Are you smoking crack? The Ocean's 11 remake was better than the fucking original?
Jesus-Please-Us, Chuckie-Cheese-Us! Keep a watch over your shoulder. The remarkably well-preserved corpse of The Chairman will be strolling up behind you with a clue-x-four any minute now.
One of the comments made by the SCO reps was "Linux users will still be able to use Linux, it just won't be free. Linux users are just upset because they've been getting a free ride for so long and it's coming to an end".
Um, I think I have paid for every distro of Linux that I've used in the past 3 years. RedHat, Club Mandrake, Suse. I've either bought them from CrapUSA or paid for the direct from the company (in the case of Mandrake).
So how have I been getting a free ride? I've paid for an OS that I sometimes use.
The only freedom that I've had has been that which is like speech, not that which is like beer.
Here's a question for the Miranda users in the house...
If I set myself away, and set an away message, will that away message be sent through all of my active IM connections?
This is the one thing that keeps me using Trillian.
Hot lesbian witches! Think about it! It's fucking genius!
I almost pee'd my pants when I read this line. If I had the mod points, I would deify you for this.
Nor will you...ever...have to see...an email with...an absolute...overabundance of...ellipses...
I'm dancing the happy dance of "No More Dick" with...
Action...Urgency...Excellence!
I may not totally agree with Bush but I'll do the job I was trained to do.
That statement just makes me proud to be an American. We may not be totally in agreement with ANYTHING or ANYBODY, but we'll By-God get the job done.
My thoughts and prayers are with you and the men and women serving with you.
"Afraid I might pirate your stuff? Please, if I have broadband, I already can. So, take my money, the way I want you to, or I'll get your product somewhere else. Get over it and get with the economy."
I had an Archos Jukebox 20, which was very cool. Nice form factor, good controls, very friendly.
It even hooked up to my RedHat 7 box with only a kernel recompile.
But transferring 20 Gigs over USB 1 was an all night affair.
I never said it supported ALL hardware out of the box. Nor did I say that every installatio has gone smooth. I have pointed out that every install I've done has gone flawlessly.
This is not a debate on hardware support. Look, if you take a hard look at PC hardware, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY that you can tell me that Linux supports more modern hardware than Windows XP. If you think you can, you're fooling yourself, cause it just ain't so.
Re:Linux just gets better - just as Windows had to
on
Red Hat 8.0 Reviewed
·
· Score: 1
I have, in fact, (to answer several questions in this thread) given my Mom a copy of XP. The install went flawlessly. Her monitor came up in 1024x768 out of the box (her preference), and her network connection was perfect. I know about the monitor because I just called her to confirm.
Caveats:
1. I installed her router/gateway. No DHCP, but she has her IP config written down.
2. I walked her through backing up her data. She wiped the hard drive on her own.
3. The only call I've gotten so far was to ask if she shoulduse Norton Antivirus or another brand.
I can't answer all of these points since, as with all things, my mileage has varied. But a few come up that I want to address.
1. Load up Access97 (don't need any newer) and watch your VBA app perform 3X slower than it does on Win2000.
C'mon. You know how the game is played. Of course it runs slower. With every feature added to an app or OS, you lose some performance. Hopefully, you gain it back from advances on other things (ie: memory management, faster bus speeds, newer processes). In a perfect world, your gains outnumber your losses. You're running an app coded for an architecture from 1996, with tools from the same period, and you're running it on an OS in 2002. If you run apps designed for the first release of the 2.0 kernel, your app will not take advantage of any of the performance boosts of later kernel revisions. Arguably, it's not as profound on Linux, since not as many things are rolled into the kernel/core OS.
2. Ever notice how every once in a while if you change a users logon id and password that it doesn't work and that account gets hosed. Whats weird is that it works most of the time, in other words it is not a consistent bug, that really worries me.hmmmm.
On this, I'm not arguing, but possibly suggesting. Have you looked at the possibility that it could be related to the profile of the user? *shrugs* I dunno, but it looks similar to a problem I've had.
4. Ever notice how XP make a 1 Ghz (or lower) come to a crawl ?? THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE !!!
No kidding about it not being acceptable. OTOH, I have a celeron 500 Dell wks running XP. Not too shabby on the performance side, espcially if you turn off some of the eye candy and use it as a desktop OS. Again, YMMV, and apparently has.
As far as drivers, i have had good luck with all sorts of weird devices. If your device does not work in Linux it is most like because the manufacturer sux.
It's not always the drivers/hardware. I defy you to find me a single app that works as well as ChillCam. I can have a streaming webcam running in under 5 mintes, counting download. I've been trying to find an acceptable solution under Linux for 2 months. None of them work as well, as easily, or as reliably. Whihc goes back to the original quote.
SORRY , CALL ME A TROLL BUT XP DOES NOT JUST WORK, and is highly overrated just like OSX.
I'd never call you a troll. This is what you've seen on various machines. No disputing that.
Bear in mind, I run Linux on all of my machines. I dig it. But this article is a good primer on the direction that RedHat, et al, should be taking if they want to get in the game with the average USER.
The best line from the entire review...
on
Red Hat 8.0 Reviewed
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"And please don't tell me to dive in to the code and fix it, I am not a device driver programmer, neither I want to be one. I am a user when it comes to Linux and I expect things to work as nicely as they do on Windows XP and MacOSX"
Mod me down as flamebait, call me a troll, do your worst. But...
I've been saying this for a long time. If you want to keep Linux small, and only accessible to the enlightened (read that as "Lucky enough to know how to code, or content to run no exotic new hardware) few, then ignore that statement.
Wanna play in the business world? Read this article, and understand why she's dead-on with her complaints.
XP, for all that it's produced by Microsoft and has security holes, DRM issues, and privacy problems, works out of the box. It has been rock solid in EVERY implementation I've done. I can give my Mom a copy of XP, and she can install it and run it. She won't have to worry about having java support, or plugins. I will not have a call from her in the middle of the day complaining that she can't install an application because she hasn't met her dependencies. This is the "Mom-Test (tm)", and XP passes.
Just because I don't run it, doesn't mean that I don't respect it.
I'd love to offer up some of my spare time to do some doc writing, or web design, or even feature/bug testing.
So, why is it that (with only one exception) everytime I mention that in my "I use your software. Thanks for your effort, anything I can do to help?" email, I get a deafening silence?
Hey! OSS coders!!! Email me if you need any help with web design, documentation, testing. I'd be happy to help.
Nothing burns my ass more than hypocrisy (ok, maybe a flame about 4 feet high, but I digress...)
"Software should be free". Unless, of course, you employ that free software, and make your own choices about how it generates revenue.
As a disclaimer, I won't be using UnitedLinux. I'm quite happy with my little purple dragon distro. And in point of fact, I happen to think that per-seat licensing is a bad idea for a distro.
But hey, I'm not the one putting it together, so, it's not my call...
I once walked out of a grocery store with a box of milk-bones, a dog leash and collar, a container of cool-whip, a box of condoms, and a bottle of champagne.
My girlfriend and I had just adopted a puppy. The champagne and cool-whip were for a dinner party with her parents. The condoms were for after dinner.
When the clerk looked at my g/f and said "So, the champagne makes it easier to wear the collar and leash, right?", I thought she was going to die, on the spot.
MS-DOS: You get in the car and try to remember where you put your keys. Failing to find them, you climb on your bike and pedal over. You have to make several trips since you can only carry one thing at a time.
OS/2: It's a great car, it drives well, but it will only work on 70% or the roads in your area. After fueling up with 6,000 gallons of gas, you get in the car and drive to the store with a motorcycle escort and a marching band on parade. Halfway there, the car blows up, killing you and half the town.
WINDOWS: You get in the car and drive to the store very slowly; because attached to the back of the car is a freight train. Other than that, it's pretty neat; it's all run by pushbuttons, but it only goes about 35mph, you gotta warm it up for twenty minutes before it'll run, and it manages to hit 3 phone poles, a mail box, a stop sign, and two other cars on the way.
WINDOWS NT: It LOOKS really fast, like a Formula 1 car, and it's built so low to the ground that you can't take it out of the driveway. You get in the car and write a letter that says "Go to the store". Then you get out, and mail the letter to your dashboard.
WINDOWS 95: You call the garage to find out it isn't fixed yet, but you can keep the Windows loaner until it is.
MACINTOSH SYSTEM 7: You get in the car to go to the store. The car drives you to church, because the store has mysteriously exploded.
UNIX - You get in the car and type "GREP STORE". You screech off at 200 miles per hour, and arrive at the barber shop.
UNIX-WARE - Great deal, and looks really cool. Doesn't have an engine, though... Call Novell, buy an engine. No tires. Call Novell. No transmission. Call Novell. No clutch. Call Novell. No carbs. Call Novell. They don't support carbs anymore. Buy a fuel injector. No steering wheel...
NETWARE - You have to hire a CNE to chauffeur you around, but he keeps wrecking the car.
AMIGA - You get in the car and tell it to go to the store. It takes you to a shopping mall on the moon.
TALIGENT/PINK: You walk to the store with Ricardo Montelban, who tells you how wonderful it will be when he can fly you to the store in his Learjet.
AIX - Cool. A cross between a BMW and a Hyundai pickup truck.
LINUX - The developers have been here overnight and changed everything again. You wonder what the new cattle-catcher front end and rear gun turret are for. Car won't start. Hot-wire the ignition. No oil pressure. Add oil. Bad backfire, injection system needs adjusting. Check manual - nope, manual's three months out of date. Tune injectors by ear. Stereo is missing the left channel, tire pressure seems low, needs a good wax job... the hell with it, I'm gonna stay home and play with the car...
Sorta off-topic...but I gotta say...
on
Mashed-Up Music
·
· Score: 1
One of the funniest thigs I have ever heard is a mash of Eminem's vocal track of "The Real Slim Shady" into the music of Brittney Spears "Oops I did it again"...I damn near pi$$ed myself when I heard it the first time.
'Scuse me...I'm in need of a good laugh...headed to the MP3 library.
Part of what you pay for when you buy a Redhat box is installation support.
This is the part of the show where I burn off some karma, but...
I've run RedHat since 5-something or other, Caldera, SuSe, Mandrake, and Sorceror, before the big forking. And I can tell you one thing for certain. If part of what YOU pay for is installation support, you're getting ripped off like a blind man at a peep show.
EVERY time I've tried to use any of the support channels, here's the response:
1. Oh, I'm sorry. You didn't supersize your distro purchase. We can't help you out on the phone. You'll have to email us.
2. (upon emailing) Wow. Yes. It sure would be nice if you had 3D acceleration on your box. Too bad we don't consider that to be "install-related".
-or-
2a - (I'm still waiting on a response from SuSe that addresses the question I asked...OTOH, at least they responded...with a request for information on a piece of hardware they didn't support, but hoped they could include in a new version, if I'd just send them some specs...)
Don't get me wrong...I dig Linux. But, the only reason I can run it as more than a part-time hobby is because I spent a lot of time digging answers out of more knowledgeable friends.
Perhaps I should have thrown in more hardware horror stories...
* Digital Capture Device (w/USB)
* My USB scanner.
* Any of my inkjet printers.
* The freakin' southbridge on my mobo.
* Every webcam I've ever tried, with the exception of my Creative Labs cam
...trust me, the list goes on. My computer is a toy, from time to time. But most of the time, it's coding, designing, capturing, or something less-than-entertaining.
I'll concede that if nVidia drivers caused my system to crash, I'd be the first to chunk the card and drivers, and go looking for an alternative. But, I've run Mandrake, RedHat, and Suse (various versions) on the four cards I've owned, and I can tell you that MY only complaint is the splash screen. Which can be turned off.
But, back at the point, even if I went shopping for a new video card, my argument remains the same. I'm not going to quibble about the source code. If it's open and available, great. If not, and it somehow manages to work despite that, great.
From my perspective, as an end user, even if the source WAS available, I couldn't do a damn thing with it anyway. Nor do I know anyone who could.
Sure, the "community" could probably pull a rabbit out of it's collective ass and build one. But how long do I have to wait? It's not my fault I'm not a device driver programmer.
Don't get me wrong. At the end of the day, I think open source is a great idea. I'd love for all drivers and software to come with clean, well documented code. But it doesn't. I'd also love to have a group of highly skilled developers on staff who did nothing but write device drivers for hardware that I own, or would like to own. But again, I don't.
So what's the alternative? Do I have to accept the fact that wanting to run linux precludes me from running the latest hardware?
Sadly, the answer is yes, in lots of cases.
For me, the answer is clear. I'm going to give as much business as possible to vendors who are kind enough to throw a bone our way occasionally, as opposed to beating them up for not coming all the way. More power to you if you choose to do it another way.
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Are you smoking crack? The Ocean's 11 remake was better than the fucking original?
Jesus-Please-Us, Chuckie-Cheese-Us! Keep a watch over your shoulder. The remarkably well-preserved corpse of The Chairman will be strolling up behind you with a clue-x-four any minute now.
One of the comments made by the SCO reps was "Linux users will still be able to use Linux, it just won't be free. Linux users are just upset because they've been getting a free ride for so long and it's coming to an end".
Um, I think I have paid for every distro of Linux that I've used in the past 3 years. RedHat, Club Mandrake, Suse. I've either bought them from CrapUSA or paid for the direct from the company (in the case of Mandrake).
So how have I been getting a free ride? I've paid for an OS that I sometimes use.
The only freedom that I've had has been that which is like speech, not that which is like beer.
Here's a question for the Miranda users in the house... If I set myself away, and set an away message, will that away message be sent through all of my active IM connections? This is the one thing that keeps me using Trillian.
Hot lesbian witches! Think about it! It's fucking genius! I almost pee'd my pants when I read this line. If I had the mod points, I would deify you for this.
Nor will you...ever...have to see...an email with...an absolute...overabundance of...ellipses... I'm dancing the happy dance of "No More Dick" with... Action...Urgency...Excellence!
I may not totally agree with Bush but I'll do the job I was trained to do. That statement just makes me proud to be an American. We may not be totally in agreement with ANYTHING or ANYBODY, but we'll By-God get the job done. My thoughts and prayers are with you and the men and women serving with you.
"Afraid I might pirate your stuff? Please, if I have broadband, I already can. So, take my money, the way I want you to, or I'll get your product somewhere else. Get over it and get with the economy."
br
WTF?
I had an Archos Jukebox 20, which was very cool. Nice form factor, good controls, very friendly. It even hooked up to my RedHat 7 box with only a kernel recompile.
But transferring 20 Gigs over USB 1 was an all night affair.
This thing SERIOUSLY needs USB2 and/or Firewire.
Hmmm. Let me see...you can digitally record from any source, including FM radio.
You can then "beam" an mp3 to anyone else who has one of these cute little boxes.
Oh yeah! This is gonna be on the RIAA's list.
On the other hand, I'm still scratching my head that they haven't made a fuss about the Archos player/recorder.
Imagine a Beowolf cluster of these...
I never said it supported ALL hardware out of the box. Nor did I say that every installatio has gone smooth. I have pointed out that every install I've done has gone flawlessly.
This is not a debate on hardware support. Look, if you take a hard look at PC hardware, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY that you can tell me that Linux supports more modern hardware than Windows XP. If you think you can, you're fooling yourself, cause it just ain't so.
Holy crap. Mod this up!!!!! It's fantastic!
Ah, but you are wrong Grasshopper.
I have, in fact, (to answer several questions in this thread) given my Mom a copy of XP. The install went flawlessly. Her monitor came up in 1024x768 out of the box (her preference), and her network connection was perfect. I know about the monitor because I just called her to confirm.
Caveats: 1. I installed her router/gateway. No DHCP, but she has her IP config written down.
2. I walked her through backing up her data. She wiped the hard drive on her own.
3. The only call I've gotten so far was to ask if she shoulduse Norton Antivirus or another brand.
I can't answer all of these points since, as with all things, my mileage has varied. But a few come up that I want to address.
1. Load up Access97 (don't need any newer) and watch your VBA app perform 3X slower than it does on Win2000.
C'mon. You know how the game is played. Of course it runs slower. With every feature added to an app or OS, you lose some performance. Hopefully, you gain it back from advances on other things (ie: memory management, faster bus speeds, newer processes). In a perfect world, your gains outnumber your losses. You're running an app coded for an architecture from 1996, with tools from the same period, and you're running it on an OS in 2002. If you run apps designed for the first release of the 2.0 kernel, your app will not take advantage of any of the performance boosts of later kernel revisions. Arguably, it's not as profound on Linux, since not as many things are rolled into the kernel/core OS.
2. Ever notice how every once in a while if you change a users logon id and password that it doesn't work and that account gets hosed. Whats weird is that it works most of the time, in other words it is not a consistent bug, that really worries me.hmmmm.
On this, I'm not arguing, but possibly suggesting. Have you looked at the possibility that it could be related to the profile of the user? *shrugs* I dunno, but it looks similar to a problem I've had.
4. Ever notice how XP make a 1 Ghz (or lower) come to a crawl ?? THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE !!!
No kidding about it not being acceptable. OTOH, I have a celeron 500 Dell wks running XP. Not too shabby on the performance side, espcially if you turn off some of the eye candy and use it as a desktop OS. Again, YMMV, and apparently has.
As far as drivers, i have had good luck with all sorts of weird devices. If your device does not work in Linux it is most like because the manufacturer sux.
It's not always the drivers/hardware. I defy you to find me a single app that works as well as ChillCam. I can have a streaming webcam running in under 5 mintes, counting download. I've been trying to find an acceptable solution under Linux for 2 months. None of them work as well, as easily, or as reliably. Whihc goes back to the original quote.
SORRY , CALL ME A TROLL BUT XP DOES NOT JUST WORK, and is highly overrated just like OSX. I'd never call you a troll. This is what you've seen on various machines. No disputing that.
Bear in mind, I run Linux on all of my machines. I dig it. But this article is a good primer on the direction that RedHat, et al, should be taking if they want to get in the game with the average USER.
"And please don't tell me to dive in to the code and fix it, I am not a device driver programmer, neither I want to be one. I am a user when it comes to Linux and I expect things to work as nicely as they do on Windows XP and MacOSX"
Mod me down as flamebait, call me a troll, do your worst. But...
I've been saying this for a long time. If you want to keep Linux small, and only accessible to the enlightened (read that as "Lucky enough to know how to code, or content to run no exotic new hardware) few, then ignore that statement.
Wanna play in the business world? Read this article, and understand why she's dead-on with her complaints.
XP, for all that it's produced by Microsoft and has security holes, DRM issues, and privacy problems, works out of the box. It has been rock solid in EVERY implementation I've done. I can give my Mom a copy of XP, and she can install it and run it. She won't have to worry about having java support, or plugins. I will not have a call from her in the middle of the day complaining that she can't install an application because she hasn't met her dependencies. This is the "Mom-Test (tm)", and XP passes.
Just because I don't run it, doesn't mean that I don't respect it.
OK, now you're just talking all crazy.
Linux on a PlayStation, I'll believe. But a geek with a girlfriend that is that cool? C'mon.
You're stretching the limits of believability!
You know, I like that thought.
I'd love to offer up some of my spare time to do some doc writing, or web design, or even feature/bug testing.
So, why is it that (with only one exception) everytime I mention that in my "I use your software. Thanks for your effort, anything I can do to help?" email, I get a deafening silence?
Hey! OSS coders!!! Email me if you need any help with web design, documentation, testing. I'd be happy to help.
I'm in the metro Atlanta area...that is to say I live between Savannah and South Carolina.
And if you live in the nothern half of Ga, you understand why that statement is funny...
Nothing burns my ass more than hypocrisy (ok, maybe a flame about 4 feet high, but I digress...)
"Software should be free". Unless, of course, you employ that free software, and make your own choices about how it generates revenue.
As a disclaimer, I won't be using UnitedLinux. I'm quite happy with my little purple dragon distro. And in point of fact, I happen to think that per-seat licensing is a bad idea for a distro.
But hey, I'm not the one putting it together, so, it's not my call...
Dude, get off my brainwave...
I once walked out of a grocery store with a box of milk-bones, a dog leash and collar, a container of cool-whip, a box of condoms, and a bottle of champagne.
My girlfriend and I had just adopted a puppy. The champagne and cool-whip were for a dinner party with her parents. The condoms were for after dinner.
When the clerk looked at my g/f and said "So, the champagne makes it easier to wear the collar and leash, right?", I thought she was going to die, on the spot.
I, of course, laughed so hard I cried.
MS-DOS: You get in the car and try to remember where you put your keys. Failing to find them, you climb on your bike and pedal over. You have to make several trips since you can only carry one thing at a time.
...
... the hell with it, I'm gonna stay home and play with the car ...
OS/2: It's a great car, it drives well, but it will only work on 70% or the roads in your area. After fueling up with 6,000 gallons of gas, you get in the car and drive to the store with a motorcycle escort and a marching band on parade. Halfway there, the car blows up, killing you and half the town.
WINDOWS: You get in the car and drive to the store very slowly; because attached to the back of the car is a freight train. Other than that, it's pretty neat; it's all run by pushbuttons, but it only goes about 35mph, you gotta warm it up for twenty minutes before it'll run, and it manages to hit 3 phone poles, a mail box, a stop sign, and two other cars on the way.
WINDOWS NT: It LOOKS really fast, like a Formula 1 car, and it's built so low to the ground that you can't take it out of the driveway. You get in the car and write a letter that says "Go to the store". Then you get out, and mail the letter to your dashboard.
WINDOWS 95: You call the garage to find out it isn't fixed yet, but you can keep the Windows loaner until it is.
MACINTOSH SYSTEM 7: You get in the car to go to the store. The car drives you to church, because the store has mysteriously exploded.
UNIX - You get in the car and type "GREP STORE". You screech off at 200 miles per hour, and arrive at the barber shop.
UNIX-WARE - Great deal, and looks really cool. Doesn't have an engine, though... Call Novell, buy an engine. No tires. Call Novell. No transmission. Call Novell. No clutch. Call Novell. No carbs. Call Novell. They don't support carbs anymore. Buy a fuel injector. No steering wheel
NETWARE - You have to hire a CNE to chauffeur you around, but he keeps wrecking the car.
AMIGA - You get in the car and tell it to go to the store. It takes you to a shopping mall on the moon.
TALIGENT/PINK: You walk to the store with Ricardo Montelban, who tells you how wonderful it will be when he can fly you to the store in his Learjet.
AIX - Cool. A cross between a BMW and a Hyundai pickup truck.
LINUX - The developers have been here overnight and changed everything again. You wonder what the new cattle-catcher front end and rear gun turret are for. Car won't start. Hot-wire the ignition. No oil pressure. Add oil. Bad backfire, injection system needs adjusting. Check manual - nope, manual's three months out of date. Tune injectors by ear. Stereo is missing the left channel, tire pressure seems low, needs a good wax job
One of the funniest thigs I have ever heard is a mash of Eminem's vocal track of "The Real Slim Shady" into the music of Brittney Spears "Oops I did it again"...I damn near pi$$ed myself when I heard it the first time.
'Scuse me...I'm in need of a good laugh...headed to the MP3 library.
Part of what you pay for when you buy a Redhat box is installation support.
This is the part of the show where I burn off some karma, but...
I've run RedHat since 5-something or other, Caldera, SuSe, Mandrake, and Sorceror, before the big forking. And I can tell you one thing for certain. If part of what YOU pay for is installation support, you're getting ripped off like a blind man at a peep show.
EVERY time I've tried to use any of the support channels, here's the response:
1. Oh, I'm sorry. You didn't supersize your distro purchase. We can't help you out on the phone. You'll have to email us.
2. (upon emailing) Wow. Yes. It sure would be nice if you had 3D acceleration on your box. Too bad we don't consider that to be "install-related".
-or-
2a - (I'm still waiting on a response from SuSe that addresses the question I asked...OTOH, at least they responded...with a request for information on a piece of hardware they didn't support, but hoped they could include in a new version, if I'd just send them some specs...)
Don't get me wrong...I dig Linux. But, the only reason I can run it as more than a part-time hobby is because I spent a lot of time digging answers out of more knowledgeable friends.
Perhaps I should have thrown in more hardware horror stories...
...trust me, the list goes on. My computer is a toy, from time to time. But most of the time, it's coding, designing, capturing, or something less-than-entertaining.
* Digital Capture Device (w/USB)
* My USB scanner.
* Any of my inkjet printers.
* The freakin' southbridge on my mobo.
* Every webcam I've ever tried, with the exception of my Creative Labs cam
I'll concede that if nVidia drivers caused my system to crash, I'd be the first to chunk the card and drivers, and go looking for an alternative. But, I've run Mandrake, RedHat, and Suse (various versions) on the four cards I've owned, and I can tell you that MY only complaint is the splash screen. Which can be turned off.
But, back at the point, even if I went shopping for a new video card, my argument remains the same. I'm not going to quibble about the source code. If it's open and available, great. If not, and it somehow manages to work despite that, great.
From my perspective, as an end user, even if the source WAS available, I couldn't do a damn thing with it anyway. Nor do I know anyone who could. Sure, the "community" could probably pull a rabbit out of it's collective ass and build one. But how long do I have to wait? It's not my fault I'm not a device driver programmer.
Don't get me wrong. At the end of the day, I think open source is a great idea. I'd love for all drivers and software to come with clean, well documented code. But it doesn't. I'd also love to have a group of highly skilled developers on staff who did nothing but write device drivers for hardware that I own, or would like to own. But again, I don't.
So what's the alternative? Do I have to accept the fact that wanting to run linux precludes me from running the latest hardware?
Sadly, the answer is yes, in lots of cases.
For me, the answer is clear. I'm going to give as much business as possible to vendors who are kind enough to throw a bone our way occasionally, as opposed to beating them up for not coming all the way. More power to you if you choose to do it another way.
Thanks for the info...
I've given up entirely on the Intel. The wife runs XP and loves the player, so I took her Rio500 and added a 128M memory card.
Shrug. It works. But sexy it ain't.