestation for solar energy. The lefties will be confronted with: This is a limitless source of energy. and the Righties: this is a bountiful opportunity ripe for the picking.
And this works.... with individual attacks, the only problem is when 8 million of those messages start flowing, how do you know the originating email? That's like finding the water molecule that was first to fall out of the faucet.
No... I'm sure the caldera startup linux company knew NOTHING about coding for linux, or releasing that source in their distro. And I'm also sure they did release that source even AFTER they claimed to have stopped distributing their source (but continued it) through their OWN website. (ftp.sco.com) Now, if they want to come after me for code I downloaded directly from their own website I'm sure that would go over well. "SO, uhh.... You know that Operating System we gave you for free? Yeah, well it's gonna cost ya 600 bucks a copy." Not to say I'm actually using something as tainted as that, but you can see what kind of legal mockery they will be facing if this ever goes to court (which I'm pretty sure it won't.)
Now, again they knowingly released the source AFTER they announced their lawsuit.
I am glad to see an ACLU article can spring a thread based entirely upon personal political beliefs between two individuals. The moderation system sort of breaks down at this point... Since after a certain point someone will have to mention the national socialist party.
Besides, this is about spam, from the ACLU! I'm tired of spam in general, and the less electronic waste I get the better. So funny to see spam marginalized by petty bickering. This must be why we never get any Anti-Spam laws passed, cause you two are arguing on the floor of the senate.
This is an interesting argument. And At the root of pretty much every one of the ACLU SUCKS CAUSE THEY PERSECUTE SOANDSO or the ACLU is the champion of the first ammendment is a very simple issue. The ethical foundation of the nation.
When you say seperation OF church and state, you are not saying seperation FROM church. Just because you may not agree with the religious foundation that this country WAS based upon. When there isn't much else in your life BUT politics, war, and religion YOU CAN'T say that there wasn't a biblical influence AT ALL. A reference to the bible need not be made for there to be a biblical influence.
For instance the (PC term) social Taboo of incest is not something we just created out of thin air. In fact it is illegal, the christian bibles all have some reference to this as being wrong, sinful etc. Just because something isn't specifically referenced DOESN'T mean it wasn't on the mind of Jefferson/Franklin or perhaps in the back of their mind.
Not that anything our founding fathers did HAS to be hung on to for eternity, but I think the real question is do we want to hold on to THIS specific spirit of the law. Which for MANY years has allowed things like the 10 commandments to sit outside courthouses, or hang from the wall in a principal's office. If a great majority believes this spirit is still valid, then why are we dictating that it MUST be removed?
As long as there is no preaching involved should there not be a historical reference to a religious document that DID have political import, if only on the subconcious level of the founding fathers or should we lie by omission?
We desperately need a physical storage medium for our knowledge. Scrolls hermetically sealed in DARK plastics would seem to last a looong time to me. Or perhaps a digital medium similar to the GOLD tablets the library of congress is thinking of.
And now, I will not. No recordable format = locked in system. My multimedia computer plugged into my TV via Svideo = 10x better than the downgrade. The original spec for the PSX was compelling because it offered nearly everything (excepting wifi+divx) that I was looking for. Now, it would be a PVR with a DVD burner.
The "many itches, many scratchers" is a silly analogy. This is the case in not only OSS but also in for sale products. FOR INSTANCE, Musicmatch, Itunes, Winamp, Windows Media player. Enough said.
What is truly missing from the overall product creation standpoint is a universal bounty system. If someone were to create a universal bounty system for the application of new software ideas (that benefited the donor, and also gave incentive to the developers) there would be a drastic change in OSS development. Now all of a sudden your target audience is no longer yourself, but an ethereal goal list and a real cash dollar amount to buy some more raman and coffee.
Yeah sure, these things are "supposed" to be in existence already (sans the bounty) but I don't know how many projects I've seen on freshmeat with an empty.plan or a paltry.todo
So I'm no professional developer, if I knew there was a series of progressively increasing bounties available for me to freely distribute my ideas to the ether I would be more inclined to spend time doing so seriously. Not all of us are driven by the solution at the end of the problem tunnel, some of us have monetary requirements to fulfil.
So, when can I pick up my own personal mouse with a functioning hand growing off it's back?
Someone pointed out to me.
on
SCO News Roundup
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
What is the purpose of licensing "model" that inflicts more cost onto users than an "equivilant" M$ license. Microsoft is the known competitor to linux. (not that there aren't others, but this is what I get from October memos/Constant M$ bashing across the geek spectrum) as I suppose is BSD in all it's iterations.
Why would SCO present a model that would force a company to either A) move to M$, or B) move to BSD?
For one reason, for most companies who made the decision to move to linux, the overwhelming reason was going to be license cost. (Stability, Security, and Professional development on the part of the IT staff probably played a role as well, but nothing beats saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in OS licensing to a CFO.) Now, nobody in their right mind would pay for what they already recieved for free, and in their minds LEGALLY for free.
So, why is SCO doing this? There is only one reason, they started this whole legal BS to perpetuate a lawsuit for 2 years. Who actually purchased the Linux licenses from SCO? No one with any brains, that's for sure. They have made themselves a target, and gone after a cash cow. Hopefully the cash cow known as IBM won't be dropping them any change, as this is ALL they can be after. They certainly are no longer after DEVELOPING linux, so they sure as hell don't deserve ANY reimbursement in my mind. Besides, what do you get with that 700-1400 dollar license. Support? No. Regular updates? No. This business model is all about the benjamins, and they care nothing about the Linux users.
excepting, that many people have already posted: The usage of this document specification is limited in such a way as to prevent it from being released in a GPL'd app. So YES it is released, BUT it's just another lame attempt by MS to crush the GPL (NOT UNLIKE FUNNELLING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS INTO A DYING COMPANY)
WHY would you rebuy a console you say? Why not fix it yourself? FOR INSTANCE, the PS2 issue with the LASER being a bit OFF after a few hundred uses. I have personally experienced this, twice. But since i have a library of about 50 games (PS1/PS2) that I enjoy, I'm not about to waste those purchases by waiting for a PS3 to come out, SINCE I purchased a refurb (as oft I do) and I hadn't discovered the issue with the Laser yet, I just boxed my old PS2 back in it's original box, put it in the attic and went out and purchased a full waranty PS2.
I probably should have had the first one repaired, but I was in the general lazy mood I get when thinking about consoles in general. After a particularly long day the last thing I want to do is fight with a screw casing, or a small hex screwdriver to get a stupid laser aligned.
This tax on laziness, probably will sell an additional several hundred units, if only cause the average consumer isn't even going to think of having their console repaired.
I'm sorry, I've been using Musicmatch and Itunes consistently since Itunes was released, they work flawlessly. The fact that the Ipod won't connect is just bad programming (or reusing drivers... or whatever)
This needn't be deliberate, In fact a perfect example of this would be Installing Ethereal (in win2k) and then deciding you want to connect to your OpenVPN network. As soon as the fake tap drivers are loaded Ethereal breaks. (Uninstalling both and reinstalling the one you want doesn't work either.) Now just because having them together doesn't work, doesn't mean the author of OpenVPN went and made sure I couldn't enable Ethereal anymore.
Albeit yes, Itunes and Musicmatch are competing, the formats are different, the contracts with artists are (slightly if only) different. Why would Itunes disable Musicmatch (A piece of software, in my opinion, perfect for proving that Itunes is the best music *store* online.)
Oh good god, I hope a greedy lawyer DOESN'T get enough people together to form a class action. The last thing TV needs is more obnoxious bouncing logos flying all over the screen randomly.
Then again, the whole "media bias" and 18 minutes of advertising every hour. I think whatever happens to tv that causes more uneducated Joe Blows to get pissed off and stop watching the better.
Ohh gee let me see, how about you STOP CODE FROM BEING REMOTELY EXECUTED INSIDE AN EMAIL CLIENT. Disabling the ability to open attachments Directly out of email would significantly cut down on outlook viruses, that... and getting rid of outlook.
Our shop has gone to a specialized mail client, which limits execution of attachments. (It has it's own file association, like opera does) And guess what, we were virus free for nearly a year until some idiot brought in a nachi infected laptop.
IANAL etc, etc. SCO is claiming they own the intellectual property of foreign nationals. Yes, the intellectual property is shared freely, and even allowed to be improved upon by others BUT it is still the intellectual property of a foreign national.
Just because you haven't purchased a US copyright, or filed a trademark doesn't mean you aren't entitled to the rights thereof. Patent suits are often between two competing companies (who both think they own the same IP) but at times someone who can show proper evidence of Prior Art can demonstrate validity of the supposed copyright/trademark/patent.
However, the LETTER of the law OFTEN outweighs the SPIRIT of the law in our litigious society. SCO is trying to invalidate the GPL, and insodoing invalidate the copyrights of the creators of the intellectual property.
SCO has no ground whatsoever regarding the true ownership of Linux. Sure, some ancient possibly proprietary (most likely public domain) source is in Linux. As soon as the information is presented in court, the community will start writing patches. It's worthless for them to even disclose the code.
What isn't worthless, is disputing the entire GPL, making the Linux codebase a free for all, and bringing hundreds of thousands of man hours into disputed ownership.
Now, if this black helicopter theory holds any water, then Microsoft (who has openly backed this) stands to gain a lot. Imagine all the endless applications THEY would have access to port directly to the Windows Operating System with that kind of legal precedent.
The only thing preventing them from doing that, is COPYRIGHT law. Who woulda thought, the giant stick they're trying to beat the GPL with, could be their undoing. Who knows.
Well, you have that half right, but sorta not. By randomly selecting domain names and randomly selecting dictionary words as domain names, you will unwittingly have real email addresses on your website (How will you know if it's all random?) I think the best solution is throw away email addresses... that, and capital punishment for spammers.
What kind of statistic is that? Honestly, it sounds like they haven't done enough research. Online games with a gender have been around a lot longer than everquest. Surely they could have had some more data had they asked muddev listers.
This topic has come up several times. Not only that, but kanga.nu polls would be the perfect place to ask this question. Or heck even a slashdot poll.
The commenters AFTER the article explain the prevalence of gender bending in moos etc. But the author really didn't have a whole lot. WAKE UP EQ isn't the ONLY online game!
This guy knew enough to know that the DHCP server wasn't handing him an IP but not enough to ask his IT staff why that might be.
If anyone had watched the DHCP server for the powerbook's computer name (i'm assuming its one of those shiny g4's) they would have seen the abnormal DHCP address the laptop spits out from the ethernet cable. Also, if it wasn't working when the guy worked on it, and then it worked later, SOMEBODY changed SOMETHING. Computer's don't magically start working when they didn't work before.
Lets go through common sense for the guy....
The cable was probably loose, he wiggled it it fixed the no dhcp issue.
He was impatient and unplugged the nic after only a few moments, (perhaps before he gave it time to get an IP.)
He was randomly clicking configurations and found the enable DHCP (or maybe they were running BOOTP) whatever.
And then again, it could be the abnormal mac addy screwing with their dhcp server.
AHEM TROLL.... AHEM WWW.LINUXDOC.ORG AHEM WWW.JUSTLINUX.COM. SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAVEN'T READ ANY HOWTOS. AHEM TROLL. Redhat is easy... SUSE is easy... Mandrake is easy.... If your hardware is old, try older software distros... it's possible legacy hardware drivers weren't tested properly in newer distros. The argument that Linux is "better" that windows has NEVER been a hardware driverset issue. IT IS A STABILITY/PERFORMANCE/AVAILABILITY/TRANSPARENCY OF CODE/AVAILABILITY OF CODE PREFERENCE.
Linux outperforms windows in Cost and in Ease of administration. You cannot base all of the nicities of linux based upon your inability to get it to run properly. It also seems you aren't very forward thinking... Knoppix (slackwarelive etc) would have been a good choice for a START, and then if you could even get that to run (Burn CD-Boot to CD... viola) then maybe you could try running "full" blown linux.
And even the Knoppix driver-set is limited. Oh screw it... if you can't learn how to download some drivers, patch your kernel/run some kernel mods, or edit your/etc/X11/XF86Config then you didn't look too hard for help on the web. Hell Nvidia has their own walktrhough on how to do it to get their Geforce systems running with their (unsupported?) linux drivers.
The process is similar in windows 2k, 1 Right Click (manage) on my computer, 2 Select Device Manager, 3 Right Click Device (properties) 4 Select Drivers Tab Click "Update Driver..." 5 Follow the 4 steps through the wizard (point data location it searches for to the location of the "proper" driver hope windows finds it cross fingers hit next. 6 Reboot.
Fixing your audigy: 1. Download OSS 2. run installer, click next a few times... 3. point your sound enabled app to the right sound device.... play sound.
Fixing your Video: Go to Nvidia's website click drivers, download linux driver for Geforce (whatever if it's not your card doesn't matter... they have a good walktrhough on editing your XF86Config...)
Two ways of accomplishing this which I like. First Having students register their computers (yes it sets a burden on the IT dept) and running a small application that transfers the Mac address of the system to a central database.
Yes, so maybe it's a bit paranoid, but statically assigning DHCP based upon mac address is an easy enough way to keep *most* non-technical (virus laden) people off the (IP) network.
It also allows for a degree of control (umm... no your toaster oven can't be on the network.) Etc.
The second way, is to allow all, sniff out the nasty MACS(ala-snort) and statically set their DHCP to something nonsensical.
This is under the assumption that MOST people who are virus laden are not that tech savvy to begin with (No-AV, no Firewalls etc etc.) You can automate the process with some perl scripting but, this will get you some nasty phone calls.
Slashdot Mirror
[NASAL VOICE]
It was physically impossible for the apollo rockets to even leave the eliptical that to believe that it could reach the moon is preposterous.
[/NASAL VOICE]
IT'S NOT A FOIL HAT, IT PROTECTS ME FROM ANY EMF RADIATION THAT COULD DRIVE ME INSANE.
[/INSANITY]
Whew, now that that's over with. I don't quite see how any attempt to get human beings back to the moon could be lauded by anyone. The moon is a nearly limitless basestation for solar energy. The lefties will be confronted with: This is a limitless source of energy. and the Righties: this is a bountiful opportunity ripe for the picking.
uhh... I still can't tell if dubya wants to send the moon to mars or not.
But still,
And this works.... with individual attacks, the only problem is when 8 million of those messages start flowing, how do you know the originating email? That's like finding the water molecule that was first to fall out of the faucet.
No... I'm sure the caldera startup linux company knew NOTHING about coding for linux, or releasing that source in their distro. And I'm also sure they did release that source even AFTER they claimed to have stopped distributing their source (but continued it) through their OWN website. (ftp.sco.com)
Now, if they want to come after me for code I downloaded directly from their own website I'm sure that would go over well. "SO, uhh.... You know that Operating System we gave you for free? Yeah, well it's gonna cost ya 600 bucks a copy." Not to say I'm actually using something as tainted as that, but you can see what kind of legal mockery they will be facing if this ever goes to court (which I'm pretty sure it won't.)
Now, again they knowingly released the source AFTER they announced their lawsuit.
I am glad to see an ACLU article can spring a thread based entirely upon personal political beliefs between two individuals. The moderation system sort of breaks down at this point... Since after a certain point someone will have to mention the national socialist party.
Besides, this is about spam, from the ACLU! I'm tired of spam in general, and the less electronic waste I get the better. So funny to see spam marginalized by petty bickering. This must be why we never get any Anti-Spam laws passed, cause you two are arguing on the floor of the senate.
This is an interesting argument. And At the root of pretty much every one of the ACLU SUCKS CAUSE THEY PERSECUTE SOANDSO or the ACLU is the champion of the first ammendment is a very simple issue. The ethical foundation of the nation.
When you say seperation OF church and state, you are not saying seperation FROM church. Just because you may not agree with the religious foundation that this country WAS based upon. When there isn't much else in your life BUT politics, war, and religion YOU CAN'T say that there wasn't a biblical influence AT ALL. A reference to the bible need not be made for there to be a biblical influence.
For instance the (PC term) social Taboo of incest is not something we just created out of thin air. In fact it is illegal, the christian bibles all have some reference to this as being wrong, sinful etc. Just because something isn't specifically referenced DOESN'T mean it wasn't on the mind of Jefferson/Franklin or perhaps in the back of their mind.
Not that anything our founding fathers did HAS to be hung on to for eternity, but I think the real question is do we want to hold on to THIS specific spirit of the law. Which for MANY years has allowed things like the 10 commandments to sit outside courthouses, or hang from the wall in a principal's office. If a great majority believes this spirit is still valid, then why are we dictating that it MUST be removed?
As long as there is no preaching involved should there not be a historical reference to a religious document that DID have political import, if only on the subconcious level of the founding fathers or should we lie by omission?
silly ac trolls are for kids.
We desperately need a physical storage medium for our knowledge. Scrolls hermetically sealed in DARK plastics would seem to last a looong time to me. Or perhaps a digital medium similar to the GOLD tablets the library of congress is thinking of.
And now, I will not. No recordable format = locked in system. My multimedia computer plugged into my TV via Svideo = 10x better than the downgrade. The original spec for the PSX was compelling because it offered nearly everything (excepting wifi+divx) that I was looking for. Now, it would be a PVR with a DVD burner.
The "many itches, many scratchers" is a silly analogy. This is the case in not only OSS but also in for sale products. FOR INSTANCE, Musicmatch, Itunes, Winamp, Windows Media player. Enough said.
.plan or a paltry .todo
What is truly missing from the overall product creation standpoint is a universal bounty system. If someone were to create a universal bounty system for the application of new software ideas (that benefited the donor, and also gave incentive to the developers) there would be a drastic change in OSS development. Now all of a sudden your target audience is no longer yourself, but an ethereal goal list and a real cash dollar amount to buy some more raman and coffee.
Yeah sure, these things are "supposed" to be in existence already (sans the bounty) but I don't know how many projects I've seen on freshmeat with an empty
So I'm no professional developer, if I knew there was a series of progressively increasing bounties available for me to freely distribute my ideas to the ether I would be more inclined to spend time doing so seriously. Not all of us are driven by the solution at the end of the problem tunnel, some of us have monetary requirements to fulfil.
So, when can I pick up my own personal mouse with a functioning hand growing off it's back?
What is the purpose of licensing "model" that inflicts more cost onto users than an "equivilant" M$ license. Microsoft is the known competitor to linux. (not that there aren't others, but this is what I get from October memos/Constant M$ bashing across the geek spectrum) as I suppose is BSD in all it's iterations.
Why would SCO present a model that would force a company to either A) move to M$, or B) move to BSD?
For one reason, for most companies who made the decision to move to linux, the overwhelming reason was going to be license cost. (Stability, Security, and Professional development on the part of the IT staff probably played a role as well, but nothing beats saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in OS licensing to a CFO.) Now, nobody in their right mind would pay for what they already recieved for free, and in their minds LEGALLY for free.
So, why is SCO doing this? There is only one reason, they started this whole legal BS to perpetuate a lawsuit for 2 years. Who actually purchased the Linux licenses from SCO? No one with any brains, that's for sure. They have made themselves a target, and gone after a cash cow. Hopefully the cash cow known as IBM won't be dropping them any change, as this is ALL they can be after. They certainly are no longer after DEVELOPING linux, so they sure as hell don't deserve ANY reimbursement in my mind. Besides, what do you get with that 700-1400 dollar license. Support? No. Regular updates? No. This business model is all about the benjamins, and they care nothing about the Linux users.
excepting, that many people have already posted: The usage of this document specification is limited in such a way as to prevent it from being released in a GPL'd app. So YES it is released, BUT it's just another lame attempt by MS to crush the GPL (NOT UNLIKE FUNNELLING MILLIONS OF DOLLARS INTO A DYING COMPANY)
WHY would you rebuy a console you say? Why not fix it yourself? FOR INSTANCE, the PS2 issue with the LASER being a bit OFF after a few hundred uses. I have personally experienced this, twice. But since i have a library of about 50 games (PS1/PS2) that I enjoy, I'm not about to waste those purchases by waiting for a PS3 to come out, SINCE I purchased a refurb (as oft I do) and I hadn't discovered the issue with the Laser yet, I just boxed my old PS2 back in it's original box, put it in the attic and went out and purchased a full waranty PS2.
I probably should have had the first one repaired, but I was in the general lazy mood I get when thinking about consoles in general. After a particularly long day the last thing I want to do is fight with a screw casing, or a small hex screwdriver to get a stupid laser aligned.
This tax on laziness, probably will sell an additional several hundred units, if only cause the average consumer isn't even going to think of having their console repaired.
I'm sorry, I've been using Musicmatch and Itunes consistently since Itunes was released, they work flawlessly. The fact that the Ipod won't connect is just bad programming (or reusing drivers... or whatever)
This needn't be deliberate, In fact a perfect example of this would be Installing Ethereal (in win2k) and then deciding you want to connect to your OpenVPN network. As soon as the fake tap drivers are loaded Ethereal breaks. (Uninstalling both and reinstalling the one you want doesn't work either.) Now just because having them together doesn't work, doesn't mean the author of OpenVPN went and made sure I couldn't enable Ethereal anymore.
Albeit yes, Itunes and Musicmatch are competing, the formats are different, the contracts with artists are (slightly if only) different. Why would Itunes disable Musicmatch (A piece of software, in my opinion, perfect for proving that Itunes is the best music *store* online.)
Oh good god, I hope a greedy lawyer DOESN'T get enough people together to form a class action. The last thing TV needs is more obnoxious bouncing logos flying all over the screen randomly.
Then again, the whole "media bias" and 18 minutes of advertising every hour. I think whatever happens to tv that causes more uneducated Joe Blows to get pissed off and stop watching the better.
Ohh gee let me see, how about you STOP CODE FROM BEING REMOTELY EXECUTED INSIDE AN EMAIL CLIENT. Disabling the ability to open attachments Directly out of email would significantly cut down on outlook viruses, that... and getting rid of outlook.
Our shop has gone to a specialized mail client, which limits execution of attachments. (It has it's own file association, like opera does) And guess what, we were virus free for nearly a year until some idiot brought in a nachi infected laptop.
wget -r http://www.whitehouse.gov
IANAL etc, etc.
SCO is claiming they own the intellectual property of foreign nationals. Yes, the intellectual property is shared freely, and even allowed to be improved upon by others BUT it is still the intellectual property of a foreign national.
Just because you haven't purchased a US copyright, or filed a trademark doesn't mean you aren't entitled to the rights thereof. Patent suits are often between two competing companies (who both think they own the same IP) but at times someone who can show proper evidence of Prior Art can demonstrate validity of the supposed copyright/trademark/patent.
However, the LETTER of the law OFTEN outweighs the SPIRIT of the law in our litigious society. SCO is trying to invalidate the GPL, and insodoing invalidate the copyrights of the creators of the intellectual property.
SCO has no ground whatsoever regarding the true ownership of Linux. Sure, some ancient possibly proprietary (most likely public domain) source is in Linux. As soon as the information is presented in court, the community will start writing patches. It's worthless for them to even disclose the code.
What isn't worthless, is disputing the entire GPL, making the Linux codebase a free for all, and bringing hundreds of thousands of man hours into disputed ownership.
Now, if this black helicopter theory holds any water, then Microsoft (who has openly backed this) stands to gain a lot. Imagine all the endless applications THEY would have access to port directly to the Windows Operating System with that kind of legal precedent.
The only thing preventing them from doing that, is COPYRIGHT law. Who woulda thought, the giant stick they're trying to beat the GPL with, could be their undoing. Who knows.
END OF RANT
Well, you have that half right, but sorta not. By randomly selecting domain names and randomly selecting dictionary words as domain names, you will unwittingly have real email addresses on your website (How will you know if it's all random?) I think the best solution is throw away email addresses... that, and capital punishment for spammers.
What kind of statistic is that? Honestly, it sounds like they haven't done enough research. Online games with a gender have been around a lot longer than everquest. Surely they could have had some more data had they asked muddev listers.
This topic has come up several times. Not only that, but kanga.nu polls would be the perfect place to ask this question. Or heck even a slashdot poll.
The commenters AFTER the article explain the prevalence of gender bending in moos etc. But the author really didn't have a whole lot. WAKE UP EQ isn't the ONLY online game!
This guy knew enough to know that the DHCP server wasn't handing him an IP but not enough to ask his IT staff why that might be.
If anyone had watched the DHCP server for the powerbook's computer name (i'm assuming its one of those shiny g4's) they would have seen the abnormal DHCP address the laptop spits out from the ethernet cable. Also, if it wasn't working when the guy worked on it, and then it worked later, SOMEBODY changed SOMETHING. Computer's don't magically start working when they didn't work before.
Lets go through common sense for the guy....
The cable was probably loose, he wiggled it it fixed the no dhcp issue.
He was impatient and unplugged the nic after only a few moments, (perhaps before he gave it time to get an IP.)
He was randomly clicking configurations and found the enable DHCP (or maybe they were running BOOTP) whatever.
And then again, it could be the abnormal mac addy screwing with their dhcp server.
Whatever, this guy wasn't all that savvy.
AHEM TROLL.... AHEM WWW.LINUXDOC.ORG AHEM WWW.JUSTLINUX.COM. SOUNDS LIKE YOU HAVEN'T READ ANY HOWTOS. AHEM TROLL. Redhat is easy... SUSE is easy... Mandrake is easy.... If your hardware is old, try older software distros... it's possible legacy hardware drivers weren't tested properly in newer distros. The argument that Linux is "better" that windows has NEVER been a hardware driverset issue. IT IS A STABILITY/PERFORMANCE/AVAILABILITY/TRANSPARENCY OF CODE/AVAILABILITY OF CODE PREFERENCE.
/etc/X11/XF86Config then you didn't look too hard for help on the web. Hell Nvidia has their own walktrhough on how to do it to get their Geforce systems running with their (unsupported?) linux drivers.
.... play sound.
Linux outperforms windows in Cost and in Ease of administration. You cannot base all of the nicities of linux based upon your inability to get it to run properly. It also seems you aren't very forward thinking... Knoppix (slackwarelive etc) would have been a good choice for a START, and then if you could even get that to run (Burn CD-Boot to CD... viola) then maybe you could try running "full" blown linux.
And even the Knoppix driver-set is limited. Oh screw it... if you can't learn how to download some drivers, patch your kernel/run some kernel mods, or edit your
The process is similar in windows 2k, 1 Right Click (manage) on my computer, 2 Select Device Manager, 3 Right Click Device (properties) 4 Select Drivers Tab Click "Update Driver..." 5 Follow the 4 steps through the wizard (point data location it searches for to the location of the "proper" driver hope windows finds it cross fingers hit next. 6 Reboot.
Fixing your audigy: 1. Download OSS 2. run installer, click next a few times... 3. point your sound enabled app to the right sound device
Fixing your Video: Go to Nvidia's website click drivers, download linux driver for Geforce (whatever if it's not your card doesn't matter... they have a good walktrhough on editing your XF86Config...)
Fixing your Ethernet Card: 1. Find Kernel module for Nic. 2. Download/tar -zxvf module. 3. Compile module 4. insmod 5. netcfg
Also... noticing the priority of your devices... The network card should be first... Linux is 100x better with a network card.
YOU SURE ARE ONE UPPITY NOOB. SOMEONE MOD PARENT AND THIS POST DOWN... WAAAAY DOWN.
Two ways of accomplishing this which I like. First Having students register their computers (yes it sets a burden on the IT dept) and running a small application that transfers the Mac address of the system to a central database.
Yes, so maybe it's a bit paranoid, but statically assigning DHCP based upon mac address is an easy enough way to keep *most* non-technical (virus laden) people off the (IP) network.
It also allows for a degree of control (umm... no your toaster oven can't be on the network.) Etc.
The second way, is to allow all, sniff out the nasty MACS(ala-snort) and statically set their DHCP to something nonsensical.
This is under the assumption that MOST people who are virus laden are not that tech savvy to begin with (No-AV, no Firewalls etc etc.) You can automate the process with some perl scripting but, this will get you some nasty phone calls.