No, M16 are not necessarily illegal to own. An M-16 (or any other fully automatic firearm) which was manufactured before May 19th, 1986 can still be legally obtained under the Firearm Owners Protection Act. It is possible you will need to obtain some type of NFA license and purchasing any form of machine gun will pretty much guarantee you are put on a "federal watch list" and monitored much more closely than the average citizen.
But it many states, you can be a legal owner of a fully automatic M-16. It may be a bit of work to find a place where you can fire it without getting the cops called though (a lot of gun ranges don't allow fully automatic weapons).
*It is possible that your local state laws may supersede said federal law.
It's funny that you say that about the cheaper ones from Lowe's (Bright Effects is the brand, at least at the Lowe's near me). Those are the first bulbs I purchased and I specifically didn't like them for two reasons.
1) 1 second delay 2) Artificial looking white light
The lower-cost ones at Home Depot (4-pack, $7.97 which I got on special for $3.97) are nVision brand, where much closer to incandescent lighting and were also instant-on. They came on at about 85% brightness and warmed up over 15-30 seconds to full brightness. If you are claiming the exact opposite experience I had with the cheaper ones from Lowe's maybe it's just luck of the draw... I hope not, as the two reasons I mentioned are enough to keep me from using a CFL. I will continue to buy the nVision brand from Home Depot (in the "soft white" as it's closer to lighting color I like) as long as the quality remains consistent and they don't develop problems such as flickering, etc, over time.
That was my same complaint with my very first experience with CFL's (Bright Effects brand from Lowe's). When you walk into a dark hallway and flip a switch, it can be a little disconcerting not to have an immediate response. My first reaction was always "it's burned out", but before I finished that thought the light was on. It was only mildly annoying, but enough that I decided to do something about it.
My solution was two fold. For the bulbs I had already purchased that had the delay, in a dark hallway I used one incandescent and one CFL (won't work if there is only one fixture of course). I get light immediately, and a second later it gets brighter. This particular hallway light is used on a regular basis but is not on for very long (above the coat closet). So the power savings by using a CFL is going to be minimal anyway.
Second, I found a different brand that didn't suffer from the 1 second delay. The nVision brand from Home Depot is what I recently tried and really liked. It's light is less white and more like and incandescent and it comes on instantly. It comes on at about 85% brightness and warms up to full brightness in about 15-30 seconds. Which is great for the master bathroom. It's my first light that gets switched on in the morning and it's not a "AHH, THE LIGHT!" kind of reaction. That slight "warming-up" is actually a nice feature first thing in the morning.
I've recently been replacing light bulbs in my home with CFLs. My first purchase was from Lowe's Home Improvement and the brand is "Bright Effects". It was a 4-pack of 8 bulbs for about $8. The light bulbs take about a full second to come on and do seem to brighten more over about 30 seconds (but they come on at near full brightness after the 1 second delay). I was fairly disappointed with the delay and the coloring of the light on these bulbs.
I tried a 4-pack of "nVision Soft White" bulbs from Home Depot and paid $4 (on special from the regular price of $8). The bulbs give off a color of light much closer to incandescent bulbs, which I prefer. These bulbs come on instantly with no delay or flicker, but are dimmer at first than the "Bright Effects" brand from Lowe's. After about 30 seconds, they are at full brightness. I even purchased a single "bright light" and "broad daylight" CFL from Home Depot in the nVision brand. Those are much more bright and give off a (to me, more artificial looking) white light.
I much prefer the nVision brand "soft white" from Home Depot over the Bright Effects brand from Lowe's. Plus, the nVision's claims up to 9 years lifetime on the bulbs where Bright Effects claimed 7. Of course, those are just claims and time will tell. I have yet to try any bulbs by GE, Sylvania or anybody else, since you have to pay more of a premium for the brand name. If the nVision last a little more than 1/2 as long as they claim (5 years) then I think they are worth it.
I think you entirely missed the point of the GPs post.
You said: I'm not sure this strategy is much better.
You can't make a meaningful decision unless you know the opinion of the other side. Saying that Blagojevich does cut funding for education doesn't mean that Topinka does not cut funding for education.
That is precisely what the GP was saying when he said The answer is not to just go out and vote for the sake of voting, but to spend some time learning about your candidates for the sake of your county, state, and/or country.
He was saying "Get informed about both sides before voting", which I'd have to agree is about the most intelligent advice you can give when it comes to elections. If you don't care enough to spend the time to know the candidates and what they stand for, don't sit and whine about the next Bush or Kerry or whomever you find to be against your ideals.
I'm glad to see Slackware steadily plodding along in it's development. I hope that Pat continues to produce this distro for years to come as it is a fantasitic distro, one that is too often overlooked.
While I have since moved on to another distro, more or less out of necessity, I'm glad to know that I can always "come home" to Slackware.
Canada supplies a fair amount (for a single country), but by no means the "majority". According to 2002 figures, Canada supplies approximately 15% of the oil imported into the U.S (3rd largest importer behind Saudi Arabi at 16.9% and Mexico at 15.1%).
Recent figures (April 2006) show Canada as the largest supplier for that month at a whopping 17.4%, followed by Mexico at 16.3%, and Saudi Arabia at 16.1%. Nearly half (49.4%) of our oil comes from OPEC countries. And even a non-OPEC country is not guaranteed to be stable or even friendly to the US. Also, when you buy oil from Canada there is no guarantee that it's actually Canadian oil. Some of it might have originated in Iran, Qatar, Venezuela, etc. A funny thing that "trade".
I think the balance must lie somewhere in the middle. I really enjoy unlockable content as long as it is done correctly. Take a racing game. You could choose to unlock a car after you beat a certain track, our you could make it more realistic and say "The new Lamborgini costs $450,000. You have $357,694. You don't have enough to purchase it." That way it feels less less random. I get a new car everytime I beat a track...?
But, I do believe that game designers should take into account that not everyone will want to unlock all the fiddly little details about the game. Give your users cheat codes for each individual unlock and/or an "unlock all". Don't FORCE them to unlock if they don't want to. But don't get rid of it entirely. I really like having to earn my way through a game. It makes it feel like I'm accomplishing something rather than mindlessly plodding through a game. Sometimes I want a game like that, often times I don't.
Well, I switched to Dapper Drake from Breezy Badger on April 14th. Breezy Badger had run flawless the entire time since it was released up until April 6th.. I then recieved an i915 irq wait error where X would crash and wouldn't come back up without a reboot. This would repeat itself every couple of days, and all the information I could find on it said that it was fixed in the kernel in January of 2005 by the Ubuntu devs. With no explanation of what caused the issue and with it already having been "resolved" 16 months before by the same team who produced my distro, I decided to switch to the (then) alpha of Dapper Drake. I haven't had the problem since.
This release is the most polished and the nicest version "out of the box" that the Ubuntu team has ever released. It's a fantastic distro and one that has worked amazingly well since the alpha versions with one major glaring exception. The printing subsystem is a giant leap backwards . Cups 1.2 seems to be a large part of the problem, with the Ubuntu/Gnome print manager as the the other part. I've lost my ability to print in duplex mode which worked in Warty, Hoary, and Breezy. Print jobs now print one page at a time (rather than one continuous feed), like it's sending a 30MB per page document to the printer. Some printers don't work at all anymore. We have a Cannon ImageRunner at work that you could identify as a "LaserJet 6". I've tried every which way to get that think to work (including trying different printer models and/or drivers) and print jobs will just spool indefinitely. Right click on a printer and go to properties and it takes 7-8 seconds with 100% CPU utilization before it opens (1-2 seconds with normal load under Breezy). I don't see how this made it out the door with the printing subsystem in this state.
Hopefully for others sakes, I'm just surrounded by the 4 or 5 models of HP and Cannon printers that suck with this version of Ubuntu and it's not a widespread issue. It's a huge disappointment and one that I hope they can fix in the coming months. Since this is my work machine, I was very excited about the 3 years of support on the desktop and I wanted to stick with this version of Linux for quite some time. Without a fix to these printing issues, it's going to be painful.
If you can unzip a file you can install firefox... and what IT department would complain about a user using firefox?
I envy you. While yes, I can "unzip a file", I cannot download it in the first place. "Freeware and software downloads" are caught by our web filter. Firefox, Opera, even some useful development tools are forbidden (out of general policy, not on the software's individual merits). It's all rather draconian, especially since most of the time the software I'm attempting to download is something to help me with my job (a visual diff program, CVS client, etc).
Anything that the IT department doesn't control is "off limits". Call it idiocy, call it a Microsoft-centric world, but there are many large corporation IT departments that scowl at anything open source / free / non-Microsoft. It's out of their realm of expertise and therefore "scary and unknown".
Re:slightly different paradigm
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Vim 7 Released
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Umm, no. Just ctrl-s. I think notepad is the only editor I've seen with the problem you describe.
I think the GP was exaggerating just a smidge. I don't know of any modern program that bugs you with that many prompts. Older versions of WordPerfect (i.e. up through at least 5.x) would do this. "Do you want to save this file (Y/N)?" "Are you sure (Y/N)?". Why would you ask me if I was sure, if you just prompted me and I agreed? Annoying...
I think he was actually alluding to a completely different behavior. You want to save your changes and immediately exit from editing a file. On modern word processors / text editors you can do it one of two ways: 1) Ctrl-S. Enter filename. Click Save. Click the X (or Ctrl-W, etc) to close the program. 2) Click the X to close the program. Get prompted "Would you like to save your changes?" Click "OK". Type filename. Click Save.
In vi type ":wq <filename>" and you're done. vi/vim are archaic and non-intuitive to those unfamiliar with them. Those who familiarize themselves with them can become quite efficient. I personally do like certain GUI based editors (jEdit for one) and will use them a lot of the time. But for an ssh connection or working through the console, vim is my first choice. And since most of my programming for work is done through an SSH connection, I'm in vi more often than not.
Open vi without a filename, insert some text, then ":wq!". I see "E32: No file name", and I'm still in the editor. I thought q! meant "really quit". SciTE recognizes that I want to save a file that I haven't named yet. So, ctrl-s filename. WorksForMe.
Well, the command ":wq!" doesn't really make sense. It's really no different from ":wq". It's saying "Write the file to disk, then force quit". Using ":q!" means "force quit, without saving or asking me anything". So it's kind of contridiction.
But it's sounds as if you are bringing up an issue with vi that doesn't really exist. Open a new file in SciTE and enter some text. Hit Ctrl-S, don't enter a filename, and click "Save" (if it's not greyed out). Does it automagically choose a filename for you and save the file? No, it won't allow you to save until you've chosen a filename. Vi is doing the exact same thing, that's all. SciTE has provided you with a visual dialog box where you enter the filename and click save; vi expects you to type it in when you ask to write the file. Same thing, different methods. That fact that you're telling it to force the action (:wq!) doesn't mean it knows what file you want to save it as.
(Regarding Battlefield 2) I play it for an avg of an hour every night, some weeks 2 hours, and have absolutely no crashes or problems with it (it was never unstable for me anyways).
So basically, what you are saying is that it was stable ages ago because YOU never had an issue with it? Ummm, No. 9 months ago it was still crap. I know, because that's about right when I purchased it. You know what? April was the first month that I've really been able to play it.
I am stuck on a wireless network. I have gamed over this same wireless network for about 2 years. Unreal Tournament 2004, Rainbow Six 3, Battlefield Vietnam, C&C Generals Zero Hour, etc, etc. Each one works fine and properly recovers if the wireless network does have a little hiccup. Battlefield 2 never game me more than 5 minutes of game play. Often times I'd have enough time to choose my class and starting flag and then BOOM. "Lost connection to Server" Or "Network issues" or some other random message about network problems. But then I realized it was a Battlefield game. And all Battlefield games suck donkey balls until about 9 months after they are released and are at patch level 1.2 or 1.3.
The initial patches for the game did nothing. It wasn't until recently that I downloaded the latest 1.22 patch and it now works about 90% of the time (this is the first patch in the 1.2 series I had tried. Previously, I had given up). On some servers I can play for hours and not get disconnected. On most servers I can at least get 20 minutes out of it. And if I get disconnected after that, I chose a different server and all is well. This could easily happen to any computer even on a wired network. So I'd say, they -finally- got it right. It's about time I finally got my moneys worth from BF2. Just about 9 months late...
I've kept myself from playing this entire week, because once I got into it, I'd play until 2:00am... and I get up for work at 6:30. The only other game that I've had more issues with is the "game mismatch" error with Command and Conquer Generals. And I'd get that issue when I was on a wired network sitting right next to the person I was playing with. Generals never worked once on my old computer. I had to build a brand new computer to get past that one. And I still see that about 1 in 15 games as well. If the new game has that issue, EA is going to get an earful from me.
I never played a single Command and Conquer game until Generals and Generals: Zero Hour. So I have no history with the franchise, other than with that game.
The controls were a little foreign at first, being backwards to what I was used to. Once I got past that, I discovered a highly detailed and very immersive game. I bought this game about 2 years ago and have played it consistently online with friends ever since. Last night being the most recent.:)
In my opinion, if they can make the game as good as Generals (at least with the Zero Hour additions) I'll buy it and be quite pleased. If they can exceed that, then all the better.
The single biggest issue with Generals and Zero Hour was the game "mismatch" when playing online. On my old computer, I couldn't even play a single game over the internet OR on a local lan without a mismatch. Weeks of contacting tech support were no help. After hopelessly googling for answers I discovered that problems like this were not uncommon with Generals. This likely is part of the reason why the game didn't do as well as it's predecessors.
After building a new computer about 1 in 15 games will mismatch. It seems to be more common on certain maps. (And yes, we all have legal copies of the game). So the issue is still there, and very annoying, but now it's at least acceptable.
Microsoft: "Microsoft tech support, how may I help you today?" Customer: "I have an Athlon 64 and I need some help". Microsoft: "Ok, you only get to ask one question". Customer: "Only one?" Microsoft: "Thank you for calling..."
Rooting for Jon Stewart is as bad as the Republicans that think they should run the terminator.
People who think that Republicans plan on running Arnold for President are morons (whether they're Republicans themselves or Democrats). There's kinda this constitutional requirement of "natural-born citizen" in order to be President. Arnold doesn't fit the bill.
Unless another amendment is passed to change this, which is highly doubtful, he can't even run.
I wish people would just let this lame rumor die...
Are you really sure that's a fair comparison? You ask if firefox is any less bloated than mozilla, stating that it takes 10-12 seconds to start up and it crashes randomly. But then you go on to say:
I do appreciate the growing number of extensions for Firefox, though I wonder why they can't have been adapted for Mozilla since it also uses XUL. I currently use Image Zoom, Advanced Highlighter Button, User Agent Switcher, Web Developer, All-in-One Gestures, Nuke Anything, Print It, and Flashblock...
Are you sure it's not an extension that's bringing down firefox? Or slowing down the start up time. You can't really compare stock mozilla against a customized firefox for speed and stability. I realize that you may love those extensions and wouldn't want to live without them, but otherwise you're comparing apples to oranges.
I've never even heard of this unit before so I was suprised to find out about one with so many features I've been looking for. That unit has some pretty impressive specs. The biggest gripe I can see with it is the LCD and controls are not integrated. Too easy to lose or break.
You seem to be happy with it. Tell me though, what are you biggest complaints? What don't you like about it?
My main concern here is the fans. I mean, if they stop making Star Trek movies and series, what will become of the fans?!
Will they take off the costumes? The ridiculous ears and inverted butt-crack forheads? Will they finally come out of their parents basement and mingle with the rest of society?! Let's think about this for a minute. Let's not make any hasty decisions. Do we actually want to try and reintegrate these people with the rest of us?
Hit your favorite ftp,rsync,http or whatever source, grab it from the/patches directory, download it, and type installpkg packagename. It grabs from the current directory where you downloaded to, and installs it.
That's a lot more work than apt-get update; apt-get upgrade. Stable never breaks either.
Slackware is quite flexible that way. There are many different ways to update your system. You can upgrade "by hand" like he described or use a number of different tools including
slapt-get --update; slapt-get --upgrade
Granted that is two additional letters at the front and two additional characters in the middle you must type for the command, but we Slackware users cope somehow.;)
Slackware stable is rock solid and typically has up to date packages when it's released (see here for what comes with Slackware 10). And Slackware current? Bleeding edge packages without the bleeding edge stability.
I have great respect for Debian, but Slackware stays on my system.
Anyone that says having a compiler installed is a security threat, has no idea what he is talking about.
Not true. It's generally a good idea to keep devel packages and any unnecessary compilers (or -any- unnecessary software) off your production servers. It's not a security threat, as in it will increase your changes of being hacked. It's simply about attempting to minimize damages in the event that it does happen. Having a working compiler and the development libraries provides additional firepower to the attacker (or possibly a disgruntled local user with an account on the system). Not having devel libs or a compiler can help to minimize the damages. It may not be much, but a compiler in most (though not all) cases, is extraneous software that should simply be left off production servers.
Any custom software packages created for a production server, should first be compiled on a developmental or test server, packaged as a binary, and then installed on the production server. This is simply a good standard practice. In fact, I believe there was even an article posted in the last day or so that mentioned this...
Fact is, 98SE is second only to XP. 2000 (when I used it) was buggy and bloated.
Well, we've had the exact opposite experience. I didn't start using Win2k until after SP2 was already released, so I can't comment on it's initial stability. But after using XP at Work, and on various siblings and friends computers, I'd have to say that Win2K beats it hands down.
And it's not that Win XP is crash prone. But in the past 20 months of using Win2k on my home built computer I've had 2 non-recoverable lockups and 2 bluescreens (both BSOD's were caused by buggy logitech gamepad drivers when the gamepad wasn't even being used). And this computer has seen quite a bit of gaming, net surfing, DVD watching, and MP3 playing. Win 2000 is probably the most stable OS Microsoft has ever produced.
Now if Linux can gain enough traction so that big companies begin releasing native supported versions for it, Win 2K would be the last MS OS I'd ever have to buy.
Slackware is known to work well with older hardware. Or, if you prefer, I've heard great things about Vector Linux (Slackware based). The "standard" version is only about a 250MB.iso. The SOHO version (not sure if 4.0 SOHO is officially released) takes up a full CD.
I downloaded and was compiling the sources when the story broke on Slashdot.
When Pat said that Slackware 9.1 was 2.6 ready, he wasn't kidding. So far, so good. Not a glitch during the compile or boot-up. I plan to stress test it as much as possible to see if I can tell the difference between 2.4.22.
Slashdot Mirror
No, M16 are not necessarily illegal to own. An M-16 (or any other fully automatic firearm) which was manufactured before May 19th, 1986 can still be legally obtained under the Firearm Owners Protection Act. It is possible you will need to obtain some type of NFA license and purchasing any form of machine gun will pretty much guarantee you are put on a "federal watch list" and monitored much more closely than the average citizen.
But it many states, you can be a legal owner of a fully automatic M-16. It may be a bit of work to find a place where you can fire it without getting the cops called though (a lot of gun ranges don't allow fully automatic weapons).
*It is possible that your local state laws may supersede said federal law.
It's funny that you say that about the cheaper ones from Lowe's (Bright Effects is the brand, at least at the Lowe's near me). Those are the first bulbs I purchased and I specifically didn't like them for two reasons.
1) 1 second delay
2) Artificial looking white light
The lower-cost ones at Home Depot (4-pack, $7.97 which I got on special for $3.97) are nVision brand, where much closer to incandescent lighting and were also instant-on. They came on at about 85% brightness and warmed up over 15-30 seconds to full brightness. If you are claiming the exact opposite experience I had with the cheaper ones from Lowe's maybe it's just luck of the draw... I hope not, as the two reasons I mentioned are enough to keep me from using a CFL. I will continue to buy the nVision brand from Home Depot (in the "soft white" as it's closer to lighting color I like) as long as the quality remains consistent and they don't develop problems such as flickering, etc, over time.
That was my same complaint with my very first experience with CFL's (Bright Effects brand from Lowe's). When you walk into a dark hallway and flip a switch, it can be a little disconcerting not to have an immediate response. My first reaction was always "it's burned out", but before I finished that thought the light was on. It was only mildly annoying, but enough that I decided to do something about it.
My solution was two fold. For the bulbs I had already purchased that had the delay, in a dark hallway I used one incandescent and one CFL (won't work if there is only one fixture of course). I get light immediately, and a second later it gets brighter. This particular hallway light is used on a regular basis but is not on for very long (above the coat closet). So the power savings by using a CFL is going to be minimal anyway.
Second, I found a different brand that didn't suffer from the 1 second delay. The nVision brand from Home Depot is what I recently tried and really liked. It's light is less white and more like and incandescent and it comes on instantly. It comes on at about 85% brightness and warms up to full brightness in about 15-30 seconds. Which is great for the master bathroom. It's my first light that gets switched on in the morning and it's not a "AHH, THE LIGHT!" kind of reaction. That slight "warming-up" is actually a nice feature first thing in the morning.
I've recently been replacing light bulbs in my home with CFLs. My first purchase was from Lowe's Home Improvement and the brand is "Bright Effects". It was a 4-pack of 8 bulbs for about $8. The light bulbs take about a full second to come on and do seem to brighten more over about 30 seconds (but they come on at near full brightness after the 1 second delay). I was fairly disappointed with the delay and the coloring of the light on these bulbs.
I tried a 4-pack of "nVision Soft White" bulbs from Home Depot and paid $4 (on special from the regular price of $8). The bulbs give off a color of light much closer to incandescent bulbs, which I prefer. These bulbs come on instantly with no delay or flicker, but are dimmer at first than the "Bright Effects" brand from Lowe's. After about 30 seconds, they are at full brightness. I even purchased a single "bright light" and "broad daylight" CFL from Home Depot in the nVision brand. Those are much more bright and give off a (to me, more artificial looking) white light.
I much prefer the nVision brand "soft white" from Home Depot over the Bright Effects brand from Lowe's. Plus, the nVision's claims up to 9 years lifetime on the bulbs where Bright Effects claimed 7. Of course, those are just claims and time will tell. I have yet to try any bulbs by GE, Sylvania or anybody else, since you have to pay more of a premium for the brand name. If the nVision last a little more than 1/2 as long as they claim (5 years) then I think they are worth it.
I think you entirely missed the point of the GPs post.
You said:
I'm not sure this strategy is much better.
You can't make a meaningful decision unless you know the opinion of the other side. Saying that Blagojevich does cut funding for education doesn't mean that Topinka does not cut funding for education.
That is precisely what the GP was saying when he said The answer is not to just go out and vote for the sake of voting, but to spend some time learning about your candidates for the sake of your county, state, and/or country.
He was saying "Get informed about both sides before voting", which I'd have to agree is about the most intelligent advice you can give when it comes to elections. If you don't care enough to spend the time to know the candidates and what they stand for, don't sit and whine about the next Bush or Kerry or whomever you find to be against your ideals.
I'm glad to see Slackware steadily plodding along in it's development. I hope that Pat continues to produce this distro for years to come as it is a fantasitic distro, one that is too often overlooked.
While I have since moved on to another distro, more or less out of necessity, I'm glad to know that I can always "come home" to Slackware.
Canada supplies a fair amount (for a single country), but by no means the "majority". According to 2002 figures, Canada supplies approximately 15% of the oil imported into the U.S (3rd largest importer behind Saudi Arabi at 16.9% and Mexico at 15.1%).
_ publications/petroleum_supply_monthly/current/pdf/ table37.pdf
Recent figures (April 2006) show Canada as the largest supplier for that month at a whopping 17.4%, followed by Mexico at 16.3%, and Saudi Arabia at 16.1%. Nearly half (49.4%) of our oil comes from OPEC countries. And even a non-OPEC country is not guaranteed to be stable or even friendly to the US. Also, when you buy oil from Canada there is no guarantee that it's actually Canadian oil. Some of it might have originated in Iran, Qatar, Venezuela, etc. A funny thing that "trade".
For the April 2006 figures, see here (PDF warning):
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data
I think the balance must lie somewhere in the middle. I really enjoy unlockable content as long as it is done correctly. Take a racing game. You could choose to unlock a car after you beat a certain track, our you could make it more realistic and say "The new Lamborgini costs $450,000. You have $357,694. You don't have enough to purchase it." That way it feels less less random. I get a new car everytime I beat a track...?
But, I do believe that game designers should take into account that not everyone will want to unlock all the fiddly little details about the game. Give your users cheat codes for each individual unlock and/or an "unlock all". Don't FORCE them to unlock if they don't want to. But don't get rid of it entirely. I really like having to earn my way through a game. It makes it feel like I'm accomplishing something rather than mindlessly plodding through a game. Sometimes I want a game like that, often times I don't.
Well, I switched to Dapper Drake from Breezy Badger on April 14th. Breezy Badger had run flawless the entire time since it was released up until April 6th.. I then recieved an i915 irq wait error where X would crash and wouldn't come back up without a reboot. This would repeat itself every couple of days, and all the information I could find on it said that it was fixed in the kernel in January of 2005 by the Ubuntu devs. With no explanation of what caused the issue and with it already having been "resolved" 16 months before by the same team who produced my distro, I decided to switch to the (then) alpha of Dapper Drake. I haven't had the problem since.
This release is the most polished and the nicest version "out of the box" that the Ubuntu team has ever released. It's a fantastic distro and one that has worked amazingly well since the alpha versions with one major glaring exception. The printing subsystem is a giant leap backwards . Cups 1.2 seems to be a large part of the problem, with the Ubuntu/Gnome print manager as the the other part. I've lost my ability to print in duplex mode which worked in Warty, Hoary, and Breezy. Print jobs now print one page at a time (rather than one continuous feed), like it's sending a 30MB per page document to the printer. Some printers don't work at all anymore. We have a Cannon ImageRunner at work that you could identify as a "LaserJet 6". I've tried every which way to get that think to work (including trying different printer models and/or drivers) and print jobs will just spool indefinitely. Right click on a printer and go to properties and it takes 7-8 seconds with 100% CPU utilization before it opens (1-2 seconds with normal load under Breezy). I don't see how this made it out the door with the printing subsystem in this state.
Hopefully for others sakes, I'm just surrounded by the 4 or 5 models of HP and Cannon printers that suck with this version of Ubuntu and it's not a widespread issue. It's a huge disappointment and one that I hope they can fix in the coming months. Since this is my work machine, I was very excited about the 3 years of support on the desktop and I wanted to stick with this version of Linux for quite some time. Without a fix to these printing issues, it's going to be painful.
If you can unzip a file you can install firefox... and what IT department would complain about a user using firefox?
I envy you. While yes, I can "unzip a file", I cannot download it in the first place. "Freeware and software downloads" are caught by our web filter. Firefox, Opera, even some useful development tools are forbidden (out of general policy, not on the software's individual merits). It's all rather draconian, especially since most of the time the software I'm attempting to download is something to help me with my job (a visual diff program, CVS client, etc).
Anything that the IT department doesn't control is "off limits". Call it idiocy, call it a Microsoft-centric world, but there are many large corporation IT departments that scowl at anything open source / free / non-Microsoft. It's out of their realm of expertise and therefore "scary and unknown".
Umm, no. Just ctrl-s. I think notepad is the only editor I've seen with the problem you describe.
I think the GP was exaggerating just a smidge. I don't know of any modern program that bugs you with that many prompts. Older versions of WordPerfect (i.e. up through at least 5.x) would do this. "Do you want to save this file (Y/N)?" "Are you sure (Y/N)?". Why would you ask me if I was sure, if you just prompted me and I agreed? Annoying...
I think he was actually alluding to a completely different behavior. You want to save your changes and immediately exit from editing a file. On modern word processors / text editors you can do it one of two ways:
1) Ctrl-S. Enter filename. Click Save. Click the X (or Ctrl-W, etc) to close the program.
2) Click the X to close the program. Get prompted "Would you like to save your changes?" Click "OK". Type filename. Click Save.
In vi type ":wq <filename>" and you're done. vi/vim are archaic and non-intuitive to those unfamiliar with them. Those who familiarize themselves with them can become quite efficient. I personally do like certain GUI based editors (jEdit for one) and will use them a lot of the time. But for an ssh connection or working through the console, vim is my first choice. And since most of my programming for work is done through an SSH connection, I'm in vi more often than not.
Open vi without a filename, insert some text, then ":wq!". I see "E32: No file name", and I'm still in the editor. I thought q! meant "really quit". SciTE recognizes that I want to save a file that I haven't named yet. So, ctrl-s filename. WorksForMe.
Well, the command ":wq!" doesn't really make sense. It's really no different from ":wq". It's saying "Write the file to disk, then force quit". Using ":q!" means "force quit, without saving or asking me anything". So it's kind of contridiction.
But it's sounds as if you are bringing up an issue with vi that doesn't really exist. Open a new file in SciTE and enter some text. Hit Ctrl-S, don't enter a filename, and click "Save" (if it's not greyed out). Does it automagically choose a filename for you and save the file? No, it won't allow you to save until you've chosen a filename. Vi is doing the exact same thing, that's all. SciTE has provided you with a visual dialog box where you enter the filename and click save; vi expects you to type it in when you ask to write the file. Same thing, different methods. That fact that you're telling it to force the action (:wq!) doesn't mean it knows what file you want to save it as.
(Regarding Battlefield 2) I play it for an avg of an hour every night, some weeks 2 hours, and have absolutely no crashes or problems with it (it was never unstable for me anyways).
So basically, what you are saying is that it was stable ages ago because YOU never had an issue with it? Ummm, No. 9 months ago it was still crap. I know, because that's about right when I purchased it. You know what? April was the first month that I've really been able to play it.
I am stuck on a wireless network. I have gamed over this same wireless network for about 2 years. Unreal Tournament 2004, Rainbow Six 3, Battlefield Vietnam, C&C Generals Zero Hour, etc, etc. Each one works fine and properly recovers if the wireless network does have a little hiccup. Battlefield 2 never game me more than 5 minutes of game play. Often times I'd have enough time to choose my class and starting flag and then BOOM. "Lost connection to Server" Or "Network issues" or some other random message about network problems. But then I realized it was a Battlefield game. And all Battlefield games suck donkey balls until about 9 months after they are released and are at patch level 1.2 or 1.3.
The initial patches for the game did nothing. It wasn't until recently that I downloaded the latest 1.22 patch and it now works about 90% of the time (this is the first patch in the 1.2 series I had tried. Previously, I had given up). On some servers I can play for hours and not get disconnected. On most servers I can at least get 20 minutes out of it. And if I get disconnected after that, I chose a different server and all is well. This could easily happen to any computer even on a wired network. So I'd say, they -finally- got it right. It's about time I finally got my moneys worth from BF2. Just about 9 months late...
I've kept myself from playing this entire week, because once I got into it, I'd play until 2:00am... and I get up for work at 6:30. The only other game that I've had more issues with is the "game mismatch" error with Command and Conquer Generals. And I'd get that issue when I was on a wired network sitting right next to the person I was playing with. Generals never worked once on my old computer. I had to build a brand new computer to get past that one. And I still see that about 1 in 15 games as well. If the new game has that issue, EA is going to get an earful from me.
I never played a single Command and Conquer game until Generals and Generals: Zero Hour. So I have no history with the franchise, other than with that game.
:)
The controls were a little foreign at first, being backwards to what I was used to. Once I got past that, I discovered a highly detailed and very immersive game. I bought this game about 2 years ago and have played it consistently online with friends ever since. Last night being the most recent.
In my opinion, if they can make the game as good as Generals (at least with the Zero Hour additions) I'll buy it and be quite pleased. If they can exceed that, then all the better.
The single biggest issue with Generals and Zero Hour was the game "mismatch" when playing online. On my old computer, I couldn't even play a single game over the internet OR on a local lan without a mismatch. Weeks of contacting tech support were no help. After hopelessly googling for answers I discovered that problems like this were not uncommon with Generals. This likely is part of the reason why the game didn't do as well as it's predecessors.
After building a new computer about 1 in 15 games will mismatch. It seems to be more common on certain maps. (And yes, we all have legal copies of the game). So the issue is still there, and very annoying, but now it's at least acceptable.
Microsoft: "Microsoft tech support, how may I help you today?"
Customer: "I have an Athlon 64 and I need some help".
Microsoft: "Ok, you only get to ask one question".
Customer: "Only one?"
Microsoft: "Thank you for calling..."
Rooting for Jon Stewart is as bad as the Republicans that think they should run the terminator.
People who think that Republicans plan on running Arnold for President are morons (whether they're Republicans themselves or Democrats). There's kinda this constitutional requirement of "natural-born citizen" in order to be President. Arnold doesn't fit the bill.
Unless another amendment is passed to change this, which is highly doubtful, he can't even run.
I wish people would just let this lame rumor die...
Are you really sure that's a fair comparison? You ask if firefox is any less bloated than mozilla, stating that it takes 10-12 seconds to start up and it crashes randomly. But then you go on to say:
I do appreciate the growing number of extensions for Firefox, though I wonder why they can't have been adapted for Mozilla since it also uses XUL. I currently use Image Zoom, Advanced Highlighter Button, User Agent Switcher, Web Developer, All-in-One Gestures, Nuke Anything, Print It, and Flashblock...
Are you sure it's not an extension that's bringing down firefox? Or slowing down the start up time. You can't really compare stock mozilla against a customized firefox for speed and stability. I realize that you may love those extensions and wouldn't want to live without them, but otherwise you're comparing apples to oranges.
I've never even heard of this unit before so I was suprised to find out about one with so many features I've been looking for. That unit has some pretty impressive specs. The biggest gripe I can see with it is the LCD and controls are not integrated. Too easy to lose or break.
You seem to be happy with it. Tell me though, what are you biggest complaints? What don't you like about it?
My main concern here is the fans. I mean, if they stop making Star Trek movies and series, what will become of the fans?!
Will they take off the costumes? The ridiculous ears and inverted butt-crack forheads? Will they finally come out of their parents basement and mingle with the rest of society?! Let's think about this for a minute. Let's not make any hasty decisions. Do we actually want to try and reintegrate these people with the rest of us?
Oh wait, there's still reruns. Nevermind.
That's a lot more work than apt-get update; apt-get upgrade. Stable never breaks either.
Slackware is quite flexible that way. There are many different ways to update your system. You can upgrade "by hand" like he described or use a number of different tools includingGranted that is two additional letters at the front and two additional characters in the middle you must type for the command, but we Slackware users cope somehow.
Slackware stable is rock solid and typically has up to date packages when it's released (see here for what comes with Slackware 10). And Slackware current? Bleeding edge packages without the bleeding edge stability.
I have great respect for Debian, but Slackware stays on my system.
>You don't want a compiler on most servers.
I hope you mean for space reasons.
Anyone that says having a compiler installed is a security threat, has no idea what he is talking about.
Not true. It's generally a good idea to keep devel packages and any unnecessary compilers (or -any- unnecessary software) off your production servers. It's not a security threat, as in it will increase your changes of being hacked. It's simply about attempting to minimize damages in the event that it does happen. Having a working compiler and the development libraries provides additional firepower to the attacker (or possibly a disgruntled local user with an account on the system). Not having devel libs or a compiler can help to minimize the damages. It may not be much, but a compiler in most (though not all) cases, is extraneous software that should simply be left off production servers.
Any custom software packages created for a production server, should first be compiled on a developmental or test server, packaged as a binary, and then installed on the production server. This is simply a good standard practice. In fact, I believe there was even an article posted in the last day or so that mentioned this...
Ah, here it is: What you shouldn't put into production.
(See the section entitled "Eliminate unnecessary software")
Nobody cares. I'm not kidding. ;)
Fact is, 98SE is second only to XP. 2000 (when I used it) was buggy and bloated.
Well, we've had the exact opposite experience. I didn't start using Win2k until after SP2 was already released, so I can't comment on it's initial stability. But after using XP at Work, and on various siblings and friends computers, I'd have to say that Win2K beats it hands down.
And it's not that Win XP is crash prone. But in the past 20 months of using Win2k on my home built computer I've had 2 non-recoverable lockups and 2 bluescreens (both BSOD's were caused by buggy logitech gamepad drivers when the gamepad wasn't even being used). And this computer has seen quite a bit of gaming, net surfing, DVD watching, and MP3 playing. Win 2000 is probably the most stable OS Microsoft has ever produced.
Now if Linux can gain enough traction so that big companies begin releasing native supported versions for it, Win 2K would be the last MS OS I'd ever have to buy.
Well,
.iso. The SOHO version (not sure if 4.0 SOHO is officially released) takes up a full CD.
Slackware is known to work well with older hardware. Or, if you prefer, I've heard great things about Vector Linux (Slackware based). The "standard" version is only about a 250MB
I dunno about the wireless card...
Slackware is a completely vanilla kernel. Most others (but not all) tweak the kernel one way or another.
I downloaded and was compiling the sources when the story broke on Slashdot.
When Pat said that Slackware 9.1 was 2.6 ready, he wasn't kidding. So far, so good. Not a glitch during the compile or boot-up. I plan to stress test it as much as possible to see if I can tell the difference between 2.4.22.
I can't wait until Linux 2.6 final is out.