While this may not help you, there are certainly options for deploying silently without the MSI if you're so inclined.
If you really can't deploy anything but MSIs, then how do you handle the other thousands of installers that aren't MSI packaged? Firefox seems like a nit in comparison to the legions of corporate-important applications that use any other install method but MSI. Or legacy apps that were packaged before the popularity of MSI. Or in house desktop applications. Or any number of other obnoxious speed bumps you deal with when managing a large number of desktops + app deployment in a corporate environment.
I for one appreciate your effort on this thing. I've been watching the conversation on wine-devel since you started and it's unfortunate that there's been so many roadblocks. Best of luck in your future endeavors.
Who uses the word "plinth" instead of "pedestal"? While it's always fun to learn new words, I'll never get back those 5 seconds during which I was scratching my head trying to figure that out. And the 30 seconds it took me to post this pointless reply. You owe me 35 seconds sir!
I think this ends up being one of those "if you build it..." things. This would be fairly easy to configure with existing tech:
1. Setup all of your desktops with an ssh key exchange auth account that would act as the equivalent of the usual slew of Microsoft service accounts (SYSTEM, Network Service, etc). This would preferably be in the deployment image but could be scripted after the fact.
2. On a master deployment server, have a separated set of configuration directories (/etc,/home/.$whatever to be added to/etc/skel and to existing users) and modify them to suit. A nice little gui with configuration options that hide the configs could be a plus for folks who aren't aware of every option available in a config file. At some point apps could distribute something like a policy-config.xml that could map config file options to policy options in the gui app to ease this.
3. A little scripting duct tape with rsync/scp and the service account could deploy the configurations. Writing an app to do this sort of thing would probably be better, but when you're not a programmer you work with what you've got.
4. Don't give users root. sudo configs could be deployed just like any other policy as needed.
The application deployment stuff is doable now with yum, apt-get, emerge, etc (we built one for rhel 3 using nothing but apt for rpm, rsync and perl in an afternoon a couple years ago, and we're not particularily good with perl). Configured correctly it ends up just like SMS or something similar (client checks in on a schedule, pulls "approved" apps down and installs in the background). From there it's probably not even terribly tricky to be able to do software inventories and tracking.
So really, I think all it would take is someone with the time, skill and desire to piece it all together - sooner or later it's bound to happen.
For the company I work at the issue is hardware - while some of our PCs would probably run Vista somewhat ok a lot of them won't and we can't really afford to either a.) increase support costs by having a constant stream of "slow PC" calls or b.) do a complete desktop refresh in less than 2 years. If there was some sort of tangible advantage we'd probably try to find the budget, but no one has pointed one out to us yet. So we'll either ride XP to the end of its days (or to Windows 7, whichever comes first).
Like a lot of companies we've talked about switching over to an alternative OS, but having the usual triad of Microsoft entrenchment (Exchange + Office + AD) makes that an unnerving undertaking for our size.
From the Wikipedia article: "Serpentor's first action after being created in Springfield, the true home base of Cobra..."
After well over 400 episodes, how have The Simpsons failed to at least have the home base of Cobra shown in the background? That seems like a rather large factual gap in an otherwise very strict representation of the city of Springfield.
You might want to try Keepass (http://keepass.info/) in the PC based password manager realm. It has ports to most operating systems you might want plus a slew of handheld devices. Not to mention that the interface is nice, it has a decent password generator, and is free as in beer / speech.
What we have found, after analysing the course of events and interviewing the file sharers, is that downloading and file sharing of music more has a positive than a negative effect on music sales. The music interest is promoted. New music and new artists are discovered.
Of course even if this is true, that's the last thing the RIAA wants - "new music and new artists" implies music and artists that likely aren't being played on every radio station and over every car commercial 24 hours a day. People discover artists which aren't necessarily on an RIAA label which still subtracts from their listening audience and their control over what they give you to listen to.
Seriously, what ever happened to actual expiration dates? This "best if used by" nonsense seems to just give stores an excuse to put things out days before they expire. "It's just best if used by then, that milk will still be good or at least ok for a week or two afterwards." Yeesh.
Their weapons in the cartoon appeared to be based off of action figure weapons (they looked yellow and plasticy?). Chuck Norris' cartoon persona frequently changed outfits to allow for additional versions of his figure to be sold. Also, Super Ninja clearly had kung-fu grip.
Or at least it shouldn't be. Maybe everyone just wants to run around in a 3d environment doing combos judged on style. If that's the case and I'm in the minority, I'm fine with that. When I loaded up Super Mario Sunshine for the first time and got to the game choosing screen (with Mario on a 2d field and jumping up to hit a block with your game choice), I found that that's the game I wanted to play - the good looking 2d side scroller where I jump up and hit blocks. Maybe get an invincibility star or something once in a while.
The old formulas aren't all played out. Switching to 3d will not necessarily make things fresh and exciting and instantly subject the game to critical acclaim. That's why the GBA Castlevania games, even when releasing a new one every year, still get good reviews - they're good games in a 2d environment that are fun and allow some freedom and exploration. It's still all about gameplay and looking good, not the ability to move in 10 different directions.
How many other people share this complaint that games are too easy? Several of the games I have for my PS2 I haven't finished yet because I'm having trouble completing a level (ZOE2, Contra SS) or don't have the time to finish (GTA:VC). I'm sure a large part of it is because I suck or don't dedicate enough time to it, but are gamers at a point where they want every game to be Ghosts N' Goblins hard?
If F-ZeroGX is as hard as that GBA F-Zero, count me out. That thing kicks my ass.
Wow. With virtually all of the same information for any game you could want is available on gamefaqs, gamespy and ign, I'm pretty surprised. I'm one of those "try to do it on my own" people (which explains why I still haven't finished Metal Gear Solid 2), so maybe I just don't get the strategy guide thing...
Anyways, cheating in non-online games is just fine by me. I don't think playing Contra with 30 lives is fraying society's moral fabric.
I'm not sure it would ever be possible to put an artificial limit on something like this for people over 18, and I wouldn't expect companies would have the slightest bit of interest in enforcing it or implementing it. Besides, if you don't have a concept of moderation by the time you're 25, you've probably got other problems too.:) I understand the sentiment, but I'm still going to have to go with the tried and true "it's the parent's responsibility to monitor their own children" comeback.
Just to add something to the conversation, here's what I think. If, at some point in the future, videogaming becomes a real noteworthy addiction (where the number of people afflicted can be roughly equated with any other mainstream addiction), that's probably where we'll see the government try to put a stiffer hand on things and, as you said, they'll go after banning first (and probably fail), taxation second (and probably succeed), social programs third, etc. etc. etc. So, the point is - what can be done to educate people about these sort of issues now to prevent the inevitability of that later? Are there effective counter-measures? Is there any non-sensationalistic press about this? (read as: a story backed by actual facts as the grandparent poster pointed out as opposed to "Kid Dies From Playing Everquest") Is it a physical addiction? Mental addiction? Both? Are the only games to worry about MMORPGs or should we worry about kids playing Counter Strike? All questions that need well reasoned fact based information before people will even consider looking at it seriously.
Here's one I've always wondered: What would happen if Everquest cut off home access and opened arcades across the country where people could pay for time to play? Would people give up on it and find something else or shell out?
That Two Towers game was a blast. I'm looking forward to the Return of the King game with two player play, more characters and whatever else they pack into it. Fun.
I'd like to see a Fight Club or Big Trouble In Little China game. Just to see what they'd do with them.
"Compare that to the investment needed to entice 20% of the market and you see why Nintendo doesn't care. MS and Sony are wasting cash to CREATE the market."
Yes, they absolutely are. However, as a result of creating the market they're gaining credability and developing infrastructure to support the future online games which will most likely be, as crazy as it drives me, the predominant force in the market 3 or 4 years from now. That's why Xbox Live might be one of the most ingenious things Microsoft has done in quite a while: They've basically created a brand name for online gaming, and that'll definitely stick as long as the console can survive now.
You've got to have a little Dizzy Gillespie in your collection. Pick something from later in his career (there's a three disc Verve comp that covers his career pretty thoroughly), then pick up Groovin' High which has some really beautiful orchestrated music that's perfect for... well... anytime, really.
Slashdot Mirror
While this may not help you, there are certainly options for deploying silently without the MSI if you're so inclined.
If you really can't deploy anything but MSIs, then how do you handle the other thousands of installers that aren't MSI packaged? Firefox seems like a nit in comparison to the legions of corporate-important applications that use any other install method but MSI. Or legacy apps that were packaged before the popularity of MSI. Or in house desktop applications. Or any number of other obnoxious speed bumps you deal with when managing a large number of desktops + app deployment in a corporate environment.
Thanks for the word recalcitrant. I'll probably never have any conversational use for it, but learning new words is fun!
How could you go through all that and then not define furlong??? Your credibility is totally shot now!
I for one appreciate your effort on this thing. I've been watching the conversation on wine-devel since you started and it's unfortunate that there's been so many roadblocks. Best of luck in your future endeavors.
Who uses the word "plinth" instead of "pedestal"? While it's always fun to learn new words, I'll never get back those 5 seconds during which I was scratching my head trying to figure that out. And the 30 seconds it took me to post this pointless reply. You owe me 35 seconds sir!
also posting to acquire pointless achievement points. I feel dirty.
I think this ends up being one of those "if you build it..." things. This would be fairly easy to configure with existing tech:
/home/.$whatever to be added to /etc/skel and to existing users) and modify them to suit. A nice little gui with configuration options that hide the configs could be a plus for folks who aren't aware of every option available in a config file. At some point apps could distribute something like a policy-config.xml that could map config file options to policy options in the gui app to ease this.
1. Setup all of your desktops with an ssh key exchange auth account that would act as the equivalent of the usual slew of Microsoft service accounts (SYSTEM, Network Service, etc). This would preferably be in the deployment image but could be scripted after the fact.
2. On a master deployment server, have a separated set of configuration directories (/etc,
3. A little scripting duct tape with rsync/scp and the service account could deploy the configurations. Writing an app to do this sort of thing would probably be better, but when you're not a programmer you work with what you've got.
4. Don't give users root. sudo configs could be deployed just like any other policy as needed.
The application deployment stuff is doable now with yum, apt-get, emerge, etc (we built one for rhel 3 using nothing but apt for rpm, rsync and perl in an afternoon a couple years ago, and we're not particularily good with perl). Configured correctly it ends up just like SMS or something similar (client checks in on a schedule, pulls "approved" apps down and installs in the background). From there it's probably not even terribly tricky to be able to do software inventories and tracking.
So really, I think all it would take is someone with the time, skill and desire to piece it all together - sooner or later it's bound to happen.
"...Hawking photons..."
"...Hawking temperature..."
Why don't we just cut to the chase and call these things Hawking Holes?
For the company I work at the issue is hardware - while some of our PCs would probably run Vista somewhat ok a lot of them won't and we can't really afford to either a.) increase support costs by having a constant stream of "slow PC" calls or b.) do a complete desktop refresh in less than 2 years. If there was some sort of tangible advantage we'd probably try to find the budget, but no one has pointed one out to us yet. So we'll either ride XP to the end of its days (or to Windows 7, whichever comes first).
Like a lot of companies we've talked about switching over to an alternative OS, but having the usual triad of Microsoft entrenchment (Exchange + Office + AD) makes that an unnerving undertaking for our size.
From the Wikipedia article: "Serpentor's first action after being created in Springfield, the true home base of Cobra..."
After well over 400 episodes, how have The Simpsons failed to at least have the home base of Cobra shown in the background? That seems like a rather large factual gap in an otherwise very strict representation of the city of Springfield.
I bet those scientists in question don't even HAVE an account on slashdot!
Which makes them smarter than us all.
You might want to try Keepass (http://keepass.info/) in the PC based password manager realm. It has ports to most operating systems you might want plus a slew of handheld devices. Not to mention that the interface is nice, it has a decent password generator, and is free as in beer / speech.
What about that would be so jarring? The fact that there are people that don't actually care about or track how much wealth other people have?
Of course even if this is true, that's the last thing the RIAA wants - "new music and new artists" implies music and artists that likely aren't being played on every radio station and over every car commercial 24 hours a day. People discover artists which aren't necessarily on an RIAA label which still subtracts from their listening audience and their control over what they give you to listen to.
Seriously, what ever happened to actual expiration dates? This "best if used by" nonsense seems to just give stores an excuse to put things out days before they expire. "It's just best if used by then, that milk will still be good or at least ok for a week or two afterwards." Yeesh.
A perfect example:
Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos
Their weapons in the cartoon appeared to be based off of action figure weapons (they looked yellow and plasticy?). Chuck Norris' cartoon persona frequently changed outfits to allow for additional versions of his figure to be sold. Also, Super Ninja clearly had kung-fu grip.
Overladen with features? Maybe. Forced on you as part of the windowing system? Not even a little.
Or at least it shouldn't be. Maybe everyone just wants to run around in a 3d environment doing combos judged on style. If that's the case and I'm in the minority, I'm fine with that. When I loaded up Super Mario Sunshine for the first time and got to the game choosing screen (with Mario on a 2d field and jumping up to hit a block with your game choice), I found that that's the game I wanted to play - the good looking 2d side scroller where I jump up and hit blocks. Maybe get an invincibility star or something once in a while.
The old formulas aren't all played out. Switching to 3d will not necessarily make things fresh and exciting and instantly subject the game to critical acclaim. That's why the GBA Castlevania games, even when releasing a new one every year, still get good reviews - they're good games in a 2d environment that are fun and allow some freedom and exploration. It's still all about gameplay and looking good, not the ability to move in 10 different directions.
How many other people share this complaint that games are too easy? Several of the games I have for my PS2 I haven't finished yet because I'm having trouble completing a level (ZOE2, Contra SS) or don't have the time to finish (GTA:VC). I'm sure a large part of it is because I suck or don't dedicate enough time to it, but are gamers at a point where they want every game to be Ghosts N' Goblins hard?
If F-ZeroGX is as hard as that GBA F-Zero, count me out. That thing kicks my ass.
Wow. With virtually all of the same information for any game you could want is available on gamefaqs, gamespy and ign, I'm pretty surprised. I'm one of those "try to do it on my own" people (which explains why I still haven't finished Metal Gear Solid 2), so maybe I just don't get the strategy guide thing...
Anyways, cheating in non-online games is just fine by me. I don't think playing Contra with 30 lives is fraying society's moral fabric.
I'm not sure it would ever be possible to put an artificial limit on something like this for people over 18, and I wouldn't expect companies would have the slightest bit of interest in enforcing it or implementing it. Besides, if you don't have a concept of moderation by the time you're 25, you've probably got other problems too. :) I understand the sentiment, but I'm still going to have to go with the tried and true "it's the parent's responsibility to monitor their own children" comeback.
Just to add something to the conversation, here's what I think. If, at some point in the future, videogaming becomes a real noteworthy addiction (where the number of people afflicted can be roughly equated with any other mainstream addiction), that's probably where we'll see the government try to put a stiffer hand on things and, as you said, they'll go after banning first (and probably fail), taxation second (and probably succeed), social programs third, etc. etc. etc. So, the point is - what can be done to educate people about these sort of issues now to prevent the inevitability of that later? Are there effective counter-measures? Is there any non-sensationalistic press about this? (read as: a story backed by actual facts as the grandparent poster pointed out as opposed to "Kid Dies From Playing Everquest") Is it a physical addiction? Mental addiction? Both? Are the only games to worry about MMORPGs or should we worry about kids playing Counter Strike? All questions that need well reasoned fact based information before people will even consider looking at it seriously.
Here's one I've always wondered: What would happen if Everquest cut off home access and opened arcades across the country where people could pay for time to play? Would people give up on it and find something else or shell out?
That Two Towers game was a blast. I'm looking forward to the Return of the King game with two player play, more characters and whatever else they pack into it. Fun.
I'd like to see a Fight Club or Big Trouble In Little China game. Just to see what they'd do with them.
Burgertime is one of my favorite arcade games of all time. Tomorrow I'll throw some pepper at my eggs in mourning.
They also made some pretty decent pinball games including Star Wars, Simpsons and Rocky and Bullwinkle themes.
"Compare that to the investment needed to entice 20% of the market and you see why Nintendo doesn't care. MS and Sony are wasting cash to CREATE the market."
Yes, they absolutely are. However, as a result of creating the market they're gaining credability and developing infrastructure to support the future online games which will most likely be, as crazy as it drives me, the predominant force in the market 3 or 4 years from now. That's why Xbox Live might be one of the most ingenious things Microsoft has done in quite a while: They've basically created a brand name for online gaming, and that'll definitely stick as long as the console can survive now.
You've got to have a little Dizzy Gillespie in your collection. Pick something from later in his career (there's a three disc Verve comp that covers his career pretty thoroughly), then pick up Groovin' High which has some really beautiful orchestrated music that's perfect for... well... anytime, really.