I've got one of these, and it works great for games (under Windows). The price was also very good - less than $30 at Fry's.
Unfortunately, Linux support is rather spotty. There is one open-source driver for this device, but its functionality is rather limited. If I had enough time and experience, I would write an XFree86 input driver to generate keycodes, and then customize with xmodmap.
Yes, but when the planet "loses mass", where does that mass go?
When it gets stripped away, either the solar wind will carry it away from the star, or it will remain in orbit around the star at roughly the same place. From the observations so far, it looks like the mass is staying in roughly the same place - in the orbital path of the planet, which causes it to behave like the "comet's tail" that it essentially is. Therefore, the star, its planet, AND its gas trail will be orbiting one common center of mass, and barring any effects by the solar wind, this should not change appreciably.
Remember that this planet is maybe 7 million miles from its star, by which point it is so close that there would need to be a very major force from a 3rd party in order to remove any of its mass from that vicinity. The star exerts a very strong grip on that planet at that distance.
However, the remainder of the mass of the planet remains gravitationally bound to the star. Remember that the star's gravitational field affects all mass according to the inverse-square law. Even though there will be less of a planet in one roughly spherical ball, and the dwindling planet will exert less total gravitational force on the star, the star will still exert the same gravitational force on the remaining planet and it will stay in orbit pretty much where it is.
Actually, now that I think about it, the drag and tidal effects would probably take away the planet's orbital speed over time, which means that it would lose kinetic energy and drop even closer to its star as it dissipates.
Your argument about "less force acting" is fallacious - it's the same force and it applies to all mass. According to your logic, blowing the dust off a dirty tabletop would mean the table starts to float away from the ground. Sorry, but gravity just doesn't work that way. Remember the classical "thought experiment" where a bowling ball and a feather are both dropped in a vacuum? Remember how they both ended up landing at the same time? Just because the bowling ball is shedding dust doesn't prevent it (or rather, its common center of mass) from hitting the ground at the same time as the feather. Gravity works equally across all mass according to the inverse square law. The fact that the bowling ball has more mass to start merely means that it exerts more force on the ground in return.
To be honest, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of scientific background to the book ("After Man: A Zoology of the Future"); it was more of an exploration of what could and might happen, given the lack of humans and most of the major species that died out or were left neglected by mankind.
However, it was fairly well-grounded speculation, for the most part. One of the author's main recurring themes was that given the extinction of many larger ungulate herbivores, rodents and rabbits would evolve to fill the niche. He cited that since mankind had a pretty hard time getting rid of rabbits, they should be able to survive and thrive in the future world. So he listed quite a number of rabbit-descended grazers called "rabbucks", who had evolved hooves for running instead of feet for jumping. Much cooler than llamas, I'd say.
However, some of the animals were pretty ridiculous. One such example was a sloth-descended creature called a "Slobber", which had evolved to feed solely by dripping its long, stringy slobber in front of the mouths of nearby flowers, and waiting for dumb insects to fly into the drool, so it could slurp them up for a snack. The clincher was that its eyes had evolved away, so it was completely blind, crawling through the trees and vines of a jungle with absolutely no vision whatsoever. Sorry, but any smart predator would have made quick and easy meals of these things.
So, yeah, creative and interesting, but not necessarily realistic. The large, predatory weasels were also really fun to see.
Very cool. I have Dougal Adams' orignal book ("After Man") and I thought it was very well done. I was able to find it at a local thrift shop, and it was well worth its purchase price. I recommend interested readers to find a copy of this book if they can.
I do think he got carried away with the carnivorous monkeys and all that, but it was still an interesting exploration.
The digital-pen system would still be useful for students though. It would give the student the opportunity to compose the question before presenting it. Also, since it could capture any hand-written symbols, it could be used to share equations, chemical symbols, graphs, and other things that really need to be presented visually, without requiring a student to march up to a chalkboard/whiteboard and draw it out. (This digital pen would need to have an eraser too.) Plus, as a side benefit, they have a written hard-copy of the question or comment for their reference, and the instructor can save a copy to post on their class website, if they choose.
In the case of deaf students, it would also eliminate some of the time necessary to sign the question to the interpreter, wait for the interpreter to ask and get an answer, then wait for the relayed answer to be signed back. In the meantime, the instructor and other students would probably be ready to continue the class, yet the interpreter would still be signing the answer to the student.
This could mean less work for interpreters, better response time for submitters, and possibly better class time management for instructors.
Disclaimer: I am not deaf so I don't know how helpful this would really be.
Give each student a digital pen and a special notepad. Equip each pen with a wireless transmitter of some sort (already discussed in other comments) which communicates with a "base station" elsewhere in the room or lecture hall.
Set up the notepad and pens to capture user input so that each student could submit questions or comments, which would be viewable by the instructor, so they could participate in an interactive discussion. This would be especially helpful for deaf students who can't really raise their hand and ask a question during a lecture or discussion. Of course, the instructor would have to manage the incoming questions and comments.
Another use would be for lecture/instructor feedback. Remember those silly forms that each instructor had to pass around near the end of each term? This pen would make it easier for all students to submit their comments.
If I remember correctly, the Anoto technical docs said that each page in every notebook (or Post-It note, etc) was unique. It had to do with the way they varied the dots - each dot pattern was slightly different, and based on the minute variations from a regular grid, the Anoto device could tell exactly where it was and on which page.
They quoted some specs about the possible total space, which I don't remember, but it seemed like a lot. Not enough to replace all the potential notepads in the world, but enough for most individual users to never be able to run out of writing space. There was even some talk about using day-planner pages with specialized Anoto dot background for different "fields" on the paper sheets, and they mentioned the ability to synchronize this with changes to a computer calendar/PIM. It seemed like a cool idea at the time, but I don't know how useful it would be for me. (I never use my day planner anyway.)
Of course this means that people will probably have to order their notepads carefully after a few years... "No, let's see... I've already ordered pad #21184734 already, let me have a different one."
As far as how the Logitech software handles updates and changes to multiple pages, I can't say. It ought to remember new writing on existing pages, and at least keep track of versions.
Doesn't this go against the whole concept of the "paperless office" that was so popular a few years back?
Just think, we don't have to print out every incoming fax, we can save notes and e-mails typed into the computer... then this thing comes out, and we get to *write* everything down again.
Yeah, sure, it'd be useful for people who usually take paper notes anyway (like me), but for the whole "making communication easier" thing, it seems like a waste of perfectly good paper to scribble out a quick e-mail to someone with this pen.
I have been maintaining Gentoo Linux on my main computer at home (AMD Athlon XP 1900+) and several servers at work (Pentium III-based) for several months now, and I've run into some of these problems as well. Yet I still stick with it, and watch it improve.
Portage is a great system, but it's still fairly new, and it needs some adjustments before it can be the completely kick-all-ass software management tool that the developers and users want it to be.
The best thing that you (or I, or anyone) can do is to feed these suggestions, bug reports, and changes back to the developers. Learn some Python, have a crack at the code, and see what happens.
Re:Corporations = corruption (maybe Offtopic)
on
More on the KDE League
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· Score: 2, Informative
Your statements don't match up with what I've seen, especially the part about corporate control over Linux. People keep complaining about it as if it's a bad thing, but the fact is that if Linux is to be used inside a corporation, or across a wide segment of the computing industry, then those corporations or organizations need to have some say in what goes into the operating system.
Linux has existed underground for years, but the fact that large, medium and small companies are all interested in Linux today, and are willing to spend money to make Linux more useful for them, only benefits the entire community.
As an employee of a large corporation seeking to enhance Linux support across a broad line of products, I've been amazed at just how much my company wants Linux to succeed. Of course my company's interests are almost entirely financial - better Linux support for a product means more sales - but it is good to have kernel support for a lot of new, cool hardware. Without support for new hardware, Linux would be forced back into an underground scene where everything had to be reverse-engineered and supported 1-3 years later than release. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing - most of the open source hardware drivers are well-written - but it takes time to develop, and really hurts those who want to use the latest, fastest hardware with Linux.
And, as I'm sure you realize, hardware support is what makes Linux (or any open source operating system) available to the masses. It's not like these big corporations are trying to steer the direction of Linux into something unusable and non-functional for normal Linux users, like you and me. The source code is still out there - the major commercial distributions (Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE) are getting better than ever, the free and source-based distributions (Debian, Gentoo, etc.) are thriving and growing, and nothing prevents anybody from using Linux the way they want to.
If no business people have any say in Linux, as you suggest, then Linux will no longer be useful for business, and will no longer benefit from the investments of those individuals, venture capitalists, and corporations who want to make Linux usable in the real world.
If you want an example of an "underground" operating system, look at OpenBSD. So far as I know, the development team has practically no commercial support or corporations helping to steer the development of the operating system. They continue to work entirely on their drive for perfection, and the generous donations (including CD sales) of their user base. On the other hand, OpenBSD still has no production-quality SMP support for x86 hardware, which is a major limitation and will limit the utility of this operating system. It bugs me, but they seem to be fine with the pace of development. Contrast this with IBM's efforts to make Linux work on their newest and fastest mainframe hardware.
If you really want to back underground, then CP/M and Amiga are still out there, waiting to be revived.
BTW - The subject of the investigation (mentioned above) was the KDE League, which is a separate entity from KDE e.V. Whether or not this business operated corruptly will not affect the development of KDE - they are completely separate organizations.
Re:This is really good news and here is why...
on
A Rock Moves In Space
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· Score: 1
My response is
<A HREF="http://www.angryflower.com/astero.gif">th is image </A>... <P>
Okay, so the date is wrong, but the point remains. Nice dream though.
This is exactly the reason why I bought an older Kenwood TrueX 62X CD-ROM drive a few months ago. It's quiet, reliable, and fast enough to do pretty much anything I need to do. It also spins much slower than modern drives.
The other answer is to go find a nice, reliable 16X or 8X CD-ROM drive (brand of your choice) and use that instead.
Are there ways to safely "underclock" current drives to limit their rotation speed?
The whole fly-by thing got me pondering Galileo's planned fate, and how NASA has planned to nudge it into Jupiter when they have closed its planned mission. As I thought about this more, I began to realize just how valuable Galileo might be in the future.
Imagine a time, possibly in the near future, when humanity is able to overcome our petty differences, savage warfare, and all that which keeps us from truly growing as a species. When you're done laughing, take a minute to clean the Dr. Pepper off your monitor, and think about what would happen if, in a state of relative world peace, humanity embarked upon a mission to colonize our solar system and beyond.
We already know that we live on one of the best sources of heavy metals in our region of the solar system, at least until mining operations on Luna (or possibly Mercury) can be established. We've already sent out many satellites to explore the inner and outer solar system, with sizes varying from a small car to a large school bus. Think about the amount of heavy and precious metals used for the construction of these satellites. Think about how much gold, silver, silicon, iron, and other rare metals were bought by our tax dollars and shot into space. (Don't be outraged just yet -- the satellites served their intended purpose, and gave us good science and some really cool pictures.)
Now, let's list some of the most likely places where humanity can colonize and expand:
Luna, close to Earth but probably poor in volatiles or metals
Mars, a bit farther, but with unknown volatiles or surface metals
Ganymede and Callisto, farther away but probably have enough volatiles and water ice to sustain a colony
Titan, even farther and with extreme atmospheric conditions
As the list goes on, none of these places are known to have any serious deposits of heavy or rare metals. Given that most of the colonists' heavy and rare metals would probably have to come from Earth (and be pushed out of our deep gravity well at enormous expense) and be carried to their eventual destination, shouldn't we at least try to re-use an existing object of heavy and rare metals in the area? Wouldn't it make sense to save Galileo for this future colonization time, with the intent that we humans could scavenge it for its valuable parts and heavy metals?
Perhaps the imaging devices and optics, though old, could still work and serve as a near-field camera or for some other purpose. The computer circuits could be saved for their silicon, gold, and other elements. The nuclear power plant would probably not be too radioactive by the time we got to it, so there's some nice lead and uranium/plutonium for the taking. Even the frame of the spacecraft could be melted down and reformed into something useful. I'm sure there isn't much refined steel, titanium or aluminum just floating around, waiting to be picked up by us humans. Sure, we could start mining the asteroids, but that'd take time and lots of work.
Just because Galileo has surpassed its original mission lifetime and survived for additional scientific purposes doesn't mean that we should waste it completely by dropping it into Jupiter. The giant planet already has 317 Earth-masses, and it really doesn't need any more. Plus, if we drop anything in there, there isn't any way we are going to get it back.
My suggestion is to put Galileo into a comfortable parking orbit around Ganymede or Callisto, and maybe let it continue to operate, snap a few random pictures once in a while, and report on the Jovian system. Then, after it stops functioning and we can get out there to colonize, we'll have a nice starting point towards a space station, or raw materials to help build a Jovian moon colony.
Anybody know when an updated version of mod_ssl will be released for this latest release of Apache? I know it's probably too soon to ask, but the mod_ssl homepage (http://www.modssl.org) still shows version 2.8.8 for Apache 1.3.24.
Or will this old version patch successfully against the latest Apache release? I haven't tried mixing versions.
Looie, I think you're missing the point. Most of us aren't against
the GNU/FSF work that has been done for open-source software. In fact,
I'm sure that in some way, we rely on it. There's no question that GLIBC, GCC, BASH, etc. are great
and worthy software components. I use them every day. The point of contention is with
RMS's attitude and bigotry.
I'd like to counter your argument by saying that GNU would likely never
have achieved its name recognition and open-source success
without the presence of Linux kernel. I highly doubt that the GNU/FSF
folks had everything done and perfected before the Linux kernel
was released, just waiting for any kernel to be dropped into place
and absorbed into their perfect operating system. GLIBC and GCC
have undergone significant development since the Linux kernel
was released. It would be more accurate to say that GNU/FSF had
developed a rough framework to support an operating system, but
not a complete work that lacked only a kernel.
People would say that the GNU/FSF's kernel, GNU/Hurd, is being
developed, but look where it is. Advanced architecture aside,
it's been more than 10 years in development and still isn't ready
for prime-time use. The Linux kernel has the stability and the
developer base to bring any GNU/FSF project into widespread
use and open-source acceptance, and it would be nice if RMS got
off his high horse and realized why GNU/FSF software is well-known today.
The "bedrock on which the system rests" would
probably be the hardware, which for most Linux platforms
was developed and sold by a for-profit company. How would
RMS feel about his group's software being used on non-free
hardware, developed internally, with secret designs, and sold at a price? Given his
stance on non-free software, it seems very hypocritical.
For other examples, why isn't RMS attacking IBM for attempting to sell their expensive
mainframes with a proprietary, non-free operating system running
multiple instances of Linux kernels using GNU tools? Shouldn't he
be lambasting Ximian for selling a non-free software component,
Ximian Connector, which was designed solely to work with an
open-source application? Why isn't he beating down the doors
of the hundreds and thousands of companies who develop Linux
software internally and license it as company confidential or trade
secret material? If RMS is really that voraciously opposed to
non-free software, it would seem that he has far larger battles to
fight than insisting on calling the operating system GNU/Linux.
Nobody's trying to take credit away from the GNU/FSF people.
We all pretty much know who did what work. That information
is freely available and usually included in the README/LICENSE
files of the software components in question, and it isn't that hard
to go look at http://www.gnu.org and find out.
Nobody's suggesting that Linux users uninstall every GNU/FSF
software component in their distribution/system because
they're tired of RMS. It's a pretty idiotic request to cripple a
good, working operating system that way. Linux and the GNU
tools have become symbiotic -- they have grown around
each other, and work together quite well.
I think my main gripe with RMS has been that he presumes to
speak for a lot of the rest of the FSF community. I do realize
and rely on his work in the open-source area, but I don't believe
he's portraying the GNU/FSF in a positive light. It's one thing to
espouse ideological freedom and encourage others to use
free, open source software components. It's another thing to
presume that based on past contributions to the open source
community, one has the freedom to push one's opinions, naming
conventions, and beliefs on the rest of the community.
That's what I see happening here. RMS is so vehemently
trying to attach his group's credit to an operating system that
includes pieces of code from a wide variety of other sources.
Everyone else in this thread has mentioned a lot of other critical non-GNU/FSF
software components (try XFree86) so I won't give a big list.
Looie, if you're going to put your code where your mouth is, why
not delete the Linux kernel, install the GNU/Hurd kernel and be
done with it? It's clear that you'd prefer to use GNU/FSF code. Open-source is all about giving back to the community. Those who know how, do so; the rest just rant.
Linux, as our community sees it, is just a name. It's simple, catchy, and easy to remember. (It wasn't even Linus
Torvalds' first choice for a kernel name, but it happened to stick and the rest is history.)
Linux describes an operating system and helps define various distributions
which contain a wealth of free software components that make a
very useful, flexible, and powerful system.
Consider this: even though the original developers of BSD probably
aren't involved in the various projects (Free/Net/OpenBSD) using the
same name, the project maintainers decided to keep the "BSD" in their name.
One assumes that it was out of respect for the good work done by the
original developers. This respect, by the use of a name or title, has to be deserved, not demanded.
As an OpenBSD serveradmin running a number of co-located webservers, I can offer this advice:
Do not install OpenSSH 3.1 over OpenBSD 2.8 unless you desire intense pain, punishment, or peril.
I tried this, and immediately ran into error messages since my OpenSSL library was out of date. (OpenBSD 2.8 ships with OpenSSL 0.9.5a by default) Once I got a new version of OpenSSL built and installed, I tried to compile OpenSSH 3.1 again, but the end result would not allow password interactive logins for some odd reason. I spent a few hours working on this issue, which put some of my paying customers in a tough position as they were unable to access the server through SSH.
I finally gave up on the 3.1 release, and found the security patch for OpenSSH 3.0.2 issued by the kind folks at pine.nl (thank you!), which, when recompiled, worked flawlessly.
The only clue that I had as to the OpenSSL library version dependency was one short, obscure mail message on the openssl-unix-dev mailing list, at this URL:
This is another example of some of the frustrating aspects of OpenBSD and the way it is maintained. This OS is well-written in general, but the documentation and help text for server admins is quite lacking. Nowhere on the OpenSSH webpage was there any mention of a version incompatibility with OpenBSD 2.8's default OpenSSL installation. Nowhere on the OpenBSD pages is there a quick, easy, simple set of steps that one can take to update just one's local source tree to the current version of OpenSSL as approved by the OpenBSD team.
(Yes, I know there are man-pages for CVS. I don't care to take the time to learn the entire set of command-line options, and in situations like this, it is far more useful to get clear, simple and relevant instructions for how to fix the latest hole before some script kiddie beats me to the punch and "0wnz" my server.)
I would also caution Slashdot readers not to automatically assume that OpenBSD is "secure by default" just because the development team says so. Smart server administrators will quickly realize that a number of things need to be closed up after the default install. However, this is still *BY FAR* more secure than other OS's, which is why I will continue to run OpenBSD. For now.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, Linux support is rather spotty. There is one open-source driver for this device, but its functionality is rather limited. If I had enough time and experience, I would write an XFree86 input driver to generate keycodes, and then customize with xmodmap.
Anyone else using these?
IMHO, they should be inching towards BSD licensing, not GPL. It would make their source code more usable by all. ;)
When it gets stripped away, either the solar wind will carry it away from the star, or it will remain in orbit around the star at roughly the same place. From the observations so far, it looks like the mass is staying in roughly the same place - in the orbital path of the planet, which causes it to behave like the "comet's tail" that it essentially is. Therefore, the star, its planet, AND its gas trail will be orbiting one common center of mass, and barring any effects by the solar wind, this should not change appreciably.
Remember that this planet is maybe 7 million miles from its star, by which point it is so close that there would need to be a very major force from a 3rd party in order to remove any of its mass from that vicinity. The star exerts a very strong grip on that planet at that distance.
However, the remainder of the mass of the planet remains gravitationally bound to the star. Remember that the star's gravitational field affects all mass according to the inverse-square law. Even though there will be less of a planet in one roughly spherical ball, and the dwindling planet will exert less total gravitational force on the star, the star will still exert the same gravitational force on the remaining planet and it will stay in orbit pretty much where it is.
Actually, now that I think about it, the drag and tidal effects would probably take away the planet's orbital speed over time, which means that it would lose kinetic energy and drop even closer to its star as it dissipates.
Your argument about "less force acting" is fallacious - it's the same force and it applies to all mass. According to your logic, blowing the dust off a dirty tabletop would mean the table starts to float away from the ground. Sorry, but gravity just doesn't work that way. Remember the classical "thought experiment" where a bowling ball and a feather are both dropped in a vacuum? Remember how they both ended up landing at the same time? Just because the bowling ball is shedding dust doesn't prevent it (or rather, its common center of mass) from hitting the ground at the same time as the feather. Gravity works equally across all mass according to the inverse square law. The fact that the bowling ball has more mass to start merely means that it exerts more force on the ground in return.
However, it was fairly well-grounded speculation, for the most part. One of the author's main recurring themes was that given the extinction of many larger ungulate herbivores, rodents and rabbits would evolve to fill the niche. He cited that since mankind had a pretty hard time getting rid of rabbits, they should be able to survive and thrive in the future world. So he listed quite a number of rabbit-descended grazers called "rabbucks", who had evolved hooves for running instead of feet for jumping. Much cooler than llamas, I'd say.
However, some of the animals were pretty ridiculous. One such example was a sloth-descended creature called a "Slobber", which had evolved to feed solely by dripping its long, stringy slobber in front of the mouths of nearby flowers, and waiting for dumb insects to fly into the drool, so it could slurp them up for a snack. The clincher was that its eyes had evolved away, so it was completely blind, crawling through the trees and vines of a jungle with absolutely no vision whatsoever. Sorry, but any smart predator would have made quick and easy meals of these things.
So, yeah, creative and interesting, but not necessarily realistic. The large, predatory weasels were also really fun to see.
Oops. My mistake.
I do think he got carried away with the carnivorous monkeys and all that, but it was still an interesting exploration.
Oh, wait. I thought that was for computer scientists. ;)
The digital-pen system would still be useful for students though. It would give the student the opportunity to compose the question before presenting it. Also, since it could capture any hand-written symbols, it could be used to share equations, chemical symbols, graphs, and other things that really need to be presented visually, without requiring a student to march up to a chalkboard/whiteboard and draw it out. (This digital pen would need to have an eraser too.) Plus, as a side benefit, they have a written hard-copy of the question or comment for their reference, and the instructor can save a copy to post on their class website, if they choose.
In the case of deaf students, it would also eliminate some of the time necessary to sign the question to the interpreter, wait for the interpreter to ask and get an answer, then wait for the relayed answer to be signed back. In the meantime, the instructor and other students would probably be ready to continue the class, yet the interpreter would still be signing the answer to the student.
This could mean less work for interpreters, better response time for submitters, and possibly better class time management for instructors.
Disclaimer: I am not deaf so I don't know how helpful this would really be.
Ever wonder why graphic tablets (aka digitizers) like Wacom are so popular for graphic designers and illustrators?
Mice (even optical) aren't meant for handwriting. Finger-painting, maybe, but not handwriting.
Give each student a digital pen and a special notepad. Equip each pen with a wireless transmitter of some sort (already discussed in other comments) which communicates with a "base station" elsewhere in the room or lecture hall.
Set up the notepad and pens to capture user input so that each student could submit questions or comments, which would be viewable by the instructor, so they could participate in an interactive discussion. This would be especially helpful for deaf students who can't really raise their hand and ask a question during a lecture or discussion. Of course, the instructor would have to manage the incoming questions and comments.
Another use would be for lecture/instructor feedback. Remember those silly forms that each instructor had to pass around near the end of each term? This pen would make it easier for all students to submit their comments.
Any other uses?
They quoted some specs about the possible total space, which I don't remember, but it seemed like a lot. Not enough to replace all the potential notepads in the world, but enough for most individual users to never be able to run out of writing space. There was even some talk about using day-planner pages with specialized Anoto dot background for different "fields" on the paper sheets, and they mentioned the ability to synchronize this with changes to a computer calendar/PIM. It seemed like a cool idea at the time, but I don't know how useful it would be for me. (I never use my day planner anyway.)
Of course this means that people will probably have to order their notepads carefully after a few years... "No, let's see... I've already ordered pad #21184734 already, let me have a different one."
As far as how the Logitech software handles updates and changes to multiple pages, I can't say. It ought to remember new writing on existing pages, and at least keep track of versions.
Just think, we don't have to print out every incoming fax, we can save notes and e-mails typed into the computer... then this thing comes out, and we get to *write* everything down again.
Yeah, sure, it'd be useful for people who usually take paper notes anyway (like me), but for the whole "making communication easier" thing, it seems like a waste of perfectly good paper to scribble out a quick e-mail to someone with this pen.
Dude. You're supposed to write *with* the feces, not *on* the feces.
Portage is a great system, but it's still fairly new, and it needs some adjustments before it can be the completely kick-all-ass software management tool that the developers and users want it to be.
The best thing that you (or I, or anyone) can do is to feed these suggestions, bug reports, and changes back to the developers. Learn some Python, have a crack at the code, and see what happens.
Linux has existed underground for years, but the fact that large, medium and small companies are all interested in Linux today, and are willing to spend money to make Linux more useful for them, only benefits the entire community.
As an employee of a large corporation seeking to enhance Linux support across a broad line of products, I've been amazed at just how much my company wants Linux to succeed. Of course my company's interests are almost entirely financial - better Linux support for a product means more sales - but it is good to have kernel support for a lot of new, cool hardware. Without support for new hardware, Linux would be forced back into an underground scene where everything had to be reverse-engineered and supported 1-3 years later than release. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing - most of the open source hardware drivers are well-written - but it takes time to develop, and really hurts those who want to use the latest, fastest hardware with Linux.
And, as I'm sure you realize, hardware support is what makes Linux (or any open source operating system) available to the masses. It's not like these big corporations are trying to steer the direction of Linux into something unusable and non-functional for normal Linux users, like you and me. The source code is still out there - the major commercial distributions (Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE) are getting better than ever, the free and source-based distributions (Debian, Gentoo, etc.) are thriving and growing, and nothing prevents anybody from using Linux the way they want to.
If no business people have any say in Linux, as you suggest, then Linux will no longer be useful for business, and will no longer benefit from the investments of those individuals, venture capitalists, and corporations who want to make Linux usable in the real world.
If you want an example of an "underground" operating system, look at OpenBSD. So far as I know, the development team has practically no commercial support or corporations helping to steer the development of the operating system. They continue to work entirely on their drive for perfection, and the generous donations (including CD sales) of their user base. On the other hand, OpenBSD still has no production-quality SMP support for x86 hardware, which is a major limitation and will limit the utility of this operating system. It bugs me, but they seem to be fine with the pace of development. Contrast this with IBM's efforts to make Linux work on their newest and fastest mainframe hardware.
If you really want to back underground, then CP/M and Amiga are still out there, waiting to be revived.
BTW - The subject of the investigation (mentioned above) was the KDE League, which is a separate entity from KDE e.V. Whether or not this business operated corruptly will not affect the development of KDE - they are completely separate organizations.
My response is
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Okay, so the date is wrong, but the point remains. Nice dream though.
The other answer is to go find a nice, reliable 16X or 8X CD-ROM drive (brand of your choice) and use that instead.
Are there ways to safely "underclock" current drives to limit their rotation speed?
Imagine a time, possibly in the near future, when humanity is able to overcome our petty differences, savage warfare, and all that which keeps us from truly growing as a species. When you're done laughing, take a minute to clean the Dr. Pepper off your monitor, and think about what would happen if, in a state of relative world peace, humanity embarked upon a mission to colonize our solar system and beyond.
We already know that we live on one of the best sources of heavy metals in our region of the solar system, at least until mining operations on Luna (or possibly Mercury) can be established. We've already sent out many satellites to explore the inner and outer solar system, with sizes varying from a small car to a large school bus. Think about the amount of heavy and precious metals used for the construction of these satellites. Think about how much gold, silver, silicon, iron, and other rare metals were bought by our tax dollars and shot into space. (Don't be outraged just yet -- the satellites served their intended purpose, and gave us good science and some really cool pictures.)
Now, let's list some of the most likely places where humanity can colonize and expand:
As the list goes on, none of these places are known to have any serious deposits of heavy or rare metals. Given that most of the colonists' heavy and rare metals would probably have to come from Earth (and be pushed out of our deep gravity well at enormous expense) and be carried to their eventual destination, shouldn't we at least try to re-use an existing object of heavy and rare metals in the area? Wouldn't it make sense to save Galileo for this future colonization time, with the intent that we humans could scavenge it for its valuable parts and heavy metals?
Perhaps the imaging devices and optics, though old, could still work and serve as a near-field camera or for some other purpose. The computer circuits could be saved for their silicon, gold, and other elements. The nuclear power plant would probably not be too radioactive by the time we got to it, so there's some nice lead and uranium/plutonium for the taking. Even the frame of the spacecraft could be melted down and reformed into something useful. I'm sure there isn't much refined steel, titanium or aluminum just floating around, waiting to be picked up by us humans. Sure, we could start mining the asteroids, but that'd take time and lots of work.
Just because Galileo has surpassed its original mission lifetime and survived for additional scientific purposes doesn't mean that we should waste it completely by dropping it into Jupiter. The giant planet already has 317 Earth-masses, and it really doesn't need any more. Plus, if we drop anything in there, there isn't any way we are going to get it back.
My suggestion is to put Galileo into a comfortable parking orbit around Ganymede or Callisto, and maybe let it continue to operate, snap a few random pictures once in a while, and report on the Jovian system. Then, after it stops functioning and we can get out there to colonize, we'll have a nice starting point towards a space station, or raw materials to help build a Jovian moon colony.
Thoughts?
Or will this old version patch successfully against the latest Apache release? I haven't tried mixing versions.
I'd like to counter your argument by saying that GNU would likely never have achieved its name recognition and open-source success without the presence of Linux kernel. I highly doubt that the GNU/FSF folks had everything done and perfected before the Linux kernel was released, just waiting for any kernel to be dropped into place and absorbed into their perfect operating system. GLIBC and GCC have undergone significant development since the Linux kernel was released. It would be more accurate to say that GNU/FSF had developed a rough framework to support an operating system, but not a complete work that lacked only a kernel.
People would say that the GNU/FSF's kernel, GNU/Hurd, is being developed, but look where it is. Advanced architecture aside, it's been more than 10 years in development and still isn't ready for prime-time use. The Linux kernel has the stability and the developer base to bring any GNU/FSF project into widespread use and open-source acceptance, and it would be nice if RMS got off his high horse and realized why GNU/FSF software is well-known today.
The "bedrock on which the system rests" would probably be the hardware, which for most Linux platforms was developed and sold by a for-profit company. How would RMS feel about his group's software being used on non-free hardware, developed internally, with secret designs, and sold at a price? Given his stance on non-free software, it seems very hypocritical.
For other examples, why isn't RMS attacking IBM for attempting to sell their expensive mainframes with a proprietary, non-free operating system running multiple instances of Linux kernels using GNU tools? Shouldn't he be lambasting Ximian for selling a non-free software component, Ximian Connector, which was designed solely to work with an open-source application? Why isn't he beating down the doors of the hundreds and thousands of companies who develop Linux software internally and license it as company confidential or trade secret material? If RMS is really that voraciously opposed to non-free software, it would seem that he has far larger battles to fight than insisting on calling the operating system GNU/Linux.
Nobody's trying to take credit away from the GNU/FSF people. We all pretty much know who did what work. That information is freely available and usually included in the README/LICENSE files of the software components in question, and it isn't that hard to go look at http://www.gnu.org and find out.
Nobody's suggesting that Linux users uninstall every GNU/FSF software component in their distribution/system because they're tired of RMS. It's a pretty idiotic request to cripple a good, working operating system that way. Linux and the GNU tools have become symbiotic -- they have grown around each other, and work together quite well.
I think my main gripe with RMS has been that he presumes to speak for a lot of the rest of the FSF community. I do realize and rely on his work in the open-source area, but I don't believe he's portraying the GNU/FSF in a positive light. It's one thing to espouse ideological freedom and encourage others to use free, open source software components. It's another thing to presume that based on past contributions to the open source community, one has the freedom to push one's opinions, naming conventions, and beliefs on the rest of the community.
That's what I see happening here. RMS is so vehemently trying to attach his group's credit to an operating system that includes pieces of code from a wide variety of other sources. Everyone else in this thread has mentioned a lot of other critical non-GNU/FSF software components (try XFree86) so I won't give a big list.
Looie, if you're going to put your code where your mouth is, why not delete the Linux kernel, install the GNU/Hurd kernel and be done with it? It's clear that you'd prefer to use GNU/FSF code. Open-source is all about giving back to the community. Those who know how, do so; the rest just rant.
Linux, as our community sees it, is just a name. It's simple, catchy, and easy to remember. (It wasn't even Linus Torvalds' first choice for a kernel name, but it happened to stick and the rest is history.) Linux describes an operating system and helps define various distributions which contain a wealth of free software components that make a very useful, flexible, and powerful system.
Consider this: even though the original developers of BSD probably aren't involved in the various projects (Free/Net/OpenBSD) using the same name, the project maintainers decided to keep the "BSD" in their name. One assumes that it was out of respect for the good work done by the original developers. This respect, by the use of a name or title, has to be deserved, not demanded.
That's why I'm still not calling it GNU/Linux.
As an OpenBSD serveradmin running a number of co-located webservers, I can offer this advice:
v &m =101473993002531&w=2
Do not install OpenSSH 3.1 over OpenBSD 2.8 unless you desire intense pain, punishment, or peril.
I tried this, and immediately ran into error messages since my OpenSSL library was out of date. (OpenBSD 2.8 ships with OpenSSL 0.9.5a by default) Once I got a new version of OpenSSL built and installed, I tried to compile OpenSSH 3.1 again, but the end result would not allow password interactive logins for some odd reason. I spent a few hours working on this issue, which put some of my paying customers in a tough position as they were unable to access the server through SSH.
I finally gave up on the 3.1 release, and found the security patch for OpenSSH 3.0.2 issued by the kind folks at pine.nl (thank you!), which, when recompiled, worked flawlessly.
The only clue that I had as to the OpenSSL library version dependency was one short, obscure mail message on the openssl-unix-dev mailing list, at this URL:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openssh-unix-de
This is another example of some of the frustrating aspects of OpenBSD and the way it is maintained. This OS is well-written in general, but the documentation and help text for server admins is quite lacking. Nowhere on the OpenSSH webpage was there any mention of a version incompatibility with OpenBSD 2.8's default OpenSSL installation. Nowhere on the OpenBSD pages is there a quick, easy, simple set of steps that one can take to update just one's local source tree to the current version of OpenSSL as approved by the OpenBSD team.
(Yes, I know there are man-pages for CVS. I don't care to take the time to learn the entire set of command-line options, and in situations like this, it is far more useful to get clear, simple and relevant instructions for how to fix the latest hole before some script kiddie beats me to the punch and "0wnz" my server.)
I would also caution Slashdot readers not to automatically assume that OpenBSD is "secure by default" just because the development team says so. Smart server administrators will quickly realize that a number of things need to be closed up after the default install. However, this is still *BY FAR* more secure than other OS's, which is why I will continue to run OpenBSD. For now.
Regards,
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