Rewrites are not usually the result of bad code or bugs. The rewrites I've been privy to were typically to either (a) make the code more extensible/portable or (b) modularize the code to permit it's components to be reused. I've never been part of a rewrite that was driven by a primary goal of fixing bugs. Code tends to be an organic thing, it's essentially a detailed multi-million step plan. Sometimes people come up with a better plan that still contains most of the same steps. It doesn't mean the original plan was flawed or incorrect in places.
Your post may not be a troll but that parent post is a troll that's really getting old. He just replaced Mac with SuSE this time around. So clever he is.
Something is definitely wrong with your setup. SuSE 8.1 shipped with gcc 2.96 as a base so be extra weary about trying to run apps compiled with gcc 3.2 (eg. any Mozilla later than 1.3). I can't guarantee that that's the problem but it's a place to look. As for X taking up a lot of memory, that sounds about right. However X is effectively a shared resource under Linux so that's kind of to be expected. Also, Linux uses as much memory as possible for buffering and caching, so top's memory reading doesn't reflect the true resource usage. Run this command and subtract the buffer/cache value from the memory used to get a more accurate picture of what's going on:
free -m
Regardless, you should try a gcc 3.2 based distro, namely SuSE 8.2 and higher, and see if your Mozilla problems go away.
I wonder if it has something to the with the Professional vs. the Standard distro. I know for a fact that there's are at least 2 kernels on the DVD included with the Professional distro, one being an Athlon specific target. I never used the CDs so I don't know if that's the case on those.
Well, Yast doesn't run as a background process with the exception of "auto-updates" which I disabled. Yast is ok but I prefer to configure my setup manually and keep all my configs backed up in CVS. I also use inetd instead of xinetd. Another thing is that as of 8.2 (could have been 8.1) SuSE provides a kernel optimized for your CPU instead of a generic i586 one. This default i586 target probably explains the slowness you noticed. As for switching, if you're comfortable and happy with FreeBSD then why bother changing? The only reason I can think of is that it's easier to get commercial software for Linux but if you've already got the apps you need...
You cannot be sued for somebody else's copyright infringement. So long as you never had access or saw the SCO Sys V code, there is no legal way for them to take action after you. That's like somebody trying to get $10 from you because the Puff Daddy CD you bought contained a sample of a song they wrote and have a copyright on. The only people liable are the copyright infringers and this is always defined by access to the original work in question. SCO would like to blur this point until it's nothing but a light gray smudge but the fact remains that under current copyright law, SCO's case against Linux users (not developers) is extremely unlikely to even be granted a hearing in court.
As for licenses, anybody can try to sell you a license for virtually anything. I can ask you to license chewing as a method of eating. I can even say I'm going to enforce that license through legal means. You'd be a fool if you paid up because again, no court would accept to even hear such a case. However, that doesn't mean I can't ask you to buy a license.
Patents are a completely different story but then again, this case is not about patents.
Even easier... open a window, type "about:config" for a URL, filter on useragent, set general.useragent.override to whatever browser string you want. For IE use:
Yeah, I've got an nVIDIA card. To parallel your experince, I bought an ATI card last year for another PC I have, a Radeon 9000 if I remember correctly, it was cheap anyhow, $100 or so. I played around with ATI's then nascent Linux drivers and finally just gave up trying to get RTCW to work reliably on it, returned it, and bought another nVIDIA based card. To use an often heard quip to describe the experience: worst driver ever! Anyhow, it'll be a cold day in hell before I ever consider buying another ATI card.
Here's my take on the driving factors in order of importance:
1) Selection - online music is primarily about getting what you want NOW
2) Price - this is a close second, cheaper == more sales, logical enough
3) DRM - whomever has the least restrictive DRM
4) Software - a distant 4th, easier to use means wider userbase, also makes up for some DRM drawbacks
My impression of iTune is that it's strong on 1 and 3. The DRM thing is a pain but I think it's the most freedom the RIAA would allow and besides, at least you can burn EVERY track you buy to an MP3 CD or CDDA. The achilles heal of iTunes right now is the intermediate step required for non-iPod players. However, I'd be surprised if the RIAA would allow MS to dish out pure MP3s or even make that an after the fact conversion option. If MS wants in, and assuming that the RIAA doesn't allow laxer DRM, it's most likely going to have to be on a price basis.
I've played around with Solaris on x86. It's neat but if you think software for Linux is hard to come by, software for Solaris x86 is virtually non-existent. I'd be really really hard pressed to find a situation where I'd pick it over Linux for anything really. Come to think of it, it doesn't even make a good training tool for Solaris noobs since the hardware / BIOS is so different from the Sparc version of Solaris. Did I mention that it's neat?
The referenced article never brings the OS into question. The "platform" is the hardware in this context. To get back offtopic, I think it depends on what criteria you use to qualify the "best" OS for gaming. If variety of games is the main criteria, then Linux fails by a wide margin. Granted, there's WINE and WineX but I've used 'em, they're ugly kludges and you can really tell in the experience. However, if pure performance in FPS is the main criteria, then Linux wins. The fact that you can tune and optimize Linux for a given task means it can always be made to outperform Windows given identical hardware.
Even though I'm a Linux user, I'll be the first to admit that if gaming is a primary objective for your setup, then you should only consider Linux if you're going to be dual booting and playing games under Windows. As a side note, I do play games, primarily UT23K and RTCW-ET, and they scream under Linux but since I don't dual boot, I'm also locked out of other games I would like to play like C&C Generals. In the meanwhile, I anxiously await the next major time sink coming to Linux, Doom 3!!!
There are two things that stick out in my mind, 1) the SCO affair and 2) the lack of a clear position on Linux. Sun seems to flip flop between love and hate with Linux.
Personally, I like Sun for their hardware and service. Solaris is not the selling point for me. Mind you I only have a dozen 4-way Suns under my wing, things might differ if I had 64-way E10000s to take care of. I think Sun *must* play the Linux game at this point, critical mass has been reached and the game is now Linux for low and mid range systems. The high end market is a different beast and Sun can either stick with Solaris or go with virtualization like IBM is doing.
To get to the point, the longer they fight change, the harder it's going to be to for Sun to realign themselves later on. Sun's advantage is it's hardware and service, they still have that edge. They need to concede the Solaris / Linux OS war and focus on their strengths. As for Sun aligning itself with MS, it'll never happen. MS wants to eat Sun's lunch very badly and Sun knows it all too well.
I like Sun, the company, they've done good things. They're in a directional void right now and facing some painful market changes that they simply need to embrace, not fight. It's gonna suck for them in the short term, but they'll be a stronger company for it in the long term.
now IBM will have something to collect when it wins on those patent infringement suits they've filed against SCO. $50 million or not, it's game over come April 2005 for these guys.
Well, I find it sad that Apple is going the WMA route but it's their service. However, the wording makes me wonder if WMA is going to be optional, after all it says "include WMA audio support". Regardless, so long as it's possible to transcode it to a non-DRM encumbered format then it's acceptable but just barely. Personally, I'll restrict my purchases to iTunes to counterbalance the specter of a total MS monopoly in online music formats. The rionic thing is that the RIAA members would rather die than ever allow for non-DRMed tracks to be sold online yet the first thing (most) people do after purchasing a song online is transcode it to a non-DRM format.
machine does not boot completely if there is nothing stuck into the USB card
I'm running SuSE 8.2 and the same thing happens. I'm willing to bet you have an ASUS board. Anyhow, I get around this by appending "noapic" to my boot string but YMMV. I can confirm that everything "just works" using 2.6-test5 so I'm hoping the 2.6 kernel in SuSE 9.0 allows me to run without the apic kludge.
The real danger is Sun. It is Sun's stated goal with Java to make the underlying operating system or native toolkit irrelevant. That is Sun really is trying to migrate people off of Linux by getting programmers to develop in and for Java APIs.
Huh? How in the heck do you get from point A to point B?
Point A: The goal of Java is to make the OS irrelevant
Point B: Sun wants people to migrate off Linux by getting them to use Java
If Point A is true, then the "migration" theme in Point B has to be prompted by something other than Java since Java makes the underlying OS irrelevant. You can't support your assertion that Sun's Java poses a "real danger" to Linux by using the antithesis of what Java is all about.
To make my point clearer, here's the same argument made using HTML:
The real danger is Microsoft. It is Microsoft's stated goal with HTML to make the underlying operating system and browser irrelevant. That is Microsoft is really trying to migrate people off of Linux by getting programmers to develop in HTML.
I've downloaded it from FilePlant and ModPortal (XtremeGN is down) and both those gzips are corrupted. If somebody finds an uncorrupted gzip of it please post.
Well, I use the Mozilla browser *and* mail client. Since I use both, I use Mozilla instead of Firebird.
As for the Moz mail client, my biggest rave is it's junk mail filter. Other than that it's a very basic email client, certainly not as feature full as Evolution but it's well organized, easy to use, and it just works. If you're looking for calendaring functionality, you're not going to find it in Moz mail. There's another app that adds that called Calendar but I've never used it. Mind you, I've been using Moz mail forever (NS 3.x) so I'm pretty accustomed to it now.
Slashdot Mirror
Rewrites are not usually the result of bad code or bugs. The rewrites I've been privy to were typically to either (a) make the code more extensible/portable or (b) modularize the code to permit it's components to be reused. I've never been part of a rewrite that was driven by a primary goal of fixing bugs. Code tends to be an organic thing, it's essentially a detailed multi-million step plan. Sometimes people come up with a better plan that still contains most of the same steps. It doesn't mean the original plan was flawed or incorrect in places.
Is this thing legal? If so, this is the shizznit of the online music vendors!
Your post may not be a troll but that parent post is a troll that's really getting old. He just replaced Mac with SuSE this time around. So clever he is.
Something is definitely wrong with your setup. SuSE 8.1 shipped with gcc 2.96 as a base so be extra weary about trying to run apps compiled with gcc 3.2 (eg. any Mozilla later than 1.3). I can't guarantee that that's the problem but it's a place to look. As for X taking up a lot of memory, that sounds about right. However X is effectively a shared resource under Linux so that's kind of to be expected. Also, Linux uses as much memory as possible for buffering and caching, so top's memory reading doesn't reflect the true resource usage. Run this command and subtract the buffer/cache value from the memory used to get a more accurate picture of what's going on:
free -m
Regardless, you should try a gcc 3.2 based distro, namely SuSE 8.2 and higher, and see if your Mozilla problems go away.
I wonder if it has something to the with the Professional vs. the Standard distro. I know for a fact that there's are at least 2 kernels on the DVD included with the Professional distro, one being an Athlon specific target. I never used the CDs so I don't know if that's the case on those.
Well, Yast doesn't run as a background process with the exception of "auto-updates" which I disabled. Yast is ok but I prefer to configure my setup manually and keep all my configs backed up in CVS. I also use inetd instead of xinetd. Another thing is that as of 8.2 (could have been 8.1) SuSE provides a kernel optimized for your CPU instead of a generic i586 one. This default i586 target probably explains the slowness you noticed. As for switching, if you're comfortable and happy with FreeBSD then why bother changing? The only reason I can think of is that it's easier to get commercial software for Linux but if you've already got the apps you need ...
I like that Mad Penguin review better than the one I submitted. Hopefully the mods do their jobs.
You cannot be sued for somebody else's copyright infringement. So long as you never had access or saw the SCO Sys V code, there is no legal way for them to take action after you. That's like somebody trying to get $10 from you because the Puff Daddy CD you bought contained a sample of a song they wrote and have a copyright on. The only people liable are the copyright infringers and this is always defined by access to the original work in question. SCO would like to blur this point until it's nothing but a light gray smudge but the fact remains that under current copyright law, SCO's case against Linux users (not developers) is extremely unlikely to even be granted a hearing in court.
As for licenses, anybody can try to sell you a license for virtually anything. I can ask you to license chewing as a method of eating. I can even say I'm going to enforce that license through legal means. You'd be a fool if you paid up because again, no court would accept to even hear such a case. However, that doesn't mean I can't ask you to buy a license.
Patents are a completely different story but then again, this case is not about patents.
Yeah ... that's the flip side of it. Maybe it's time we toss the stats cullers a bone. How about something like:
Mozilla/5.0 (Mozilla 1.5, MSIE 4.0 compatible; Linux 2.4.21)
Sends a clear message that we aren't using IE *by choice*. It does beg the question of what the hell MSIE "compatible" is though.
Even easier ... open a window, type "about:config" for a URL, filter on useragent, set general.useragent.override to whatever browser string you want. For IE use:
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98)
Mozilla mail also lets you disable loading images in emails: Edit -> Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Images -> Do not load ...
Granted these are remote images rather than embedded.
Does it work with the m4ps too? If so, I need the link!
That is very very cool. Wish I had mod points today because this is the type of post I like to read on Slashdot!!! Thanks!
Yeah, I've got an nVIDIA card. To parallel your experince, I bought an ATI card last year for another PC I have, a Radeon 9000 if I remember correctly, it was cheap anyhow, $100 or so. I played around with ATI's then nascent Linux drivers and finally just gave up trying to get RTCW to work reliably on it, returned it, and bought another nVIDIA based card. To use an often heard quip to describe the experience: worst driver ever! Anyhow, it'll be a cold day in hell before I ever consider buying another ATI card.
Here's my take on the driving factors in order of importance:
1) Selection - online music is primarily about getting what you want NOW
2) Price - this is a close second, cheaper == more sales, logical enough
3) DRM - whomever has the least restrictive DRM
4) Software - a distant 4th, easier to use means wider userbase, also makes up for some DRM drawbacks
My impression of iTune is that it's strong on 1 and 3. The DRM thing is a pain but I think it's the most freedom the RIAA would allow and besides, at least you can burn EVERY track you buy to an MP3 CD or CDDA. The achilles heal of iTunes right now is the intermediate step required for non-iPod players. However, I'd be surprised if the RIAA would allow MS to dish out pure MP3s or even make that an after the fact conversion option. If MS wants in, and assuming that the RIAA doesn't allow laxer DRM, it's most likely going to have to be on a price basis.
I've played around with Solaris on x86. It's neat but if you think software for Linux is hard to come by, software for Solaris x86 is virtually non-existent. I'd be really really hard pressed to find a situation where I'd pick it over Linux for anything really. Come to think of it, it doesn't even make a good training tool for Solaris noobs since the hardware / BIOS is so different from the Sparc version of Solaris. Did I mention that it's neat?
The referenced article never brings the OS into question. The "platform" is the hardware in this context. To get back offtopic, I think it depends on what criteria you use to qualify the "best" OS for gaming. If variety of games is the main criteria, then Linux fails by a wide margin. Granted, there's WINE and WineX but I've used 'em, they're ugly kludges and you can really tell in the experience. However, if pure performance in FPS is the main criteria, then Linux wins. The fact that you can tune and optimize Linux for a given task means it can always be made to outperform Windows given identical hardware.
Even though I'm a Linux user, I'll be the first to admit that if gaming is a primary objective for your setup, then you should only consider Linux if you're going to be dual booting and playing games under Windows. As a side note, I do play games, primarily UT23K and RTCW-ET, and they scream under Linux but since I don't dual boot, I'm also locked out of other games I would like to play like C&C Generals. In the meanwhile, I anxiously await the next major time sink coming to Linux, Doom 3!!!
There are two things that stick out in my mind, 1) the SCO affair and 2) the lack of a clear position on Linux. Sun seems to flip flop between love and hate with Linux.
Personally, I like Sun for their hardware and service. Solaris is not the selling point for me. Mind you I only have a dozen 4-way Suns under my wing, things might differ if I had 64-way E10000s to take care of. I think Sun *must* play the Linux game at this point, critical mass has been reached and the game is now Linux for low and mid range systems. The high end market is a different beast and Sun can either stick with Solaris or go with virtualization like IBM is doing.
To get to the point, the longer they fight change, the harder it's going to be to for Sun to realign themselves later on. Sun's advantage is it's hardware and service, they still have that edge. They need to concede the Solaris / Linux OS war and focus on their strengths. As for Sun aligning itself with MS, it'll never happen. MS wants to eat Sun's lunch very badly and Sun knows it all too well.
I like Sun, the company, they've done good things. They're in a directional void right now and facing some painful market changes that they simply need to embrace, not fight. It's gonna suck for them in the short term, but they'll be a stronger company for it in the long term.
now IBM will have something to collect when it wins on those patent infringement suits they've filed against SCO. $50 million or not, it's game over come April 2005 for these guys.
Well, I find it sad that Apple is going the WMA route but it's their service. However, the wording makes me wonder if WMA is going to be optional, after all it says "include WMA audio support". Regardless, so long as it's possible to transcode it to a non-DRM encumbered format then it's acceptable but just barely. Personally, I'll restrict my purchases to iTunes to counterbalance the specter of a total MS monopoly in online music formats. The rionic thing is that the RIAA members would rather die than ever allow for non-DRMed tracks to be sold online yet the first thing (most) people do after purchasing a song online is transcode it to a non-DRM format.
machine does not boot completely if there is nothing stuck into the USB card
I'm running SuSE 8.2 and the same thing happens. I'm willing to bet you have an ASUS board. Anyhow, I get around this by appending "noapic" to my boot string but YMMV. I can confirm that everything "just works" using 2.6-test5 so I'm hoping the 2.6 kernel in SuSE 9.0 allows me to run without the apic kludge.
The real danger is Sun. It is Sun's stated goal with Java to make the underlying operating system or native toolkit irrelevant. That is Sun really is trying to migrate people off of Linux by getting programmers to develop in and for Java APIs.
Huh? How in the heck do you get from point A to point B?
Point A: The goal of Java is to make the OS irrelevant
Point B: Sun wants people to migrate off Linux by getting them to use Java
If Point A is true, then the "migration" theme in Point B has to be prompted by something other than Java since Java makes the underlying OS irrelevant. You can't support your assertion that Sun's Java poses a "real danger" to Linux by using the antithesis of what Java is all about.
To make my point clearer, here's the same argument made using HTML:
The real danger is Microsoft. It is Microsoft's stated goal with HTML to make the underlying operating system and browser irrelevant. That is Microsoft is really trying to migrate people off of Linux by getting programmers to develop in HTML.
Any how, I'm sure you see what I mean.
Sco closes and the executives flee into the carribean
Nah. That'll be in 2005 (April to be specific), not 2006. By 2006 we should be well into the SEC investigation.
I've downloaded it from FilePlant and ModPortal (XtremeGN is down) and both those gzips are corrupted. If somebody finds an uncorrupted gzip of it please post.
ET is the bomb, without a doubt one of the greatest time sinks I've ever run across.
Well, I use the Mozilla browser *and* mail client. Since I use both, I use Mozilla instead of Firebird.
As for the Moz mail client, my biggest rave is it's junk mail filter. Other than that it's a very basic email client, certainly not as feature full as Evolution but it's well organized, easy to use, and it just works. If you're looking for calendaring functionality, you're not going to find it in Moz mail. There's another app that adds that called Calendar but I've never used it. Mind you, I've been using Moz mail forever (NS 3.x) so I'm pretty accustomed to it now.