I get Linux calls.01% of the time. The few times that i do i get terribly excited, as thats what i'm running on the laptop that I am troubleshooting people from;)
Like i said, the problem is that the last 20 people who got annoyed with me and said that they knew exactly what the problem was, didn't
Your example for instance: I get people who often call up telling me that our equipment is all down because they can't ping it. They can't ping google. They can't ping yahoo. They can't ping tubgirl.com. And what do you know, they never opened a browser LIKE IT SAYS ON THE CARD IN THEIR ROOM, so they could get through the login on the radius server, so that they are authenticated, and actually able to get online, and yes, ping to their hearts content.
Also, most bigger companies(we're very small) do have people just reading off a screen. They are required to do so, so you've got to play by those rules. Another poster's suggestion to just pretend to be running WindowsXP is really your best bet dealing with most tech support. I do it when I call my cable company, and if I ever have to call up Toshiba about this laptop, you'd better believe they'll be hearing that I'm running WindowsXP just like they put on here to begin with.
Something they don't have a procedure for(like Linux) is just going to get them to tell you they can't support you. Yes, they should be able to support any OS if its just a net connection(we do), but in practice if it ain't Windows, people get scared.
I can log into the DHCP server remotely(if the internet connection isn't down) and tell immediately that this isn't the case.
For us, a 169 ip generally means that there is equipment failure in their room(bad CPE, bad cable, bad wall jack) or else their link speed is hard set to a value different than the speed of our network
Most graphics people use Acrobat Writer. They've got Macs, they're already using all Adobe products, and they've never heard of Latex, let alone any of the other open source projects you mentioned.
The price of Writer compared to all of the other software they need is negligible. For that matter Adobe sells packages where you get Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Writer, etc. all at once.
In other words, if by "everyone" you mean "geeks" then yes, you are probably right. But those in professional graphics and publishing by and large use Adobe products everywhere that they can. Latex and its ilk are really just for the geeks and scientists.
If it has a 20GB capacity, its using a small harddrive...almost certainly a standard laptop drive. This means you can easily slip in any other laptop drive, presuming they don't use goofy partitoining schemes. Seems as if the older players aren't as bad about this.
I have an old Archos that came with a 6GB drive which i've since upgraded to a 40GB one. In this case its just one large FAT partition. Heck, From what i understand I could even make an ext3/xfs/reiser/whatever partition for data as well, as long as the first partition is FAT...but FAT is overall more convenient, even if its a horribly lossy filesystem.
It also helps that theres a cool open source firmware for the Archos's called rockbox which adds some nice features. I found alternate firmware for my old Rio500 which breathed new life into it as well...perhaps theres a project out there for the Karma?
Be careful boosting the output of your WRT54G like that for more than a very temporary basis. I've read many reports that it will function fine this way for a few months...until you come home to find a smoking mess.
There are apparently reasons why Linksys limits the output of this thing in their firmware
I actually work tech support, for a company that installs internet in hotels.
There is a reason why many tech support people don't just take you at your word when you claim to know what the problem is. And that is because 99% of the time the person who says this just flat out does not.
I get plenty of calls from MCSE's telling me that our DHCP server is down, our internet connection is down because they can't ping outside of the gateway, etc. etc....and they didn't take 5 seconds to read the card in their room, or realize what having a 169 ip address means...
It may not be true everywhere, but where i work at, we don't read off a damn screen, and we deal with the exact same problems everyday. You could be the head IT guy at Cisco, yet still not realize that our 10/Mbit Nortel switches have issues with Dell computers that have an outdated drivers for their 3com 3c920 cards. However I just took 15 calls with the same issue...I don't need you to explain how you think our routers work, I need you to go to the front desk and update your godamn driver;)
It is dependency management that it leaves to the user.
You use the former phrase four times, yet do not seem to understand the distinct difference between the two.
They are NOT the same thing, and Volkerding deliberately omits the latter. There are several 3rd party tools which provide this in slack(swaret, slapt-get, pkgtool, etc.), but as of yet none have proven to be 100% reliable.
I run slack on most everything. Simply do a fairly complete original install, and pay attention to dependencies when installing anything not included. Any site you grab source from lists them. Any package on linuxpackages.net lists them. Personally, I have no issues with this whatsoever. I can probably download and install any random package off linuxpackages along with any dependencies taht are missing from the base slack install(which is rare) quicker than you can do the same with apt. Not that apt isn't a good system. It is. But Slack's is not as cumbersome as you think.
Its only a little more expensive than last year. I paid something like $55 pre-reg this year. Last year I walked home with a copy of SuSE, two t-shirts, a stack of stickers, and tons of miscellaneous hardware...all free.
If you live only two hours away and aren't going because of the(in my opinion) modest registration fee, then you are really missing out.
A trek to HOPE or Defcon will cost you a LOT more. The price of USENIX or Linux World will make your head spin.
The quality of the speakers for Notacon is quite good. The topics are pretty varied, and most were pretty interesting last year.
In other words: go. You will be glad you did. You will definitely get your money's worth.
Actually thats been my experience with most Blackbox themes in general. Not the defaults, but virtually anything i ever grabbed off the web was badly written and had all kinds of broken paths.
The first thing I ever did in linux was fix broken blackbox themes;)
Thats _exactly_ how it works in the current version of fluxbox.
sounds like you need to upgrade my friend.
Of course the latest version got rid of the old grouping look, where items looked like tabe in a ile folder. I rather liked that...even donated a small amount of $$$ with a note attached "i'd be happy if you brough the old tabs back":)
Never had a laptop without a CD-ROM I guess, because in that case you either have to mount ISO images locally or share a CD-rom over the network. How the hell else would you install software?
my understanding is that its not hard to avoid such thigs if yo're running asterisk. The people i know runnign it use some sort of "telemarketer hell" function that leads these people through multiple layers of prompts, where they then leave a message which is promptly deleted.
I want to say its as simple as detecting whether they are using a blocked number. None of these people are going to offer up their number right? What are the legal issues around spoofing? I know this is another capability asterisk has, but I would think there would some issues with a telemarketer using this to outright lie about where they are calling from...of course, would be hard to catch them too.
Of course, buying an external hard drive is much cheaper than buying a laptop. Not that I wouldn't like to have a nice laptop, just nobody has offered to pay for one.
I bought that laptop for $300 actually. Only a P3...but still plenty for what i needed. I'll admit i didn't check, but I'm guessing that the cost of ipod + YDL + these guys putting it together for you > $300
I don't own anything Mac anyways, so it obviously doesn't make sense for me. You've got some valid points. Just felt I should point out the fallacy of laptops being expensive. I used to think the same thing. They're not.
And even more amusing, I sold that laptop for $500, and bought a brand new 1.4 Celeronfor $500:)
Perhaps if I keep trading up eventually I can get a nice powerbook:D
well, this is what products like VMWare were created for.
Plus, you could simply dual-boot the machine. Adding a second hard drive would be a lot cheaper than buying an ipod.
I'm assuming the idea is being able to take all your work between locations where you have a computer(such as home and work), and being able to boot up linux...without needing a laptop.
Of course thats exactly why i bought a laptop: I got sick of using computers at school that didn't have the tools I felt i needed to get actually get things done(and they disable booting off cd/floppy/usb, so laptop was the only choice).
Personally, I don't see this being useful for most people. Perhaps if they were somehow able to get it to boot on either mac or x86, and keep the same/home for either. You'd be limited in what extras you could install without making sure to install it on both...but as only a small percentage have a mac both at work and home(unless they work in graphics), this might be more realistic.
Me, I'm happy throwing the occaisonal file on my MP3 player if i need the storage, and I lug the laptop wherever i go.
I've come across plenty of BSD developers with quite healthy egos. Largely in one particular flavor.
You come across as very condescending...and yet too afraid to post such things as anything other than AC. Doesn't seem very "mature" to me.
That said, its a very liberal license. From an external perspective, its defintly more desirable to deal with BSD licensed code than GPLed code, because you can do damn near anything you want with it, and have no obligation to reveal your own code.
Of course if more things were licensed this way, we probably wouldn't have quite the growth in open source that we have seen. People wouldn't be hacking alternate firmwares for WRT54G's, because Linksys would never have been obligated to release the code.
I really don't know that either license is "better", I personally am glad we have both. It is however certainly true that any large corporation will choose to keep their code closed given the choice...unless forced by something like the GPL. Sometimes they are dragged kicking and screaming into it...and ultimately benefit. Again, I give the WRT54G as an example. They've sold countless extra units thanks to those firmware hackers.
my mother is a Physics Prof., and has overwhelmingly preferred Word Perfect for years. She says all of her colleagues do as well, with the exception of the one or two geeks who run linux and use LaTeX.
Her reason is simple: the equation editor. Apparently its far superior to MS Office's. I believe theres other things she lieks as well, but thats always been the main one.
Of course she could try and learn LaTeX and probably have an even easier time...she had me install it for her. But the learning curve is much easier with WP, and her job is to teach Physics, not to be a computer geek:)
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Thats hilarious. I wish i points to mod this up with.
Like i said, the problem is that the last 20 people who got annoyed with me and said that they knew exactly what the problem was, didn't
Your example for instance: I get people who often call up telling me that our equipment is all down because they can't ping it. They can't ping google. They can't ping yahoo. They can't ping tubgirl.com. And what do you know, they never opened a browser LIKE IT SAYS ON THE CARD IN THEIR ROOM, so they could get through the login on the radius server, so that they are authenticated, and actually able to get online, and yes, ping to their hearts content.
Also, most bigger companies(we're very small) do have people just reading off a screen. They are required to do so, so you've got to play by those rules. Another poster's suggestion to just pretend to be running WindowsXP is really your best bet dealing with most tech support. I do it when I call my cable company, and if I ever have to call up Toshiba about this laptop, you'd better believe they'll be hearing that I'm running WindowsXP just like they put on here to begin with. Something they don't have a procedure for(like Linux) is just going to get them to tell you they can't support you. Yes, they should be able to support any OS if its just a net connection(we do), but in practice if it ain't Windows, people get scared.For us, a 169 ip generally means that there is equipment failure in their room(bad CPE, bad cable, bad wall jack) or else their link speed is hard set to a value different than the speed of our network
The price of Writer compared to all of the other software they need is negligible. For that matter Adobe sells packages where you get Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Writer, etc. all at once.
In other words, if by "everyone" you mean "geeks" then yes, you are probably right. But those in professional graphics and publishing by and large use Adobe products everywhere that they can. Latex and its ilk are really just for the geeks and scientists.
If it has a 20GB capacity, its using a small harddrive...almost certainly a standard laptop drive. This means you can easily slip in any other laptop drive, presuming they don't use goofy partitoining schemes. Seems as if the older players aren't as bad about this.
I have an old Archos that came with a 6GB drive which i've since upgraded to a 40GB one. In this case its just one large FAT partition. Heck, From what i understand I could even make an ext3/xfs/reiser/whatever partition for data as well, as long as the first partition is FAT...but FAT is overall more convenient, even if its a horribly lossy filesystem.
It also helps that theres a cool open source firmware for the Archos's called rockbox which adds some nice features. I found alternate firmware for my old Rio500 which breathed new life into it as well...perhaps theres a project out there for the Karma?
But if that thing has gigabit, that definitely eases the pain
There are apparently reasons why Linksys limits the output of this thing in their firmware
There is a reason why many tech support people don't just take you at your word when you claim to know what the problem is. And that is because 99% of the time the person who says this just flat out does not.
I get plenty of calls from MCSE's telling me that our DHCP server is down, our internet connection is down because they can't ping outside of the gateway, etc. etc....and they didn't take 5 seconds to read the card in their room, or realize what having a 169 ip address means...
It may not be true everywhere, but where i work at, we don't read off a damn screen, and we deal with the exact same problems everyday. You could be the head IT guy at Cisco, yet still not realize that our 10/Mbit Nortel switches have issues with Dell computers that have an outdated drivers for their 3com 3c920 cards. However I just took 15 calls with the same issue...I don't need you to explain how you think our routers work, I need you to go to the front desk and update your godamn driver ;)
slackware was not designed aroung a dependency resolving package manager like debian. slapt-get is a neat hack, but its still a hack.
In other words, when admining my slackware servers, i use wget and installpkg/upgradepkg.It is dependency management that it leaves to the user.
You use the former phrase four times, yet do not seem to understand the distinct difference between the two.
They are NOT the same thing, and Volkerding deliberately omits the latter. There are several 3rd party tools which provide this in slack(swaret, slapt-get, pkgtool, etc.), but as of yet none have proven to be 100% reliable.
I run slack on most everything. Simply do a fairly complete original install, and pay attention to dependencies when installing anything not included. Any site you grab source from lists them. Any package on linuxpackages.net lists them. Personally, I have no issues with this whatsoever. I can probably download and install any random package off linuxpackages along with any dependencies taht are missing from the base slack install(which is rare) quicker than you can do the same with apt. Not that apt isn't a good system. It is. But Slack's is not as cumbersome as you think.
This thing keeps getting mentioned on all my LUG lists: http://www.yapc.org/
If you live only two hours away and aren't going because of the(in my opinion) modest registration fee, then you are really missing out.
A trek to HOPE or Defcon will cost you a LOT more. The price of USENIX or Linux World will make your head spin.
The quality of the speakers for Notacon is quite good. The topics are pretty varied, and most were pretty interesting last year.
In other words: go. You will be glad you did. You will definitely get your money's worth.
The first thing I ever did in linux was fix broken blackbox themes ;)
sounds like you need to upgrade my friend.
Of course the latest version got rid of the old grouping look, where items looked like tabe in a ile folder. I rather liked that...even donated a small amount of $$$ with a note attached "i'd be happy if you brough the old tabs back" :)
doesn't it have usb?
And of course NetBSD supports pretty much everything ;)
I want to say its as simple as detecting whether they are using a blocked number. None of these people are going to offer up their number right? What are the legal issues around spoofing? I know this is another capability asterisk has, but I would think there would some issues with a telemarketer using this to outright lie about where they are calling from...of course, would be hard to catch them too.
But honestly, you can also regularly get CeleronM machines like mine for $500 new, which is a great deal as well.
Since I use Naim, I've asked its developers about this, and the short answer i got was "feel free to port the GAIM plugin to NAIM yourself."
So I downloaded the gaim-encryption source last night. Time to start hacking away! :)
I bought that laptop for $300 actually. Only a P3...but still plenty for what i needed. I'll admit i didn't check, but I'm guessing that the cost of ipod + YDL + these guys putting it together for you > $300
I don't own anything Mac anyways, so it obviously doesn't make sense for me. You've got some valid points. Just felt I should point out the fallacy of laptops being expensive. I used to think the same thing. They're not.
And even more amusing, I sold that laptop for $500, and bought a brand new 1.4 Celeronfor $500 :)
Perhaps if I keep trading up eventually I can get a nice powerbook :D
not that its even remotely important, but i happened to have it on the desk next to me :)
Plus, you could simply dual-boot the machine. Adding a second hard drive would be a lot cheaper than buying an ipod.
I'm assuming the idea is being able to take all your work between locations where you have a computer(such as home and work), and being able to boot up linux...without needing a laptop.
Of course thats exactly why i bought a laptop: I got sick of using computers at school that didn't have the tools I felt i needed to get actually get things done(and they disable booting off cd/floppy/usb, so laptop was the only choice).
Personally, I don't see this being useful for most people. Perhaps if they were somehow able to get it to boot on either mac or x86, and keep the same /home for either. You'd be limited in what extras you could install without making sure to install it on both...but as only a small percentage have a mac both at work and home(unless they work in graphics), this might be more realistic.
Me, I'm happy throwing the occaisonal file on my MP3 player if i need the storage, and I lug the laptop wherever i go.
You come across as very condescending...and yet too afraid to post such things as anything other than AC. Doesn't seem very "mature" to me.
That said, its a very liberal license. From an external perspective, its defintly more desirable to deal with BSD licensed code than GPLed code, because you can do damn near anything you want with it, and have no obligation to reveal your own code.
Of course if more things were licensed this way, we probably wouldn't have quite the growth in open source that we have seen. People wouldn't be hacking alternate firmwares for WRT54G's, because Linksys would never have been obligated to release the code.
I really don't know that either license is "better", I personally am glad we have both. It is however certainly true that any large corporation will choose to keep their code closed given the choice...unless forced by something like the GPL. Sometimes they are dragged kicking and screaming into it...and ultimately benefit. Again, I give the WRT54G as an example. They've sold countless extra units thanks to those firmware hackers.
Her reason is simple: the equation editor. Apparently its far superior to MS Office's. I believe theres other things she lieks as well, but thats always been the main one.
Of course she could try and learn LaTeX and probably have an even easier time...she had me install it for her. But the learning curve is much easier with WP, and her job is to teach Physics, not to be a computer geek :)
not that they don't have enough in common to make porting software back and forth pretty easy.