I've heard one reason WINE is successful is because of the fact that, unlike the days of DOS, Microsoft can't a newer version which is conveniently incompatible with their competitors.
As Microsoft has to ensure that applications run properly on the different flavors of Windows, WINE knew that they had (more or less) a stable API to implement.
But... perhaps now with the expiration dates on Windows, Microsoft can slowly begin to break WINE's implementation?
Fuzion Frenzy My friend got an x-box, and I came over to his apartment with a bunch of friends - a pretty diverse group in terms of video game enthusiasts. I'm at one extreme (love playing the newest games) but some of my friends were on the other, who rarely play games at all. But all of us wasted a good couple of hours with its 45 (I think) mini-games. A great party game, especially with 4 people.
This is true, but unfortunately, this is very, very, very hard. Speaking as someone who's worked in the filters area of a major company's word processor (think what used to be Word's competition back in the day) filters are horribly complex and making a quality filter is just grueling... and we're not even talking about a "100%" one.
In fact, even Microsoft's filters aren't very good. Naturally, most people don't even notice it because.doc has become the de facto standard.
And this is where the situation is bad: if filters aren't that great in commercial word processors, with full time paid programmers, they will be long coming in Linux. Let's be honest, people working on projects for fun will probably have the itch to do something much more interesting and noticable.
But you're right,.doc is the standard on the vast majority of computers today, so have great import filters is needed. However, I think it would be a better idea for the focus of the different Office suites to be a common file format. All the groups - Gnome, KDE, OpenOffice, should really decide on a XML based format and work together on the.doc import.
How are we going to compete with the Windows world, which has one common file format (albeit terrible) when our own different office suites each have their own file format (which will naturally mean even more filters)?
Is there a Linux client to connect to the Morpheus network? I know many of the file sharing programs are based off similar code bases, but is there an free (yes, that free) Linux version around? The OpenNap servers seem to be agreeing less and less with me.
Note: I've only read the first three books, so anything I say outside of those books is speculation - I haven't seen interviews with Rowling or read articles about books, etc.
The books are a series of seven novels, which follow an orphaned boy (Harry) between the ages 11-17. Naturally, teenage years are good fodder for stories, but then there's the fact that Harry learns he is a Wizard.
Each book is around a year, starting with his summer vacation, and then his school year at a Wizard school Hogwarts. (You go to Hogwarts for seven years, hence the series of seven novels).
Not only is there an adventure each year, but along with that you learn more and more about the Harry Potter universe, in particular the story about his parents. Going back to what I said earlier, not only do you see Harry growing and learning more about himself and where he comes from, but you also begin to get a better picture of Harry's wizard universe. In particular, the grand good vs. evil battle involving a Wizard so feared that most don't even want to say his name.
I apologize for being rather offtopic, but what's up with no more quickies? I personally enjoy the quickies a bit, but all I get are these silly slashbacks! What's up?
What's the difference between SGI's ia64 compiler suite (Pro64) and the gcc compiler for ia64? I know the Pro64 is GPL, so why are there two different compilers?
I'm sorry if this sounds inflamatory, but does anyone really care? Does anybody still use Napster here? (And I mean, servers run by Napster, Inc.) I dunno, but it's been ages since I've used Napster, and ever since the lawsuits, the blocking of "unofficial clients", the filter-by-name, filter-by-audio-fingerprint, the subscription service and most important - the huge decline in Napster users, who really cares what Napster, Inc. does now?
Yes, Napster was awesome in it's prime before all the hoopla. It was great because it was the one single point of search that most everybody used. Now, there are dozens of different mp3 / audio / video / media / everything search engines and none is incredibly more useful than the other... because none have such a hugely solid user base than Napster did.
So, I have a question for everybody here - when you're looking for music online, what do you use? I'm using the opennap servers on napigator (via gnapster).
"Who can believe that a country that has such an open attitude towards women, minorities, religions, and the press would object to the Internet?"
Who can believe that someone with such an arrogant and narrow perspective would have such a closed perspective on other cultures?
How about learning about other cultures, talking to some Islamic people, and perhaps thinking that maybe the way you were brought and conditioned doesn't have to be better than the way others were brought up?
Yeah, imagine what a horrible world it would be if everyone used the same format and we could interchange documents without any problems.
Hey, if this were the case, I would be happy. My point is that you can't even interchange documents among different versons of Office.
Plus, as speaking as somebody that has actually had to work on the DOC files, I'd much rather a common standard be due to some merit other than monopoly bullying.
If the unified document format needs to be extendend, the desktop environment groups can get together and agree on something so the file format will remain consistent. Good luck getting that from Microsoft.
While it's great to see collaboration done for importing and exporting Word documents, if they really want interoperability, they should agree on a unified document format. That is, when the different word processors from the different desktop environments save, they should save to the same file format.
The reason while Word's DOC format is so important is because it's the de-facto standard in the Windows world. I'm hoping we're not looking to make it the standard *nix world, too.
So, it just makes sense that all the developers get together and agree on a standard format so whether or not my coworkers and I are using Gnome or KDE or whatever, we don't have to go through yet ANOTHER set of filters.
Use VMWare or Plex86. Install your application on the virtual machine, and there you can actually see your machine with all the changes. You can write the session to disk to try later, or just kill the VM if the app isn't what you want.
Although I've personally never used one, there's dozens of interesing uses for VMs.
Who would figure there would be impressive benchmarks on the Namesys page?;)
In all fairness, though, I don't see any filesystem benchmarks done by anyone else... some good comparisons of all the new filesystems (not just ext3) would be pretty useful.
Did anyone play the Star Control games? I have many, many great memories of playing the second game; it had a wonderful story and the "action" parts were just FUN. It was simple, but it was definitely the type you play with your neighbor for hours.
Anyway, after the orginial designers left after the second, the third game sucked. So, a fan created project has gotten together to make a new sequel to the second game, and I'm very excited about seeing it.
If you liked Star Control, help out to return it to its old glory!
Want to know what the dinosaurs said when they saw the first mammal? Ask a MS rep about Linux.
As an aside, I find it rather interesting that you're making the analogy of dinosaur : microsoft:: mammal : linux. I'm sure you knew this, but evolutionarily speaking, dinosaurs are considered very successful. Remember, dinos roamed the earth for MILLIONS of years. In terms of earth's history, us mammals have been here less than a blink of an eye. Sure, in our biased opinion we like to believe that our intelligence, science, culture, art, etc. make us somehow "superior" than than the thundering lizards, but in reality, our true test of survival is in the test of time and adaptability.
And you're right, that's very similar to Microsoft and Linux.
If there's one thing I would like from the gnome suite of programs, it would be one single thumbnail directory. Nautilus uses the.thumbnail directory, while Gimp uses.xvpics. Can we just agree on one directory and image type (png vs jpg) so we don't clutter up my hard drive with redundant information?
There was an article on espn about rejected rules in the XFL. I like the "kamikaze" player, and the quarterback's button to activate tasers in the defenders.
You brought up the price, and I'm always interested in how similar the prices are for comparable hardware.
Using each website's respective "build your system", and trying to find the common components:
apple.com
Dual 533Mhz PowerPC G4, 128MB SDRAM, 40GB Ultra ATA, no monitor, no zip, CD-RW, 32MB DDR Radeon, no multi-head, no scsi, 56K modem, speakers, no airport, 3yr AppleCare. $2807.00
dell.com "Dimension 8100 Limited Edition"
Pentium 4 1.3 Ghz, 40GB UltraAtA, 128 MB RDRAM, no monitor, 3yrs Parts and Labor, 32MB DDR Radeon, DVD-ROM, CD-RW, no zip, SoundBlaster 64, speakers, 56K modem. $1768.00
valinux.com "StartX MP"
Dual Pentium III 800Mhz, 128MB ECC SDRAM, 41GB, no scsi, no raid, 40x CD-ROM, 32 MB Matrox G400, Ensoniq AudioPCI, 56K modem, EEPro 10/100 Ethernet, "Total Linux Coverage" (whatever that is), Yahmaha speakers. $2396.00
Notes: The Dell is a uniprocessor. The Dell gives you a DVD-ROM. Dell also gives you a year of internet access. I'm guessing Apple gives you a soundcard. valinux fores you to have an ethernet card (can't put quantity to 0). valinux doesn't provide an obvious way to add a DVD/CD-RW option.
As long as people are interested in freedom (the speech kind), LinuxPPC will survive. Though it's admittedly a minority opinion, there will always be those like RMS who choose personal freedom over technical superiority.
Slashdot Mirror
I've heard one reason WINE is successful is because of the fact that, unlike the days of DOS, Microsoft can't a newer version which is conveniently incompatible with their competitors.
As Microsoft has to ensure that applications run properly on the different flavors of Windows, WINE knew that they had (more or less) a stable API to implement.
But... perhaps now with the expiration dates on Windows, Microsoft can slowly begin to break WINE's implementation?
There is a game I have to recommend.
Fuzion Frenzy My friend got an x-box, and I came over to his apartment with a bunch of friends - a pretty diverse group in terms of video game enthusiasts. I'm at one extreme (love playing the newest games) but some of my friends were on the other, who rarely play games at all. But all of us wasted a good couple of hours with its 45 (I think) mini-games. A great party game, especially with 4 people.
Actaully, Slashdot did do an interview with Bjarne Stroustrup. The link is here.
This is true, but unfortunately, this is very, very, very hard. Speaking as someone who's worked in the filters area of a major company's word processor (think what used to be Word's competition back in the day) filters are horribly complex and making a quality filter is just grueling... and we're not even talking about a "100%" one.
.doc has become the de facto standard.
.doc is the standard on the vast majority of computers today, so have great import filters is needed. However, I think it would be a better idea for the focus of the different Office suites to be a common file format. All the groups - Gnome, KDE, OpenOffice, should really decide on a XML based format and work together on the .doc import.
In fact, even Microsoft's filters aren't very good. Naturally, most people don't even notice it because
And this is where the situation is bad: if filters aren't that great in commercial word processors, with full time paid programmers, they will be long coming in Linux. Let's be honest, people working on projects for fun will probably have the itch to do something much more interesting and noticable.
But you're right,
How are we going to compete with the Windows world, which has one common file format (albeit terrible) when our own different office suites each have their own file format (which will naturally mean even more filters)?
Is there a Linux client to connect to the Morpheus network? I know many of the file sharing programs are based off similar code bases, but is there an free (yes, that free) Linux version around? The OpenNap servers seem to be agreeing less and less with me.
Note: I've only read the first three books, so anything I say outside of those books is speculation - I haven't seen interviews with Rowling or read articles about books, etc.
The books are a series of seven novels, which follow an orphaned boy (Harry) between the ages 11-17. Naturally, teenage years are good fodder for stories, but then there's the fact that Harry learns he is a Wizard.
Each book is around a year, starting with his summer vacation, and then his school year at a Wizard school Hogwarts. (You go to Hogwarts for seven years, hence the series of seven novels).
Not only is there an adventure each year, but along with that you learn more and more about the Harry Potter universe, in particular the story about his parents. Going back to what I said earlier, not only do you see Harry growing and learning more about himself and where he comes from, but you also begin to get a better picture of Harry's wizard universe. In particular, the grand good vs. evil battle involving a Wizard so feared that most don't even want to say his name.
Hey, is Slashdot not doing quickies anymore? These Slashbacks are getting more frequent, have they replaced the good ol' round of quickies?
I apologize for being rather offtopic, but what's up with no more quickies? I personally enjoy the quickies a bit, but all I get are these silly slashbacks! What's up?
One of the funniest articles I've read is a brief history of Linux, told from the trenches by Lars Wirzenius.
What's the difference between SGI's ia64 compiler suite (Pro64) and the gcc compiler for ia64? I know the Pro64 is GPL, so why are there two different compilers?
Thanks.
I'm sorry if this sounds inflamatory, but does anyone really care? Does anybody still use Napster here? (And I mean, servers run by Napster, Inc.) I dunno, but it's been ages since I've used Napster, and ever since the lawsuits, the blocking of "unofficial clients", the filter-by-name, filter-by-audio-fingerprint, the subscription service and most important - the huge decline in Napster users, who really cares what Napster, Inc. does now?
Yes, Napster was awesome in it's prime before all the hoopla. It was great because it was the one single point of search that most everybody used. Now, there are dozens of different mp3 / audio / video / media / everything search engines and none is incredibly more useful than the other... because none have such a hugely solid user base than Napster did.
So, I have a question for everybody here - when you're looking for music online, what do you use? I'm using the opennap servers on napigator (via gnapster).
"Who can believe that a country that has such an open attitude towards women, minorities, religions, and the press would object to the Internet?"
Who can believe that someone with such an arrogant and narrow perspective would have such a closed perspective on other cultures?
How about learning about other cultures, talking to some Islamic people, and perhaps thinking that maybe the way you were brought and conditioned doesn't have to be better than the way others were brought up?
Yeah, imagine what a horrible world it would be if everyone used the same format and we could interchange documents without any problems.
Hey, if this were the case, I would be happy. My point is that you can't even interchange documents among different versons of Office.
Plus, as speaking as somebody that has actually had to work on the DOC files, I'd much rather a common standard be due to some merit other than monopoly bullying.
If the unified document format needs to be extendend, the desktop environment groups can get together and agree on something so the file format will remain consistent. Good luck getting that from Microsoft.
While it's great to see collaboration done for importing and exporting Word documents, if they really want interoperability, they should agree on a unified document format. That is, when the different word processors from the different desktop environments save, they should save to the same file format.
The reason while Word's DOC format is so important is because it's the de-facto standard in the Windows world. I'm hoping we're not looking to make it the standard *nix world, too.
So, it just makes sense that all the developers get together and agree on a standard format so whether or not my coworkers and I are using Gnome or KDE or whatever, we don't have to go through yet ANOTHER set of filters.
Actually, slashdot has already interviewed Jon Katz.
Use VMWare or Plex86. Install your application on the virtual machine, and there you can actually see your machine with all the changes. You can write the session to disk to try later, or just kill the VM if the app isn't what you want.
Although I've personally never used one, there's dozens of interesing uses for VMs.
Indeed, check out libpr0n.com
Who would figure there would be impressive benchmarks on the Namesys page? ;)
In all fairness, though, I don't see any filesystem benchmarks done by anyone else... some good comparisons of all the new filesystems (not just ext3) would be pretty useful.
So, Alanis Morisette's song "Ironic" is about a bunch of non-ironic situations.
Now that's ironic.
Tee hee.
Did anyone play the Star Control games? I have many, many great memories of playing the second game; it had a wonderful story and the "action" parts were just FUN. It was simple, but it was definitely the type you play with your neighbor for hours.
Anyway, after the orginial designers left after the second, the third game sucked. So, a fan created project has gotten together to make a new sequel to the second game, and I'm very excited about seeing it.
If you liked Star Control, help out to return it to its old glory!
Star Control: Timewarp
As an aside, I find it rather interesting that you're making the analogy of dinosaur : microsoft :: mammal : linux. I'm sure you knew this, but evolutionarily speaking, dinosaurs are considered very successful. Remember, dinos roamed the earth for MILLIONS of years. In terms of earth's history, us mammals have been here less than a blink of an eye. Sure, in our biased opinion we like to believe that our intelligence, science, culture, art, etc. make us somehow "superior" than than the thundering lizards, but in reality, our true test of survival is in the test of time and adaptability.
And you're right, that's very similar to Microsoft and Linux.
If there's one thing I would like from the gnome suite of programs, it would be one single thumbnail directory. Nautilus uses the .thumbnail directory, while Gimp uses .xvpics. Can we just agree on one directory and image type (png vs jpg) so we don't clutter up my hard drive with redundant information?
There was an article on espn about rejected rules in the XFL. I like the "kamikaze" player, and the quarterback's button to activate tasers in the defenders.
You brought up the price, and I'm always interested in how similar the prices are for comparable hardware.
Using each website's respective "build your system", and trying to find the common components:
apple.com
Dual 533Mhz PowerPC G4, 128MB SDRAM, 40GB Ultra ATA, no monitor, no zip, CD-RW, 32MB DDR Radeon, no multi-head, no scsi, 56K modem, speakers, no airport, 3yr AppleCare. $2807.00
dell.com "Dimension 8100 Limited Edition"
Pentium 4 1.3 Ghz, 40GB UltraAtA, 128 MB RDRAM, no monitor, 3yrs Parts and Labor, 32MB DDR Radeon, DVD-ROM, CD-RW, no zip, SoundBlaster 64, speakers, 56K modem. $1768.00
valinux.com "StartX MP"
Dual Pentium III 800Mhz, 128MB ECC SDRAM, 41GB, no scsi, no raid, 40x CD-ROM, 32 MB Matrox G400, Ensoniq AudioPCI, 56K modem, EEPro 10/100 Ethernet, "Total Linux Coverage" (whatever that is), Yahmaha speakers. $2396.00
Notes: The Dell is a uniprocessor. The Dell gives you a DVD-ROM. Dell also gives you a year of internet access. I'm guessing Apple gives you a soundcard. valinux fores you to have an ethernet card (can't put quantity to 0). valinux doesn't provide an obvious way to add a DVD/CD-RW option.
As long as people are interested in freedom (the speech kind), LinuxPPC will survive. Though it's admittedly a minority opinion, there will always be those like RMS who choose personal freedom over technical superiority.