It's nice to see that they're getting so much support. It usualy isn't clear to people reading the news (or using some other online service) how much work is needed to actually keep the whole thing working.
Now, althought I think donations are a nice thing, I wonder if they'll be able to solve the long-term problem: they need a steady stream of money getting in, and donations are not exactly the Right Way to achieve that. I wish them good luck (really). They have offered us a great site.
Theoretical background -- experience in a CS course, good books that give you a theoretical base are nice. Why? Because later, to translate the theory into real work, you'll just need a reference, and things will work easier!
Reference books -- to learn how to implement your ideas in specific settings (OS, language, etc).
I never found the first with books for specific compilers, IDEs, versions of things, etc, or any of those "big" books that promise you a lot.
Interesting choices are books written "by the language author" (think Stroustrup, Larry Wall, etc), or books by people with a good background in CS (a CS professor, for example).
Also, books on theory are interesting. A book on Compilers may change the way you think. (The old "Dragon" book is nice, and Andrew Appel's book is also interesting). One book on Analysis of Algorithm like the one by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest and (forgot the third author) is quite good, but you need a decent math background.
And for a reference, I think the more compact the better (I use Java in a Nutshell). References shouldn't be more verbose than the necessary.:-)
Debian is always out of date so why dont they add a bsd like ports system. Just for the record... Last time I tried FreeBSD, I found the ports tree not to be all that stable.
Trying to install gdm I found something like 4 or 5 broken dependencies. You can't get quality in a hurry. (Not that FreeBSD isn't great and stable -- I'm just saying Debian is absolutely more polished) Anyway -- Debian will have something similar to the ports tree (but better) in Woody+1. (apt-src) Besides that, Debian has been innovating since ever, and has great features: - APT (now in Conectiva too) - update-alternatives (now in Red Hat) - First to adhere closely to FHS - Bug reporting tools are the best I've ever seen
(try reportbug -- the latest version even warns
you about the "usual non-bugs in this package")
- Kernel compiling tools are quite sophisticated
- Debian has been incorporating more Java packages
than any other distribution I know of - Runs on *lots* of architectures. First to use
the Hurd. Will soon work wirh BSD kernels
(Free, Net & Open) - Recently created apt-src program will let you
create source trees much better than the BSD
ports tree.
That's why it takes time to release a new version of Debian.
but hey this is a Linux World so normal business rules need not apply.
Why not? Slashdot is part of a for-profit company, and they did not "commoditize the news" as open source software has been commoditized. And even in the "Linux World", where software is a commodity... Have you ever seen Red Had promoting Mandrake, Caldera, or SuSE?
Looks like fragmentation is also a problem in this area. And I do remember having read the same story, for example, in Slashdot and Linuxtoday several times...
It's a very quick way to test all the patches. Then only apply the ones with features you want to your production kernel.
That does not necessarily work. You may not see the problems just by running the kernel for a while. Problems may show up after several days of use, under certain specific conditions. That's why testing by several people is interesting
The kernel developers will usually tell you that you shouldn't expect a even a stable (2.4, for example) kernel tree from kernel.org to be stable -- you should trust the testing made by your Linux distro. (And since WOLK is a set of patches to the kernel.org tree...)
The "stable" in kernel.org means that tree is not neing used to test new ideas, and instead has a focus on "getting usable". It does not mean it's "solid and ready for producion use". There are several cases of broken 2.4 ("stable") kernels.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, althought I think donations are a nice thing, I wonder if they'll be able to solve the long-term problem: they need a steady stream of money getting in, and donations are not exactly the Right Way to achieve that. I wish them good luck (really). They have offered us a great site.
- Theoretical background -- experience in a CS course, good books that give you a theoretical base are nice. Why? Because later, to translate the theory into real work, you'll just need a reference, and things will work easier!
- Reference books -- to learn how to implement your ideas in specific settings (OS, language, etc).
I never found the first with books for specific compilers, IDEs, versions of things, etc, or any of those "big" books that promise you a lot.Interesting choices are books written "by the language author" (think Stroustrup, Larry Wall, etc), or books by people with a good background in CS (a CS professor, for example).
Also, books on theory are interesting. A book on Compilers may change the way you think. (The old "Dragon" book is nice, and Andrew Appel's book is also interesting). One book on Analysis of Algorithm like the one by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest and (forgot the third author) is quite good, but you need a decent math background.
And for a reference, I think the more compact the better (I use Java in a Nutshell). References shouldn't be more verbose than the necessary.
(Just my $0.02)
Debian is always out of date so why dont they add a bsd like ports system.
Just for the record... Last time I tried FreeBSD, I found the ports tree not to be all that stable. Trying to install gdm I found something like 4 or 5 broken dependencies.
You can't get quality in a hurry. (Not that FreeBSD isn't great and stable -- I'm just saying Debian is absolutely more polished)
Anyway -- Debian will have something similar to the ports tree (but better) in Woody+1. (apt-src)
Besides that, Debian has been innovating since ever, and has great features:
- APT (now in Conectiva too)
- update-alternatives (now in Red Hat)
- First to adhere closely to FHS
- Bug reporting tools are the best I've ever seen (try reportbug -- the latest version even warns you about the "usual non-bugs in this package") - Kernel compiling tools are quite sophisticated - Debian has been incorporating more Java packages than any other distribution I know of
- Runs on *lots* of architectures. First to use the Hurd. Will soon work wirh BSD kernels (Free, Net & Open)
- Recently created apt-src program will let you create source trees much better than the BSD ports tree.
That's why it takes time to release a new version of Debian.
I don't even like the word "portal". Portals tend to have too many gizmos and unnecessary features. Keep it simple! Split it in several parts.
Why not? Slashdot is part of a for-profit company, and they did not "commoditize the news" as open source software has been commoditized. And even in the "Linux World", where software is a commodity... Have you ever seen Red Had promoting Mandrake, Caldera, or SuSE?
The usual business rules should apply.
LinuxUnitedNews? :-P
Looks like fragmentation is also a problem in this area. And I do remember having read the same story, for example, in Slashdot and Linuxtoday several times...
You mean the international economy, which is heavily influenciated by the US economy, right? ;-)
It's a very quick way to test all the patches. Then only apply the ones with features you want to your production kernel.
That does not necessarily work. You may not see the problems just by running the kernel for a while. Problems may show up after several days of use, under certain specific conditions. That's why testing by several people is interesting
The kernel developers will usually tell you that you shouldn't expect a even a stable (2.4, for example) kernel tree from kernel.org to be stable -- you should trust the testing made by your Linux distro. (And since WOLK is a set of patches to the kernel.org tree...)
The "stable" in kernel.org means that tree is not neing used to test new ideas, and instead has a focus on "getting usable". It does not mean it's "solid and ready for producion use". There are several cases of broken 2.4 ("stable") kernels.
WOLK is not for production use, but the -secure 2.2 kernel is (I've asked Marc and he later included this in his announcement to lkml).
I'm using it on a server and it works great.