but there's really no guarantee that a specific app will ever make it into a repository. I mean, if I release something on par with gaim or firefox, of course I won't have a problem with packaging and distribution.
but if I make a small app, for say, editing gamecube saves, or something that I'm going to want to install on machines at work that won't be seen by the public, it'd be nice to have something that's tied less to the distro. I mean, automake is a great tool. I use it for these such things, but it'd be really nice to have something that was like automake but also would be able to talk to the packagemanager and grab a dependancy if necessary.
It's part of what's great about Linux, not a flaw.
I never said it was a flaw. I was just saying that it would be nice to have a more robust/universal installation framework.
another thing that would be nice is for commercial/hardware-related apps. The videogame console homebrew scene is constantly releasing little apps for putting files onto flashcarts and streaming ROM data over a network connection. Assuming the developer does a source release (as opposed to a binary release), why does Joe Cool need to jump into a terminal just to install an app? He should be able to install it right from his desktop. And you shouldn't be wasting the developer's time by forcing him to learn the fine art and subtleties of distro-specific packages. Let him do his job and make the app better.
The windows and osx releases of such apps are an order of magnitude easier for the end-user to install and get running. she doesn't have to be a l33t hax0r just to try the app.
THIS is a major point as to why linux isn't ready for the mainstream desktop.
Apple's installer packager application is downright simple, although I think it could be done better, too.
although you do bring up a good point about the spyware. it'd become easier to distribute malware, and they'd get better distribution if packaging was easier, but a.tar.gz source release could just as easily have a script to wipe the drive during 'sudo make install'
Your conflicting your requirements. You want it to be easy to intall programs, which is very easy to do with a package manager like synaptic. Then you want to introduce installing some "fringe" program that is not available as a package. Use a manager, it's easy. If you want to get more complicated, well then it gets more complicated.
I've seen apps distributed online as ebuilds for gentoo that are NOT in their repository. it's for these cases that I speak of. If a developer makes an app (which I've done several times) and wants to distribute it, why not make it easier for end-users to use it and not geeky linux-heads. or if someone makes a custom build of GAIM with added encryption, they could distribute it in this package. although it could be a pain making sure it's as cross platform as possible, which would require it not to be a binary, but rather an archive-style package... with installation scripts. hmmm. quite complicated.
yes, but that doesn't mount the ipod. it supports the ipod great once it's mounted (although I haven't quite figured out how to just play my damned music, rather than having to add it to a playlist, which takes FOREVER), but I have to explicitly mount the ipod first.
there is an option to preload an instance of konq upon startup,
that's not exactly what I want. I don't want a window open, I just wish that KDE itself had konq built in. so when you fire up a filebrowsing window, it just pops up instead of having to wait for it to load. and if you fire up a second window, it would just appear, too. kinda like the Finder, you know? even windows explorer isn't quite that snappy.
yep, there is "restore volumes on login"
ah ha! thanks! I didn't see that. however, that box IS checked by default (as it should be). and, shouldn't kmix actually be part of the sound control panel?
laptop problems: report the problem:)
yeah, I may do that. it's only been a week and I've been trying to get used to everythign before I start reporting any bugs. I've got a pile of really, really minor bugs, and a couple of larger ones, but no showstoppers.
The rest of your complaints are just stupid. You are complaining about linux package management when neither windows nor mac even have one? Boot times too slow? WTF? How often do you reboot anyway? You are complaining about the LiveCD when no other OS has a liveCD? Why don't you do a compare of the LiveCD of vista and Knoppix or Suse and then tell us how much better the vista livecd is. OK?
the liveCD thing was my last gripe. but my gripe isn't about the liveCD as a liveCD, it's a gripe about the liveCD being used as an installer CD, but not behaving like an installerCD.
and the linux package manager could be done better. seriously. it could be GREATLY simplified. installing apps is a pain in linux, and although it does come with just about everything you need in the base install, when it comes time to install something, it can be a hassle trying to show someone how to do it.
unfortunately, I've gotta reboot kinda often on my powerbook because my sounddriver crashes or my network doesn't work right, and ifdown/ifup doesn't always cut it. OSX boots up in seconds, where linux takes as long to log in as it does to boot.
so, ok, you're right. booting time doesn't matter so much. Logging in DOES need to be faster, though. Now, again, I can't vouch for gnome, but KDE is VERY slow to log in.
and thanks for calling me stupid, man. try to act more mature next time.;)
My iPod (along with other devices) mounts automagically when plugged in, and the program to handle it (Rhythmbox) is opened automatically.
now that you mention it, when I was playing with ubuntu in gnome, my USB drives did mount right away, where in kde they don't... perhaps there's an option for that?
bah, I think maybe I'll just install ubuntu. gnome is sounding better and better.
umm if you downloaded the correct format then it should have done something when you double clicked the file (and popped up a menu when you right clicked)
what I meant by my question was a single distributed executable that when run, would install on the system, but was universal. Instead of the developer needing to roll their own Makefile, learn automake/autoconf/autoheader, and/or learn how to package their application for debian/gentoo/redhat/etc. Also, when you're just a computer user who's been given a machine running linux or whatever, and you go to download some new app and you're presented with "redhat- click here, gentoo- click here, debian- click here, source distro- click here" and they're like "but I'm on ubuntu" or "I'm on... um... linux!", then what?
So, you've got all this inbreeding of all the distros, so this really is the time and place to release such a thing. A universal installer package. One installer script to rule them all. Less work for developers. Less work for the end-user. People can share apps easier. No need for the "darn, I forgot, I'm on debian, you're on redhat... you'll have to go to the site."
Hell, you could even have the installer app check to make sure you've got the latest version and it could fetch the latest installer data. Advanced users could have the option to compile the package from source or do a binary installation, and, like I said, it could speak to the package manager and install any dependancies beforehand... except for on a system without a package manager, in which case it could pop up with a dialog describing what packages, and what versions of them are necessary.
I still have no idea what you are talking about. What do you mean by "doesn't remember the system volume?
ohhhhhhhhhh.... I got what you thought I was saying. I dind't understand what the hell you were talking about. talk about miscommunication. =)
I'm talking about the audio volume. I mute the machine before I shutdown, and when I boot it up again the next time, the volume is back to 90% (apparently the default volume setting). it's annoying when I'm on AIM and I don't want any sound, or if I boot into linux and wanna watch some pr0n, I gotta make sure I remember to mute it.
a lot of your points (installation / permissions) are cake from the commandline. Although I'm perfectly comfortable on the commandline, many of the most seasoned and experienced windows admins, and even a lot of OSX admins are not. They don't feel it should be necessary to do that.
in my opinion, I think that if you're going to have a GUI, either have it be as full featured as possible (more or less like windows or OSX, which both need work...), or have it be minimalist (yeah, I'm talking about you, blackbox!).
About the installations, I know some distributions have their own packaging scheme. Redhat has RPM, Gentoo has the ebuild, and ubuntu/debian has deb files. Whether any of these have handlers for doubleclickable files, I don't know, since I don't really use it like that (which is the problem with 99% of the developers of this fine OS and its components and related applications), but it would make total sense. Especially since I know that some apps are distributed with certain distros in mind as well as a source-based package (for.configure;make;make install)
does anyone know if anyone's made an installer app that will detect and speak RPM/ebuild/deb/other_pgk_system?
and, to answer your question about permissions, there's a perfectly good man page you can read.;)
I'll definitely have to check out ubuntu again. I didn't like gnome when I first tried it in like 99, and I've avoided it ever since, and when I put ubuntu on my little vaio, I never really did anything with it- mostly due to the fact that I could never get the damned thing online. it has no ethernet, and it didn't recognize the pcmcia card I found in my box o' hardware.
I'll definitely have to check it out again. I've got a lot of gripes with KDE, but I can navigate around it very comfortably, finally. I'm actually used to it. maybe I'll like gnome better.
My first linux was slackware......
for me, my first linux was redhat which me and my friends installed on a school computer in our C++ class, but it didn't have a gui. we just played in bash and figured out how to set up apache and run telnet. After playing with BeOS a bunch (I was a pretty avid user for a couple years, using it about 50% of the time), I installed Yellowdog linux on my 7600 which ran like a dog (no pun intended); I think it ran gnome and I really didn't like it, so I deleted it and went back to Be.
I've also since been back to redhat, but I never really got the hang of RPMs. I'd just do source-installs since I was more comfortable with./configure'ing... I've tried Darwin and netbsd (I know, it's not linux), mandrake, and suse- none of which I really liked. then I replaced OSX on my home server as an experiment and never really looked back after that. I've built a couple of appliance-style servers (a firewall/router which fell off my shelf and never worked after that, and the beginnings of a set top box) using LFS (linuxfromscratch), too, but I prefer gentoo over LFS.
I never tried slackware, but I've helped people install it.
you make some good points, too... another problem is the enormous variation in hardware, distributions and versions of said distributions that lead to different experiences.
as for our differences...
sluggish filesystem browsing? I used ubuntu, not kubuntu.....
what kind of machine are you running? now, I can't vouch for gnome's nautilus, but konqueror is slow on up to 1ghz machines. I'll play with gnome again this week and maybe I'll change my mind.
although that does bring up another potential thing to trip up new users... too much choice. most people don't want choice, unfortunately. at least not until they get more tech savvy and understand the difference between "memory" and harddrive space. (remember, there was a time when the majority of people knew nothing of cars).
about the system volume... you'd think that since the powerbook hardware is more standardized, they'd have better support. typically, installing linux on macs (in the last 6-7 years) has been a lot less of a headache than installing on x86 machines. less hunting for drivers because it's just a matter of saying "oh, b&w G3? use these ethernet drivers, these sound drivers work on all new-world macs, and this driver for that thing and we're set", where on x86 boxes, I find myself hunting through dmesg and lspci a lot more often. personally, I think it's an issue with the system resetting the system volume on boot (during initialization). I don't think it's up to the hardware, necessarily to remember stuff like systemvolume after a reboot.
About the package manager... it's still confusing. I've gotten the hang of it, but I can see how a new user would get tripped up. especially when it comes to enabling universe and multiverse repositories. I haven't used the add/remove programs thing, actually. I should check that out. I saw it, but never looked into it.
slow boot/(environment)login time- that's my point. general linux problem. =)
apps being cluttered: yeah, most windows apps are cluttered. most windows apps interfaces are horrendous. OSX's got a nice toolkit for creating interfaces which enables developers to create much more elegantly designed GUIs. linux really could learn a lot from there. programming for gtk is a pain. especially when you want to space things out a certain way, I find myself creating nested boxes with additional padding to keep things from looking too cluttered and to make it look like it was actualyl designed rather than automatically created by a computer.
about the overly complex system settings- I'm mostly talking about KDE's system settings. you go to modify stuff and there's just piles and piles of options crammed into the window. and some views that have less items have a textbox for 1 or 2 digit numbers stretched to 100% of the view's width.
and about the live-cd. it used to be that you could download a live-cd (for checking out the OS, with an option to install) or you could grab an install CD with a text-based installer... but it seems that in recent times, the only time you get an install-only disk is for server installations. I really wish the live CD at least popped up with a thing saying "WELCOME TO THE LIVECD FOR [distro]! would you like to install or just play?" or something to that effect.
the installer really should have a streamlined install. friends who I recommend ubuntu to (because it's the simplest distro, imo) have a lot of trouble because they don't quite understand what to do when it comes to partitioning or anything. there should just be an auto-install. even less questions. get my friends off my back. =)
I'm actually planning on putting xubuntu on my 600mhz pentium3 this weekend to play around... KDE CRAWLs on that box.
on a side note... I'm really more of a Gentoo guy. I've been dabbling with ubuntu because I wanted a quick install and quick package installation. I'm a little sick of waiting for an hour to install php5 on older hardware, and waiting overnight or longer to get X, KDE, and firefox installe
I thought it might be, but it really isn't. I recently installed ubuntu and kubuntu, and although they are leaps and bounds better than anything else I've used and it's getting really close to being ready, it really isn't.
some problems I encountered (which should be relatively easy to fix) are:
you insert a device (ipod), but it doesn't mount. you have to explicitly mount it
no mp3 playback out of the box (probably strictly an [k]ubuntu issue)
sluggish filesystem browsing (it takes a while to launch konqueror to start viewing the filesystem. that should be loaded on boot so it fires instantly)
doesn't remember the system volume between reboots (easy enough to fix, coding wise)
package manager really needs a more advanced user to utilize properly. it should have a function to view popular packages and more robust categorizing of packages (you really need to know exactly what you're looking for in order to install it)
slow boot time, then really slow login time (relative to OSX, at least; I'm really not familiar with windows boot time)
most apps still feel cluttered. the GUI toolkits don't really help with designing clean looking interfaces. maybe web-based apps really are the answer! (not)
overly complex system settings. most things should be hidden in an "advanced" tab since no one is going to fiddle with many of those settings
still very poor laptop support; although it supports many things on my powerbook, it gets weird when I close the lid, then open it. plus it takes forever to go to sleep when I close it.
when you boot the live-CD, it really should pop up with a window saying "do you want to install [this]?" and the installer should let you just agree to erase the drive and get going... (for non-tech savvy users)
I'm a huge proponent of linux, but it's really a lot more painful to use on the desktop than windows or osx. although it's got some nice features, it's playing follow-the-leader to the big 2, for the most part, and hasn't fully implemented features that users expect. it'll be nice when they finally get that far.
don't get me wrong, linux is fine for the desktop for the techy crowd. but not for the mainstream. Gramma could use it if all she's gonna do is type letters, surf the web, shop on amazon, and send/receive email. but when 13 year old jessica wants to play her music and do crap with myspace, she's SOL.
A system crash with a tasteful little box can be as easily dispised as all the the preceding.
that is precisely true.
My machine at work has some kind of hardware problem that was never quite solved while it was under applecare. it "panics" at least once a day, some days, it'll "panic" 5-10 times. Some things that set it off are scrolling in a terminal window (such as when I'm sync'ing portage on our server) or putting an audio CD in the lower optical drive.
The last time we brought it to tekserve, they claimed that both scsi drives were bad and they replaced them, and we didn't have a panic for a couple months, but by the time they came back (and with a vengence, I might add), there was no more applecare coverage...
I quote "panic" because sometimes I get that nice pretty "please restart your computer" screen, sometimes I get the text dump on the desktop, and sometimes the machine locks up, altogether.
luckily, we're getting one of those nice quad-xeon machines as soon as adobe releases the new creative suite, at which point I'll throw this machine out of a window.
I've got limited experience with electronics soldering (I took a class in middleschool and I also needed to do some work on my guitar, once), but iirc, not all electronics solder has flux in/on it. personally, I'd prefer the stuff with the flux on it already, since it's less messy.
When it comes to doing soldering involving plumbing (I was a plumbers apprentice in HS), I know most solder is packed with flux, plus we always smeared flux all over the pipe-end beforehand, too, before hitting it with the torch.
perhaps it's his preference to control the amount of flux he uses himself, rather than relying on the manufacturer of the solder to put the right amount in.
Now, I'm all for M$ bashing, and I realize that they've made some dumb mistakes in the past, but I mean, seriously... Vista isn't the first OS to support both IPv4 and IPv6... OSX does. Linux does.
I can't imagine microsoft making such a horrible design mistake such as this. Shouldn't it be as easy as checking which protocol is being used before sending a request?
well, that's possible, but if you didn't answer correctly, it didn't say "buy the game!!!" it said something along the lines of "you're not old enough to play this. You need to be born before 1970" or something.
I believe we got the game off some BBS somewhere. but we did buy spacequest and policequest. two great games.
Yeah, the internet and proliferation of websearch would seriously reduce the effectiveness of these captchas.
I remember when I was a little kid (the 80s) and I wanted to play leisure suit larry. I had to answer a couple of questions that would "verify" my age. Mostly things like "Who was Nixon's Vice Pres?" and other historical jokes that someone under the age of 16 or so probably wouldn't be able to answer.
If I had access to the web, or even chatrooms where older people would hang out, I probably would have been able to play consistently, rather than having to guess for 30 minutes before finally answering a question correctly.
What kind of advantage would using dreamweaver give you in a situation like this?
I first started with HTML/websites in the mid 90s with AOLPress, then Adobe Pagemill, NetObjects FUSION, GoLive Cyberstudio (which was bought by adobe and turned into GoLive), and eventually, I dropped all of these studio apps in favour of vim using PERL and eventually moved on to PHP.
I've since started using this great app called TextMate, and when I get a complete site that I need to work on, I pipe the code through a handful of PERL programs I wrote to make it readable and make sure all tags are properly closed, then open it in TextMate to start working.
I haven't used any of those big apps (GoLive et al) since the late 90s, so they may have improved since then, but aside from their WYSIWYG aspect and their built-in validators, what other advantages does it earn you? How do those apps aide you when you've got embedded code or PHP or whatever? Do they have built-in interpreters?
I dunno, I've just found that you really need to have a full webserver to properly work on a site. I wonder when Adobe is going to embed apache/php/perl/mysql/etc into GoLive/Dreamweaver to get a proper environment for the previews.
and, I dunno if you can answer this, but how well does Dreamweaver handle Ruby on Rails? I can't imagine it supporting rhtml (erb) or yaml code.
3 of my friends got this game for the 360 and I must say that I think EA dropped the ball on this one (seriously, no pun intended!)
the game has locked up several times on one of my friend's consoles, and he hasn't had that problem at all with any other game. Also, there are a lot of problems with collision detection and player animations; namely the celebratory animations after a touchdown. I've seen players get stuck in the air and go into a seizure, and occasionally, a player will be walking, but his foot will be twitching like crazy.
none of it is really a complete showstopper for me, but the game feels like it was very rushed... I don't like the game either way. but apparently, you can unlock other madden games (Genesis version!), so that kinda excites me.
on a side note... what's the deal with 360 games looking like total crap on non HD tvs? I don't mean that regular TVs look like crap compared to HDTV, but some games (dead rising is the first that comes to mind) have type that's too small to read on the shotty resolution of a regular TV which causes a serious impact to the enjoyability of the game.
I forgot about the memorycard->GBA cart option. that may be what I'll do if I decide to get into it. That still requires lots of purchases, though. I've got a 16MB SD (leftover from my PalmV) that I also use for homebrew apps on my gamecube, but that's not really enough.
Personally, my main motivation for homebrew is actually classic gaming. I love running the emulators and playing oldschool NES games on everything. It's also nice to have access to other functionality. having PDA applications on the DS would be nice, as would writing some code and dabbling with the DS.
When I picked up a GBA Flashcart when I first got my GBA-SP, I was severely disappointed because the damned thing required windows. Someone had also made a linux loader, but it was closed source and was x86 only (my linux server at the time was PPC), so I was screwed, there. I wound up selling that cart and buying another that supposedly had 3rd party OSX support, but I could never get it working right. I eventually sold that one too so I could get my first DS.
oh, and I forgot. All that crap for the DS sticks out, right? Especially in the DSLite, the GBA cart sticks out, too! It really erodes my motivation to do it since I probably won't use it enough because of the discomfort of it. at least the PSP just requires the memorystickproduo hidden away under that nice little flap.;)
I remember losing my Prince of Persia manual and having to guess the first letter of the last word on page 30.
what's amazing is how often you'd actually get the letter right.
What I did when I lost my manual (actually, I loaned the manual to a friend when I loaned him the game and HE lost it) was write down the right (or wrong) answer each time, and eventually I had a list of the majority of the questions it asked.
then, I wound up buying PoP 1 & 2 on CD years later, and it came with a little cheatsheet that was just like my list. it was nice to finally not have to go and flip through the manual.
although now that I can play PoP on my gamecube (I did a little hack on the iso of Sands of Time), I dont' have to worry about that anymore... not that I could play the game on my computer anymore. It sucks that it hasn't been ported to OSX.
Prince of Persia is definitely on my top 20 list of the best games of all time. It's probably in the top 10.
imho, the things that make lumines so damned addicting are the awesome visual effects and the goddamned catchy music. without that, the game doesn't rub the brain the same way and my neurons' stimulation isn't quite as invigorating as it should be. With that said, one could say "maybe lumines isn't that good of a game, then!"
well, my response to that is the ol' meth-amphetamine metaphor; bastards who do too much meth eventually over stimulate their brains and become no longer able to enjoy life in the normal way. Unfortunately, for the most part, so many games nowadays utilize this over-stimulation to get you sold which makes it difficult for other games (read: independent/single developer) to break into the market. I used to love tetris on the gameboy, but now, it's just not really that enjoyable. I really dont' get the same adrenaline rush that I used to when I was 8 or 9. One could argue that I've just gotten bored of it, but I like to think that it's just not stimulating enough anymore. I need something stronger.
although, at the same time, the original Zelda (and countless other NES and other classic console games) are still completely satisfying to me... although my theory on that is the ol' masturbation metaphor. It may be the simple fact that it brings back memories of my youth, or it may be that those gameplay mechanics never get old and no matter what, it still feels good to play.
wow, that was a long response to such a short reply.;)
considering that the chip that I upgraded from had no fan, I'm not sure if the firmware had any way of knowing if the fan worked/if the proc even had a fan on it.
I know the G5s adjust the fan speeds based on temperature and load to keep the cooling high and the audible fan level as low as possible.
the makers of the upgrade (GigaDesign) assured me that no damaged was inflicted to the processor from the immense heat it experienced. luckily, I was able to send it back for a warranty replacement, but they sent me back the same processor with a new fan attached rather than sending me an entirely new unit, much to my dismay.
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but there's really no guarantee that a specific app will ever make it into a repository. I mean, if I release something on par with gaim or firefox, of course I won't have a problem with packaging and distribution.
.tar.gz source release could just as easily have a script to wipe the drive during 'sudo make install'
but if I make a small app, for say, editing gamecube saves, or something that I'm going to want to install on machines at work that won't be seen by the public, it'd be nice to have something that's tied less to the distro. I mean, automake is a great tool. I use it for these such things, but it'd be really nice to have something that was like automake but also would be able to talk to the packagemanager and grab a dependancy if necessary.
It's part of what's great about Linux, not a flaw.
I never said it was a flaw. I was just saying that it would be nice to have a more robust/universal installation framework.
another thing that would be nice is for commercial/hardware-related apps. The videogame console homebrew scene is constantly releasing little apps for putting files onto flashcarts and streaming ROM data over a network connection. Assuming the developer does a source release (as opposed to a binary release), why does Joe Cool need to jump into a terminal just to install an app? He should be able to install it right from his desktop. And you shouldn't be wasting the developer's time by forcing him to learn the fine art and subtleties of distro-specific packages. Let him do his job and make the app better.
The windows and osx releases of such apps are an order of magnitude easier for the end-user to install and get running. she doesn't have to be a l33t hax0r just to try the app.
THIS is a major point as to why linux isn't ready for the mainstream desktop.
Apple's installer packager application is downright simple, although I think it could be done better, too.
although you do bring up a good point about the spyware. it'd become easier to distribute malware, and they'd get better distribution if packaging was easier, but a
I've seen apps distributed online as ebuilds for gentoo that are NOT in their repository. it's for these cases that I speak of. If a developer makes an app (which I've done several times) and wants to distribute it, why not make it easier for end-users to use it and not geeky linux-heads. or if someone makes a custom build of GAIM with added encryption, they could distribute it in this package. although it could be a pain making sure it's as cross platform as possible, which would require it not to be a binary, but rather an archive-style package... with installation scripts. hmmm. quite complicated.
did you try amarok ?
:)
yes, but that doesn't mount the ipod. it supports the ipod great once it's mounted (although I haven't quite figured out how to just play my damned music, rather than having to add it to a playlist, which takes FOREVER), but I have to explicitly mount the ipod first.
there is an option to preload an instance of konq upon startup,
that's not exactly what I want. I don't want a window open, I just wish that KDE itself had konq built in. so when you fire up a filebrowsing window, it just pops up instead of having to wait for it to load. and if you fire up a second window, it would just appear, too. kinda like the Finder, you know? even windows explorer isn't quite that snappy.
yep, there is "restore volumes on login"
ah ha! thanks! I didn't see that. however, that box IS checked by default (as it should be). and, shouldn't kmix actually be part of the sound control panel?
laptop problems: report the problem
yeah, I may do that. it's only been a week and I've been trying to get used to everythign before I start reporting any bugs. I've got a pile of really, really minor bugs, and a couple of larger ones, but no showstoppers.
The rest of your complaints are just stupid. You are complaining about linux package management when neither windows nor mac even have one? Boot times too slow? WTF? How often do you reboot anyway? You are complaining about the LiveCD when no other OS has a liveCD? Why don't you do a compare of the LiveCD of vista and Knoppix or Suse and then tell us how much better the vista livecd is. OK?
;)
the liveCD thing was my last gripe. but my gripe isn't about the liveCD as a liveCD, it's a gripe about the liveCD being used as an installer CD, but not behaving like an installerCD.
and the linux package manager could be done better. seriously. it could be GREATLY simplified. installing apps is a pain in linux, and although it does come with just about everything you need in the base install, when it comes time to install something, it can be a hassle trying to show someone how to do it.
unfortunately, I've gotta reboot kinda often on my powerbook because my sounddriver crashes or my network doesn't work right, and ifdown/ifup doesn't always cut it. OSX boots up in seconds, where linux takes as long to log in as it does to boot.
so, ok, you're right. booting time doesn't matter so much. Logging in DOES need to be faster, though. Now, again, I can't vouch for gnome, but KDE is VERY slow to log in.
and thanks for calling me stupid, man. try to act more mature next time.
now that you mention it, when I was playing with ubuntu in gnome, my USB drives did mount right away, where in kde they don't... perhaps there's an option for that?
bah, I think maybe I'll just install ubuntu. gnome is sounding better and better.
umm if you downloaded the correct format then it should have done something when you double clicked the file (and popped up a menu when you right clicked)
what I meant by my question was a single distributed executable that when run, would install on the system, but was universal. Instead of the developer needing to roll their own Makefile, learn automake/autoconf/autoheader, and/or learn how to package their application for debian/gentoo/redhat/etc. Also, when you're just a computer user who's been given a machine running linux or whatever, and you go to download some new app and you're presented with "redhat- click here, gentoo- click here, debian- click here, source distro- click here" and they're like "but I'm on ubuntu" or "I'm on... um... linux!", then what?
So, you've got all this inbreeding of all the distros, so this really is the time and place to release such a thing. A universal installer package. One installer script to rule them all. Less work for developers. Less work for the end-user. People can share apps easier. No need for the "darn, I forgot, I'm on debian, you're on redhat... you'll have to go to the site."
Hell, you could even have the installer app check to make sure you've got the latest version and it could fetch the latest installer data. Advanced users could have the option to compile the package from source or do a binary installation, and, like I said, it could speak to the package manager and install any dependancies beforehand... except for on a system without a package manager, in which case it could pop up with a dialog describing what packages, and what versions of them are necessary.
I still have no idea what you are talking about. What do you mean by "doesn't remember the system volume?
;)
ohhhhhhhhhh.... I got what you thought I was saying. I dind't understand what the hell you were talking about. talk about miscommunication. =)
I'm talking about the audio volume. I mute the machine before I shutdown, and when I boot it up again the next time, the volume is back to 90% (apparently the default volume setting). it's annoying when I'm on AIM and I don't want any sound, or if I boot into linux and wanna watch some pr0n, I gotta make sure I remember to mute it.
kinda lame.
in my opinion, I think that if you're going to have a GUI, either have it be as full featured as possible (more or less like windows or OSX, which both need work...), or have it be minimalist (yeah, I'm talking about you, blackbox!).
About the installations, I know some distributions have their own packaging scheme. Redhat has RPM, Gentoo has the ebuild, and ubuntu/debian has deb files. Whether any of these have handlers for doubleclickable files, I don't know, since I don't really use it like that (which is the problem with 99% of the developers of this fine OS and its components and related applications), but it would make total sense. Especially since I know that some apps are distributed with certain distros in mind as well as a source-based package (for
does anyone know if anyone's made an installer app that will detect and speak RPM/ebuild/deb/other_pgk_system?
and, to answer your question about permissions, there's a perfectly good man page you can read.
I'll definitely have to check it out again. I've got a lot of gripes with KDE, but I can navigate around it very comfortably, finally. I'm actually used to it. maybe I'll like gnome better.
for me, my first linux was redhat which me and my friends installed on a school computer in our C++ class, but it didn't have a gui. we just played in bash and figured out how to set up apache and run telnet. After playing with BeOS a bunch (I was a pretty avid user for a couple years, using it about 50% of the time), I installed Yellowdog linux on my 7600 which ran like a dog (no pun intended); I think it ran gnome and I really didn't like it, so I deleted it and went back to Be.
I've also since been back to redhat, but I never really got the hang of RPMs. I'd just do source-installs since I was more comfortable with
I never tried slackware, but I've helped people install it.
GNU/Linux isn't ready for the naive user, but X/Mozilla/OpenOffice/Linux might be
I dunno about X... it still feels like it's designed for uber-advanced users. programmers, even.
you make some good points, too... another problem is the enormous variation in hardware, distributions and versions of said distributions that lead to different experiences.
as for our differences...
sluggish filesystem browsing? I used ubuntu, not kubuntu.....
what kind of machine are you running? now, I can't vouch for gnome's nautilus, but konqueror is slow on up to 1ghz machines. I'll play with gnome again this week and maybe I'll change my mind.
although that does bring up another potential thing to trip up new users... too much choice. most people don't want choice, unfortunately. at least not until they get more tech savvy and understand the difference between "memory" and harddrive space. (remember, there was a time when the majority of people knew nothing of cars).
about the system volume... you'd think that since the powerbook hardware is more standardized, they'd have better support. typically, installing linux on macs (in the last 6-7 years) has been a lot less of a headache than installing on x86 machines. less hunting for drivers because it's just a matter of saying "oh, b&w G3? use these ethernet drivers, these sound drivers work on all new-world macs, and this driver for that thing and we're set", where on x86 boxes, I find myself hunting through dmesg and lspci a lot more often. personally, I think it's an issue with the system resetting the system volume on boot (during initialization). I don't think it's up to the hardware, necessarily to remember stuff like systemvolume after a reboot.
About the package manager... it's still confusing. I've gotten the hang of it, but I can see how a new user would get tripped up. especially when it comes to enabling universe and multiverse repositories. I haven't used the add/remove programs thing, actually. I should check that out. I saw it, but never looked into it.
slow boot/(environment)login time- that's my point. general linux problem. =)
apps being cluttered: yeah, most windows apps are cluttered. most windows apps interfaces are horrendous. OSX's got a nice toolkit for creating interfaces which enables developers to create much more elegantly designed GUIs. linux really could learn a lot from there. programming for gtk is a pain. especially when you want to space things out a certain way, I find myself creating nested boxes with additional padding to keep things from looking too cluttered and to make it look like it was actualyl designed rather than automatically created by a computer.
about the overly complex system settings- I'm mostly talking about KDE's system settings. you go to modify stuff and there's just piles and piles of options crammed into the window. and some views that have less items have a textbox for 1 or 2 digit numbers stretched to 100% of the view's width.
and about the live-cd. it used to be that you could download a live-cd (for checking out the OS, with an option to install) or you could grab an install CD with a text-based installer... but it seems that in recent times, the only time you get an install-only disk is for server installations. I really wish the live CD at least popped up with a thing saying "WELCOME TO THE LIVECD FOR [distro]! would you like to install or just play?" or something to that effect.
the installer really should have a streamlined install. friends who I recommend ubuntu to (because it's the simplest distro, imo) have a lot of trouble because they don't quite understand what to do when it comes to partitioning or anything. there should just be an auto-install. even less questions. get my friends off my back. =)
I'm actually planning on putting xubuntu on my 600mhz pentium3 this weekend to play around... KDE CRAWLs on that box.
on a side note... I'm really more of a Gentoo guy. I've been dabbling with ubuntu because I wanted a quick install and quick package installation. I'm a little sick of waiting for an hour to install php5 on older hardware, and waiting overnight or longer to get X, KDE, and firefox installe
I thought it might be, but it really isn't. I recently installed ubuntu and kubuntu, and although they are leaps and bounds better than anything else I've used and it's getting really close to being ready, it really isn't.
some problems I encountered (which should be relatively easy to fix) are:
I'm a huge proponent of linux, but it's really a lot more painful to use on the desktop than windows or osx. although it's got some nice features, it's playing follow-the-leader to the big 2, for the most part, and hasn't fully implemented features that users expect. it'll be nice when they finally get that far.
don't get me wrong, linux is fine for the desktop for the techy crowd. but not for the mainstream. Gramma could use it if all she's gonna do is type letters, surf the web, shop on amazon, and send/receive email. but when 13 year old jessica wants to play her music and do crap with myspace, she's SOL.
A system crash with a tasteful little box can be as easily dispised as all the the preceding.
that is precisely true.
My machine at work has some kind of hardware problem that was never quite solved while it was under applecare. it "panics" at least once a day, some days, it'll "panic" 5-10 times. Some things that set it off are scrolling in a terminal window (such as when I'm sync'ing portage on our server) or putting an audio CD in the lower optical drive.
The last time we brought it to tekserve, they claimed that both scsi drives were bad and they replaced them, and we didn't have a panic for a couple months, but by the time they came back (and with a vengence, I might add), there was no more applecare coverage...
I quote "panic" because sometimes I get that nice pretty "please restart your computer" screen, sometimes I get the text dump on the desktop, and sometimes the machine locks up, altogether.
luckily, we're getting one of those nice quad-xeon machines as soon as adobe releases the new creative suite, at which point I'll throw this machine out of a window.
I've got limited experience with electronics soldering (I took a class in middleschool and I also needed to do some work on my guitar, once), but iirc, not all electronics solder has flux in/on it. personally, I'd prefer the stuff with the flux on it already, since it's less messy.
When it comes to doing soldering involving plumbing (I was a plumbers apprentice in HS), I know most solder is packed with flux, plus we always smeared flux all over the pipe-end beforehand, too, before hitting it with the torch.
perhaps it's his preference to control the amount of flux he uses himself, rather than relying on the manufacturer of the solder to put the right amount in.
Columbians relying solely on the instructable and cannot read or speak english use highly corrosive cocaine on their electronics.
Now, I'm all for M$ bashing, and I realize that they've made some dumb mistakes in the past, but I mean, seriously... Vista isn't the first OS to support both IPv4 and IPv6... OSX does. Linux does.
I can't imagine microsoft making such a horrible design mistake such as this. Shouldn't it be as easy as checking which protocol is being used before sending a request?
talk about FUD.
Uhm, IIRC those answers were in the book.
well, that's possible, but if you didn't answer correctly, it didn't say "buy the game!!!" it said something along the lines of "you're not old enough to play this. You need to be born before 1970" or something.
I believe we got the game off some BBS somewhere. but we did buy spacequest and policequest. two great games.
Yeah, the internet and proliferation of websearch would seriously reduce the effectiveness of these captchas.
I remember when I was a little kid (the 80s) and I wanted to play leisure suit larry. I had to answer a couple of questions that would "verify" my age. Mostly things like "Who was Nixon's Vice Pres?" and other historical jokes that someone under the age of 16 or so probably wouldn't be able to answer.
If I had access to the web, or even chatrooms where older people would hang out, I probably would have been able to play consistently, rather than having to guess for 30 minutes before finally answering a question correctly.
Dreamweaver FTW!
What kind of advantage would using dreamweaver give you in a situation like this?
I first started with HTML/websites in the mid 90s with AOLPress, then Adobe Pagemill, NetObjects FUSION, GoLive Cyberstudio (which was bought by adobe and turned into GoLive), and eventually, I dropped all of these studio apps in favour of vim using PERL and eventually moved on to PHP.
I've since started using this great app called TextMate, and when I get a complete site that I need to work on, I pipe the code through a handful of PERL programs I wrote to make it readable and make sure all tags are properly closed, then open it in TextMate to start working.
I haven't used any of those big apps (GoLive et al) since the late 90s, so they may have improved since then, but aside from their WYSIWYG aspect and their built-in validators, what other advantages does it earn you? How do those apps aide you when you've got embedded code or PHP or whatever? Do they have built-in interpreters?
I dunno, I've just found that you really need to have a full webserver to properly work on a site. I wonder when Adobe is going to embed apache/php/perl/mysql/etc into GoLive/Dreamweaver to get a proper environment for the previews.
and, I dunno if you can answer this, but how well does Dreamweaver handle Ruby on Rails? I can't imagine it supporting rhtml (erb) or yaml code.
I would not bother getting this game
3 of my friends got this game for the 360 and I must say that I think EA dropped the ball on this one (seriously, no pun intended!)
the game has locked up several times on one of my friend's consoles, and he hasn't had that problem at all with any other game. Also, there are a lot of problems with collision detection and player animations; namely the celebratory animations after a touchdown. I've seen players get stuck in the air and go into a seizure, and occasionally, a player will be walking, but his foot will be twitching like crazy.
none of it is really a complete showstopper for me, but the game feels like it was very rushed... I don't like the game either way. but apparently, you can unlock other madden games (Genesis version!), so that kinda excites me.
on a side note... what's the deal with 360 games looking like total crap on non HD tvs? I don't mean that regular TVs look like crap compared to HDTV, but some games (dead rising is the first that comes to mind) have type that's too small to read on the shotty resolution of a regular TV which causes a serious impact to the enjoyability of the game.
btw, I'm completely and utterly jealous of your black DSLite. I think I may have to bite the bullet and sell my white Lite to get a black one.
I forgot about the memorycard->GBA cart option. that may be what I'll do if I decide to get into it. That still requires lots of purchases, though. I've got a 16MB SD (leftover from my PalmV) that I also use for homebrew apps on my gamecube, but that's not really enough.
;)
Personally, my main motivation for homebrew is actually classic gaming. I love running the emulators and playing oldschool NES games on everything. It's also nice to have access to other functionality. having PDA applications on the DS would be nice, as would writing some code and dabbling with the DS.
When I picked up a GBA Flashcart when I first got my GBA-SP, I was severely disappointed because the damned thing required windows. Someone had also made a linux loader, but it was closed source and was x86 only (my linux server at the time was PPC), so I was screwed, there. I wound up selling that cart and buying another that supposedly had 3rd party OSX support, but I could never get it working right. I eventually sold that one too so I could get my first DS.
oh, and I forgot. All that crap for the DS sticks out, right? Especially in the DSLite, the GBA cart sticks out, too! It really erodes my motivation to do it since I probably won't use it enough because of the discomfort of it. at least the PSP just requires the memorystickproduo hidden away under that nice little flap.
I remember losing my Prince of Persia manual and having to guess the first letter of the last word on page 30.
what's amazing is how often you'd actually get the letter right.
What I did when I lost my manual (actually, I loaned the manual to a friend when I loaned him the game and HE lost it) was write down the right (or wrong) answer each time, and eventually I had a list of the majority of the questions it asked.
then, I wound up buying PoP 1 & 2 on CD years later, and it came with a little cheatsheet that was just like my list. it was nice to finally not have to go and flip through the manual.
although now that I can play PoP on my gamecube (I did a little hack on the iso of Sands of Time), I dont' have to worry about that anymore... not that I could play the game on my computer anymore. It sucks that it hasn't been ported to OSX.
Prince of Persia is definitely on my top 20 list of the best games of all time. It's probably in the top 10.
Cue Tepples posting a link to Luminesweeper in 3... 2... 1...
;)
luminesweeper isn't quite as good.
imho, the things that make lumines so damned addicting are the awesome visual effects and the goddamned catchy music. without that, the game doesn't rub the brain the same way and my neurons' stimulation isn't quite as invigorating as it should be. With that said, one could say "maybe lumines isn't that good of a game, then!"
well, my response to that is the ol' meth-amphetamine metaphor; bastards who do too much meth eventually over stimulate their brains and become no longer able to enjoy life in the normal way. Unfortunately, for the most part, so many games nowadays utilize this over-stimulation to get you sold which makes it difficult for other games (read: independent/single developer) to break into the market. I used to love tetris on the gameboy, but now, it's just not really that enjoyable. I really dont' get the same adrenaline rush that I used to when I was 8 or 9. One could argue that I've just gotten bored of it, but I like to think that it's just not stimulating enough anymore. I need something stronger.
although, at the same time, the original Zelda (and countless other NES and other classic console games) are still completely satisfying to me... although my theory on that is the ol' masturbation metaphor. It may be the simple fact that it brings back memories of my youth, or it may be that those gameplay mechanics never get old and no matter what, it still feels good to play.
wow, that was a long response to such a short reply.
considering that the chip that I upgraded from had no fan, I'm not sure if the firmware had any way of knowing if the fan worked/if the proc even had a fan on it.
I know the G5s adjust the fan speeds based on temperature and load to keep the cooling high and the audible fan level as low as possible.
the makers of the upgrade (GigaDesign) assured me that no damaged was inflicted to the processor from the immense heat it experienced. luckily, I was able to send it back for a warranty replacement, but they sent me back the same processor with a new fan attached rather than sending me an entirely new unit, much to my dismay.