Perhaps we need a "Spam Me And I'll Come Round To Your House And Kill You Slowly And Painfully" list. I like to entertain fantasies of magically appearing in front of a spammer and carving DIE SPAMMER DIE into their skin with a knife, but maybe I'm just a psychopath...:-)
They're joking, I hope...:-) I've got two terriers and a cat, and none of the beasts even semed to notice when they got the chop (and yes, it seems they can still get it up). Maybe it's just that my animals are exceedingly well-adjusted, or maybe it's the dope they smoke when I'm out of the house:-).
...use slackware because there isn't any package management built in... does it offer any advantages to the other more recent distros? (out of curiosity)
Slackware does have a package management system, but it is (deliberately) kept very simple. It's great if you compile a lot of software from source (by which I don't mean a src.rpm). You almost never run into the dependency hell common on other systems.
A lot of people like Slack simply because of the nice BSD-style init scripts which are easier to read and quicker to tweak than sysvinit.
As for other "more recent" distros, the latest version of Slack was released on 2003-03-19, so it's not that old, and Pat keeps it very current. Also, the folks at Dropline package by far the best and most current distribution of Gnome I've seen on any distro.
making Linux *look* easier than Windows (which still baffles my father after 8 years) would be a humongous step in the right direction
Sounds like your dad, I'm sorry to say, might be a lost cause. Seems there are just some people who just can't get over their apprehension regarding computers (and it's not necessarily age-related; I know a couple of 80-year-olds who are quite competent).
But let's face it, there are at least two desktop UIs that are prettier and at least as easy to use as Windows (at least when they are not made ugly-by-default, which is a matter of packaging).
What is there to do in the XP install that is way harder in comparison to Mandrake?
OK, I haven't used mdk since 8.1, and I'm perfectly happy with Slackware's text-based installer...
But in installed XP on a friend's computer the other day, and it is not always a piece of cake. Given the "closed" nature of the installer, you are fucked if it just doesn't happen to like your hardware, and I'm talking brand-name stuff here, not the no-name crud. But an installer that formats a HDD for you, goes through a few more steps and then decides the drive is no good any more does not qualify as a good one. Especially if when it tries to load the appropriate drivers from CD-ROM it suddenly decides that the drive doesn't exist. I had thought MS would have fixed that bug in win98, but apparently not.
By comparison, my past experience with mdk's installer was that it was very simple and intuitive, and I rather doubt if it has got worse since then.
There's also the bonus that you don't have to keep putting in driver CDs for every single piece of hardware and re-boot every time; unless your hardware is outlandish, it's usually supported out of the box.
I wouldn't be so hopeful. I know any number of people who, despite the fact that they know that excellent alternatives are available, will just automatically insist on having Windows installed on their next computer purchase. It's like all the idiots who spend the years between elections complaining about their government, and then go and vote the same bozos back in again at election time. (Or don't bother turning up to vote at all, which is worse.)
A couple of points here (as devil's advocate if you like, since I'm not personally a big fan of mdk):
Chapter 11 doesn't apply in France. If I recall correctly, Mandrake's insolvency proceedings were pretty much a way of ditching costly commitments from the dot-bomb era.
As a business solution it might be quite a good option if they are still bundling StarOffice. I seem to remember they did with 9.0. It seems a lot of businesses are more comfortable with the proprietary office package than with OpenOffice, despite the fact that they are essentially the same thing from most users' perspective, I'm not sure how many distros even bundle OpenOffice (probably SuSE, I guess...).
I use Redhat 9 every day as my primary workstation and I have to say that its quite capable as a desktop as well.
You can actually say that about pretty much any distribution. Slackware does it very nicely for me, though over the years I have had flings with RedHat, Mandrake and Debian. I'm not going to get drawn into a flamewar as to which is "better"; it's just a matter of choice as to how you like to work.
I know it is probably heretical to say this on Slashdot, particularly since I have not used any other Microsoft product on my computers since 1995, but I really like the MS Natural keyboard (the curvy one, with the split left/right sides).
It takes a while to get used to, but it's a nice piece of equipment. This one is 6 years old and still as good as new. I think the more recent models have acquired a number of silly and unnecessary buttons, though, which is a bit of a shame.
I remember them, but I don't miss them... In the days when I worked on Burroughs B3700s, (when the Earth was newly-cooled, and Real Programmer were Real Programmers etc...) the only real keyboard interface was through a teletype, which had a key action something like a 1930s typewriter. The data entry chicks had much more sophisticated keyboards on their tape encoding machines (remember those?)
But the only way to get your code in reliably was to use a 029 card-punch. When I wasn't trying not to get eaten by dinosaurs, that is:-)
You might want to try Mozilla's mouse gestures (or what the mozdev crowd call radial-context menus). It's not identical in design to that in your link, but it does the job well if you like that kind of thing...
Indeed. I played with mouse gestures for a while; I share computers with my wife, though, and she never got the hang of the thing, so I ended up throwing mouse gestures out.
I pretty much use middle-click for every link to open it in a new tab, and close the tabs when I've finished with them.
If I had the time and patience to learn how to go about it, I would create a much more minimal button-bar, omitting back, forward and reload.
I got my fingers burnt about 7 years ago trying to get Linux working on a motherboard with integrated sound and graphics. It was a damn nightmare. The best thing that could happen to me did: the damn mobo blew up, and I had a good reason to go out and buy separate components that are known to work.
I have no beef with Gentoo (I use Slackware) but it sems to me that RedHat appears to have a de facto grip on any claim to be a reference system, simply by virtue of its popularity. And yes, some people do manage to get a RedHat or Mandrake system to run stable, though I never did.
Debian has RPM packagingSo does Slackware. At least, the standard install CD (Slack only needs one) comes with rpm. That's not to say that it works, though...:-)
Then I actually started getting into production level projects, and realized Slack needed too much tweaking to be practical.
Perhaps you haven't tried the more recent versions of Slackware. Since 8.0 it has been a very solid distribution.
I know there are those who don't care for Slackware's tgz packaging system, and that's fine. There's always apt-get or rpm for those who feel they absolutely must have a package "management" system. Slackware was never designed to cater for that end of the market, and those of us who build a lot of applications from source tend to appreciate not having a packaging system getting in the way. As far as "tweaking" is concerned, though, I don't really see much difference between Slackware and FreeBSD.
I agree with your point, but IIRC Bloomsbury Ltd. is not a member of RIAA. And I wouldn't exactly describe the latest Harry Potter as crap, and am happy in the knowledge that my dollars were well spent on a hardbound copy.
Just for the record: I personally could not care less that my post was modded down. I hit the karma cap long ago, and I have never had any interest in claiming karma-bonuses.
Slashdot Mirror
It's probably the only thing hotmail is actually good for.
Perhaps we need a "Spam Me And I'll Come Round To Your House And Kill You Slowly And Painfully" list. I like to entertain fantasies of magically appearing in front of a spammer and carving DIE SPAMMER DIE into their skin with a knife, but maybe I'm just a psychopath... :-)
More than 95% of my spam originates from US based IPs. And I live in Australia, so the products the spammers peddle are mostly redundant anyway.
They're joking, I hope... :-) I've got two terriers and a cat, and none of the beasts even semed to notice when they got the chop (and yes, it seems they can still get it up). Maybe it's just that my animals are exceedingly well-adjusted, or maybe it's the dope they smoke when I'm out of the house :-).
Slackware does have a package management system, but it is (deliberately) kept very simple. It's great if you compile a lot of software from source (by which I don't mean a src.rpm). You almost never run into the dependency hell common on other systems.
A lot of people like Slack simply because of the nice BSD-style init scripts which are easier to read and quicker to tweak than sysvinit.
As for other "more recent" distros, the latest version of Slack was released on 2003-03-19, so it's not that old, and Pat keeps it very current. Also, the folks at Dropline package by far the best and most current distribution of Gnome I've seen on any distro.
Hah! Fortunately I checked the target before clicking... I really don't need to see that again :-)
Sounds like your dad, I'm sorry to say, might be a lost cause. Seems there are just some people who just can't get over their apprehension regarding computers (and it's not necessarily age-related; I know a couple of 80-year-olds who are quite competent).
But let's face it, there are at least two desktop UIs that are prettier and at least as easy to use as Windows (at least when they are not made ugly-by-default, which is a matter of packaging).
OK, I haven't used mdk since 8.1, and I'm perfectly happy with Slackware's text-based installer...
But in installed XP on a friend's computer the other day, and it is not always a piece of cake. Given the "closed" nature of the installer, you are fucked if it just doesn't happen to like your hardware, and I'm talking brand-name stuff here, not the no-name crud. But an installer that formats a HDD for you, goes through a few more steps and then decides the drive is no good any more does not qualify as a good one. Especially if when it tries to load the appropriate drivers from CD-ROM it suddenly decides that the drive doesn't exist. I had thought MS would have fixed that bug in win98, but apparently not.
By comparison, my past experience with mdk's installer was that it was very simple and intuitive, and I rather doubt if it has got worse since then.
There's also the bonus that you don't have to keep putting in driver CDs for every single piece of hardware and re-boot every time; unless your hardware is outlandish, it's usually supported out of the box.
I wouldn't be so hopeful. I know any number of people who, despite the fact that they know that excellent alternatives are available, will just automatically insist on having Windows installed on their next computer purchase. It's like all the idiots who spend the years between elections complaining about their government, and then go and vote the same bozos back in again at election time. (Or don't bother turning up to vote at all, which is worse.)
Chapter 11 doesn't apply in France. If I recall correctly, Mandrake's insolvency proceedings were pretty much a way of ditching costly commitments from the dot-bomb era.
As a business solution it might be quite a good option if they are still bundling StarOffice. I seem to remember they did with 9.0. It seems a lot of businesses are more comfortable with the proprietary office package than with OpenOffice, despite the fact that they are essentially the same thing from most users' perspective, I'm not sure how many distros even bundle OpenOffice (probably SuSE, I guess...).
You can actually say that about pretty much any distribution. Slackware does it very nicely for me, though over the years I have had flings with RedHat, Mandrake and Debian. I'm not going to get drawn into a flamewar as to which is "better"; it's just a matter of choice as to how you like to work.
It takes a while to get used to, but it's a nice piece of equipment. This one is 6 years old and still as good as new. I think the more recent models have acquired a number of silly and unnecessary buttons, though, which is a bit of a shame.
But the only way to get your code in reliably was to use a 029 card-punch. When I wasn't trying not to get eaten by dinosaurs, that is :-)
You might want to try Mozilla's mouse gestures (or what the mozdev crowd call radial-context menus). It's not identical in design to that in your link, but it does the job well if you like that kind of thing...
I pretty much use middle-click for every link to open it in a new tab, and close the tabs when I've finished with them.
If I had the time and patience to learn how to go about it, I would create a much more minimal button-bar, omitting back, forward and reload.
I got my fingers burnt about 7 years ago trying to get Linux working on a motherboard with integrated sound and graphics. It was a damn nightmare. The best thing that could happen to me did: the damn mobo blew up, and I had a good reason to go out and buy separate components that are known to work.
I have no beef with Gentoo (I use Slackware) but it sems to me that RedHat appears to have a de facto grip on any claim to be a reference system, simply by virtue of its popularity. And yes, some people do manage to get a RedHat or Mandrake system to run stable, though I never did.
Debian has RPM packagingSo does Slackware. At least, the standard install CD (Slack only needs one) comes with rpm. That's not to say that it works, though... :-)
And all of the Australian ISPs I have dealt with over the last 7 years run Debian on at least some of their servers.
Perhaps you haven't tried the more recent versions of Slackware. Since 8.0 it has been a very solid distribution.
I know there are those who don't care for Slackware's tgz packaging system, and that's fine. There's always apt-get or rpm for those who feel they absolutely must have a package "management" system. Slackware was never designed to cater for that end of the market, and those of us who build a lot of applications from source tend to appreciate not having a packaging system getting in the way. As far as "tweaking" is concerned, though, I don't really see much difference between Slackware and FreeBSD.
I agree with your point, but IIRC Bloomsbury Ltd. is not a member of RIAA. And I wouldn't exactly describe the latest Harry Potter as crap, and am happy in the knowledge that my dollars were well spent on a hardbound copy.
Just for the record: I personally could not care less that my post was modded down. I hit the karma cap long ago, and I have never had any interest in claiming karma-bonuses.
I personally don't care how fast it is, if it cooperates smoothly with GTK2 then it's good enough for me.
Damn. his methods are, anyway... :-)
didn't come true, but Gates' mathods of assimilation are more insidious.