I would always play my games for a little while then ask my mom if it was okay to "play with the blue screen." Which actually meant messing around with C64 BASIC. I learned about PRINT, and INPUT, and how to get a program to add numbers together, etc. Slowly my mom taught me how to write actual programs. Ahh... Those days were great!
*sigh*... nostalgia! I had a similar learning experience with the good ol' Apple ][ (well, it was a "cheap" clone called an Orange, but close enough:) The great thing was being able to program in BASIC or assembly straight from the command line - it's funny to think of the things you took for granted!
I was really sad when my family finally upgraded to a Mac SE30 - suddenly the only "inbuilt" progamming tool was hypertalk (not that that was bad language, btw, it had beautiful syntax IIRC - but it was extremely limited) Moving to a Win95 PC system was even more depressing, with no language available at all. One of the joys of using Linux has been the myriad of languages that come installed with a distro by default:)
I know you're not supposed to read the article and all, but..
Well, this is/. - what did you expect?? (Actually, I did skim the article, but must have missed that bit...:)
And I found myself looking at a web page that was not obviously useful for troubleshooting my problem. I tried clicking on the button marked "Administration" in hopes the tool behind it would be a bit more discoverable than the configuration. I got a password prompt.
Well, my localhost:631 says (in big bold letters):
Do Administration Tasks Manage Printer Classes On-Line Help Manage Jobs Manage Printers Download the Current CUPS Software
So, let's see - "Administration" might just be too big a word for some people to manage, so let's try "Manage Printers"...
We get a list of any printers installed, and then a button "Add printer". DO you think we should click it?
Hello? How am I supposed to know what to do with this thing?
Well, even MacOS X and Windows have logins these days. They're not that frightening (although the CUPS message could have been made a bit more newbie friendly, it's still just a login prompt, for crying out loud!)
If you do release them you do yourself and Linux a huge disservice by making them hard for users to use.
Who said this was anything to do with Linux?? The application I was refering to is in fact cross-platform, and in fact I've taken great pains to make the damn thing work just as well in Windows... A hint - opensource software does not always run under linux (and there's some damn fine OSS applications - filezilla comes to mind - that only work under Windows)
Also, I never suggested I deliberatly set out to make it hard to use. Of course I didn't!! - and I have in fact taken quite a bit of time writing tool-tips and documentation. My point was that while I'm very happy if my program is useful to others, I'm not going to waste my time making my program less usable to myself.
You say "dumbed-down", I say "intuitive". Six of one, half dozen of the other?
No, I think there is a difference. An intuitive interface is what we all try to create effortlessly - the interface that does not slow down power users and yet is self explanatory to new users as well.
The dumbed-down interface, on the other hand, is usually what results when users complain that what seems intuitive to you is incomprehensible to them...
We blow this stuff off because we want to make it workable for those smart enough to deserve to enjoy it then quickly move on to the Next Great Thing that Needs to be Made Now. We Peter principle ourselves out of making a real headache for MS, which is something we (ostensibly?) want.
Speak for yourself. The (open source) code I write is written for first and foremost for myself. I'm open to suggestions and feature requests, and even more so to patches, but I'm not going to go out of my way thinking about how to make it fit to the lowest common denominator of users.
Note: it's not because I'm trying to specifically exclude stupid users, it's just that it takes a hell of a lot more work to create a dumbed-down interface, and that these type of interfaces often make things slower... and I'd imagine many other OSS coders feel the same way.
Mind you, I should also add that I have never had the aim of "making a real headache for MS" when programming, and I think that that is a terrible reason for writing code.
I've tried to configure CUPS. I don't feel so bad about the lack of particular success now that I've heard of Eric Raymond's troubles. This is one project that might benefit from someone forking it and developing interface tools that allow it to work without being such a bane.
Actually, one of his mistakes was that he tried to use some crappy distro-based config tool, rather than CUPS native web-based admin tool (hint: point your browser at localhost:631) That's pretty easy to use if you know anything about computers, and has direct links (via the web) to all the CUPS documentation.
This is one project that might benefit from someone forking it and developing interface tools that allow it to work without being such a bane.
Well, it probably doesn't help that the people who wrote CUPS are now pushing (or so it seems - click on the "Get drivers" link on the www.cups.org page) a commercial front-end (with extra drivers) called ESP Print Pro, one of the features of which is that it "Provides easy to use GUI and WWW interfaces". Which would seem to imply that there is a deliberate effort not to extend the CUPS user interface.
Actually, there is. Mac OS X does not use the Linux kernel.
Yes, but it uses a *BSD kernel and pilot-link works with both linux and BSD-based systems with USB syncing (according to the README.usb file included in the package)
In any case, this message suggests that pilot-link builds fine on OS X.
Why buy 3rd party software for this?? Is there any reason why macs can't use the pilot-tools package for *nix?
I'm not sure about others, but as someone who does not use calendar/PIM software on my PC (that's what my Palm is for, after all!) and who only wants to use the PC as a backup/install facility, I find that the pilot-tools are far superior. One command backs up/restores everything (even including the Unsaved Preferences file if you want) on your Palm, and you can also install individual software/resources separately without having to undergo a full backup. When I got my first Palm four years ago, I took one look at the Windows software, found it painful and complicated, and have only ever synced my Palm under Linux since.
(Also, with an X-server running - which I think Panther comes with installed (??) - and a bit of time, you could also have the GUI pilot-tools interfaces (GTK+ or QT) if you wanted them. And presumably someone won't take too long to write an Aqua-native front end, anyway, if Palm stops providing the software themselves)
But how do you combat someone that essentially has your "ham"?
Well, once a spammer has your "ham", that ham will quickly become spam via Bayesian filtering. What were certain ham words will become spam words after the user has filtered some of those mails, and pretty soon the spammer will have to find a whole new set of words.
I guess the only way around this for spammers would be to compile a vast library of spam, then attach every other word in the dictionary to the email at the end, meaning that not only are the spam-positive words swamped, but that after filtering these emails every word would become a spam-positive word and the filters would be essentially useless. (You could probably cut that down to a few hundred common words and still have a 99% success rate killing Bayesian filters.)
(But of course, non-spammers could then work around this by configuring filters to only screen the first hundred or so words, which would mean that spammers would have to place their filter-beating words at the beginning of the email... which would ensure that no-one ever read the spamming body and would kill spam just as surely. The moral is - you can always make a filter that's one step ahead:)
Common GUI-based office and graphics applications allow users to be super productive and do things that are practically impossible in the CLI world. Show me a CLI app that sorts/sells music like iTunes. Show me a CLI app that lets you do what iMovie can.
This is why people run an X-windowing environment.
The example you gave above (making a directory, moving files...) which is far faster when using the CLI than any GUI, is why many of us have lots of terminals open within a GUI.
The two really can work together quite happily - somethings you need a GUI for and others you need a CLI for.
they constantly like to point out the powerful things that can be done from the shell prompt. They're quite right, except I still see their machines running X and a window manager most of the time.
Just a quick note for you: a CLI and a GUI are not mutually exclusive. The real question is - how many terminal windows are open at once on your friends' GUIs? At an average I'd say I have 5 or 6 terminals open at any one time using linux. And I often have two cygwin terminals open when using Windows.
Of course it's nice to have pretty wallpaper and a few bells and whistles. But they don't get the work done:)
Anyway, the color dots on the lander SHOULD look different as the lighting conditions are different on Mars due to the scattering properties of that atmosphere.
That's a very good point, but note the following:
(a) (from http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spiri t/20040108a.html) "The colored blocks in the corners of the sundial are used to fine-tune the panoramic camera's sense of color."
and (b)... the dark blue spots on the colour dial are bright red in the panoramic picture!!
Now, I use a dark room a fair bit (which of course has a red safety light), and I can tell you that there's no way dark blue in red or orange light is going to come out looking like bright red!! On the contrary, it will be very, very dark (blue absorbs red/orange light) And in any case, if those spots are there to "fine-tune the panoramic camera's sense of color" then something's really been screwed... unless calibrating the camera's images means converting blue to red...:))
Is it difficult for people who are used to Photoshop or is it difficult for everybody?
Well, it's not difficult for me to use. I use the GIMP most of the time and Photoshop only when using Win32... and I find Photoshop, rather than the GIMP, difficult to use.
This is not really surprising - you get used to the interface you're used to using:) The only point to note here is that the GIMP's interface is different to that of photoshop, so knowing where things are on one program does not mean you'll know where to find them on the other.
But after all, they both do the same thing, and I can always eventually find the feature that I'm looking for in Photoshop when I have to use it. Anyone who really gets their knickers in a twist about interfaces needs to get a life, IMO:))
In contrast, when you build a KDE [QT??] app, you are tied into the KDE framework. Its a KDE app and that fact is immediately obvious.
(I presume you meant "QT" instead of "KDE" above...) This is not the case - LyX has a QT front end that is completely independent of KDE. You can code a QT GUI app without requiring KDE, just as you can code a GTK app without requiring GNOME.
Anyone know if the new/existing GTK file dialog will allow similar ($HOME/music/talk_talk)?
Yes, GTK+ has always (or at least since 1998 when I started using it:) had this feature - type "~[user]" for your home directory (sadly, "~" by itself is not automatically assumed to be $HOME by tab completion). GTK+ also has tab completion, meaning that if you ignore the GUI widgets you can do things almost as fast as the command line... It's quite handy at times:)
[My desktop at home is used mainly to open multiple rxvt sessions and have a pretty CPU/Network/Memory monitor...I don't get around to using GUI apps much.]
Well, if your "pretty CPU/Network/Memory monitor" is in fact gkrellm (which is what it sounds like it is) then you do actually have a GTK+ app running on your desktop:)
Whether or not we want Linux to move to the desktop... something I used to support very strongly five years ago but have now substantially re-thought, there's no need to make Linux one-size-fits-all. That would kill Linux rather than help it.
No need to make Linux "one-size-fits-all", certainly, I agree. But there's absolutely nothing to stop a distro arising that is substantially dumbed down to the point of MacOS, where complete newbies can use it without ever being in danger of accidentally destroying data or making their computer unusable. If such a distro did arise, you would not be forced to use it - your distro of choice will still be around or you could even build things from scratch if you so desired. So how is this such a bad thing?
As for Linux on the desktop, the only argument I really have for it now is that I'd rather see anything other than MS on the desktop, and after Microsoft is will and thoroughly crushed, I can retreat into FreeBSD. It has an installer strong enough to keep away the computer-stupid.
So the only reason why you'd use *BSD is because it's too hard for newbies to install and thus gives you the pleasure of using an "elite" system? That's one of the most stupid reasons I think I have ever heard for using an OS. Unless you really need some definite advantage that *BSD offers over linux, why on earth would you switch to it?? You'll lose a lot of hardware compatibility...
I'm constantly hearing from Photoshop users how much they hate The GIMP's interface. More specifically, they hate the fact that in The GIMP it takes 5 clicks to do something that can be done in Photoshop with 1 or 2.
Considering you can tear off menus in GTK, any common task should be at most a single click away. And considering that you can assign keyboard shortcuts to any comand you like just by pressing the combination when the mouse is over the menu option, any commonly used task is but a key press away. Your photoshop prefering friends are simply demonstrating that they don't know the power of GTK.
They hate the fact that they have to right-click on their image to get the right File menu to save the image because the File menu on the main GIMP window has no Save option. One of the smartest interface changes the CinePaint team made to their inherited GIMP interface was to put the right-click menu crap in a real menu bar on each image's window so that you can access it like a regular menu if you want to.
You obviously haven't used the development version of the GIMP, have you? The menu bar in each window is the default behaviour and has been for about a year.
If you want to criticise the GIMP, that's fine - but please make some effort to get your facts straight before you do so! (and for the record - I do almost all my image manipulation using GIMP and only rarely have to use Photoshop; I feel exactly the same aversion to Photoshop's interface that you do towards the GIMP. I hate MDI interfaces, I hate those stupid little buttons which are actually a menu of buttons, so you can never find the button you're looking for, I hate the fact you can't assign keyboard shortcuts to menu items and I hate the fact I can't right click on an image and bring up the menu bar. Disliking an interface has everything to do with what you're used to, and very little to do with the actual usability of it)
I've only had one unexplained crash in 2.4.x, and that's probably hardware. I find Linux (and the BSDs) very, very rock-solid stable.
Agreed - but I have had 2.4 cause a few problems when I got a new PC about half a year ago (not actually a kernel crash, since I could always use the magic SysRq key to reboot cleanly) but still causing the computer to hang until I used the SysRq command and being fairly annoying. I also had random problems with my USB flash drive and APIC. With 2.6 these problems have disappeared - all of the test releases have not caused a single problem in my hands.
Yeah, but you don't get the nice help messages that make menuconfig provides (at least, I don't think you do - I tried make oldconfig once or twice and didn't really like it) Besides, I've been trying (and failing) to figure out why my nvidia 3D performance has fallen in 2.6 and have been through every possible config option:)
Push the system hard, compile lots of stuff at once
From my.bashrc:
alias make='nice -n 19 make'
Perhaps if you didn't know about nice, then 2.6 might be an improvement...
Sure, if your usage consists of light email and web browsing and your usually in the terminal, you may not notice the different at all - but I did, right off the bat. I'll never go back to 2.4 willingly.
My usage consists of coding and compiling, as well as writing papers (in LaTeX) and with a bit of light XMAMEing thrown in.
Don't worry, make menuconfig is still there - I use it for every build. The poster was (presumably) talking about the rest of the process, which is now a bit simpler:
[make mrproper]; make menuconfig; make; make modules_install
But it doesn't really make much difference... (pardon the pun:)
Preemptable kernel and Low Latency patches are both in here
I've heard so much about this, but having used the 2.6 tests for the last two months (2.6 supports my card reader, 2.4 doesn't, so I don't have a choice) I've noticed absolutely no difference in performance. That said, 2.6 is extremely stable (probably more so than 2.4 IME) and there's no reason why not to use it either. But performance as far as the end user is concerned is not significantly different as far as I can see.
It's the first I heard of it as well. Doing a quick google, there's some information about the ide-scsi issue here but it doesn't say how easy/difficult/transparent it is to set up cd-burning without it.
I've been using ide-scsi to burn cds in 2.5 and 2.6 without any problems (and can't recall seeing any (OBSOLETE) notices beside the driver, either)... but apparently there were bugs/difficulties/ideological issues involved.
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I would always play my games for a little while then ask my mom if it was okay to "play with the blue screen." Which actually meant messing around with C64 BASIC. I learned about PRINT, and INPUT, and how to get a program to add numbers together, etc. Slowly my mom taught me how to write actual programs. Ahh... Those days were great!
... nostalgia! I had a similar learning experience with the good ol' Apple ][ (well, it was a "cheap" clone called an Orange, but close enough :) The great thing was being able to program in BASIC or assembly straight from the command line - it's funny to think of the things you took for granted!
:)
*sigh*
I was really sad when my family finally upgraded to a Mac SE30 - suddenly the only "inbuilt" progamming tool was hypertalk (not that that was bad language, btw, it had beautiful syntax IIRC - but it was extremely limited) Moving to a Win95 PC system was even more depressing, with no language available at all. One of the joys of using Linux has been the myriad of languages that come installed with a distro by default
You should give PINE for Win32 a try. I hate to admit it, but it's actually better than PINE under *nix :(
...
Pity they haven't ported mutt to Win32 yet
I know you're not supposed to read the article and all, but..
/. - what did you expect?? (Actually, I did skim the article, but must have missed that bit ... :)
...
Well, this is
And I found myself looking at a web page that was not obviously useful for troubleshooting my problem. I tried clicking on the button marked "Administration" in hopes the tool behind it would be a bit more discoverable than the configuration. I got a password prompt.
Well, my localhost:631 says (in big bold letters):
Do Administration Tasks
Manage Printer Classes
On-Line Help
Manage Jobs
Manage Printers
Download the Current CUPS Software
So, let's see - "Administration" might just be too big a word for some people to manage, so let's try "Manage Printers"
We get a list of any printers installed, and then a button "Add printer". DO you think we should click it?
Hello? How am I supposed to know what to do with this thing?
Well, even MacOS X and Windows have logins these days. They're not that frightening (although the CUPS message could have been made a bit more newbie friendly, it's still just a login prompt, for crying out loud!)
If you do release them you do yourself and Linux a huge disservice by making them hard for users to use.
... A hint - opensource software does not always run under linux (and there's some damn fine OSS applications - filezilla comes to mind - that only work under Windows)
Who said this was anything to do with Linux?? The application I was refering to is in fact cross-platform, and in fact I've taken great pains to make the damn thing work just as well in Windows
Also, I never suggested I deliberatly set out to make it hard to use. Of course I didn't!! - and I have in fact taken quite a bit of time writing tool-tips and documentation. My point was that while I'm very happy if my program is useful to others, I'm not going to waste my time making my program less usable to myself.
You say "dumbed-down", I say "intuitive". Six of one, half dozen of the other?
...
No, I think there is a difference. An intuitive interface is what we all try to create effortlessly - the interface that does not slow down power users and yet is self explanatory to new users as well.
The dumbed-down interface, on the other hand, is usually what results when users complain that what seems intuitive to you is incomprehensible to them
We blow this stuff off because we want to make it workable for those smart enough to deserve to enjoy it then quickly move on to the Next Great Thing that Needs to be Made Now. We Peter principle ourselves out of making a real headache for MS, which is something we (ostensibly?) want.
... and I'd imagine many other OSS coders feel the same way.
Speak for yourself. The (open source) code I write is written for first and foremost for myself. I'm open to suggestions and feature requests, and even more so to patches, but I'm not going to go out of my way thinking about how to make it fit to the lowest common denominator of users.
Note: it's not because I'm trying to specifically exclude stupid users, it's just that it takes a hell of a lot more work to create a dumbed-down interface, and that these type of interfaces often make things slower
Mind you, I should also add that I have never had the aim of "making a real headache for MS" when programming, and I think that that is a terrible reason for writing code.
I've tried to configure CUPS. I don't feel so bad about the lack of particular success now that I've heard of Eric Raymond's troubles. This is one project that might benefit from someone forking it and developing interface tools that allow it to work without being such a bane.
Actually, one of his mistakes was that he tried to use some crappy distro-based config tool, rather than CUPS native web-based admin tool (hint: point your browser at localhost:631) That's pretty easy to use if you know anything about computers, and has direct links (via the web) to all the CUPS documentation.
This is one project that might benefit from someone forking it and developing interface tools that allow it to work without being such a bane.
Well, it probably doesn't help that the people who wrote CUPS are now pushing (or so it seems - click on the "Get drivers" link on the www.cups.org page) a commercial front-end (with extra drivers) called ESP Print Pro, one of the features of which is that it "Provides easy to use GUI and WWW interfaces". Which would seem to imply that there is a deliberate effort not to extend the CUPS user interface.
Actually, there is. Mac OS X does not use the Linux kernel.
...
Yes, but it uses a *BSD kernel and pilot-link works with both linux and BSD-based systems with USB syncing (according to the README.usb file included in the package)
In any case, this message suggests that pilot-link builds fine on OS X.
So there you go
Why buy 3rd party software for this?? Is there any reason why macs can't use the pilot-tools package for *nix?
I'm not sure about others, but as someone who does not use calendar/PIM software on my PC (that's what my Palm is for, after all!) and who only wants to use the PC as a backup/install facility, I find that the pilot-tools are far superior. One command backs up/restores everything (even including the Unsaved Preferences file if you want) on your Palm, and you can also install individual software/resources separately without having to undergo a full backup. When I got my first Palm four years ago, I took one look at the Windows software, found it painful and complicated, and have only ever synced my Palm under Linux since.
(Also, with an X-server running - which I think Panther comes with installed (??) - and a bit of time, you could also have the GUI pilot-tools interfaces (GTK+ or QT) if you wanted them. And presumably someone won't take too long to write an Aqua-native front end, anyway, if Palm stops providing the software themselves)
But how do you combat someone that essentially has your "ham"?
... which would ensure that no-one ever read the spamming body and would kill spam just as surely. The moral is - you can always make a filter that's one step ahead :)
Well, once a spammer has your "ham", that ham will quickly become spam via Bayesian filtering. What were certain ham words will become spam words after the user has filtered some of those mails, and pretty soon the spammer will have to find a whole new set of words.
I guess the only way around this for spammers would be to compile a vast library of spam, then attach every other word in the dictionary to the email at the end, meaning that not only are the spam-positive words swamped, but that after filtering these emails every word would become a spam-positive word and the filters would be essentially useless. (You could probably cut that down to a few hundred common words and still have a 99% success rate killing Bayesian filters.)
(But of course, non-spammers could then work around this by configuring filters to only screen the first hundred or so words, which would mean that spammers would have to place their filter-beating words at the beginning of the email
Common GUI-based office and graphics applications allow users to be super productive and do things that are practically impossible in the CLI world. Show me a CLI app that sorts/sells music like iTunes. Show me a CLI app that lets you do what iMovie can.
...) which is far faster when using the CLI than any GUI, is why many of us have lots of terminals open within a GUI.
This is why people run an X-windowing environment.
The example you gave above (making a directory, moving files
The two really can work together quite happily - somethings you need a GUI for and others you need a CLI for.
they constantly like to point out the powerful things that can be done from the shell prompt. They're quite right, except I still see their machines running X and a window manager most of the time.
:)
Just a quick note for you: a CLI and a GUI are not mutually exclusive. The real question is - how many terminal windows are open at once on your friends' GUIs? At an average I'd say I have 5 or 6 terminals open at any one time using linux. And I often have two cygwin terminals open when using Windows.
Of course it's nice to have pretty wallpaper and a few bells and whistles. But they don't get the work done
Most Slashdotters here
Are too young for The Young Ones
But I got your joke
Anyway, the color dots on the lander SHOULD look different as the lighting conditions are different on Mars due to the scattering properties of that atmosphere.
i t/20040108a.html)
... the dark blue spots on the colour dial are bright red in the panoramic picture!!
... unless calibrating the camera's images means converting blue to red ... :))
That's a very good point, but note the following:
(a) (from http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/spir
"The colored blocks in the corners of the sundial are used to fine-tune the panoramic camera's sense of color."
and (b)
Now, I use a dark room a fair bit (which of course has a red safety light), and I can tell you that there's no way dark blue in red or orange light is going to come out looking like bright red!! On the contrary, it will be very, very dark (blue absorbs red/orange light) And in any case, if those spots are there to "fine-tune the panoramic camera's sense of color" then something's really been screwed
Is it difficult for people who are used to Photoshop or is it difficult for everybody?
... and I find Photoshop, rather than the GIMP, difficult to use.
:) The only point to note here is that the GIMP's interface is different to that of photoshop, so knowing where things are on one program does not mean you'll know where to find them on the other.
:))
Well, it's not difficult for me to use. I use the GIMP most of the time and Photoshop only when using Win32
This is not really surprising - you get used to the interface you're used to using
But after all, they both do the same thing, and I can always eventually find the feature that I'm looking for in Photoshop when I have to use it. Anyone who really gets their knickers in a twist about interfaces needs to get a life, IMO
In contrast, when you build a KDE [QT??] app, you are tied into the KDE framework. Its a KDE app and that fact is immediately obvious.
...) This is not the case - LyX has a QT front end that is completely independent of KDE. You can code a QT GUI app without requiring KDE, just as you can code a GTK app without requiring GNOME.
(I presume you meant "QT" instead of "KDE" above
Anyone know if the new/existing GTK file dialog will allow similar ($HOME/music/talk_talk)?
:) had this feature - type "~[user]" for your home directory (sadly, "~" by itself is not automatically assumed to be $HOME by tab completion). GTK+ also has tab completion, meaning that if you ignore the GUI widgets you can do things almost as fast as the command line ... It's quite handy at times :)
:)
Yes, GTK+ has always (or at least since 1998 when I started using it
[My desktop at home is used mainly to open multiple rxvt sessions and have a pretty CPU/Network/Memory monitor...I don't get around to using GUI apps much.]
Well, if your "pretty CPU/Network/Memory monitor" is in fact gkrellm (which is what it sounds like it is) then you do actually have a GTK+ app running on your desktop
Whether or not we want Linux to move to the desktop ... something I used to support very strongly five years ago but have now substantially re-thought, there's no need to make Linux one-size-fits-all. That would kill Linux rather than help it.
...
No need to make Linux "one-size-fits-all", certainly, I agree. But there's absolutely nothing to stop a distro arising that is substantially dumbed down to the point of MacOS, where complete newbies can use it without ever being in danger of accidentally destroying data or making their computer unusable. If such a distro did arise, you would not be forced to use it - your distro of choice will still be around or you could even build things from scratch if you so desired. So how is this such a bad thing?
As for Linux on the desktop, the only argument I really have for it now is that I'd rather see anything other than MS on the desktop, and after Microsoft is will and thoroughly crushed, I can retreat into FreeBSD. It has an installer strong enough to keep away the computer-stupid.
So the only reason why you'd use *BSD is because it's too hard for newbies to install and thus gives you the pleasure of using an "elite" system? That's one of the most stupid reasons I think I have ever heard for using an OS. Unless you really need some definite advantage that *BSD offers over linux, why on earth would you switch to it?? You'll lose a lot of hardware compatibility
I'm constantly hearing from Photoshop users how much they hate The GIMP's interface. More specifically, they hate the fact that in The GIMP it takes 5 clicks to do something that can be done in Photoshop with 1 or 2.
Considering you can tear off menus in GTK, any common task should be at most a single click away. And considering that you can assign keyboard shortcuts to any comand you like just by pressing the combination when the mouse is over the menu option, any commonly used task is but a key press away. Your photoshop prefering friends are simply demonstrating that they don't know the power of GTK.
They hate the fact that they have to right-click on their image to get the right File menu to save the image because the File menu on the main GIMP window has no Save option. One of the smartest interface changes the CinePaint team made to their inherited GIMP interface was to put the right-click menu crap in a real menu bar on each image's window so that you can access it like a regular menu if you want to.
You obviously haven't used the development version of the GIMP, have you? The menu bar in each window is the default behaviour and has been for about a year.
If you want to criticise the GIMP, that's fine - but please make some effort to get your facts straight before you do so! (and for the record - I do almost all my image manipulation using GIMP and only rarely have to use Photoshop; I feel exactly the same aversion to Photoshop's interface that you do towards the GIMP. I hate MDI interfaces, I hate those stupid little buttons which are actually a menu of buttons, so you can never find the button you're looking for, I hate the fact you can't assign keyboard shortcuts to menu items and I hate the fact I can't right click on an image and bring up the menu bar. Disliking an interface has everything to do with what you're used to, and very little to do with the actual usability of it)
I've only had one unexplained crash in 2.4.x, and that's probably hardware. I find Linux (and the BSDs) very, very rock-solid stable.
Agreed - but I have had 2.4 cause a few problems when I got a new PC about half a year ago (not actually a kernel crash, since I could always use the magic SysRq key to reboot cleanly) but still causing the computer to hang until I used the SysRq command and being fairly annoying. I also had random problems with my USB flash drive and APIC. With 2.6 these problems have disappeared - all of the test releases have not caused a single problem in my hands.
Yeah, but you don't get the nice help messages that make menuconfig provides (at least, I don't think you do - I tried make oldconfig once or twice and didn't really like it) Besides, I've been trying (and failing) to figure out why my nvidia 3D performance has fallen in 2.6 and have been through every possible config option :)
Push the system hard, compile lots of stuff at once
.bashrc:
...
From my
alias make='nice -n 19 make'
Perhaps if you didn't know about nice, then 2.6 might be an improvement
Sure, if your usage consists of light email and web browsing and your usually in the terminal, you may not notice the different at all - but I did, right off the bat. I'll never go back to 2.4 willingly.
My usage consists of coding and compiling, as well as writing papers (in LaTeX) and with a bit of light XMAMEing thrown in.
Don't worry, make menuconfig is still there - I use it for every build. The poster was (presumably) talking about the rest of the process, which is now a bit simpler:
... (pardon the pun :)
[make mrproper]; make menuconfig; make; make modules_install
But it doesn't really make much difference
Preemptable kernel and Low Latency patches are both in here
I've heard so much about this, but having used the 2.6 tests for the last two months (2.6 supports my card reader, 2.4 doesn't, so I don't have a choice) I've noticed absolutely no difference in performance. That said, 2.6 is extremely stable (probably more so than 2.4 IME) and there's no reason why not to use it either. But performance as far as the end user is concerned is not significantly different as far as I can see.
It's the first I heard of it as well. Doing a quick google, there's some information about the ide-scsi issue here but it doesn't say how easy/difficult/transparent it is to set up cd-burning without it.
... but apparently there were bugs/difficulties/ideological issues involved.
I've been using ide-scsi to burn cds in 2.5 and 2.6 without any problems (and can't recall seeing any (OBSOLETE) notices beside the driver, either)