Right, but that happens to be one very large and bloated interpreter for a bunch of languages that only work on proprietary systems with proprietary applications.
Agile developers know that flexibility can be one of his or her greatest assets. Who cares if a few more frameworks need to be installed, as long as the final product is actually useful and can be installed on any Windows or un*x environment (and in some cases, such as certain ruby on rails developments, in much less time)?
I completely agree with this remark. The ability to "choose your own software," one of the major beauties of open source for the end user, also turns out to be one of the major drawbacks in bringing Linux to the mainstream desktop. For technologically inclined individuals, or those with a deep passion for computing, we love the fact that we can drop one window manager in an instant and start building another that may have better functionality. While this may seem like a simple concept for those of us who have used the command line for years, it is a downright disaster in the making for those who just use computers occassionally.
The Linux community needs to decide where they want Linux to go. If they want Linux to be a server, then great, continue on your way and develop a powerful, fast, dynamic server operating system. However, if they want Linux to be a desktop OS, the Linux community needs to come together and embrace the idea that the window manager *IS* the operating system to 98% of the home users out there. A single window manager needs to be created or used, and all development should be geared towards integrating that one window manager into the background OS so that the old command-line days are completely transparent.
I cannot see Linux becoming a mainstream desktop OS until this issue is resolved. Until then, the Linux community will continue to be those who only use it because they are technically inclined to do so.
There's one major flaw with this argument: not every student at a university is a computer science major, or is even interested in IT. I agree that it would be nice to show non-CS students that there are alternatives to Microsoft out there, but students should not be forced to use software they are unfamiliar with just for the sake of diversity and the support of open source. This will only result in a disregard for the computing systems of that university; students who have used nothing but Microsoft products and really have no urge to learn how a UN*X system works will avoid computer laboratories and library systems.
Computers are an asset to a university because they provide all students, not just CS students, with an access point to research and information. If only 10% of the student population knows how to use these systems, the university hurts.
I suggest trying it out. If by support you are referring to hardware, it is true that FreeBSD is not as heavily advanced as Linux. FreeBSD is built more as a server operating system than a desktop operating system, and as such, the developers are more worried about producing a stable operating system and hardening the actual core than providing driver support for the latest and greatest soundcard. Don't get me wrong, they do have an excellent list of supported hardware.
In my experience, FreeBSD has been able to utilize my system a heck of a lot better than Linux ever has. Large X processes seem to always have no problem running simultaneously with 3-4 builds taking place in the background. Even binaries built for Linux run at incredible speed; as stated on the FreeBSD website, Linux binaries can even run faster on a FreeBSD machine using Linux emulation than Linux itself can run it.
I'm not going to get into a holy war over which operating system is better, because they both definitely have their ups and downs. I do suggest, however, to give FreeBSD a try if you are interested in seeing what it can do.
"Of course, this is all rather academic because if you'd read the article, you'd know that the headline is BS and that the linked story talks about including Netscape 7, not AOL."
Go to the Lindows website and see for yourself. The article may not cite it directly, but AOL 7.0 is coming to Lindows.
SELinux is not a distribution; it is rather a series of patches and utilities to the Red Hat 7.2 distribution.
The National Security Agency cleary states that certain sections of the patches may or may not fall under the terms and conditions of the GPL, as shown by the following statement from the NSA SELinux website:
"All source code found on this site is released under the same terms and conditions as the original sources. For example, the patches to the Linux kernel, patches to many existing utilities, and new programs and libraries available here are released under the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The patches to some existing utilities and libraries available here are released under the terms and conditions of the BSD license."
SELinux uses the idea of Type Enforcement, which is patented by SCC. This is one area that would not fall under the GPL, but SCC is deciding to ignore that fact for the time being.
Yes, I shouldn't have even asked - I already knew the answer! I stupidly forgot how we get so fanatical about what we use, but that's pretty much why I posted the question in the first place - I'm a BSD user.
I have no problems with Linux, and I won't have any problems with Linux until the top distros start saying something like "It's just so easy to use, no wonder it's #1!" and they merge with Time-Warner-AOL.
Valid points. I personally have never had problem installing FreeBSD on my own system, but I do know of others who had a rather difficult time. And I do understand your point on the Linux binaries, although I do wish companies would actually decide to support BSD one of these days with their binary packages...
My main point was basically how, at the start, this article spoke mainly about how great it was to have a system come installed with basically nothing on it and having a ports-like system to install new packages. The main reason I switched from Linux to FreeBSD was to eliminate the bloat that comes with a lot of the larger distributions. I guess it's good that a Linux distro is offering this as well, now, but I don't think there's any reason to switch back now.
It would actually be in our best interests to allow the NSA the utilization of spare computing power. Last I checked, breaking a cipher is not the simplest thing in the world - regardless how much power they may have in their internal network, they can always use more.
As for your personal security, I wouldn't worry. The NSA is not authorized to monitor civilian activity. That's the job of the FBI.
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"Many languages, one interpreter."
Right, but that happens to be one very large and bloated interpreter for a bunch of languages that only work on proprietary systems with proprietary applications.
Agile developers know that flexibility can be one of his or her greatest assets. Who cares if a few more frameworks need to be installed, as long as the final product is actually useful and can be installed on any Windows or un*x environment (and in some cases, such as certain ruby on rails developments, in much less time)?
I completely agree with this remark. The ability to "choose your own software," one of the major beauties of open source for the end user, also turns out to be one of the major drawbacks in bringing Linux to the mainstream desktop. For technologically inclined individuals, or those with a deep passion for computing, we love the fact that we can drop one window manager in an instant and start building another that may have better functionality. While this may seem like a simple concept for those of us who have used the command line for years, it is a downright disaster in the making for those who just use computers occassionally. The Linux community needs to decide where they want Linux to go. If they want Linux to be a server, then great, continue on your way and develop a powerful, fast, dynamic server operating system. However, if they want Linux to be a desktop OS, the Linux community needs to come together and embrace the idea that the window manager *IS* the operating system to 98% of the home users out there. A single window manager needs to be created or used, and all development should be geared towards integrating that one window manager into the background OS so that the old command-line days are completely transparent. I cannot see Linux becoming a mainstream desktop OS until this issue is resolved. Until then, the Linux community will continue to be those who only use it because they are technically inclined to do so.
There's one major flaw with this argument: not every student at a university is a computer science major, or is even interested in IT. I agree that it would be nice to show non-CS students that there are alternatives to Microsoft out there, but students should not be forced to use software they are unfamiliar with just for the sake of diversity and the support of open source. This will only result in a disregard for the computing systems of that university; students who have used nothing but Microsoft products and really have no urge to learn how a UN*X system works will avoid computer laboratories and library systems.
Computers are an asset to a university because they provide all students, not just CS students, with an access point to research and information. If only 10% of the student population knows how to use these systems, the university hurts.
I suggest trying it out. If by support you are referring to hardware, it is true that FreeBSD is not as heavily advanced as Linux. FreeBSD is built more as a server operating system than a desktop operating system, and as such, the developers are more worried about producing a stable operating system and hardening the actual core than providing driver support for the latest and greatest soundcard. Don't get me wrong, they do have an excellent list of supported hardware. In my experience, FreeBSD has been able to utilize my system a heck of a lot better than Linux ever has. Large X processes seem to always have no problem running simultaneously with 3-4 builds taking place in the background. Even binaries built for Linux run at incredible speed; as stated on the FreeBSD website, Linux binaries can even run faster on a FreeBSD machine using Linux emulation than Linux itself can run it. I'm not going to get into a holy war over which operating system is better, because they both definitely have their ups and downs. I do suggest, however, to give FreeBSD a try if you are interested in seeing what it can do.
"Of course, this is all rather academic because if you'd read the article, you'd know that the headline is BS and that the linked story talks about including Netscape 7, not AOL."
Go to the Lindows website and see for yourself. The article may not cite it directly, but AOL 7.0 is coming to Lindows.
Yes, I shouldn't have even asked - I already knew the answer! I stupidly forgot how we get so fanatical about what we use, but that's pretty much why I posted the question in the first place - I'm a BSD user.
I have no problems with Linux, and I won't have any problems with Linux until the top distros start saying something like "It's just so easy to use, no wonder it's #1!" and they merge with Time-Warner-AOL.
Valid points. I personally have never had problem installing FreeBSD on my own system, but I do know of others who had a rather difficult time. And I do understand your point on the Linux binaries, although I do wish companies would actually decide to support BSD one of these days with their binary packages... My main point was basically how, at the start, this article spoke mainly about how great it was to have a system come installed with basically nothing on it and having a ports-like system to install new packages. The main reason I switched from Linux to FreeBSD was to eliminate the bloat that comes with a lot of the larger distributions. I guess it's good that a Linux distro is offering this as well, now, but I don't think there's any reason to switch back now.
Perhaps this is beyond the scope of this article, but if you want a lot of things that FreeBSD has, such as the ports system... why not use FreeBSD?
It would actually be in our best interests to allow the NSA the utilization of spare computing power. Last I checked, breaking a cipher is not the simplest thing in the world - regardless how much power they may have in their internal network, they can always use more. As for your personal security, I wouldn't worry. The NSA is not authorized to monitor civilian activity. That's the job of the FBI.