Or you could use gentoo. Set the "mp3" USE flag (it's probably on by default) and xmms, gstreamer (totem), vlc, etc. will build with mp3 support. I love how portage sidesteps all of the patent/license problems, which make other distros impossible to use with just the official packages, by compiling everything from source and not distributing any binaries (or "modified" packaged versions of proprietary packages) directly.
Linux has at least a bunch of totally different sound systems that all need to be supported to get sound out of an app.
AFAIK, at first there was OSS, which is now being replaced by ALSA. And ALSA has an OSS compatibility driver so old OSS apps work just fine. Then there's arts and esd on top of those, but you don't NEED to implement all four. Anyway, most sound-capable programs I use support all of the major sound systems, so it must not be that hard to do.
Can we stop using the term "PC" like that already? PC isn't a model name or an operating system; it's a form factor. PCs are smaller than servers, less powerful than workstations, and might include laptops but probably not handhelds. Most of Apple's offerings are personal computers. My computer is a "PC" in that it uses an x86 processor and shipped with Windows, but I run linux so I'm also immune to all that stuff that should be "plaguing" it. Viruses and malware are a problem on Windows (only because it's the most popular; they will target any OS that gains enough market share), not some broad hardware platform that even Apple is adopting now.
One thing that's simple to understand and obvious just from looking at basic specs is that servers are built to handle a lot of data and a lot of tasks at once. Instead of one or two fast CPU cores they have 4 or 8 (The idea with the Niagara is to consolidate all of these onto a single die, making the whole machine cost considerably less). Memory sizes are around 16-32 GB (servers have used 64-bit alpha/ultrasparc/itanium architectures for years in order to support this). I haven't seen a PC motherboard that supports anywhere near that. Hard drives spin FAST, have large buffers, and are configured in arrays for redundancy and even more speed.
You missed the "physically distributed" part. OSS is generally downloaded over HTTP/FTP/BitTorrent/etc, not on a boxed CD that you buy from a store. With respect to your comment about the US legal system, I think it's equally likely that we'll see legislation passed in the next few years requiring law enforcement to confiscate everything at the first sign of a copyright violation, and ask questions later. Also, the article was written by a Mozilla Foundation member; he probably wouldn't want to say that the same people selling Firefox CDs are also selling bootlegged Photoshop, even if someone had told him that were the case.
Encrypt the data with a symmetric cipher with all copies using the same key (therefore the data is identical), then send the key, pubkey-ciphered, to each user. I think iTunes uses something like this. Other systems might use similar methods, but of course they're not popular enough to warrant an in-depth wikipedia article about their DRM.
Um, nothing has changed here as far as Linux's disk encryption support. This is just a front-end to (a small subset of) the command line encryption tools, which have been around in 2 or 3 incarnations for a long time. All this does is let you save a few keystrokes to access your encrypted disks. It doesn't make it easier for people who didn't previously know how to do this, as you still have to format the disk manually (however a GUI for this would be nice). As far as email or http encryption, that's different, so someone with a wireless sniffer or arpspoof can't steal your credit card info. (Were you going for flamebait or just ignorance?)
Nothing is being done at that level, RTFA or learn how HAL actually works. The encryption is handled in the kernel by device mapper, and a userspace tool (cryptsetup) activates it. This project is just a front-end to that, so you don't have to run cryptsetup from a terminal yourself. Once it's mounted any normal app can interact with it like any otherpart of the file system, just like HAL-mounted removable disks.
So they just compiled it against winelib? Why do I get the feeling this will be like that god-awful Solaris version of Rational Rose I had to use in a CS course last year, that tries to be its own window manager? If I wanted a half-assed solution like this I could just run it in wine myself.
Why the hell would they put DRM on the emergency alerts?
Actually, that's not that far of a stretch. While IP-protected content is arguably more popular than freely-distributable content, the latter still exists. But content producers are creating an atmosphere where everyone assumes that all content needs to be protected, and that everyone is a pirate. Example (I know, slightly off-topic): in my Professional Communications class, each person had to pick a software product to do a presentation on. When one kid mentioned that he was doing a file-sharing program, the first words out of the professor's mouth were "Is it legal?"
What makes you think they'll say anything? AMD customers will read about this on slashdot and other places, bitch for a while, then realize that they never even have a use for a 5-way conference call, let alone 10-way. Intel users simply won't notice. For the people who actually need this feature, if they really want to use Skype they'll just buy Intel, and if they really ant to use AMd chips they'll look for another software, which they probably won't find.
I use skype on a linux AMD system. They can't even give us a fscking emoticon menu, so I don't expect them to implement anything really useful like 10-way conferencing, even for Intel. And didn't I hear something a while ago about a webcam-enabled Skype they said they wouldn't be porting to linux?
I didn't know it was going to turn the registry into swiss cheese, whatever that is.
"Swiss cheese" refers to a variety of cheese, such as the Emmantel cheese from Switzerland, known for the distinctive holes that appear throughout the cheese.
Give up with a seg fault? Wouldn't it be better to give up with an error?
In the case of a Javascript interpreter in something like a web browser, there doesn't seem to be any point to displaying an error message. If you can't get a few bytes for a string buffer, what are the chances you'll be able to create a dialog box to tell the user about it?
The NTP Pool website makes it look like it is a good idea if every machine on a network syncs to the NTP Pool, instead of setting up internal servers, which is how NTP is really designed to work.
If you are synchronising a network to pool.ntp.org, please set up one of your computers as a time server and synchronize the other computers to that one. (you'll have some reading to do - it's not difficult though. And there's always the comp.protocols.time.ntp newsgroup.)
But yet to be decided is whether a levy will be slapped on the store price of blank CDs and MP3 players, such as iPods, to compensate artists for the revenue they stand to lose under the new laws.
They're kidding, right? What about the people who fill those CDs with linux installers, photos, and the countless gazillions of other things that aren't pirated music, or buy songs for their iPod from iTunes?
I've owned digital cameras from Fuji, Olympus and Canon. Not HP, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic etc. The way I look at it, there are two types of people who make digicams, camera makers who went digital and electronics makers who decided to start making cameras. The experienced camera makers know how to make good optics, and the others mostly know how to make inexpensive electronics. OK, Sony does make high quality but I'd rather buy from someone who's been making cameras for decades.
Slashdot Mirror
Or you could use gentoo. Set the "mp3" USE flag (it's probably on by default) and xmms, gstreamer (totem), vlc, etc. will build with mp3 support. I love how portage sidesteps all of the patent/license problems, which make other distros impossible to use with just the official packages, by compiling everything from source and not distributing any binaries (or "modified" packaged versions of proprietary packages) directly.
Vista Forever?
Linux has at least a bunch of totally different sound systems that all need to be supported to get sound out of an app.
AFAIK, at first there was OSS, which is now being replaced by ALSA. And ALSA has an OSS compatibility driver so old OSS apps work just fine. Then there's arts and esd on top of those, but you don't NEED to implement all four. Anyway, most sound-capable programs I use support all of the major sound systems, so it must not be that hard to do.
Can we stop using the term "PC" like that already? PC isn't a model name or an operating system; it's a form factor. PCs are smaller than servers, less powerful than workstations, and might include laptops but probably not handhelds. Most of Apple's offerings are personal computers. My computer is a "PC" in that it uses an x86 processor and shipped with Windows, but I run linux so I'm also immune to all that stuff that should be "plaguing" it. Viruses and malware are a problem on Windows (only because it's the most popular; they will target any OS that gains enough market share), not some broad hardware platform that even Apple is adopting now.
One thing that's simple to understand and obvious just from looking at basic specs is that servers are built to handle a lot of data and a lot of tasks at once. Instead of one or two fast CPU cores they have 4 or 8 (The idea with the Niagara is to consolidate all of these onto a single die, making the whole machine cost considerably less). Memory sizes are around 16-32 GB (servers have used 64-bit alpha/ultrasparc/itanium architectures for years in order to support this). I haven't seen a PC motherboard that supports anywhere near that. Hard drives spin FAST, have large buffers, and are configured in arrays for redundancy and even more speed.
You missed the "physically distributed" part. OSS is generally downloaded over HTTP/FTP/BitTorrent/etc, not on a boxed CD that you buy from a store. With respect to your comment about the US legal system, I think it's equally likely that we'll see legislation passed in the next few years requiring law enforcement to confiscate everything at the first sign of a copyright violation, and ask questions later. Also, the article was written by a Mozilla Foundation member; he probably wouldn't want to say that the same people selling Firefox CDs are also selling bootlegged Photoshop, even if someone had told him that were the case.
Encrypt the data with a symmetric cipher with all copies using the same key (therefore the data is identical), then send the key, pubkey-ciphered, to each user. I think iTunes uses something like this. Other systems might use similar methods, but of course they're not popular enough to warrant an in-depth wikipedia article about their DRM.
Um, nothing has changed here as far as Linux's disk encryption support. This is just a front-end to (a small subset of) the command line encryption tools, which have been around in 2 or 3 incarnations for a long time. All this does is let you save a few keystrokes to access your encrypted disks. It doesn't make it easier for people who didn't previously know how to do this, as you still have to format the disk manually (however a GUI for this would be nice). As far as email or http encryption, that's different, so someone with a wireless sniffer or arpspoof can't steal your credit card info. (Were you going for flamebait or just ignorance?)
Nothing is being done at that level, RTFA or learn how HAL actually works. The encryption is handled in the kernel by device mapper, and a userspace tool (cryptsetup) activates it. This project is just a front-end to that, so you don't have to run cryptsetup from a terminal yourself. Once it's mounted any normal app can interact with it like any otherpart of the file system, just like HAL-mounted removable disks.
There's a restaurant in Syracuse called "Pastabilities." Maybe that means they forgot how to cook (it was a past ability).
So they just compiled it against winelib? Why do I get the feeling this will be like that god-awful Solaris version of Rational Rose I had to use in a CS course last year, that tries to be its own window manager? If I wanted a half-assed solution like this I could just run it in wine myself.
No thanks.
Why the hell would they put DRM on the emergency alerts?
Actually, that's not that far of a stretch. While IP-protected content is arguably more popular than freely-distributable content, the latter still exists. But content producers are creating an atmosphere where everyone assumes that all content needs to be protected, and that everyone is a pirate. Example (I know, slightly off-topic): in my Professional Communications class, each person had to pick a software product to do a presentation on. When one kid mentioned that he was doing a file-sharing program, the first words out of the professor's mouth were "Is it legal?"
I want to see how they'll spin this to customers.
What makes you think they'll say anything? AMD customers will read about this on slashdot and other places, bitch for a while, then realize that they never even have a use for a 5-way conference call, let alone 10-way. Intel users simply won't notice. For the people who actually need this feature, if they really want to use Skype they'll just buy Intel, and if they really ant to use AMd chips they'll look for another software, which they probably won't find.
I use skype on a linux AMD system. They can't even give us a fscking emoticon menu, so I don't expect them to implement anything really useful like 10-way conferencing, even for Intel. And didn't I hear something a while ago about a webcam-enabled Skype they said they wouldn't be porting to linux?
I didn't know it was going to turn the registry into swiss cheese, whatever that is.
"Swiss cheese" refers to a variety of cheese, such as the Emmantel cheese from Switzerland, known for the distinctive holes that appear throughout the cheese.
Just give control of slashdot to Sun's Java team...
In the case of a Javascript interpreter in something like a web browser, there doesn't seem to be any point to displaying an error message. If you can't get a few bytes for a string buffer, what are the chances you'll be able to create a dialog box to tell the user about it?
But at least it wasn't a demo that runs for 5 minutes then tells you to download the full version for $6.99.
The NTP Pool website makes it look like it is a good idea if every machine on a network syncs to the NTP Pool, instead of setting up internal servers, which is how NTP is really designed to work.
From http://www.pool.ntp.org/use.html, second to last line in "Additional Notes":
If you are synchronising a network to pool.ntp.org, please set up one of your computers as a time server and synchronize the other computers to that one. (you'll have some reading to do - it's not difficult though. And there's always the comp.protocols.time.ntp newsgroup.)
That's like KFC advertising Big Macs
No, that's called trademark infringement
I think GDI would be more analogous to Xlib or GDK, but on Windows that is almost as important as the C library.
Isn't this the same thing every Microsoft patch does?
But yet to be decided is whether a levy will be slapped on the store price of blank CDs and MP3 players, such as iPods, to compensate artists for the revenue they stand to lose under the new laws.
They're kidding, right? What about the people who fill those CDs with linux installers, photos, and the countless gazillions of other things that aren't pirated music, or buy songs for their iPod from iTunes?
It's not that they're lazy, it's that they just don't care....
I've owned digital cameras from Fuji, Olympus and Canon. Not HP, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic etc. The way I look at it, there are two types of people who make digicams, camera makers who went digital and electronics makers who decided to start making cameras. The experienced camera makers know how to make good optics, and the others mostly know how to make inexpensive electronics. OK, Sony does make high quality but I'd rather buy from someone who's been making cameras for decades.