Doesn't matter. People are married to Windows (and all Microsoft apps) and will go along with it this time, just like like they always have for the last 15+ years.
Remember when XP was a bloated, incompatible, unusable resource-hog? Now it's the user-friendly low-spec. standard by which Vista is compared.
Peoples' expectations will be engineered. They'll get used to the new low bar in performance and usability, and it'll be double-plus good. Nothing will change. Microsoft will continue to dominate.
Oh yes it is! Believe me, but don't try to do everything at once. Start with, "Hello, world!" Before you know it you'll have multi-tasking.:-) Go on, I dare you:-)
I'm more surprised there are no Sinclair machines in the orchestra (ZX81, ZX Spectrum) since they were what drove the home computer revolution of the early 80s in the UK.
The ZX81 was incredibly primitive in order to get its price below £100. I think it was the first ever computer you could buy for under £100. It had no colour and no sound, 1k of RAM in its base configuration and 8k of ROM that managed to include some very useful floating-point maths!
There was a hack you could do to in machine code get sound out of it. The cassette interface, for loading and saving programs to tape, made its way to the TV set. It was a bit in an IO register. The CPU was responsible for the TV display, so the screen went funny black and white patterns when it was doing tape IO. Usually you had the TV sound turned off. You could write precise timing loops in machine code to toggle the bit and to generate musical notes.
There was a ZX80/81 machine code book by Toni Baker which had a program to do this. You could play the ZX81 like a piano. The program was only a few hundred bytes long.
The Spectrum took this idea a bit further. The screen was generated by the ULA, so the processor could do sound and tape IO without harming the display. Sound was a single channel through a tiny build in loud-speaker which was modulated using a single bit of an IO register... very similar to tape IO:-)
The Spectrum 128 which came out years later, had an AY-3-8192 3-channel sound chip in addition to the beeper:-)
I'd hazard a guess that, since scripting languages rely heavily on external commands compared to conventional languages, you'd expect a sysadmin to be better at scripting than a straight-forward developer.
This assumes a lot though, that the developer is a corporate straight-jacket Microsoft IDE coder (who never sees a command line) and that the sys admin is a command-line whizz.
These days, what with most people knowing at least some Linux (or other Unix) the line is getting blurred between the too. Many admins who only knew Windows are learning Linux and many coders who were stuck in Visual Studio hell are too.
Conversely, some of us Linux types who have avoided Windows since '95 came out, are having to learn a bit of Visual Studio to port away legacy code to Linux/Solaris.
After just a couple of dozen swaps, SATA connectors will start to fail. Both the cables and the boards/drives. I know this from bitter experience "enhancing" and testing the very poorly-designed software upgrade mechanism for a storage appliance.
It's been pretty obvious to the more slug-like of us (intelligence wise) that Google is the new Microsoft. Microsoft was the new IBM. IBM was the new Standard Oil.
Nothing changes is business or human nature.
By the way, I came up with a new Pithy Saying(TM) today. Feel free to call it Turgid's Law:
What's the point of fighting one monoculture with another?
Microsoft's junk wouldn't be so bad if it didn't completely dominate the world. If it had some competition, it might make an effort to interoperate, making everyone's life easier.
Diversity stimulates research, growth, health and progress. Can we please put this "Linux/The Open Source Community needs to unite to beat Microsoft" meme to sleep. It's totally false and unhelpful.
Shame. I would like to see NASA et al. boost the ISS out to L4 or L5 when it's finished with, instead of splashing it and losing the whole thing.
That would be cool, but I can't help but think that the ISS is a bit too "floppy" for that. Would it end up wobbling itself to pieces if it was boosted away with a substantial rocket?
OK. So you are saying that unified package manager would require a unified library versioning across all distro's? Yeah, that could be a problem. It could be overcome, however, by using static libraries. It's not as disk efficient as shared libraries, but with TB size disks, I wouldn't be concerned. Besides, it seems to work pretty well with Windows.
That's the way a lot of closed-source packages, or pre-compiled large projects, for Linux work already. They come statically linked with all the important code. This does make them big, right enough. Takes me back to Wingz, WordPerfect 8.0 and all those 1990's goodies.
It's also why Quake III Arena, which I bought for Linux back in 1999, still runs on my 64-bit Slamd64-12.1 system [with 10x the fps:-) with SETI@home running on both CPUs at the same time...].
Or do you think that Slack, Cent, and RH are all the same thing? Ubuntu can use RPM's via alien. Are you telling that there is no difference between Ubuntu and Slack?
No, I'm not saying that at all. You have completely misunderstood me. I've done a lot of compiling and packaging in my time, and you sound like you don't understand the issues involved at all.
Tell me, how would your wonderful unified package manager cope with a C++ binary compiled with, for example, gcc-4.2.4 on a system where the C++ libraries were compiled with, say, gcc-3.4.6?
What is needed is a unified package management system that is compatible among all Linux distro's. This would allow developers to concentrate their efforts on one installation routine and would remove the roadblock for commercial software developers to consider porting their current Windows apps to Linux.
What you are proposing is "One True Distribution." Package managers are irrelevant. What defines a distribution (amongst other things) is the set of software that it comprises. The package manager is only there to help with installing and removing things and to warn when dependencies are missing. What you're really asking is that all distributions come with the same versions of the same libraries, applications and utilities, all compiled with the same options for the same processor architecture. In other words, a single distribution. Business already has this. It's Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and if you don't want to pay for the Red Hat branding (and support) you can try your luck with CentOS.
I use Slackware and Slamd64. I quite happily install RPMs on it of things like OpenOffice.org along side the standard Slackware packages and those of my homebrew packaging system (which is designed to make ad-hoc building from source packages trivial).
Linux will not take off until users can go to their local Best Buy or Walmart and purchase the software they need.
As time goes on, hopefully these non-portable closed-source applications will be replaced by Free equivalents.
Linux has taken off. It's everywhere except Joe Average's home PC. Joe Average can get Ubuntu. That's who it's aimed at.
Also, there's this thing called Java which has a portable VM, extensive, mature libraries and several languages to choose from... If only people wrote more applications for the Java platform. There is also WINE.
You can ask "the community" all you like. People already naturally form groups with others who share similar opinions. There is no such thing as "the Linux Community."
There are several communities which have formed around various distributions and software packages targeted to various needs. Competition (commercial or otherwise) stimulates progress. You might as well ask the tide not to come in since you will not change a thing.
The last thing the world needs is a Soviet-style Linux movement where dissent and competition is ruthlessly crushed.
And just how to you propose to regulate, police and enforce the production of Linux distributions? Perhaps each should pay a fee to use the name "Linux?"
Linux distributions are like god: there as many different ones as there are people that believe in it.
Trying to artificially limit the production of Linux distributions would be complete against the whole Open Source and Free Software philosophies, and against freedom and human nature in general. It's an absurd idea, and Linus is right on this issue.
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't matter. People are married to Windows (and all Microsoft apps) and will go along with it this time, just like like they always have for the last 15+ years.
Remember when XP was a bloated, incompatible, unusable resource-hog? Now it's the user-friendly low-spec. standard by which Vista is compared.
Peoples' expectations will be engineered. They'll get used to the new low bar in performance and usability, and it'll be double-plus good. Nothing will change. Microsoft will continue to dominate.
Using de Moivre's Theorem, calculate the 5th roots of Evil (2 marks).
Oh yes it is! Believe me, but don't try to do everything at once. Start with, "Hello, world!" Before you know it you'll have multi-tasking. :-) Go on, I dare you :-)
I still dream of coding my own mini-OS for CPC :)
Then stop dreaming and start coding! :-)
I'm more surprised there are no Sinclair machines in the orchestra (ZX81, ZX Spectrum) since they were what drove the home computer revolution of the early 80s in the UK.
The ZX81 was incredibly primitive in order to get its price below £100. I think it was the first ever computer you could buy for under £100. It had no colour and no sound, 1k of RAM in its base configuration and 8k of ROM that managed to include some very useful floating-point maths!
There was a hack you could do to in machine code get sound out of it. The cassette interface, for loading and saving programs to tape, made its way to the TV set. It was a bit in an IO register. The CPU was responsible for the TV display, so the screen went funny black and white patterns when it was doing tape IO. Usually you had the TV sound turned off. You could write precise timing loops in machine code to toggle the bit and to generate musical notes.
There was a ZX80/81 machine code book by Toni Baker which had a program to do this. You could play the ZX81 like a piano. The program was only a few hundred bytes long.
The Spectrum took this idea a bit further. The screen was generated by the ULA, so the processor could do sound and tape IO without harming the display. Sound was a single channel through a tiny build in loud-speaker which was modulated using a single bit of an IO register... very similar to tape IO :-)
The Spectrum 128 which came out years later, had an AY-3-8192 3-channel sound chip in addition to the beeper :-)
After working with Linux and Solaris for 12+ years, having to use Visual Studio is hellish.
I'd hazard a guess that, since scripting languages rely heavily on external commands compared to conventional languages, you'd expect a sysadmin to be better at scripting than a straight-forward developer.
This assumes a lot though, that the developer is a corporate straight-jacket Microsoft IDE coder (who never sees a command line) and that the sys admin is a command-line whizz.
These days, what with most people knowing at least some Linux (or other Unix) the line is getting blurred between the too. Many admins who only knew Windows are learning Linux and many coders who were stuck in Visual Studio hell are too.
Conversely, some of us Linux types who have avoided Windows since '95 came out, are having to learn a bit of Visual Studio to port away legacy code to Linux/Solaris.
Meshuggah
How do you pronounce that? Is it "me sugar" minus the "r"?
Sounds like a Libertarian paradise. Stop giving them ideas!
After just a couple of dozen swaps, SATA connectors will start to fail. Both the cables and the boards/drives. I know this from bitter experience "enhancing" and testing the very poorly-designed software upgrade mechanism for a storage appliance.
If I were a Mac user, I will interested in knowing that there is now a functional D compiler for my OS...
If I were a Mac user, I'd be more interested in which colours it will be available in.
If I were a Windows user, I'd be interested in it when Microsoft Visual D# .NET was ready.
It's been pretty obvious to the more slug-like of us (intelligence wise) that Google is the new Microsoft. Microsoft was the new IBM. IBM was the new Standard Oil.
Nothing changes is business or human nature.
By the way, I came up with a new Pithy Saying(TM) today. Feel free to call it Turgid's Law:
Sorry, I forgot what it was.
Slackware users use a gui?
Only to multiplex xterm, and xeyes to point to the mouse.
What's the point of fighting one monoculture with another?
Microsoft's junk wouldn't be so bad if it didn't completely dominate the world. If it had some competition, it might make an effort to interoperate, making everyone's life easier.
Diversity stimulates research, growth, health and progress. Can we please put this "Linux/The Open Source Community needs to unite to beat Microsoft" meme to sleep. It's totally false and unhelpful.
Shame. I would like to see NASA et al. boost the ISS out to L4 or L5 when it's finished with, instead of splashing it and losing the whole thing.
That would be cool, but I can't help but think that the ISS is a bit too "floppy" for that. Would it end up wobbling itself to pieces if it was boosted away with a substantial rocket?
Why don't they just make a SPARC chip? SPARC is an Open Standard. You don't have to license the instruction set!
/me ducks.
What you describe is a build system, not a package manager.
One of the many mis-features of RPM is that it pretends to know how to build packages from source. It's ghastly. I've fought with it for many hours.
OK. So you are saying that unified package manager would require a unified library versioning across all distro's? Yeah, that could be a problem. It could be overcome, however, by using static libraries. It's not as disk efficient as shared libraries, but with TB size disks, I wouldn't be concerned. Besides, it seems to work pretty well with Windows.
That's the way a lot of closed-source packages, or pre-compiled large projects, for Linux work already. They come statically linked with all the important code. This does make them big, right enough. Takes me back to Wingz, WordPerfect 8.0 and all those 1990's goodies.
It's also why Quake III Arena, which I bought for Linux back in 1999, still runs on my 64-bit Slamd64-12.1 system [with 10x the fps :-) with SETI@home running on both CPUs at the same time...].
Or do you think that Slack, Cent, and RH are all the same thing? Ubuntu can use RPM's via alien. Are you telling that there is no difference between Ubuntu and Slack?
No, I'm not saying that at all. You have completely misunderstood me. I've done a lot of compiling and packaging in my time, and you sound like you don't understand the issues involved at all.
Tell me, how would your wonderful unified package manager cope with a C++ binary compiled with, for example, gcc-4.2.4 on a system where the C++ libraries were compiled with, say, gcc-3.4.6?
What is needed is a unified package management system that is compatible among all Linux distro's. This would allow developers to concentrate their efforts on one installation routine and would remove the roadblock for commercial software developers to consider porting their current Windows apps to Linux.
What you are proposing is "One True Distribution." Package managers are irrelevant. What defines a distribution (amongst other things) is the set of software that it comprises. The package manager is only there to help with installing and removing things and to warn when dependencies are missing. What you're really asking is that all distributions come with the same versions of the same libraries, applications and utilities, all compiled with the same options for the same processor architecture. In other words, a single distribution. Business already has this. It's Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and if you don't want to pay for the Red Hat branding (and support) you can try your luck with CentOS.
I use Slackware and Slamd64. I quite happily install RPMs on it of things like OpenOffice.org along side the standard Slackware packages and those of my homebrew packaging system (which is designed to make ad-hoc building from source packages trivial).
Linux will not take off until users can go to their local Best Buy or Walmart and purchase the software they need.
As time goes on, hopefully these non-portable closed-source applications will be replaced by Free equivalents.
Linux has taken off. It's everywhere except Joe Average's home PC. Joe Average can get Ubuntu. That's who it's aimed at.
Also, there's this thing called Java which has a portable VM, extensive, mature libraries and several languages to choose from... If only people wrote more applications for the Java platform. There is also WINE.
You can ask "the community" all you like. People already naturally form groups with others who share similar opinions. There is no such thing as "the Linux Community."
There are several communities which have formed around various distributions and software packages targeted to various needs. Competition (commercial or otherwise) stimulates progress. You might as well ask the tide not to come in since you will not change a thing.
The last thing the world needs is a Soviet-style Linux movement where dissent and competition is ruthlessly crushed.
And just how to you propose to regulate, police and enforce the production of Linux distributions? Perhaps each should pay a fee to use the name "Linux?"
Linux distributions are like god: there as many different ones as there are people that believe in it.
Trying to artificially limit the production of Linux distributions would be complete against the whole Open Source and Free Software philosophies, and against freedom and human nature in general. It's an absurd idea, and Linus is right on this issue.
If this is true and the satellite reached escape velocity you have just demonstrated that Iran can drop a warhead on any city worldwide.
If it had achieved escape velocity, it wouldn't be in orbit, now would it, Kenny?
But I don't goto your university.
Aha! A BASIC programmer. Don't worry, your secret is safe with us.
I can count from -512 to 511 on my fingers, you insensitive clod!