Personally, I'm hoping for it to come sooner, rather than later.
Humans can be intelligent, clever, and creative when they want to be. Given the current profits by oil companies, and how lucrative the market is, I don't personally feel that anything will ever be done until it has to be done. The sooner everyone begins to feel the pinch, the sooner people are forced to innovate to survive. It's either that, or we'll be back in the dark ages. If it has to happen sometime, I don't see any reason why the inevitable should be after my lifetime. Of course, if we acted now, it may not be inevitable... but I don't have enough faith in humanity for that.
Might even give the population something meaningful to think about for a change.
Mine's pretty basic, and succinctly describes what I do:
Network Engineer and Software Developer
Easy, and describes my job description. Of course... when I joined, I wasn't really given a title so much as asked what I wanted it to say. Perhaps a benefit of working for a smaller company?
I agree, it has become much more intuitive. Windows Defender's display of startup applications is also quite nice; I don't know if that extends to XP or not. I find the Aero interface is pretty pleasing on the eye, too. The first time I've used Windows and not turned "classic mode" back on.
I was originally going to use just Vista, but after I installed a game and found it was not working, I just put XP on another hard disk. Rather than deal with any bootloaders and mixing up of drives, I just installed each operating system by itself and then use the BIOS boot selection to change which one I boot off of.
I've had the same experience with Vista RC2 for the most part. I keep my system up-to-date (gamer, after all!), and in my experience Vista is killing XP in terms of speed.
That said, I am a little concerned - I've run into a few smaller but strange issues with RC2. They aren't big, as I don't even remember what they are. The biggest problem for me is that nVidia's drivers need SERIOUS work under Vista. Zero SLI support, and horrible corruption in their latest driver. What's weird, is that the RC1 drivers worked fine. I also have many peripherals that there seems to be no official driver support for... my ScanJet 3970, my Nostromo game pad. But I suppose that will come in time.
The installation is definitely sluggish, though. I don't reinstall very often, though, so I can deal with it. I understand that my stuff is somewhat niche (the Nostromo, SLI), so I can deal. For now, I just use XP on another drive for my gaming needs.
I think that their real fear is what I've noticed happening to me.
I try before I buy, too. I'm just not going to pay 13.99 for a CD with only a single song I like, and good luck finding the single. However, since I began trying before buying, I noticed something... a large majority of the music I listen to does not fall under the RIAA, at least not directly. Oh, I'm sure they all own overseas labels and such, but even so, most of the music I like does not originate in the US. Some of it doesn't even fall under a label, anymore.
That's what scares them. They've worked very hard to turn something creative and personal into a product that they can dictate the terms to. They don't want people to have varied interests that they have to target. They don't want to bother with taking a risk on an artist, or dealing with niche markets. They want people to go to the store and buy music like many people buy margarine... they just settle in on a habit of one particular brand, but in the end, most of it tastes pretty much the same.
The internet allows people to distribute their own unique brand of music and get recognized for it. Since they can't seem to stop this, it would seem they've settled for shoving it in your face and hoping that you'll come to like it. Somehow I doubt that the advertisements for Jay-Z are going to be in false Jay-Z files, but will probably be masquerading as everything else but Jay-Z. I wouldn't even put it past them to name the files based specifically on artists who are not shackled down with a contract.
Yeah, I've found a couple references to problems with it from other people.
I downloaded the latest Ubuntu today, to try that. I was extremely pleased to find that everything works fantastic, including my USB keyboard. Must just be a distro thing... but I think I'll stick with Ubuntu. Been a while since I saw it lst, and from what I've seen so far, I'm liking it even more than Fedora. Based on the other comments to my post, I think Debian-based distros like my computer better.
I mentioned the distros in another message, but I'll post 'em here:
Fedora Core 5 SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 And I tried an old version of Ubuntu (Warty)
I would really like to use Fedore Core 5, though. I finished getting it running with a PS2 converter, but it still doesn't work with just the USB. From what I've used of it so far, I like it. I know I can just leave it like that, but it's bugging me, and I would like it to work without it.:) I'm not using an external hub, just the ports on the motherboard. I tried using a different port, and that didn't help either.
Well, I downloaded Fedora Core 5 to try it out. I haven't touched anything by Red Hat in some time (I have a habit of using Slackware whenever I play around, for some reason). That was the first one that didn't work. I also tried the evaluation version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. I used to do a lot of work with Novell Netware back in the 4.11 days, so I thought I'd revisit Novell. I also tried Ubuntu, but I used an older version that I had lying around (Warty), so that's not exactly the best test.
Interestingly enough, FreeBSD also has a problem, though it will work once the installation is finished.
For all I know, it may be something with my motherboard that isn't working right that Windows is just working around.
Actually, the keyboard doesn't work at all, regardless of whether it is during the installation, or post-installation. It flat out doesn't work when it's plugged into a USB port.;)
I'm a computer geek who regularly uses Windows. Yes, I know, boo, hiss, whatever. My software development happens under Windows because that's what I learned on, that's where most of the market currently is, and that's what I've got a job doing. I'm not going to stop working for a company I like doing what I enjoy just because I happen to do my work on Windows.
In any case, periodically I load Linux on an alternate hard disk in my machine to play around with it and see what I can get going. I do like to keep my knowledge of it up in the event that I run into it on the job (I also do field work from time to time), but I also like to see how far it has progressed. At some point in time, I really would like to use it as my core operating system, even if I still have to drop into Windows when I work.
Recently (about a week ago), I decided to try a couple of different distributions. They all seem to suffer from one problem -- the USB keyboard no longer works when it hits the installer. "You forgot to turn on legacy mode for USB in your BIOS!", is the first thing most people would say, except that I haven't forgotten to turn it on. It works perfectly fine for the BIOS-based boot menu. I even triple checked it, thinking I was missing something. I tried numerous options to try and get the damn thing working, to no avail.
Yes, I could get a USB to PS2 converter and yes, it does work fine after that. But that's not the point -- I shouldn't HAVE to do that. Critical things like that will kill any interest your average user will have in the operating system. But, for what it's worth, I was very pleased with what I saw after I did finally get it loaded. It's come a long way from the operating system I tinkered with 6 or 7 years ago.
I think a lot of it has to do with what kind of computer you have. From what I can gather, Microsoft made a lot of improvement when it comes to high end machines, but clearly doesn't expect low end machines to handle it, so I don't think they bothered.
A lot of the little irritations I had with Windows XP disappeared. Small things like "My Computer" hanging for a little bit when waiting on a CD/DVD ROM drive, seem to have been addressed. It opens for me instantly without any of the previous delays. That seems to be the biggest improvement, for me -- a lot of the "little delays" that XP exhibited are gone. I think that perhaps a lot of the slowness that people see comes from people who have video cards that work decently for the most part, but can't handle Vista's Aero with the kind of speed they would like.
All of this is just observation, nothing concrete or benchmarked. When I get up in the morning and log into my workstation, Vista is actually pleasantly minimalist to look at, whereas XP (which I use in Classic Mode), seems harsh. Is any of this a good reason for someone to pay another 200 bucks and upgrade? Probably not. But work pays for my copy, so I'll be more than happy to use it.
Keep in mind, I have no idea how well this is supported with any ISP anymore.
However, some years ago, I was in an area that was far outside of any access range. The only real alternative I had was ISDN. I believe at the time, it was 39.99 a month, and you did have a limit on the number of B channel hours you could have, but I never found myself over that limit (200). You get about 16K/sec, which isn't great at all bandwidth-wise, but it was very good on latency. I found it perfectly acceptable for gaming, at any rate.
Like I said, though... it's been some years, and I'm not sure any ISPs exist that can or will offer to service ISDN customers. Telco's not my area of expertise. But, it might be something to look into.
RE 1: Wasn't that the point of what I said? I was giving a reason why we have people who do this, and why you see articles painting this as a war between Microsoft and Linux. I wasn't stating that we should be shoving it down anybody's throat, but rather stating the opposite, that it should stand on its own because that's not what all this is about.
RE 2: I wholeheartedly agree. But again, my point was that Linux was not started as a competition with Windows, no matter how much people want to believe it is, and I don't believe at any point in time will the entire point of Linux become a fight with Microsoft.
You reply as if I was accusing you personally of evangelizing Linux and trying to shove it down everyone's throat. If that's how you chose to see it, that's your business... but the point of my reply was that there isn't any competition, because open source doesn't need competition. It exists for its own sake, and nothing else.
What has happened, is that somewhere along the way the philosophy of open source software and truly free software became popular. Unfortunately, much like religion, many of the people who became fans of the philosophy decided that it was not enough to simply live by it, but that everyone else in the world should live by it, too. The media, is always eager to pick up on any sort of rivalry, because it means polarization and ratings, and nothing sells better than playing off the emotions of the public. So now we have people who are willing to evangelize and peddle Linux like a religion, a select few of who would go so far as to shove it down the throat of the people, if they have to.
Is Linux more stable than Windows? Is free software more secure than proprietary software? When will Linux take over the desktop? In my opinion, these questions are utterly beside the point. Open source doesn't exist in spite of, or because of proprietary software. It exists because someone, somewhere decided to give their hard work to the world, and there is absolutely nothing that can stop or change that.
See, the thing is, Microsoft has provided a MUCH better alternative for a number of years, for free no less. So I wouldn't really consider it a mad plot to make more money.
It used to be called MSDE (Microsoft Data Engine), and it has since been renamed SQL Express. Yes, it is not a full fledged version of SQL; however, the features that are missing are not features that would have been used by anyone considering Access in the first place. The main detractor was that MSDE never had any of the management tools the SQL Server came with, and so I think it discouraged many people who had only dabbled in database work (but were assigned it for their job) from using it. Because they had only dabbled, the idea of creating tables and such without the assistance of a GUI was just more than they were willing to do.
Now, Microsoft has a management tool for SQL Express that is basically a free version of the management tool that comes with SQL Server. There should be absolutely no reason for anybody to use the Jet database engine any longer. But... I'm sure some people will still do just that.:)
I won't argue the price point... Microsoft's products are pricy, we all know that. But, you seem to assert that SQL Server has poor performance. Have you ever even used SQL Server? I'm not claiming it's better than any other alternative database systems, but SQL Server is hardly poor in performance.
That wasn't quite as clear as I had intended. My point was that most modern operating systems (Linux, MacOS, Windows XP) generally don't hard crash unless your hardware is bad, or your hardware has very poor drivers.
Obviously, things such as Windows 98, had some serious issues.
That's funny... my current rig is an XP x64 system... and everything works just fine. I don't have a single device lacking drivers, from my digital camera to my scanner, and Belkin was even nice enough to provide me with the in-development drivers for the Nostromo n52 I have.
It's perfectly stable, I do all my development work on it, as well as my gaming. I've also yet to see it crash.
In my experience, people who claim that operating systems are buggy generally need to either figure out how to diagnose bad hardware, or buy better hardware from vendors that know how to write proper drivers.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I'm hoping for it to come sooner, rather than later.
Humans can be intelligent, clever, and creative when they want to be. Given the current profits by oil companies, and how lucrative the market is, I don't personally feel that anything will ever be done until it has to be done. The sooner everyone begins to feel the pinch, the sooner people are forced to innovate to survive. It's either that, or we'll be back in the dark ages. If it has to happen sometime, I don't see any reason why the inevitable should be after my lifetime. Of course, if we acted now, it may not be inevitable... but I don't have enough faith in humanity for that.
Might even give the population something meaningful to think about for a change.
That is possibly one of the best programming jokes I've ever heard. Bravo!
Mine's pretty basic, and succinctly describes what I do:
Network Engineer and Software Developer
Easy, and describes my job description. Of course... when I joined, I wasn't really given a title so much as asked what I wanted it to say. Perhaps a benefit of working for a smaller company?
I agree, it has become much more intuitive. Windows Defender's display of startup applications is also quite nice; I don't know if that extends to XP or not. I find the Aero interface is pretty pleasing on the eye, too. The first time I've used Windows and not turned "classic mode" back on.
I was originally going to use just Vista, but after I installed a game and found it was not working, I just put XP on another hard disk. Rather than deal with any bootloaders and mixing up of drives, I just installed each operating system by itself and then use the BIOS boot selection to change which one I boot off of.
I've had the same experience with Vista RC2 for the most part. I keep my system up-to-date (gamer, after all!), and in my experience Vista is killing XP in terms of speed.
That said, I am a little concerned - I've run into a few smaller but strange issues with RC2. They aren't big, as I don't even remember what they are. The biggest problem for me is that nVidia's drivers need SERIOUS work under Vista. Zero SLI support, and horrible corruption in their latest driver. What's weird, is that the RC1 drivers worked fine. I also have many peripherals that there seems to be no official driver support for... my ScanJet 3970, my Nostromo game pad. But I suppose that will come in time.
The installation is definitely sluggish, though. I don't reinstall very often, though, so I can deal with it. I understand that my stuff is somewhat niche (the Nostromo, SLI), so I can deal. For now, I just use XP on another drive for my gaming needs.
Nah, I've been having problems like this since I first starting playing with IE7 when it was first available.
Not sure what it is, but it still happens from time to time... the text just goes all over the place, and you can usually get it to correct itself.
I think that their real fear is what I've noticed happening to me.
I try before I buy, too. I'm just not going to pay 13.99 for a CD with only a single song I like, and good luck finding the single. However, since I began trying before buying, I noticed something... a large majority of the music I listen to does not fall under the RIAA, at least not directly. Oh, I'm sure they all own overseas labels and such, but even so, most of the music I like does not originate in the US. Some of it doesn't even fall under a label, anymore.
That's what scares them. They've worked very hard to turn something creative and personal into a product that they can dictate the terms to. They don't want people to have varied interests that they have to target. They don't want to bother with taking a risk on an artist, or dealing with niche markets. They want people to go to the store and buy music like many people buy margarine... they just settle in on a habit of one particular brand, but in the end, most of it tastes pretty much the same.
The internet allows people to distribute their own unique brand of music and get recognized for it. Since they can't seem to stop this, it would seem they've settled for shoving it in your face and hoping that you'll come to like it. Somehow I doubt that the advertisements for Jay-Z are going to be in false Jay-Z files, but will probably be masquerading as everything else but Jay-Z. I wouldn't even put it past them to name the files based specifically on artists who are not shackled down with a contract.
Hey, that's the same case I have!
No, literally. It's sitting right next to me. Awesome!
After I had Fedora running, it still would not work. Unfortunately, there's no updates for my BIOS, either.
:)
Last night I tried Ubuntu Dapper Drake, and everything works great, though. So I'm going to stick with that. Thanks for the assistance, though.
Yeah, I've found a couple references to problems with it from other people.
I downloaded the latest Ubuntu today, to try that. I was extremely pleased to find that everything works fantastic, including my USB keyboard. Must just be a distro thing... but I think I'll stick with Ubuntu. Been a while since I saw it lst, and from what I've seen so far, I'm liking it even more than Fedora. Based on the other comments to my post, I think Debian-based distros like my computer better.
I recently replaced my keyboard for one with low profile keys. I'll have to dig up my old one and try.
:)
But, it too had similar problems on a different motherboard. I'll try it anyway.
Sure.
I agree, it is a really odd problem. I did a lot of looking on the web, but nothing came of it.
I mentioned the distros in another message, but I'll post 'em here:
Fedora Core 5
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10
And I tried an old version of Ubuntu (Warty)
I would really like to use Fedore Core 5, though. I finished getting it running with a PS2 converter, but it still doesn't work with just the USB. From what I've used of it so far, I like it. I know I can just leave it like that, but it's bugging me, and I would like it to work without it.
My current setup:
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
nVidia GeForce 7900
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi
Well, I downloaded Fedora Core 5 to try it out. I haven't touched anything by Red Hat in some time (I have a habit of using Slackware whenever I play around, for some reason). That was the first one that didn't work. I also tried the evaluation version of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10. I used to do a lot of work with Novell Netware back in the 4.11 days, so I thought I'd revisit Novell. I also tried Ubuntu, but I used an older version that I had lying around (Warty), so that's not exactly the best test.
Interestingly enough, FreeBSD also has a problem, though it will work once the installation is finished.
For all I know, it may be something with my motherboard that isn't working right that Windows is just working around.
Actually, the keyboard doesn't work at all, regardless of whether it is during the installation, or post-installation. It flat out doesn't work when it's plugged into a USB port. ;)
Honestly, more than anything, I wish I knew why.
I'm a computer geek who regularly uses Windows. Yes, I know, boo, hiss, whatever. My software development happens under Windows because that's what I learned on, that's where most of the market currently is, and that's what I've got a job doing. I'm not going to stop working for a company I like doing what I enjoy just because I happen to do my work on Windows.
In any case, periodically I load Linux on an alternate hard disk in my machine to play around with it and see what I can get going. I do like to keep my knowledge of it up in the event that I run into it on the job (I also do field work from time to time), but I also like to see how far it has progressed. At some point in time, I really would like to use it as my core operating system, even if I still have to drop into Windows when I work.
Recently (about a week ago), I decided to try a couple of different distributions. They all seem to suffer from one problem -- the USB keyboard no longer works when it hits the installer. "You forgot to turn on legacy mode for USB in your BIOS!", is the first thing most people would say, except that I haven't forgotten to turn it on. It works perfectly fine for the BIOS-based boot menu. I even triple checked it, thinking I was missing something. I tried numerous options to try and get the damn thing working, to no avail.
Yes, I could get a USB to PS2 converter and yes, it does work fine after that. But that's not the point -- I shouldn't HAVE to do that. Critical things like that will kill any interest your average user will have in the operating system. But, for what it's worth, I was very pleased with what I saw after I did finally get it loaded. It's come a long way from the operating system I tinkered with 6 or 7 years ago.
Same here.
I think a lot of it has to do with what kind of computer you have. From what I can gather, Microsoft made a lot of improvement when it comes to high end machines, but clearly doesn't expect low end machines to handle it, so I don't think they bothered.
A lot of the little irritations I had with Windows XP disappeared. Small things like "My Computer" hanging for a little bit when waiting on a CD/DVD ROM drive, seem to have been addressed. It opens for me instantly without any of the previous delays. That seems to be the biggest improvement, for me -- a lot of the "little delays" that XP exhibited are gone. I think that perhaps a lot of the slowness that people see comes from people who have video cards that work decently for the most part, but can't handle Vista's Aero with the kind of speed they would like.
All of this is just observation, nothing concrete or benchmarked. When I get up in the morning and log into my workstation, Vista is actually pleasantly minimalist to look at, whereas XP (which I use in Classic Mode), seems harsh. Is any of this a good reason for someone to pay another 200 bucks and upgrade? Probably not. But work pays for my copy, so I'll be more than happy to use it.
Keep in mind, I have no idea how well this is supported with any ISP anymore.
However, some years ago, I was in an area that was far outside of any access range. The only real alternative I had was ISDN. I believe at the time, it was 39.99 a month, and you did have a limit on the number of B channel hours you could have, but I never found myself over that limit (200). You get about 16K/sec, which isn't great at all bandwidth-wise, but it was very good on latency. I found it perfectly acceptable for gaming, at any rate.
Like I said, though... it's been some years, and I'm not sure any ISPs exist that can or will offer to service ISDN customers. Telco's not my area of expertise. But, it might be something to look into.
RE 1: Wasn't that the point of what I said? I was giving a reason why we have people who do this, and why you see articles painting this as a war between Microsoft and Linux. I wasn't stating that we should be shoving it down anybody's throat, but rather stating the opposite, that it should stand on its own because that's not what all this is about.
RE 2: I wholeheartedly agree. But again, my point was that Linux was not started as a competition with Windows, no matter how much people want to believe it is, and I don't believe at any point in time will the entire point of Linux become a fight with Microsoft.
You reply as if I was accusing you personally of evangelizing Linux and trying to shove it down everyone's throat. If that's how you chose to see it, that's your business... but the point of my reply was that there isn't any competition, because open source doesn't need competition. It exists for its own sake, and nothing else.
I agree...
What has happened, is that somewhere along the way the philosophy of open source software and truly free software became popular. Unfortunately, much like religion, many of the people who became fans of the philosophy decided that it was not enough to simply live by it, but that everyone else in the world should live by it, too. The media, is always eager to pick up on any sort of rivalry, because it means polarization and ratings, and nothing sells better than playing off the emotions of the public. So now we have people who are willing to evangelize and peddle Linux like a religion, a select few of who would go so far as to shove it down the throat of the people, if they have to.
Is Linux more stable than Windows? Is free software more secure than proprietary software? When will Linux take over the desktop? In my opinion, these questions are utterly beside the point. Open source doesn't exist in spite of, or because of proprietary software. It exists because someone, somewhere decided to give their hard work to the world, and there is absolutely nothing that can stop or change that.
But... then they'd have to pay her unemployment! :P
Yet, despite all this "rampany piracy", the industry has grown tenfold since the 90s...
Although, I'm sure somebody out there would point to that cheesy ad as the reason it grew.
See, the thing is, Microsoft has provided a MUCH better alternative for a number of years, for free no less. So I wouldn't really consider it a mad plot to make more money.
:)
It used to be called MSDE (Microsoft Data Engine), and it has since been renamed SQL Express. Yes, it is not a full fledged version of SQL; however, the features that are missing are not features that would have been used by anyone considering Access in the first place. The main detractor was that MSDE never had any of the management tools the SQL Server came with, and so I think it discouraged many people who had only dabbled in database work (but were assigned it for their job) from using it. Because they had only dabbled, the idea of creating tables and such without the assistance of a GUI was just more than they were willing to do.
Now, Microsoft has a management tool for SQL Express that is basically a free version of the management tool that comes with SQL Server. There should be absolutely no reason for anybody to use the Jet database engine any longer. But... I'm sure some people will still do just that.
I won't argue the price point... Microsoft's products are pricy, we all know that. But, you seem to assert that SQL Server has poor performance. Have you ever even used SQL Server? I'm not claiming it's better than any other alternative database systems, but SQL Server is hardly poor in performance.
That wasn't quite as clear as I had intended. My point was that most modern operating systems (Linux, MacOS, Windows XP) generally don't hard crash unless your hardware is bad, or your hardware has very poor drivers.
Obviously, things such as Windows 98, had some serious issues.
That's funny... my current rig is an XP x64 system... and everything works just fine. I don't have a single device lacking drivers, from my digital camera to my scanner, and Belkin was even nice enough to provide me with the in-development drivers for the Nostromo n52 I have.
It's perfectly stable, I do all my development work on it, as well as my gaming. I've also yet to see it crash.
In my experience, people who claim that operating systems are buggy generally need to either figure out how to diagnose bad hardware, or buy better hardware from vendors that know how to write proper drivers.