Since you haven't selected any specific distributions I've googled for guides and selected OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora. Seems like there are typically more steps involved in both building the kernel and installing it for these systems compared to FreeBSD. I didn't spend a lot of time googling examples, I searched for "%distro% installing custom kernel guide" and selected the most relevant results returned from the first page.
FreeBSD:
Pre-requisites is having the source installed. The easiest way to install the full source tree is to run sysinstall as root, and then choosing Configure, then Distributions, then src, and finally All. sysinstall is FreeBSD's terminal based installer.
Already have a kernel configured? Skip to step 4.
1 # cd/usr/src/sys/i386/conf
2 # cp GENERIC CUSTOMKERNEL//duplicate default generic kernel as a starting point
3 # ee CUSTOMKERNEL// load kernel file into easyedit (you could use vi, pico etc.) and modify kernel
4 # cd/usr/src
5 # make buildkernel KERNCONF=CUSTOMKERNEL
6 # make installkernel KERNCONF=CUSTOMKERNEL
For starters it's a.conf and Linux has these things too. After editing this file you then build the kernel. Typically you're commenting out devices you know you won't need to support and compiling in modules you'll load frequently. If you're adding new stuff you hopefully have done your homework and have the device specifics handy. Minimal documentation, really?
It is implied that you want to do more than just run your CPU to replicate a binary that you already have. In other words, the goal is to tweak. The goal isn't to waste electricity.
Is it also implied that on the Linux side of things that one needs to run a script to generate a kernel configuration file since it's apparently too complicated to do so directly?
Greetings! The snarkiness from your posts is not needed especially when you imply that the "FreeBSD community" (which you replied to an AC on Slashdot!) is not friendly. From your posts it doesn't seem like you have a solid understanding of FreeBSD which is essential if you're going to administer it effectively.
Required to upgrade due to some security thing, Oh wait, some obscure library has also updated and now the entire OS needs to upgrade
Do you upgrade a foundation of a house without expecting to touch anything built upon it? When a dependency is upgraded software which depends upon it is rebuilt to make use of the new library (ports and whatnot are built with compile time flags which tell it what libraries to use). You can work with binary packages to reduce the compile time, but as soon as you start manually upgrading things you need to be aware of what you're doing since you now have a "custom" configuration.
First responses are usually "It's in UPDATING, come back when you've read that." If you haven't seen the snide, arrogant crap that happens on the mailing lists you are not paying attention.
Each operating system has it's own quirks and FreeBSD is no exception. When upgrading your FreeBSD system you would be wise to consult UPDATING file located in the ports directory. This file contains the most recent notes and issues to be aware of before beginning any updates to minimize conflicts and redundant questions. Pretty obscure eh? It wouldn't be if you began here. You may be shocked to discover people being snide or arrogant are not limited to FreeBSD mailing lists... have you heard xbox live?
And KDE too. WTF? When did Gnome get installed? Ah well, I wasn't going to use the computer this week anyway. One week later, nothing works, so I go to the mailing lists.
You install oodles of software and are shocked (SHOCKED!) there are oodles of dependencies. It doesn't take a week to update a system but i'm not familiar with your configuration or the hardware this machine has, or your abilities. Back in the day bsdforums.org was a great place to turn to help, you might consider the "official" forums.
(mailing lists? are your reading what you are typing? mailing lists? This isn't 1988.)
Google makes navigating these pretty easy if you don't want to configure a client. We're still using wheels and those predate mailing lists! People still use SSH, FTP and VI and those aren't exactly new either but I digress.
And RTFM? If you need to RTFM to install software and keep a system running, the system is crap.
Perhaps this is the reason you're experiencing the issues you've encountered. Disregarding the advice and best practices of the developers and maintainers who have created the system you're "administering" through your own ignorance is telling and a recipe for disaster. Luckily FreeBSD has a nice handbook which covers everything from upgrading a system on the fly to common administration tasks should you need assistance. Honestly, do you just dump fluids into your engine and when something strange happens lament the vehicle?
I've switched to a Mac and Windows 7. Haven't had to R any FM since. No. FreeBSD is not a desktop system. If you want it to do useful things, don't install a gui and try to limit yourself to the base OS. Do everything from the command line. Aint that quaint.
I'm glad you've found something you can get work done with little hassle, which is ideally what computers are there for - getting work done. Each of these OS have different ways of getting these things done, and typically I prefer the *nix side of things. Windows/OSX Philosophy: "I don't think you shoul
That implies a really high level or organization, diligence, and use of best practices... that's hard to do in industry, let alone what one thinks of as your typical black-hat. Though, that probably tells me that what I think makes up your typical black hat is probably completely meaningless.
You're just coming late to the party. While what you're saying is no doubt true it is nothing new even in the black hat community. Years ago Agobot source was released enabling thousands of variants. This was around the time of the Valve compromise ~2004 era. If you're interested the code is out there...
As you can see from the list of US state GDP California has a massive economy and subsidizes many other states, such as the Dakotas.
California ranks 43rd in the country among states in the amount of tax dollars paid to the federal government versus the amount of federal aid that comes back to the state, according to the Washington-based Tax Foundation. The state gets 78 cents for every dollar sent to the federal government.
Sf Gate. Just seven other states receive a worse deal.
What the...? How is it losing ground? Apple is the #1 smartphone vendor and had its highest sales ever with the iPhone 4, even in spite of the phony antenna controversy. In fact, with the iPad and iPod touch counted, iOS is the #1 mobile OS by a large margin.
I believe Android has it beat. Apple may be gaining traction but it's not number one. A quote from BusinessWeek July 29:
Apple increased its market share to 5.6 percent in the second quarter, from 2.6 percent a year earlier, IDC said in an e-mailed statement today. Nokia, Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc., the three biggest vendors, all lost market share, making Apple the only one of the top-four to post a gain,
If they don't have any spesific laws on the issue allowing parts of the goverment black holes that enable them to do such things, its illegal.
Now, where are the heads that will roll?
I'd like to clarify my comment. The federal courts have already weighed in on the use such software and from what has been uncovered by reviewing disassembled program it doesn't appear to be lawful. I don't condone the use of software like this and my post discusses nothing about the legality of the tool only that evidence collected is admissible (which is cause for alarm). I wrote my comment with the assumption that the reader is informed about the rulings of the German courts.
just because the functionality exists does not imply that it was actually used - it's completely unclear whether the police/customs/federal police having a too powerful tool at their disposal is a legal problem as long as they don't use the offending functionality
For some the temptation may be too great. Why not release different versions with functionality appropriate for the situation? As I understand it Germany doesn't have any laws regarding illegally collected evidence being inadmissible. In this instance it seems like a conflict of interest.
Do you realize the amount of work and back-and-forths you need to do only to perform an action when you click on something on a page?
Good morning and yes. What's your point, that it's simpler to do it without? It's not set in stone that you need to do it this way, it's merely another option with pros and cons. Alternatively you may use a traditional POST. The caveat is the entire page is reloaded which is often unnecessary, one often only needs to update specific information on the page like an image or a text field. This is more of an architectural issue. If you want a pre-2000s website you may stick with the POSTs however a great many people tend to like the interactivity which JS provides on top of HTML - look at the popularity of Google's web offerings.
Do you realize the amount of work spent cross browser testing (and the back and forths with CSS)? Or do you know how much back-and-forth is required with traditional desktop development? For example look how much cruft is involved handling windows messages when creating a Windows application for say an OpenGL project.
I switched from building custom PCs to an ultra thin laptop. Unless you are a heavy gamer, the current generation is good enough to provide enough power for most task, with the benefit of being able to take anywhere comfortably.
Congratulations about the switch. You you're assuming much, especially implying that only heavy PC users are gamers. Entertainment is big but it isn't what makes the world go round. You're leaving out professionals which do things that actually earn money. Things like print work (not just business cards, think magazine spreads and specifically Photoshop cache file usage), CG (Cinema 4d, 3d Studio Max, Maya etc), Video Production (do you know how much RAM Premiere can max out?), Software Development, what about servers (Database, Web)? It's not all about gaming, office, and Facebook. Many of these things need more than 4gigs of ram, even 8gigs is low for many professional creative purposes.
The growth rate in processor speed has been slow enough that the laptop so you can have a system for many more years without upgrading.
Also people are able to get their work done with what they have, look at how entrenched Windows XP and users which are still hanging on in the corporate world. Don't forget to factor in code bloat paired with the latest and greatest frameworks requiring more to do the same. Firefox & Solutio for examples. Additionally "everything" is becoming a website or an app. This lowers system requirements but often results in a variable user experience as response times (typically) increase with non native web applications.
There just are fewer advantages to having a custom made PC compared to the past.
But you get what you want. For some this is worth more than others and there remain many advantages. Faster, cheaper, and upgradable? Desktops have never been about portability, how long is the average desktop lifetime compared to the average laptop? Remind me about the advantages of a screen going out from heavy use (or being dropped!), keys falling off the keyboard, batteries, or the ease of upgrading a laptop? Or the advantage of a sales rep with (a surprisingly) virus riddled machine on the company network. It's 2011 and PCs all use a standard power cable, are you able to use the different chargers for different brand laptops, or different variations?
Blame the consoles. Since everything nowadays is a port, the consoles have been holding the minimum specs waay down for quite a while. The next generation if and when it arrives should be interesting for the PC world too
True, however you can't blame them for wanting to make money as easily as possible and the returns from the console are apparently better. I remember seeing Deus Ex 2 and how small the areas were... and the general console creep in many level designs. Next generation stuff: Battlefield 3, Rage, Skyrim to name a few.
While these titles do have console ports, Battlefield 3 is developed specifically with a focus on the PC and uses the new Frostbyte 2 engine. Rage features the new Id Tech 5 (although not as quite as impressive as it was shown few years ago). Skyrim uses what they've dubbed the "Creation Engine". All of these titles are superior on the PC.
If they are all African-American or Hispanic, while the teacher from Glasgow gets off scott free, then yes, it probably is racism.
So, if you're doing something based on race, it's probably racism? I agree with you. Did you read what I was replying to? I'll quote it for you:
No, it's a stupid idea, no matter who thought of it. Look, I grew up in Texas and Florida. One of my English teachers had such a thick Southern drawl that even for 'native' speakers it was sometimes a bit hard to figure out what she was saying. I survived. So, I imagine, did everyone else. I even survived learning Russian from a teacher with a pronounced Mexican accent.
It's just racism, plain and simple.
He said "it's racism plain and simple." to which I replied: Being critical of speech is not racism. Period.
To reply to your hypothetical situation:
It depends, do they all pronounce things incorrectly (enough to meet whatever requirements for disqualification & metrics which do not involve ethnicity) while the guy born in Glasgow and raised state side does not? Just because they're "white" doesn't mean they're safe either. I know Glasgow is in Scottland, however next door to them are the Irish had it rough in America in the past. My point still stands: being critical of someone's speech does not make you a racist. For it to be considered racism you'd need to successfully argue that accents are ethnically inherited traits. Which is not the case, if anything it should underline the difficulty of mastering a language.
I prefer learning a language from a native speaker (but we don't all have that luxury) however being critical of how someone speaks is not racism. People who cannot speak clearly are in teaching positions where clarity matters, surprisingly someone has an issue with this, story at 11.
A SSH session uses about the same amount of bandwidth as it did in the 90's. Now you need a 3mbit pipe just to load an ordinary web page in a decent amount of time.
You know what else uses the same bandwidth of the 90s? 90s webpages. The websites of today are doing more than ever (streaming video, multimedia rich) and file sizes and screen resolutions have increased. Compare the file size of the average game released today to that of 1999. Why don't you fire up Lynx and save yourself the aggravation?
You imply that the delays are due to JavaScript yet majority of the data on the wire isn't JavaScript. The delays you're referring to are mostly due to DNS lookups (and subsequent downloads) of byte heavy multimedia like images, video, and other goodies like Flash and data. As sites have grown in complexity a bottleneck occurs with the number of HTTP requests which a browser may make. The CSS file is parsed and the assets are downloaded the user must wait. The wait may be reduced employing a thoughtful design and clever use of domains (and subdomains). CDN (Content Delivery Networks) are popular for this very reason. At the server level on-the-fly compression may be enabled for various mime types (JS, html pages, smaller images etc.) to increase speed even further without requiring application level changes.
JavaScript may be used in many ways to improve performance on sites, for example: instead of downloading all the map data one only needs what's in the view port. Additionally images which a user never views may not be requested, saving bandwidth. Like any tool it can be misused. Sites which use several ad scripts, analytics, 3rd party widgets etc. are the exception. What about interactive sites (powered by cobbled together server side scripts, made with multiple frameworks) which operate in an underpowered, over provisioned VM, on a shitty pipe with oodles of other sites located on the other side of the world? JavaScript indeed. To see stuff done right look at Amazon.
So with JavaScript gone you have Flash, video, and data. I'm sure these will all be faster now... (since we're using less of these now than in the 90s, right?)
10 years ago new releases of MS Office bloatware was driving the PC upgrade cycle, now its Web Apps and ordinary websites that have been unnecessarily 'appified'
You're leaving out a big one: entertainment, specifically games. In addition new technology such as DVD, Bluray, data interfaces (USB 3.0) factors in too. I however agree with you, plenty of sites are one trick ponies that in the days past would've been a small program are now a web 2.0 site... which will generate insults seemingly using as many technologies and 3rd party service mashups as possible.
Actually, IE6 was horribly broken. It never followed standards, had all kinds of proprietary crap in there, and didn't follow it's own rules half the time.
And the other browsers of the day were even more so. XMLHTTPRequest (here) is a funny thing about those broken rules and not following standards - this little jem is responsible for AJAX.
There's workarounds, but you shouldn't need workarounds.
Hello HTML5? We're BACK into the browser wars, supporting multiple vender extensions... yay for progress!
IE6 saw success because it was a default install on Windows, and Windows was/is successful.
Also it was FREE and for a time it was the best browser out there, then it stopped getting better. I don't miss supporting it one bit however.
Um, those people are dead, or lost their houses and possessions.
I don't wish this upon anyone and for the record I've lived in earthquake prone areas. This situation reminds me of a bash.org quote where the poster was storing 300gigs of work and misc files on his neighbor's computer via WIFI and the horror of no longer being able to connect to them. Storing precious/irreplaceable stuff in a risky place is not a wise idea.
They've already taken the brunt of the responsibility.
Of course they did, they lived in an area which has a known history of often fatal earthquakes by their own choosing. Unless they were forced to live there by decree of the Government which doesn't appear to be the case then relocation was and remains an option. If tremors aren't a hint and a half alone... no amount of finger pointing will change that the area they lived in is dangerous. Unless the earth splits open and you fall into it or are under a tree which topples the majority of deaths are caused by structures failing. Why aren't you looking to the people responsible for the buildings which collapsed?
If that's because these "scientists" knowingly understated the facts about the risk, then there's no reason to let the scientists get away with a shrug of the shoulders.
Why has it become the responsibility of the scientists for your own Family's safety? Regardless if these "scientists" say it's OK or not the fact remains this place has a known history of earthquakes which has destroyed the city on multiple occasions (or caused major damage to structures and residents within). When does personal responsibility begin? Do you need someone to tell you that living in a flood plane has risks?
Let's hope these scientists don't operate like the rest of Government.
Linux is great, but it misses many of those features - for example, how do you connect to a remote PC with bash and run your commands there? Oh, you can't. With PowerShell you can easily do that.
One way to remotely execute a program (gkrellm) on another host, this example assumes you're using passwordless authentication via public key:
Why spend your time doing involved software configurations when hardware upgrades like CPU / RAM / disks (or tuning - memory timings etc.) may be implmented to provide extra horse power with less effort?
More importantly: if you compile your own stuff from source, random crashes in the OS fall on your shoulders to sort out. Is it flaky hardware? Is it a misconfigured kernel option? Is it some library you linked to incorrectly when compiling the kernel? Is it a wierd compiler bug in your particular version of GCC? Who knows?
Or the dependency which fails to compile due to a broken commit or port's failed make configure! When I had more free time to invest into this process it wasn't a big deal exploring and solving (I like to know why something happened to prevent it in the future), however time has a way of becoming a luxury.
Use a generic kernel and if the 100,000 or more other users out there using the same kernel aren't seeing any issues, then you know your hardware may be suspect.
Quite right. If memory footprint instead of only speed is the objective both Linux and FreeBSD support on-the-fly kernel module loading. If it's a matter of adding functionality kernel modules are an easily accessible method providing on demand support. Instead of adding exotic support strip the kernel device probing and chipset support down to your known configuration profile and when the need arises load the appropriate modules at runtime (or via the loader prior to the kernel and disable as needed). This flexibility has one drawback of fragmenting the kernel memory and introducing slight performance penalty.
Most game developers have realized that the tiny percentage of people interested in mods have no real impact on game sales for large AAA titles. Like most businesses game studios operate on a stonrg cost benefit model. You show them that a hundred thousand gamers will only buy their game if they are able to mod it and believe you me, we'll see every studio adding mod support.
Are you daft? Off of the top of my head: TF2 and the Man Co store also why they've switched over to a free model. In the past, Counter Strike, Team Fortress, Desert Combat. Look back to Quake and the massive community around that (not simply the core game) and why that was THE engine of it's day sporting gaming leagues and conventions. Modding has a much higher barrier to entry than in the past with 3dmodelling, Animation, High res textures requiring significant talent, software and most importantly skill. What they've got a hardon for now are people forking over dollars hand over fist for DLC. Pay for the game ($59 on console, what a deal! hey at least you can resell it, right?!) + 3 or 4 DLC at $9.99 a pop, with no multiplayer dedicated servers. It's great! It's almost like they're taking a page out of Microsoft/Apple's playbook by deliberately removing key features to be sold at a premium topped off with planned obsolescence.
If anything I'm tired of buying games that end up being crappy.
As someone who just purchased (with several discounts!) Space Marine I feel your pain.
Netflix for games would do wonders for the gaming industry.
Ugh we're headed there, where you own nothing and pay for everything. Meh.
You do know that you can carry on working while the system compiles don't you?
Yes, although running a live CD vs an installed system are two separate things performance wise. I'm referring to a workstation, not a fileserver or a router which do not require beefy hardware. It depends what type of work you're doing. If you're doing something like rendering, or graphics work the hits the the CPU, RAM and disk are very noticeable. Yes one could set the nice flag but honestly.... why? I want it done as fast as possible which means using as many resources as I can throw at the compilation job. Also it's not a good idea to update stuff while you're running it. Do you do that with x and dependencies? Sounds like a great way to hang the system - but it's cool since your fileserver (of rainbow tables?) users won't notice. Also, I (much like you) have multiple machines, however I have them for getting specific shit done.
Instaling from nothing on my new file server too a little over a 25 hours to build a complete KDE 4.6 system from a live Knoppix CD
Cool. For a fraction of that time I can have one installed from packages and copy over my seed files (configs) and run an update to make sure I've got the latest and greatest release. Different strokes for different folks though. I bet you like to wait in line when a game comes out too (not my idea of fun) and there is nothing wrong with that.
FYI the system is an AMD64x2 4000 with 4GB RAM, an 80MB SATA drive for the OS and 5.4TB Zpool using fuse-ZFS.
80MB SATA drive, hosting a BBS?;)
Compiling is a negligable bit of efffort.
But not negligible as far as CPU, RAM and disk to some extent are concerned. If it was I imagine distributions would abandon packages. Also, many people don't want to have to deal with compiling anything...
Making it deployable is a bit trickier. It involves a script and ensuring the network connection to the new box can be saturated for 4 hours or so. After the fact involves having to rebuild the kernel, but I couldstay with an all encompassing kernel ala regular distros. It may not be as uber as the ricers want it to be, but it amuses the hell out of me.
Making what deployable? If your hardware is the same from machine to machine there is no trickiness involved as far as the kernel is concerned. Keep a vanilla one around for any trickiness...
Thanks for the clarification. In the late 90s I recall one of my friends was installing Redhat (5.1?) and I had no idea what it was about (It doesn't do XYZ, why do you want that!?). Later I saw the light and took the plunge, I decided to cut my teeth on FreeBSD (which I had a hell of a time learning) and after a frustrating while I did my best to forget about it. Later I tried Redhat Linux (8? this was 2002ish) and I was hooked. I did the whole xbox linux thing which reminds me, I've still got a copy which runs on the Dreamcast! I was really impressed with how flexible it was/is. I jumped back on the FreeBSD bandwagon and have been running it to this day. OpenSUSE is my recommendation for people who are curious about Linux. I completely agree with the software side of things.
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Since you haven't selected any specific distributions I've googled for guides and selected OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora. Seems like there are typically more steps involved in both building the kernel and installing it for these systems compared to FreeBSD. I didn't spend a lot of time googling examples, I searched for "%distro% installing custom kernel guide" and selected the most relevant results returned from the first page.
/usr/src/sys/i386/conf //duplicate default generic kernel as a starting point // load kernel file into easyedit (you could use vi, pico etc.) and modify kernel /usr/src
FreeBSD:
Pre-requisites is having the source installed. The easiest way to install the full source tree is to run sysinstall as root, and then choosing Configure, then Distributions, then src, and finally All. sysinstall is FreeBSD's terminal based installer.
Already have a kernel configured? Skip to step 4.
1 # cd
2 # cp GENERIC CUSTOMKERNEL
3 # ee CUSTOMKERNEL
4 # cd
5 # make buildkernel KERNCONF=CUSTOMKERNEL
6 # make installkernel KERNCONF=CUSTOMKERNEL
It is implied that you want to do more than just run your CPU to replicate a binary that you already have. In other words, the goal is to tweak. The goal isn't to waste electricity.
Is it also implied that on the Linux side of things that one needs to run a script to generate a kernel configuration file since it's apparently too complicated to do so directly?
Required to upgrade due to some security thing, Oh wait, some obscure library has also updated and now the entire OS needs to upgrade
Do you upgrade a foundation of a house without expecting to touch anything built upon it? When a dependency is upgraded software which depends upon it is rebuilt to make use of the new library (ports and whatnot are built with compile time flags which tell it what libraries to use). You can work with binary packages to reduce the compile time, but as soon as you start manually upgrading things you need to be aware of what you're doing since you now have a "custom" configuration.
First responses are usually "It's in UPDATING, come back when you've read that." If you haven't seen the snide, arrogant crap that happens on the mailing lists you are not paying attention.
Each operating system has it's own quirks and FreeBSD is no exception. When upgrading your FreeBSD system you would be wise to consult UPDATING file located in the ports directory. This file contains the most recent notes and issues to be aware of before beginning any updates to minimize conflicts and redundant questions. Pretty obscure eh? It wouldn't be if you began here. You may be shocked to discover people being snide or arrogant are not limited to FreeBSD mailing lists... have you heard xbox live?
And KDE too. WTF? When did Gnome get installed? Ah well, I wasn't going to use the computer this week anyway. One week later, nothing works, so I go to the mailing lists.
You install oodles of software and are shocked (SHOCKED!) there are oodles of dependencies. It doesn't take a week to update a system but i'm not familiar with your configuration or the hardware this machine has, or your abilities. Back in the day bsdforums.org was a great place to turn to help, you might consider the "official" forums.
(mailing lists? are your reading what you are typing? mailing lists? This isn't 1988.)
Google makes navigating these pretty easy if you don't want to configure a client. We're still using wheels and those predate mailing lists! People still use SSH, FTP and VI and those aren't exactly new either but I digress.
And RTFM? If you need to RTFM to install software and keep a system running, the system is crap.
Perhaps this is the reason you're experiencing the issues you've encountered. Disregarding the advice and best practices of the developers and maintainers who have created the system you're "administering" through your own ignorance is telling and a recipe for disaster. Luckily FreeBSD has a nice handbook which covers everything from upgrading a system on the fly to common administration tasks should you need assistance. Honestly, do you just dump fluids into your engine and when something strange happens lament the vehicle?
I've switched to a Mac and Windows 7. Haven't had to R any FM since. No. FreeBSD is not a desktop system. If you want it to do useful things, don't install a gui and try to limit yourself to the base OS. Do everything from the command line. Aint that quaint.
I'm glad you've found something you can get work done with little hassle, which is ideally what computers are there for - getting work done. Each of these OS have different ways of getting these things done, and typically I prefer the *nix side of things. Windows/OSX Philosophy: "I don't think you shoul
That implies a really high level or organization, diligence, and use of best practices ... that's hard to do in industry, let alone what one thinks of as your typical black-hat. Though, that probably tells me that what I think makes up your typical black hat is probably completely meaningless.
You're just coming late to the party. While what you're saying is no doubt true it is nothing new even in the black hat community. Years ago Agobot source was released enabling thousands of variants. This was around the time of the Valve compromise ~2004 era. If you're interested the code is out there...
As you can see from the list of US state GDP California has a massive economy and subsidizes many other states, such as the Dakotas.
California ranks 43rd in the country among states in the amount of tax dollars paid to the federal government versus the amount of federal aid that comes back to the state, according to the Washington-based Tax Foundation. The state gets 78 cents for every dollar sent to the federal government.
Sf Gate. Just seven other states receive a worse deal.
What the...? How is it losing ground? Apple is the #1 smartphone vendor and had its highest sales ever with the iPhone 4, even in spite of the phony antenna controversy. In fact, with the iPad and iPod touch counted, iOS is the #1 mobile OS by a large margin.
I believe Android has it beat. Apple may be gaining traction but it's not number one. A quote from BusinessWeek July 29:
Apple increased its market share to 5.6 percent in the second quarter, from 2.6 percent a year earlier, IDC said in an e-mailed statement today. Nokia, Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc., the three biggest vendors, all lost market share, making Apple the only one of the top-four to post a gain,
If they don't have any spesific laws on the issue allowing parts of the goverment black holes that enable them to do such things, its illegal. Now, where are the heads that will roll?
I'd like to clarify my comment. The federal courts have already weighed in on the use such software and from what has been uncovered by reviewing disassembled program it doesn't appear to be lawful. I don't condone the use of software like this and my post discusses nothing about the legality of the tool only that evidence collected is admissible (which is cause for alarm). I wrote my comment with the assumption that the reader is informed about the rulings of the German courts.
just because the functionality exists does not imply that it was actually used - it's completely unclear whether the police/customs/federal police having a too powerful tool at their disposal is a legal problem as long as they don't use the offending functionality
For some the temptation may be too great. Why not release different versions with functionality appropriate for the situation? As I understand it Germany doesn't have any laws regarding illegally collected evidence being inadmissible. In this instance it seems like a conflict of interest.
Do you realize the amount of work and back-and-forths you need to do only to perform an action when you click on something on a page?
Good morning and yes. What's your point, that it's simpler to do it without? It's not set in stone that you need to do it this way, it's merely another option with pros and cons. Alternatively you may use a traditional POST. The caveat is the entire page is reloaded which is often unnecessary, one often only needs to update specific information on the page like an image or a text field. This is more of an architectural issue. If you want a pre-2000s website you may stick with the POSTs however a great many people tend to like the interactivity which JS provides on top of HTML - look at the popularity of Google's web offerings.
Do you realize the amount of work spent cross browser testing (and the back and forths with CSS)? Or do you know how much back-and-forth is required with traditional desktop development? For example look how much cruft is involved handling windows messages when creating a Windows application for say an OpenGL project.
I switched from building custom PCs to an ultra thin laptop. Unless you are a heavy gamer, the current generation is good enough to provide enough power for most task, with the benefit of being able to take anywhere comfortably.
Congratulations about the switch. You you're assuming much, especially implying that only heavy PC users are gamers. Entertainment is big but it isn't what makes the world go round. You're leaving out professionals which do things that actually earn money. Things like print work (not just business cards, think magazine spreads and specifically Photoshop cache file usage), CG (Cinema 4d, 3d Studio Max, Maya etc), Video Production (do you know how much RAM Premiere can max out?), Software Development, what about servers (Database, Web)? It's not all about gaming, office, and Facebook. Many of these things need more than 4gigs of ram, even 8gigs is low for many professional creative purposes.
The growth rate in processor speed has been slow enough that the laptop so you can have a system for many more years without upgrading.
Also people are able to get their work done with what they have, look at how entrenched Windows XP and users which are still hanging on in the corporate world. Don't forget to factor in code bloat paired with the latest and greatest frameworks requiring more to do the same. Firefox & Solutio for examples. Additionally "everything" is becoming a website or an app. This lowers system requirements but often results in a variable user experience as response times (typically) increase with non native web applications.
There just are fewer advantages to having a custom made PC compared to the past.
But you get what you want. For some this is worth more than others and there remain many advantages. Faster, cheaper, and upgradable? Desktops have never been about portability, how long is the average desktop lifetime compared to the average laptop? Remind me about the advantages of a screen going out from heavy use (or being dropped!), keys falling off the keyboard, batteries, or the ease of upgrading a laptop? Or the advantage of a sales rep with (a surprisingly) virus riddled machine on the company network. It's 2011 and PCs all use a standard power cable, are you able to use the different chargers for different brand laptops, or different variations?
Blame the consoles. Since everything nowadays is a port, the consoles have been holding the minimum specs waay down for quite a while. The next generation if and when it arrives should be interesting for the PC world too
True, however you can't blame them for wanting to make money as easily as possible and the returns from the console are apparently better. I remember seeing Deus Ex 2 and how small the areas were... and the general console creep in many level designs. Next generation stuff: Battlefield 3, Rage, Skyrim to name a few.
While these titles do have console ports, Battlefield 3 is developed specifically with a focus on the PC and uses the new Frostbyte 2 engine. Rage features the new Id Tech 5 (although not as quite as impressive as it was shown few years ago). Skyrim uses what they've dubbed the "Creation Engine". All of these titles are superior on the PC.
If they are all African-American or Hispanic, while the teacher from Glasgow gets off scott free, then yes, it probably is racism.
So, if you're doing something based on race, it's probably racism? I agree with you. Did you read what I was replying to? I'll quote it for you:
No, it's a stupid idea, no matter who thought of it. Look, I grew up in Texas and Florida. One of my English teachers had such a thick Southern drawl that even for 'native' speakers it was sometimes a bit hard to figure out what she was saying. I survived. So, I imagine, did everyone else. I even survived learning Russian from a teacher with a pronounced Mexican accent.
It's just racism, plain and simple.
He said "it's racism plain and simple." to which I replied: Being critical of speech is not racism. Period.
To reply to your hypothetical situation:
It depends, do they all pronounce things incorrectly (enough to meet whatever requirements for disqualification & metrics which do not involve ethnicity) while the guy born in Glasgow and raised state side does not? Just because they're "white" doesn't mean they're safe either. I know Glasgow is in Scottland, however next door to them are the Irish had it rough in America in the past. My point still stands: being critical of someone's speech does not make you a racist. For it to be considered racism you'd need to successfully argue that accents are ethnically inherited traits. Which is not the case, if anything it should underline the difficulty of mastering a language.
I prefer learning a language from a native speaker (but we don't all have that luxury) however being critical of how someone speaks is not racism. People who cannot speak clearly are in teaching positions where clarity matters, surprisingly someone has an issue with this, story at 11.
A SSH session uses about the same amount of bandwidth as it did in the 90's. Now you need a 3mbit pipe just to load an ordinary web page in a decent amount of time.
You know what else uses the same bandwidth of the 90s? 90s webpages. The websites of today are doing more than ever (streaming video, multimedia rich) and file sizes and screen resolutions have increased. Compare the file size of the average game released today to that of 1999. Why don't you fire up Lynx and save yourself the aggravation?
You imply that the delays are due to JavaScript yet majority of the data on the wire isn't JavaScript. The delays you're referring to are mostly due to DNS lookups (and subsequent downloads) of byte heavy multimedia like images, video, and other goodies like Flash and data. As sites have grown in complexity a bottleneck occurs with the number of HTTP requests which a browser may make. The CSS file is parsed and the assets are downloaded the user must wait. The wait may be reduced employing a thoughtful design and clever use of domains (and subdomains). CDN (Content Delivery Networks) are popular for this very reason. At the server level on-the-fly compression may be enabled for various mime types (JS, html pages, smaller images etc.) to increase speed even further without requiring application level changes.
JavaScript may be used in many ways to improve performance on sites, for example: instead of downloading all the map data one only needs what's in the view port. Additionally images which a user never views may not be requested, saving bandwidth. Like any tool it can be misused. Sites which use several ad scripts, analytics, 3rd party widgets etc. are the exception. What about interactive sites (powered by cobbled together server side scripts, made with multiple frameworks) which operate in an underpowered, over provisioned VM, on a shitty pipe with oodles of other sites located on the other side of the world? JavaScript indeed. To see stuff done right look at Amazon.
So with JavaScript gone you have Flash, video, and data. I'm sure these will all be faster now... (since we're using less of these now than in the 90s, right?)
10 years ago new releases of MS Office bloatware was driving the PC upgrade cycle, now its Web Apps and ordinary websites that have been unnecessarily 'appified'
You're leaving out a big one: entertainment, specifically games. In addition new technology such as DVD, Bluray, data interfaces (USB 3.0) factors in too. I however agree with you, plenty of sites are one trick ponies that in the days past would've been a small program are now a web 2.0 site... which will generate insults seemingly using as many technologies and 3rd party service mashups as possible.
Actually, IE6 was horribly broken. It never followed standards, had all kinds of proprietary crap in there, and didn't follow it's own rules half the time.
And the other browsers of the day were even more so. XMLHTTPRequest (here) is a funny thing about those broken rules and not following standards - this little jem is responsible for AJAX.
There's workarounds, but you shouldn't need workarounds.
Hello HTML5? We're BACK into the browser wars, supporting multiple vender extensions... yay for progress!
IE6 saw success because it was a default install on Windows, and Windows was/is successful.
Also it was FREE and for a time it was the best browser out there, then it stopped getting better. I don't miss supporting it one bit however.
Yeah, haven't you ever picked up a globe!?
Um, those people are dead, or lost their houses and possessions.
I don't wish this upon anyone and for the record I've lived in earthquake prone areas. This situation reminds me of a bash.org quote where the poster was storing 300gigs of work and misc files on his neighbor's computer via WIFI and the horror of no longer being able to connect to them. Storing precious/irreplaceable stuff in a risky place is not a wise idea.
They've already taken the brunt of the responsibility.
Of course they did, they lived in an area which has a known history of often fatal earthquakes by their own choosing. Unless they were forced to live there by decree of the Government which doesn't appear to be the case then relocation was and remains an option. If tremors aren't a hint and a half alone... no amount of finger pointing will change that the area they lived in is dangerous. Unless the earth splits open and you fall into it or are under a tree which topples the majority of deaths are caused by structures failing. Why aren't you looking to the people responsible for the buildings which collapsed?
If that's because these "scientists" knowingly understated the facts about the risk, then there's no reason to let the scientists get away with a shrug of the shoulders.
Why has it become the responsibility of the scientists for your own Family's safety? Regardless if these "scientists" say it's OK or not the fact remains this place has a known history of earthquakes which has destroyed the city on multiple occasions (or caused major damage to structures and residents within). When does personal responsibility begin? Do you need someone to tell you that living in a flood plane has risks?
Let's hope these scientists don't operate like the rest of Government.
Linux is great, but it misses many of those features - for example, how do you connect to a remote PC with bash and run your commands there? Oh, you can't. With PowerShell you can easily do that.
One way to remotely execute a program (gkrellm) on another host, this example assumes you're using passwordless authentication via public key:
ssh -X USER@192.168.1.100 -p 2222 gkrellm
Using PowerScript:
$wsman = new-pssession -computername -port -authentication default -credential $cred
$output = invoke-command -session $wsman -scriptblock {get-process}
remove-pssession -session $wsman (not required)
The same awesome sandy bridge which was involved in a $700million recall?
Such incredibly bad spelling makes me think you don't know what you are talking about.
For many people English is a second language and I believe this poster is German.
More importantly: if you compile your own stuff from source, random crashes in the OS fall on your shoulders to sort out. Is it flaky hardware? Is it a misconfigured kernel option? Is it some library you linked to incorrectly when compiling the kernel? Is it a wierd compiler bug in your particular version of GCC? Who knows?
Or the dependency which fails to compile due to a broken commit or port's failed make configure! When I had more free time to invest into this process it wasn't a big deal exploring and solving (I like to know why something happened to prevent it in the future), however time has a way of becoming a luxury.
Use a generic kernel and if the 100,000 or more other users out there using the same kernel aren't seeing any issues, then you know your hardware may be suspect.
Quite right. If memory footprint instead of only speed is the objective both Linux and FreeBSD support on-the-fly kernel module loading. If it's a matter of adding functionality kernel modules are an easily accessible method providing on demand support. Instead of adding exotic support strip the kernel device probing and chipset support down to your known configuration profile and when the need arises load the appropriate modules at runtime (or via the loader prior to the kernel and disable as needed). This flexibility has one drawback of fragmenting the kernel memory and introducing slight performance penalty.
Thanks for the laugh!
Most game developers have realized that the tiny percentage of people interested in mods have no real impact on game sales for large AAA titles. Like most businesses game studios operate on a stonrg cost benefit model. You show them that a hundred thousand gamers will only buy their game if they are able to mod it and believe you me, we'll see every studio adding mod support.
Are you daft? Off of the top of my head: TF2 and the Man Co store also why they've switched over to a free model. In the past, Counter Strike, Team Fortress, Desert Combat. Look back to Quake and the massive community around that (not simply the core game) and why that was THE engine of it's day sporting gaming leagues and conventions. Modding has a much higher barrier to entry than in the past with 3dmodelling, Animation, High res textures requiring significant talent, software and most importantly skill. What they've got a hardon for now are people forking over dollars hand over fist for DLC. Pay for the game ($59 on console, what a deal! hey at least you can resell it, right?!) + 3 or 4 DLC at $9.99 a pop, with no multiplayer dedicated servers. It's great! It's almost like they're taking a page out of Microsoft/Apple's playbook by deliberately removing key features to be sold at a premium topped off with planned obsolescence.
If anything I'm tired of buying games that end up being crappy.
As someone who just purchased (with several discounts!) Space Marine I feel your pain.
Netflix for games would do wonders for the gaming industry.
Ugh we're headed there, where you own nothing and pay for everything. Meh.
You do know that you can carry on working while the system compiles don't you?
Yes, although running a live CD vs an installed system are two separate things performance wise. I'm referring to a workstation, not a fileserver or a router which do not require beefy hardware. It depends what type of work you're doing. If you're doing something like rendering, or graphics work the hits the the CPU, RAM and disk are very noticeable. Yes one could set the nice flag but honestly.... why? I want it done as fast as possible which means using as many resources as I can throw at the compilation job. Also it's not a good idea to update stuff while you're running it. Do you do that with x and dependencies? Sounds like a great way to hang the system - but it's cool since your fileserver (of rainbow tables?) users won't notice. Also, I (much like you) have multiple machines, however I have them for getting specific shit done.
Instaling from nothing on my new file server too a little over a 25 hours to build a complete KDE 4.6 system from a live Knoppix CD
Cool. For a fraction of that time I can have one installed from packages and copy over my seed files (configs) and run an update to make sure I've got the latest and greatest release. Different strokes for different folks though. I bet you like to wait in line when a game comes out too (not my idea of fun) and there is nothing wrong with that.
FYI the system is an AMD64x2 4000 with 4GB RAM, an 80MB SATA drive for the OS and 5.4TB Zpool using fuse-ZFS.
80MB SATA drive, hosting a BBS? ;)
Compiling is a negligable bit of efffort.
But not negligible as far as CPU, RAM and disk to some extent are concerned. If it was I imagine distributions would abandon packages. Also, many people don't want to have to deal with compiling anything...
I can now have 4 instances of RTGEN
DrQueue
Making it deployable is a bit trickier. It involves a script and ensuring the network connection to the new box can be saturated for 4 hours or so. After the fact involves having to rebuild the kernel, but I couldstay with an all encompassing kernel ala regular distros. It may not be as uber as the ricers want it to be, but it amuses the hell out of me.
Making what deployable? If your hardware is the same from machine to machine there is no trickiness involved as far as the kernel is concerned. Keep a vanilla one around for any trickiness...
Thanks for the clarification. In the late 90s I recall one of my friends was installing Redhat (5.1?) and I had no idea what it was about (It doesn't do XYZ, why do you want that!?). Later I saw the light and took the plunge, I decided to cut my teeth on FreeBSD (which I had a hell of a time learning) and after a frustrating while I did my best to forget about it. Later I tried Redhat Linux (8? this was 2002ish) and I was hooked. I did the whole xbox linux thing which reminds me, I've still got a copy which runs on the Dreamcast! I was really impressed with how flexible it was/is. I jumped back on the FreeBSD bandwagon and have been running it to this day. OpenSUSE is my recommendation for people who are curious about Linux. I completely agree with the software side of things.