In India, where I live, 2003 was the year of linux on the desktop. Yup. Last year. Already happened.
Starting around last August, the avalanche started. Linux desktops crossed a threshold minimum level of usability, and the price of Windows became an unacceptable fraction of the price of the PC in this cost conscious market. I think it was IBM that ran the first ad for Linux PCs. Soon the taboo was broken. OEMs switched in droves. Today there is hardly anyone that only sells windows boxen. This year two companies have entered the market specializing in linux PCs.
I can feel the pulse at the grassroots level as well. While the percentage of linux users is surely nowhere near two figures, it has probably doubled since a year or two ago. Banks and other enterprises switching all employees to linux happens every day.
Billy Gates shot himself in the foot. Major anti-piracy ad campaigns and policing action by NASCOMM (BSA equivalent in India) contributed to awareness about alternatives and fueled linux growth. Today the ads directing the reader to microsoft.com/piracy/howtotell/ are conspicuous by their absence, but the damage has been done. What linux has won is mindshare. PC geek mags regularly carry linux distros and other linux software these days, and have as many articles about linux as windows. It looks like an exponential growth curve is assured.
If you're thinking of moving to Bangalore, there's at least one thing you can look forward to:-)
I think you're confusing science and problem solving. I experienced this confusion first hand. In high school, I was really good at problem solving, particlarly math. I was addicted to the "Aha!" feeling. I even went to the IMO, and thought I had it made for a career in math.
In college, I discovered that math was in reality very different from what I'd expected. The Aha! was simply not there. It was a different beast altogether. Everything went in several incremental steps rather than one flash of insight. It required vertical rather than lateral thinking. Fortunately math wasn't my major, and I eventually dropped out.
Back to what you said, its perfectly true of science, but this article is about problem solving. Eureka doesn't herald new discoveries, but it sure makes the world go round, helping people find non-obvious solutions to tricky little everyday problems.
When toxic computer components are exported and dumped in third world countries, do you protest "American computers" being sent abroad? Firecrackers are produced by 4-10 year old kids in India under horrible conditions. Do you protest the offshoring of the manufacturing of these "American firecrackers"?
Yet when it comes to IT (and previously electronics), these jobs are "American". The comfy, well paying ones. Your God given right.
Free markets work both ways. Regardless of whether the global market is really free, whatever America gets, you're only getting what you asked for.
I wish reviewers would choose a nice theme before making screenshots. Antialiased fonts have been available for at least a couple of years! I know, I know, this review is for showing off the functionality, not the looks, but newbies looking at it might get the wrong idea... Its definitely difficult for new users to grasp the level of configurability of the UI. My LUG did a "linux demo day" a while back, and one of the questions a visitor asked me was "all these desktops seem look different. what does linux look like by default"? I didn't have much luck telling him there wasn't one, and that it was distro and even version specific. So again, it would be nice if reviewers paid attention to these little things.
RTFA. The discussion is about what to code the core stuff in, not about forcing a language on everyone else. And C is starting to show its age, even for doing the core stuff, in case you've been living under a cave.
"Pointless" exactly sums up my reaction as well. I mean, pretty much every modern open source language fits all these criteria. Obviously, a major factor in the choice of language is how familiar it is to existing developers. Apart from C/C++, the most commonly used gnome language is python. So if at all the choice is something other than C#/Java, it would have to be python.
If articles could be moderated, this would be -1, troll. IIRC, MS announced a few months back that they would begin an aggressive campaign to vilify Linux, and I guess we're seeing the effects.
Anyway this guy is right that the US cannot control linux; the more that perception of Linux is strengthened, the faster will be the adoption of Linux by governments outside the US. And that's a huge win for linux.
*Sigh* I don't know what the editors are thinking when they post direct links to pdf files. Slashdotted instantly. Luckily, throwing the filename at google turned up a mirror.
How about Linwin? Linwin Is Not WINdows:) Kinda like GNU. Amusing thing is RMS can't demand that they rename it to GNU/Linwin, because the L in Linwin doesn't stand for linux -- it stands for itself!
Well, they can buy out EIT and acquire the trademark. Can they? Easy linux sounds really good (although it will make RMS throw a fit:-) so if EIT is small enough it might be a good idea.
I think the real reason they're changing the names every 2 months is that they can now assert their superior intellect and geekiness just by asking people what browser they're using!
Just imagine this conversation in a bar (assume, for the sake of argument, that at the time of this conversation the current name is FireChameleon):
Cool Moz Dude: Hi! So... what's your browser?
Hot Chick: Uhh... firefox.
Cool Moz Dude: What?? Have you been living under a cave? FireChameleon was released a whole week ago! All the l33t people have already switched!!
Hot Chick is impressed by Cool Moz Dude's uber-geekiness and falls all over him.
That's the intention anyway. In reality, of course, the reply would be at best "oh, that explorer thingy, same as everyone else" and at worst a glazed look of complete apathy;^)
The blurb doesn't mention it, but quite a bit of dissatisfaction has been expressed about 1.7 becoming the next long lived branch, rather than 1.8. The issue seems to be that the APIs for this version are rather half-assed, which means that those who develop on the platform won't get a clean interface and will need to get used to some hacks and kludges.
On the other hand people are happy that there's finally something to replace 1.4 which was showing its age.
Note that this means that the next version of Netscape, if there is one, will be based on 1.7 etc.
In your eagerness to pander to standard slashdot biases, you have completely missed the point that the last sentence was intended to be humorous, which is amply demonstrated by the fact that the very first paragraph of the article said that chaos in the mathematical sense does not mean unpredictability. Sheesh.
OTOH, you might have been trolling, and I'm the sucker for replying... who knows:)
A shining example is Sun's Open Windows File Manager, which goes out of its way to display ore dump files as cute little red bomb icons. When you double-click on the bomb, it runs a text editor on the core dump. Harmless, but not very useful. But if you intuitively drag and drop the bomb on the DBX Debugger Tool, it does exactly what you'd expect if you were a terrorist: it ties the entire system up, as the core dump (including a huge unmapped gap of zeros) is pumped through the server and into the debugger text window, which inflates to the maximum capacity of swap space, then violently explodes, dumping an even bigger core file in place of your original one, filling up the entire file system, overwhelming the file server, and taking out the File Manager with shrapnel. (This bug has since been fixed.)
But that's not all: the File Manager puts even more power at your fingertips if you run it as root! When you drag and drop a directory onto itself, it beeps and prints "rename: invalid argument" at the bottom of the window, then instantly deletes the entire directory trwe without bothering to update the graphical directory browser.
I wasn't around back then, but I would argue CDE is nearly as unusable:)
Idiot yourself. Of course its cached after the first execution, what I'm saying is that on the first attempt if each little file is to be downloaded separately it'll take forever.
If you can't understand English, shut up and don't post.
I don't like the running-from-network part. At work, I execute run mozilla (fire-whatever) over an NFS. Startup time is significantly increased: even though the LAN is fast, it appears that the latency of fetching a large number of config files and other small files adds up.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting. NH has been selected by the Free State Project as the target state. I wonder what this means for them?
In India, where I live, 2003 was the year of linux on the desktop. Yup. Last year. Already happened.
Starting around last August, the avalanche started. Linux desktops crossed a threshold minimum level of usability, and the price of Windows became an unacceptable fraction of the price of the PC in this cost conscious market. I think it was IBM that ran the first ad for Linux PCs. Soon the taboo was broken. OEMs switched in droves. Today there is hardly anyone that only sells windows boxen. This year two companies have entered the market specializing in linux PCs.
I can feel the pulse at the grassroots level as well. While the percentage of linux users is surely nowhere near two figures, it has probably doubled since a year or two ago. Banks and other enterprises switching all employees to linux happens every day.
Billy Gates shot himself in the foot. Major anti-piracy ad campaigns and policing action by NASCOMM (BSA equivalent in India) contributed to awareness about alternatives and fueled linux growth. Today the ads directing the reader to microsoft.com/piracy/howtotell/ are conspicuous by their absence, but the damage has been done. What linux has won is mindshare. PC geek mags regularly carry linux distros and other linux software these days, and have as many articles about linux as windows. It looks like an exponential growth curve is assured.
If you're thinking of moving to Bangalore, there's at least one thing you can look forward to :-)
Clickable google cache link
In college, I discovered that math was in reality very different from what I'd expected. The Aha! was simply not there. It was a different beast altogether. Everything went in several incremental steps rather than one flash of insight. It required vertical rather than lateral thinking. Fortunately math wasn't my major, and I eventually dropped out.
Back to what you said, its perfectly true of science, but this article is about problem solving. Eureka doesn't herald new discoveries, but it sure makes the world go round, helping people find non-obvious solutions to tricky little everyday problems.
When toxic computer components are exported and dumped in third world countries, do you protest "American computers" being sent abroad? Firecrackers are produced by 4-10 year old kids in India under horrible conditions. Do you protest the offshoring of the manufacturing of these "American firecrackers"?
Yet when it comes to IT (and previously electronics), these jobs are "American". The comfy, well paying ones. Your God given right.
Free markets work both ways. Regardless of whether the global market is really free, whatever America gets, you're only getting what you asked for.
I wish reviewers would choose a nice theme before making screenshots. Antialiased fonts have been available for at least a couple of years! I know, I know, this review is for showing off the functionality, not the looks, but newbies looking at it might get the wrong idea... Its definitely difficult for new users to grasp the level of configurability of the UI. My LUG did a "linux demo day" a while back, and one of the questions a visitor asked me was "all these desktops seem look different. what does linux look like by default"? I didn't have much luck telling him there wasn't one, and that it was distro and even version specific. So again, it would be nice if reviewers paid attention to these little things.
RTFA. The discussion is about what to code the core stuff in, not about forcing a language on everyone else. And C is starting to show its age, even for doing the core stuff, in case you've been living under a cave.
"Pointless" exactly sums up my reaction as well. I mean, pretty much every modern open source language fits all these criteria. Obviously, a major factor in the choice of language is how familiar it is to existing developers. Apart from C/C++, the most commonly used gnome language is python. So if at all the choice is something other than C#/Java, it would have to be python.
SCO is not MS owned in any way (and possibly a direct competitor in the server market.)
Anyway this guy is right that the US cannot control linux; the more that perception of Linux is strengthened, the faster will be the adoption of Linux by governments outside the US. And that's a huge win for linux.
1. Announce sweepstakes for spammer's porsche
2. Get people to sign up; collect email addresses
3. Sell email addresses
4. Profit!
Hey, this is slashdot. You have to pretend that everyone goes out and buys an XBox after "sampling" some games using the emulator, OK? ;^)
*Sigh* I don't know what the editors are thinking when they post direct links to pdf files. Slashdotted instantly. Luckily, throwing the filename at google turned up a mirror.
How about Linwin? Linwin Is Not WINdows
Well, they can buy out EIT and acquire the trademark. Can they? Easy linux sounds really good (although it will make RMS throw a fit :-) so if EIT is small enough it might be a good idea.
For those who were wondering what that was about, its a monty python dead parrot reference.
You seem to be on windows, but on a linux box I can make it crash with (drum roll please):
killall -SEGV mozilla
Works every time :)
Cheers
No geek points for you! Real hackers telnet to port 80 and parse the html themselves :)
Just imagine this conversation in a bar (assume, for the sake of argument, that at the time of this conversation the current name is FireChameleon):
Cool Moz Dude: Hi! So... what's your browser?
Hot Chick: Uhh... firefox.
Cool Moz Dude: What?? Have you been living under a cave? FireChameleon was released a whole week ago! All the l33t people have already switched!!
Hot Chick is impressed by Cool Moz Dude's uber-geekiness and falls all over him.
That's the intention anyway. In reality, of course, the reply would be at best "oh, that explorer thingy, same as everyone else" and at worst a glazed look of complete apathy ;^)
On the other hand people are happy that there's finally something to replace 1.4 which was showing its age.
Note that this means that the next version of Netscape, if there is one, will be based on 1.7 etc.
In your eagerness to pander to standard slashdot biases, you have completely missed the point that the last sentence was intended to be humorous, which is amply demonstrated by the fact that the very first paragraph of the article said that chaos in the mathematical sense does not mean unpredictability. Sheesh.
OTOH, you might have been trolling, and I'm the sucker for replying... who knows :)
From the Unix haters' handbook:
I wasn't around back then, but I would argue CDE is nearly as unusable :)
If you can't understand English, shut up and don't post.
I wouldn't want to try that over the Internet.
Maybe I'm missing something?
Wikipedia gets more traffic than slashdot, so it would barely feel a slashdotting.