Hang out on #linux on your favorite irc network, and the number 2 question (after "what's a partition") seems to be "how do I configure dial up networking?"
I think that's one area that could really be improved, judging by the amount of confusion that seems to be out there. Once a newbie can get on the net, they can seek out the information from within Linux, rather than booting back to windows to search... and Linux suddenly becomes a lot more enjoyable.
Some of the linuxconf / control panel / whatever tools have certainly helped, but there still seem to be a lot of people confused about this basic setup.
The hard-core GNU/GPL free software people aren't necessarily interested in "market acceptance" or being a "major player." They're not worried about the cash flow of companies. They want software that works, that they can play with, that has source available, that is free. So, if they see a good idea in proprietary software, and set out to create a free version of that functionality, they're not hurting their cause in any way.
You seem to equate being a major player in the desktop market with having proprietary, non-free software available for the platform... I don't agree with that logic.
Ok, I'm not a programmer, this is an honest question. It's not intended to be inflammatory.
So here goes: Is a browser really such a complicated piece of software? It just seems to me that compared to the kernel, XFree, Gnome or KDE, a browser would not be such a monumental project. I suppose that once you add in the news and mail, it's going to make things more complicated. But as someone pointed out earlier, why not modularize those things?
Again, I'm looking for education here, not flames. Why is it so hard to get a good browser for linux?
1) Where's the download? I'm curious to see what's in the distribution.
2) I noticed their "Gone Home" distribution - designed "specifically for home use." I think I like this idea, making a distro specifically for the home user. But then I think about it some more, and I like the fact that your standard Linux distro does whatever you want it to. ("It's a server!" *smack* "It's a client" *smack* "It's a server!" - sorry, Chinatown flashbacks...)
I guess I'd rather see an install that gracefully handles a home user or a commercial/power user. I'd be disappointed to see anything start a win95/winNT-client/winNT-server type dichotomy (trichotomy?) in the Linux distros. Of course, you can add whatever capabilities you want after the install, so I suppose it's no biggie.
You wouldn't have Linux, or the "code to play with" if it weren't for the GPL... The GPL only causes "problems" in the face of other more restrictive licenses. That does not mean that the GPL is flawed. A million different "open source" licenses - all of which have special clauses to protect various specific interests - present a very real chance that the whole thing which has been built will be diluted, fractured, and rendered meaningless. What "baggage" does the GPL come with? Compare that to the baggage of the QPL, NPL, APSL, acronym-dujour-PL licenses that are springing forth... I'll take the GPL any day.
I agree... CDIndex looks really nice, and it's completely free of cddb influence - which, unfortunately, means that they are starting the database from scratch. They have a nice web-based submission form, and they currently have 3,400 albums in the database. Go get the client, and add some more!
What they need, though, is some cdindex-aware players - I haven't seen any yet. I'm going to take a look at patching some existing players to use it, but I'm a lame coder - I'm sure someone could do it in an hour as opposed to my month or two of effort.:)
Best of luck to freecddb and cdindex... I hope that one or both succeeds.
Well... is the problem with the hardware, or with the format? The only time I've tried listening to MP3s on my "real" stereo is through the headphone jack of a laptop, and it sounded noticeably worse than a CD (as you might expect).
Has anyone gotten a nice hardware rig going? How does the MP3 format sound when there's no hardware problems holding it back?
"It's hard to take away something people are getting for free, so what's needed is a technical solution, rather than depending on some sort of behavior modification," said Walsh.
Hm, personally, I guess I'd have to choose the technical solution over the behavior modification as well - images of Clockwork Orange, anyone?
Wow, if there ever was a wrong side of a bed, you found it! Maybe you have 2 wrong sides?
I'm curious about those versions of redhat that don't install on laptops - that's very interesting. I'll have to look for them. Would that be version 5.1? Hm, no - a friend of mine did that one. 5.2? Well, not that one either - because I have a laptop with 5.2 humming along. I'll have to look at the site a bit more closely to find those "desktop-only" versions.
As far as trying to get things to work - all I did was get updated boot/supp images, try backpack CDroms, HD installs, network installs via smb, nfs, and ftp, create a swap partition prior to the install, make a custom ramdisk, exit the provided shell to save memory, and finally contemplated modifying the source for the install program.
Thank you for your valuable information, next time I'll *try* to get it to work - perhaps things will get done.
Actually, I closed the shell that opened - the install had used so much memory by that point that it was already grinding to a halt, and I figured that exiting out of that shell would save me some memory.
You're exactly right - if there was a way to enable swap early on, I would have been fine. I had already created swap space with a rescue disk, hoping that it would help, but the install doesn't even look for swap until after the whole disk druid thingy, and the ramdisk they load up doesn't include swapon (at least I couldn't find it...) so I couldn't enable it myself.
Yes... isn't that lame? I got an old 486SX20 laptop with 4 megs, upgraded it to 8 megs. Installed windoze 95 on it first, because I had the disk handy, and it installed no problemo.
Then I go to install Red Hat. It hung. I tweaked. It hung. I cursed. It hung. I found it very depressing that the Red Hat install wanted more hardware than the windoze 95 install.
(I *finally* got it installed, with much tinkering, and it runs just fine. Now why should the install take more memory than actually *running* the OS?)
Now I've done it... bring on the RH flames. (sigh)
I had always wondered what the criteria were for a downgrade... Rob has explained those a little bit.
Now, a set of radio buttons for the moderators, presenting them with a selection of reasons for the downgrade would be a great thing. It would serve as a reminder of why there is moderation in the first place, and it would help keep the moderators honest.
Heck, there could even be an "other" radio button for things that just couldn't be categorized... but moderators with too many "other" clicks would be closesly scrutinized.
I think I read somewhere that the DoD standard was to write all 1s, then all 0s, then all 1s again... or was it 0,1,0... whatever. Seems like that would destroy any remnants of data that may be lurking?
"During the work on Titanic the facility had approximately 350 SGI CPUs, 200 DEC Alpha CPUs and 5 terabytes of disk all connected by a 100Mbps or faster network. "
Go RMS! Preach it, brother!
on
RMS on APSL
·
· Score: 1
Sounds like a very rational analysis to me, with just a bit of a dig towards the Open Source folks...
I do have some fears that all the publicity and corporate hype around open source software will cause problems and conflicts of interest in the long run. As loopy as RMS can sometimes sound, at the end of the day, the GPL sure does feel like a safe haven from corruption.
No flames here. A friend of mine was comparing CE devices with Palm devices, and was wowed by the 8 megs or so on the CE devices... but I explained that a Palm Pro can do a lot more (in my opinion) with 1 meg than a CE thingy can do with 8.
People don't NEED "really small PCs" in their pockets, at least not with the human interfaces available today. (If I could have all the functionality of my desktop in my pocket, that would be cool, but having pentium power with a low-res LCD and a tap-to-type keyboard would be worthless)
That's what the Palm folks got right - it's designed to complement your PC, they don't pretend that it could replace it.
Well, in that case, it's more funny than stupid, I guess.:-) I wonder if they had any idea that they were making an allusion to one of the leading Linux distro companies. Was it clever or coincidence?
Slashdot Mirror
Not *exactly* journaling, but one project is here.
The consensus was that the article was talking about "many" processors meaning more than two or four... does Linux run on 128 processors?
In terms of "logging" people felt that this was referring to a journaling filesystem. Granted, I don't know what this means. :-)
I'll admit, though, that the way it's written, it certainly does look a bit like FUD.
Hang out on #linux on your favorite irc network, and the number 2 question (after "what's a partition") seems to be "how do I configure dial up networking?"
I think that's one area that could really be improved, judging by the amount of confusion that seems to be out there. Once a newbie can get on the net, they can seek out the information from within Linux, rather than booting back to windows to search... and Linux suddenly becomes a lot more enjoyable.
Some of the linuxconf / control panel / whatever tools have certainly helped, but there still seem to be a lot of people confused about this basic setup.
The hard-core GNU/GPL free software people aren't necessarily interested in "market acceptance" or being a "major player." They're not worried about the cash flow of companies. They want software that works, that they can play with, that has source available, that is free. So, if they see a good idea in proprietary software, and set out to create a free version of that functionality, they're not hurting their cause in any way.
You seem to equate being a major player in the desktop market with having proprietary, non-free software available for the platform... I don't agree with that logic.
Ok, I'm not a programmer, this is an honest question. It's not intended to be inflammatory.
So here goes: Is a browser really such a complicated piece of software? It just seems to me that compared to the kernel, XFree, Gnome or KDE, a browser would not be such a monumental project. I suppose that once you add in the news and mail, it's going to make things more complicated. But as someone pointed out earlier, why not modularize those things?
Again, I'm looking for education here, not flames. Why is it so hard to get a good browser for linux?
Um.... if it's april foolery, it's terribly annoying. :P
1) Where's the download? I'm curious to see what's in the distribution.
2) I noticed their "Gone Home" distribution - designed "specifically for home use." I think I like this idea, making a distro specifically for the home user. But then I think about it some more, and I like the fact that your standard Linux distro does whatever you want it to. ("It's a server!" *smack* "It's a client" *smack* "It's a server!" - sorry, Chinatown flashbacks...)
I guess I'd rather see an install that gracefully handles a home user or a commercial/power user. I'd be disappointed to see anything start a win95/winNT-client/winNT-server type dichotomy (trichotomy?) in the Linux distros. Of course, you can add whatever capabilities you want after the install, so I suppose it's no biggie.
You wouldn't have Linux, or the "code to play with" if it weren't for the GPL... The GPL only causes "problems" in the face of other more restrictive licenses. That does not mean that the GPL is flawed. A million different "open source" licenses - all of which have special clauses to protect various specific interests - present a very real chance that the whole thing which has been built will be diluted, fractured, and rendered meaningless. What "baggage" does the GPL come with? Compare that to the baggage of the QPL, NPL, APSL, acronym-dujour-PL licenses that are springing forth... I'll take the GPL any day.
What they need, though, is some cdindex-aware players - I haven't seen any yet. I'm going to take a look at patching some existing players to use it, but I'm a lame coder - I'm sure someone could do it in an hour as opposed to my month or two of effort. :)
Best of luck to freecddb and cdindex... I hope that one or both succeeds.
... you guys are supposed to be debugging fiends, and half of you can't see the extra "t" in transmetta?! I'm so disappointed. :)
Well, it can make coffee...
I couldn't finish reading it either. I had to go look for the "start button" on my Xwindows. Still can't find the damn thing.
Well... is the problem with the hardware, or with the format? The only time I've tried listening to MP3s on my "real" stereo is through the headphone jack of a laptop, and it sounded noticeably worse than a CD (as you might expect).
Has anyone gotten a nice hardware rig going? How does the MP3 format sound when there's no hardware problems holding it back?
Wow, if there ever was a wrong side of a bed, you found it! Maybe you have 2 wrong sides?
:-)
I'm curious about those versions of redhat that don't install on laptops - that's very interesting. I'll have to look for them. Would that be version 5.1? Hm, no - a friend of mine did that one. 5.2? Well, not that one either - because I have a laptop with 5.2 humming along. I'll have to look at the site a bit more closely to find those "desktop-only" versions.
As far as trying to get things to work - all I did was get updated boot/supp images, try backpack CDroms, HD installs, network installs via smb, nfs, and ftp, create a swap partition prior to the install, make a custom ramdisk, exit the provided shell to save memory, and finally contemplated modifying the source for the install program.
Thank you for your valuable information, next time I'll *try* to get it to work - perhaps things will get done.
(This one's ripe for the picking, moderators!)
Actually, I closed the shell that opened - the install had used so much memory by that point that it was already grinding to a halt, and I figured that exiting out of that shell would save me some memory.
You're exactly right - if there was a way to enable swap early on, I would have been fine. I had already created swap space with a rescue disk, hoping that it would help, but the install doesn't even look for swap until after the whole disk druid thingy, and the ramdisk they load up doesn't include swapon (at least I couldn't find it...) so I couldn't enable it myself.
Yes... isn't that lame? I got an old 486SX20 laptop with 4 megs, upgraded it to 8 megs. Installed windoze 95 on it first, because I had the disk handy, and it installed no problemo.
Then I go to install Red Hat. It hung. I tweaked. It hung. I cursed. It hung. I found it very depressing that the Red Hat install wanted more hardware than the windoze 95 install.
(I *finally* got it installed, with much tinkering, and it runs just fine. Now why should the install take more memory than actually *running* the OS?)
Now I've done it... bring on the RH flames. (sigh)
I had always wondered what the criteria were for a downgrade... Rob has explained those a little bit.
Now, a set of radio buttons for the moderators, presenting them with a selection of reasons for the downgrade would be a great thing. It would serve as a reminder of why there is moderation in the first place, and it would help keep the moderators honest.
Heck, there could even be an "other" radio button for things that just couldn't be categorized... but moderators with too many "other" clicks would be closesly scrutinized.
I think I read somewhere that the DoD standard was to write all 1s, then all 0s, then all 1s again... or was it 0,1,0... whatever. Seems like that would destroy any remnants of data that may be lurking?
The complete URL is http://www.kipling.com/hacker/game/login.html
In case the previous posts hadn't made that clear. :-)
Here's some info, if you're interested:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/issue46/2494.html
"During the work on Titanic the facility had approximately 350 SGI CPUs, 200 DEC Alpha CPUs and 5 terabytes of disk all connected by a 100Mbps or faster network. "
Sounds like a very rational analysis to me, with just a bit of a dig towards the Open Source folks...
I do have some fears that all the publicity and corporate hype around open source software will cause problems and conflicts of interest in the long run. As loopy as RMS can sometimes sound, at the end of the day, the GPL sure does feel like a safe haven from corruption.
No flames here. A friend of mine was comparing CE devices with Palm devices, and was wowed by the 8 megs or so on the CE devices... but I explained that a Palm Pro can do a lot more (in my opinion) with 1 meg than a CE thingy can do with 8.
People don't NEED "really small PCs" in their pockets, at least not with the human interfaces available today. (If I could have all the functionality of my desktop in my pocket, that would be cool, but having pentium power with a low-res LCD and a tap-to-type keyboard would be worthless)
That's what the Palm folks got right - it's designed to complement your PC, they don't pretend that it could replace it.
Well, in that case, it's more funny than stupid, I guess. :-) I wonder if they had any idea that they were making an allusion to one of the leading Linux distro companies. Was it clever or coincidence?