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User: Microlith

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Comments · 4,231

  1. Re:"Linux Command Line Tirckery" HA! on Windows 8 Features With Linux Antecedents · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Learning to use your computer should *NOT* require knowledge of shell command flags.

    It should if you want to be considered proficient. It shouldn't be required for basic day to day operations, as I noted. But go on, be an angry anonymous coward.

  2. Re:A better question may be on Windows 8 Features With Linux Antecedents · · Score: 3, Insightful

    When the producer of the low quality product has coerced the hardware vendors into making it exceedingly hard, if not impossible, to install the high quality one.

  3. Re:"Linux Command Line Tirckery" HA! on Windows 8 Features With Linux Antecedents · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not for anyone who has bothered to learn how to use their computer. But then, that's just one way to do it on modern Linux distributions, which now simplify the process by letting you right click and mount the volume.

    And has since the days I was using Daemon Tools on Windows.

  4. Re:there are other ARM options.. on Microsoft Details Windows 8 for ARM · · Score: 1

    The problem with putting Plasma Active on any number of tablets is the nature of ARM platforms themselves:

    - No two boards are alike, all different in how GPIOs are hooked up and what they do, even if the SoC is the same.
    - Only the hardware vendor gets the sources for some drivers, usually GPU. Thus putting something like Xorg on these devices is exceedingly hard. Spark works around it with a completely reverse-engineered Mali driver.
    - Many tablets put up a fight when it comes to installing 3rd party firmware, unlike most PMPs/Routers. Even the Transformer Prime is locked down and ASUS has yet to release the promised unlock.
    - Tablets with Android tend to have older kernels, with little to nothing having gone upstream thus making adaptation harder.

    So it's a nice thought, and there are attempts, but it's nowhere near as easy in the tablet and handset space as it is in the PMP/Router space.

  5. Re:Moving Anyways on Hackers Hit Apple Supplier Foxconn · · Score: 2

    They aren't moving, they are simply putting factories in Brazil to avoid the high tariffs that come from a nation that protects its labor force.

  6. Re:Perspective on The iPhone Is a Nightmare For Carriers · · Score: 1

    That's fine. They'd be forced to cut prices and wouldn't have the excuse of "we gave you a phone" to jack them up.

  7. Re:Dont like it? on Delayed Outrage Over A Censored Site; What's a Better Way To Spread News? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Universities should not be censoring arbitrary websites on the internet.

  8. Re:Stop masturbating over apple on Apple Intern Spent 12 Weeks Porting Mac OS X To ARM · · Score: 1

    That and all the phones ran very limited capability hardware and RTOSes. Smartphones are much more powerful now and we should be seeing an increase in capability and freedom for the end user. Instead we're seeing a growing attack on that freedom that's spreading from phones, to tablets, and I have no doubt we'll see it hit the PC sooner or later.

  9. Re:Collude to take away freedom on Apple Intern Spent 12 Weeks Porting Mac OS X To ARM · · Score: 1

    Due to a wonderful concept called "free markets" this will almost certainly not happen.

    There is no "Free Market." The vast majority of users are ignorant of these actions and the companies are banking on that to get away with this.

    That is, unless perhaps the government decides that "free computing" is dangerous, and mandates that all PCs are locked down.

    Doesn't take government to do that. Microsoft could simply leverage their monopoly in the desktop space, and their control over windows, to enforce it. Oh wait, they are...

    The government, in particular the current US idiocracy, is the main enemy of free markets.

    Ah, yes, the Glorious Free Market God. All power to the corporations, none to the people.

    Macs are in this category, along with virtually all desktops/laptops in the world.

    But what's so special about the mobile space? And Microsoft is working very, very hard to end that with Windows 8.

    One of the more interesting developments in the area of "cheap, general purpose computing" lately is the sub $50 Raspberry Pi. Now there's a hacker platform if I've ever seen one! =:-D

    So those of us who want unlocked hardware have to settle for something that's several generations behind, while only MS and Apple get the new stuff? Fuck that.

  10. Re:Here's my hope. on Sandboxed Flash Player Coming To Firefox · · Score: 1

    Even with NoScript, you're always at risk of Flash hanging Firefox if you permit it to load. I'm not one to be patient with Flash so in such cases I kill the plugin-container and Firefox comes right back (seriously, Flash is the SOLE source of Firefox hangs for me.)

    What I'd like to see is Mozilla set up interactions with the plugin-container to be asynchronous so that the main Firefox thread doesn't hang when Flash kills the container. Until then, you can set dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.timeoutSecs to some super low value to keep Flash in line and minimize Firefox downtime. My preference is one second.

  11. Re:Yawn. Another underpowered Linux device on Details Emerge About Spark Linux-Based Tablet · · Score: 1

    Piece of crap, in my books, and late to market. You can already buy more powerful tablets that have better brand recognition and market share.

    But can I get one with the software I want on it? No. They all run Android or iOS. And more than a few of them come locked down from the start.

  12. Re:Rise of Linux on Details Emerge About Spark Linux-Based Tablet · · Score: 1

    Tizen will supply EFL along side the HTML/JS runtime. And since Tizen will also be using Xorg + glibc, software should be readily transplantable between it and other compatible platforms, much like how games for the palm Pre would run on the N900.

  13. Re:Rise of Linux on Details Emerge About Spark Linux-Based Tablet · · Score: 1

    Maemo and Meego (rather, Mer) are equivalent in flexibility, though in usability terms Maemo (whether on the N900 or N9) is currently ahead.

  14. Re:Multi-touch? on Details Emerge About Spark Linux-Based Tablet · · Score: 1

    It doesn't, but running a Qt exclusive framebuffer will break compatibility with other toolkits.

    We're stuck with X11 until Wayland gets off the ground.

  15. Re:Rise of Linux on Details Emerge About Spark Linux-Based Tablet · · Score: 1

    Tizen is not exclusively web apps. EFL is available for native development, so there's no reason to believe it will be impossible to do more. At this point it's just a wait and see.

  16. Re:Arm Twist Google Style on Google Pulls Support For CDMA Devices · · Score: 1

    Considering that telecom's are usually extremely picky about technologies, it is a bit baffling that they choose a standard that is essentially closed source (CDMA).

    Such a state has no bearing or impact on their decision. If they're going to roll out a network using such a standard, the vendor will reveal all that is asked.

  17. Re:For us non-US folk... on Google Pulls Support For CDMA Devices · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It doesn't forbid it, as I recall. It makes it optional and virtually every carrier opted not to as it gives them more control over the handsets.

  18. Re:For us non-US folk... on Google Pulls Support For CDMA Devices · · Score: 2

    I know. To think that if we had only made the RIGHT choice I could have been completely unable to buy my N900!

    Vendor locked devices! No carrier mobility! The SUPERIOR way!

  19. Re:HW / SW platform on Windows Phone 8 Detailed, Uses Windows 8 Kernel · · Score: 1

    The price of these things without subsidization from the phone companies would be pretty damn high./blockquote.
    $500-$600 without subsidization, $0-$300 with. You readily pay back the difference with their plans.

  20. Re:Windows Phone will become the best on Windows Phone 8 Detailed, Uses Windows 8 Kernel · · Score: 1

    Microsoft tying all of their properties together would probably be an awesome way to see them back in court, but probably not (can't be seen attacking a "Job Creator"). Of course, if they were all broken up into separate companies we might see some sort of cross platform way of doing this instead of it all being tied into one company that will probably patent the shit out of it and sue anyone who tries to enable such compatibility.

  21. Re:Why? (Re:Windows Phone will become the best) on Windows Phone 8 Detailed, Uses Windows 8 Kernel · · Score: 1

    I never understood the desire to unify desktop and other things (XBox) on a phone let alone why is it valuable.

    Lock-in. Inability to transfer outside the Microsoft domain due to how much is tied up in their platforms.

  22. Re:Computer in a phone on Windows Phone 8 Detailed, Uses Windows 8 Kernel · · Score: 1

    I have always wished phones, tablets in particular had the flexibility of a general purpose computer.

    They always have. OS vendors have been happily not delivering that. Microsoft won't go much farther, what with the lock down they're demanding on these devices (well, all devices with Windows 8.)

  23. Re:Bizarro World on Windows Phone 8 Detailed, Uses Windows 8 Kernel · · Score: 1

    Show me one (any) incidence of this occuring.

  24. Re:Scan for quality? on Google Starts Scanning Android Apps · · Score: 1

    Look, this site espouses the value of open source and more open markets in general.

    Which is why the fact that Android doesn't bar you from using 3rd party sources is valuable.

    Android is pretty open as far as markets go, but the caveat that comes with that is that there is a lot of garbage.

    Google's official market should be clean and secure in terms of the behavior of software available through it.

    Apple is right in one way, wrong in the other. So is Android. Google could easily take the best of both.

  25. Re:Really simple here on How Far Should GPL Enforcement Go? · · Score: 2

    It isn't stifling development. Vendors are happy to use it, they just don't like complying with the license terms. This is an attempt to do an end-run around the detection of the license violations.