I am currently trying to get Debian installed on my laptop. It has been a pain in the ass.:) You're probably well aware of this, but you might try a liveCD like Mepis or (my favorite thus far) Kanotix. At least with Kanotix, you'll start out with a nearly pure Debian system, with a few handy scripts added in for your convenience. If you (eventually, though I'm not sure why you'd want to) remove these scripts, you should have a purely Debian system, especially after a couple of dist-upgrades. Of course, maybe this isn't what you want to do, but it's an option, and a very easy one.
>Not at all. This is not even fragmentation. You forgot that this is FOSS here. >All these distros are compatible.
I've got a BS in Computer Science, and I didn't know that. I haven't done much with Unix in about 10 years, back when I played with HP-UX. Since that time, I've been vaguely aware of all these distributions of Linux, but didn't know what differentiated them, what made one a better choice than another, or that they were all "compatible".
How would your average PC user know?
I hope to hell that the average PC user doesn't know -- or NEED to know -- this, because the different linuxen are NOT compatible, depending on what (as people other than myself are pointing out) one means by "compatible". If you mean that one distro can pretty much run all the same apps that another can, that's basically true. But you generally can't use binaries from one distro on another one (quite obviously) if they use different packaging systems; you often cannot even use.rpms from one distro on another distro which also uses.rpms, or.debs from one on another which uses.debs, because of various trickiness, like paths settings and preinstalled requirements. Even such package-morphing programs as 'alien' can have a very difficult time with this stuff.
Of course, one can (almost always) compile from source, but _sometimes_ even this doesn't work (if anyone can tell me how to install matplotlib on SUSE 10.0, I'd love to hear about it!), and it's certainly not a "compatible" solution to a newish user of linux.
Most of the route over ocean, no problem. The part over populated land can be either performed at altitudes where the residual boom (after active silencing, tech already present in fighter planes) reaching the ground will be unaudible - or travel at subsonic speeds over the land.
Um... As far as I know, a source-based active-silencing system will only make things worse. You can actively silence a relatively small space (even the cockpit of a fighter plane is a big space, acoustics-wise), but an active-silence system ON the jet, FOR the ground doesn't make sense. Once you're a wavelength away from the area that's being silenced, the resulting pressure amplitude is TWICE the unsilenced amplitude. That's how it works, sorry.
Also, having shock fronts traveling subsonically is nothing special -- it's what generally happens in gases anyway, at least to good approximation.
Finally, Wikipedia has this to say: In the late 1950s when SST designs were being actively pursued, it was thought that although the boom would be very large, they could avoid problems by flying higher. This premise was proven false when the North American B-70 Valkyrie started flying and it was found that the boom was a very real problem even at 70,000ft (21,000m). It was during these tests that the N-wave was first characterized.
[...] a custom "GINA", that replaced part of the Ctrl-Alt-Del login process. Naturally, a lengthy biometric process migth be fine if you do it once a day [...]
Hm. You're saying that interfacing to a 'gina will be a lengthy process? I'll volunteer!
Real men may not use vowels, but when the project manager wants you to go back and put in the nikkud so that (he and) the n00bs can figure out what you're doing, you're in for a real PITA . . . that's why real men don't code at temple like they code at home . ..
I see at least some things haven't changed. Only now we spell it "nekkid".
Great! Just put about a thousand 4-year-olds in a room with a whole bunch of Lego blocks, and a huge molecular model. You don't even have to tell them what to do. Just continuously monitor the state of the room with video cameras, and once they have designed an appropriate antibody, encase the whole thing in carbonite.
And it won't work now. That is unless some strange aliens come along and start chopping everyone's head off saying that "THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE" and then you have to have connery come through a portal from the other side of the galaxy to save our asses. But then, the odds of that happening are probably pretty slim, don't you think?
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I am currently trying to get Debian installed on my laptop. It has been a pain in the ass. :) You're probably well aware of this, but you might try a liveCD like Mepis or (my favorite thus far) Kanotix. At least with Kanotix, you'll start out with a nearly pure Debian system, with a few handy scripts added in for your convenience. If you (eventually, though I'm not sure why you'd want to) remove these scripts, you should have a purely Debian system, especially after a couple of dist-upgrades. Of course, maybe this isn't what you want to do, but it's an option, and a very easy one.
Best wishes.
>Not at all. This is not even fragmentation. You forgot that this is FOSS here.
.rpms from one distro on another distro which also uses .rpms, or .debs from one on another which uses .debs, because of various trickiness, like paths settings and preinstalled requirements. Even such package-morphing programs as 'alien' can have a very difficult time with this stuff.
>All these distros are compatible.
I've got a BS in Computer Science, and I didn't know that. I haven't done much with Unix in about 10 years, back when I played with HP-UX. Since that time, I've been vaguely aware of all these distributions of Linux, but didn't know what differentiated them, what made one a better choice than another, or that they were all "compatible".
How would your average PC user know?
I hope to hell that the average PC user doesn't know -- or NEED to know -- this, because the different linuxen are NOT compatible, depending on what (as people other than myself are pointing out) one means by "compatible". If you mean that one distro can pretty much run all the same apps that another can, that's basically true. But you generally can't use binaries from one distro on another one (quite obviously) if they use different packaging systems; you often cannot even use
Of course, one can (almost always) compile from source, but _sometimes_ even this doesn't work (if anyone can tell me how to install matplotlib on SUSE 10.0, I'd love to hear about it!), and it's certainly not a "compatible" solution to a newish user of linux.
10001010100101001010000001010111101001010010100101
Jeez... If you hafta ask, we certainly aren't going to tell you.
How naive does the government have to be? ... "nucular".
Nonono: "...would taste as sweet."
Most of the route over ocean, no problem. The part over populated land can be either performed at altitudes where the residual boom (after active silencing, tech already present in fighter planes) reaching the ground will be unaudible - or travel at subsonic speeds over the land.
Um... As far as I know, a source-based active-silencing system will only make things worse. You can actively silence a relatively small space (even the cockpit of a fighter plane is a big space, acoustics-wise), but an active-silence system ON the jet, FOR the ground doesn't make sense. Once you're a wavelength away from the area that's being silenced, the resulting pressure amplitude is TWICE the unsilenced amplitude. That's how it works, sorry.
Also, having shock fronts traveling subsonically is nothing special -- it's what generally happens in gases anyway, at least to good approximation.
Finally, Wikipedia has this to say:
In the late 1950s when SST designs were being actively pursued, it was thought that although the boom would be very large, they could avoid problems by flying higher. This premise was proven false when the North American B-70 Valkyrie started flying and it was found that the boom was a very real problem even at 70,000ft (21,000m). It was during these tests that the N-wave was first characterized.
[...] a custom "GINA", that replaced part of the Ctrl-Alt-Del login process. Naturally, a lengthy biometric process migth be fine if you do it once a day [...]
Hm. You're saying that interfacing to a 'gina will be a lengthy process? I'll volunteer!
Real men may not use vowels, but when the project manager wants you to go back and put in the nikkud so that (he and) the n00bs can figure out what you're doing, you're in for a real PITA . . . that's why real men don't code at temple like they code at home . . .
I see at least some things haven't changed. Only now we spell it "nekkid".
can u imagine shakespeare writing the help files for windows, or spencer about stress strain curves, tesla coils etc?
Gad, I love irony. And that was a pretty much randomly-chosen sentence from that post.
Let me start by saying You can have my mac when you pry it from my cold dead hands.
Gad, I *love* irony.
"If you hike up there this afternoon and get your head blown off, don't come crying to me."
Sweet. If you can get your head blown off and go crying to anyone, I wanna know about it!
I prefer plastique.
--Lefty
Obviously the KDE version of finances software should be named KDough.
...snakes and twigs'n'berries.
We could not calculate driving directions between Redmond, WA and 43.978000N 18.178000E
Coincidence? I THINK NOT.
Right! They could wake the dead! Waaaait a minute...
It's why Klingons never were very good at coding.
Or if I'm unable to log into their online site I'll pick up the phone and call the number in the phonebook.
Pfft. I never trust the phonebooks now. I think they're a bunch of phishers.
"The FSM put it there!" comments :)
Great! Just put about a thousand 4-year-olds in a room with a whole bunch of Lego blocks, and a huge molecular model. You don't even have to tell them what to do. Just continuously monitor the state of the room with video cameras, and once they have designed an appropriate antibody, encase the whole thing in carbonite.
Monsanto, here we come!
I wish I had mod points today, if only because you rip on Canadians :P
I suppose that the fact that Sandstorm and Highlander got beaten means that Stanley won't be on this year's list...
It's that 33% who *do* comply with the EULAs without ever having read them who scare me.
And it won't work now. That is unless some strange aliens come along and start chopping everyone's head off saying that "THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE" and then you have to have connery come through a portal from the other side of the galaxy to save our asses. But then, the odds of that happening are probably pretty slim, don't you think?
Suck it, Trebek.