Back in 1996 I could never interest anybody in using Linux if I mentioned that it was free. If I mentioned "oh yeah, it's $49.95 from Red Hat Software, and it does the same thing that Windows NT does but it costs $500 less", that's a different thing. Free = worthless in the PHB's head, whereas cheap = "oh boy, what a deal!". The box and manual gave them reassurance that they'd actually bought something, even if that was one of the ugliest boxes in creation (grin). (The old yellow/black RH3.0.3 box, that is).
I think it depends upon what you're doing and how you're doing it. POP is straight file slingin', little CPU involved. IMAP is, as you mention, a bit of a hog.
IMAP for 30,000 users on Linux or *BSD would require a cluster of machines for the front end, but you'd still only need one machine feeding the data into the Netapps on the back end. But the big iron Solaris solution definitely has the cojones to handle this situation without clustering, and will be tremendously easier to configure and maintain than the cluster. And also quite a bit more expensive hardware and software-wise. So it is a tradeoff, and it depends upon how much in-house talent you have. If you have a lot of inhouse talent, the Linux cluster will save quite a bit of money. If you don't, the Solaris solution will require less expensive consultant time to set up and configure, meaning it will be the more cost effective solution. Wanted a simple answer? The only simple answer I can give is "Don't use NT, at least not with Exchange" (grin).
So: Microsoft Sales says that you should use NT because someone who doesn't know what they're doing can successfully configure and maintain it, thus saving on expensive Unix system administrators.
Then it crashes, and the Microsoft apologists say that it's because it takes an expert to install, configure, and maintain an NT installation, and of course it's going to crash if you have the janitor maintaining it.
Typical. Just typical.
My question: If you need a skilled system administrator in the first place, regardless of the operating system, where's the TCO benefit for the Microsoft software?
He was talking about the user interface, not the mail server. The mail server is a hacked Qmail running on Solaris. The web servers executing the mod_perl code are FreeBSD.
And what does hotmail being owned by Microsoft have anything to do with it? Microsoft bought Hotmail after it had already been established, after all. Unless Microsoft has suddenly added a/cgi-bin directory to IIS, Hotmail is still running FreeBSD and Apache.
bash-2.03$ telnet www.hotmail.com 80 Trying 216.33.151.7... Connected to www.hotmail.com. Escape character is '^]'. HEAD / HTTP/1.0
The problem is that it's not the employees doing the pigeon-holing, it's the employers.
For example, I spent three years programming in a dBase-style environment. I wanted to do SQL because I'd done some prototype demos of a next-generation of our product using MySQL (the production version would probably have used Empress, but the project got cancelled), and it was a ton faster, easier, and NEATER than doing dBase. With the HR mechatroids it was "hmm, you don't have experience with Oracle version X on Solaris version Y? NEXT!".
The point being that the skills were there, but HR stuck me into the "dBase guy" rut and said "nope, sorry, no SQL for you."
Anyhow: I'm currently working at a job where I was hired for one thing, then pressed into service doing another thing entirely (something somewhat new to me but well within my skill level) and having a blast. If we want to keep people in the computer business that's what has to happen -- employers have to look at these expensive people that they're hiring, and realize that hey, just because he's a great C++ programmer doesn't mean he wouldn't appreciate the chance to learn Java. If diversity is the salt of life, too many hackers are on the bland diet, doing the same old same old day after day after day after day....
Learning the ins and outs of a particular industry is years of work. If I am an expert in, say, factory automation, I can share my knowledge as freely as I like with the youngsters, secure in the knowledge that it will be years before they have the knowledge to threaten my job and by that time I will have moved on (either professionally, or knowledge-wise).
Older folks who have experience in fields outside of the computer industry are especially valuable to many companies. For example, if you spent ten years as an insurance agent, and now are entering the computer field, you will be very valuable to every company that writes software aimed at the insurance industry.
The problem is that these companies are usually in rather boring places like Memphis or Dallas, rather than being in the Silicon Valley. This means that people who have invested their entire career into walking that Silicon Valley treadmill are poorly situated for making the transition to later-life geekhood, especially since they probably know little about business practices in already-established industries, which is the one thing that makes older workers valuable. And especially since they'll have to take a pay cut from the bloated Silicon Valley salaries (a $90K Silicon Valley salary suddenly becomes a $40K Dallas salary), meaning that many who have run up large credit card debts or bought houses that have lost half their value or etc. are in bad position...
The problem with code bloat is that it's that much more code to maintain. Simple, elegant algorithms are much easier to maintain than huge amorphous masses that splash all over the place. The huge algorithm may actually be FASTER -- in fact, to get ultimate speed you often have to use sophisticated but bulky algorithms that make the code extremely hard to debug and maintain -- but it will be that much more "stuff" to maintain.
This isn't rocket science by any means. The number of lines of debugged code that a programmer can write in a day is fairly constant no matter how large the program or what language is used. Thus it makes sense to use simple compact algorithms whenever possible (sometimes, due to performance requirements, it's not possible). But that, alas, appears to be a dying art.
Heh. Speak for yourself. While I'm more expensive than a puppy just out of college, I don't earn $90K either (or even $50K, for that matter).
Of course, out here in the hinterlands $35K to $45K is real money... as vs. in the Silicon Valley, where that would not pay the yearly rent on a studio apartment in Sunnyvale!
Innovation train? You mean being able to boot off of the CD-ROM? For cryin' out loud, eMachines didn't even add that capability to their computer, it was built into the AMI BIOS that they purchased to use in their machine. What next, is Compaq going to sue me because I have an ASUS P2B motherboard in my machine that will boot off of CD-ROM?
I repeat: These eMachines are so generic that it's pitiful. They don't make a single component in their system with possibly the exception of the case, and every component in their system (except the case) is identical to that in millions of other computers sold every year by manufacturers large and small. It is obvious that this is just a blatant attempt by Compaq to destroy competition in the low-end computer market. I'm ashamed that a company that has paid so much attention to Linux in the past year or so has done such a thing. But oh, I forget, it was the Digital side of the company that paid attention to Linux, not the Texans in Houston...
The only "unusual" things I can think of regarding the eMachines:
1) the joystick and USB ports on the front. Has Compaq patented this?
2) The non-standard power supply. Compaq loves putting non-standard components into their computers, have they patented non-standard power supplies?
3) The "eMachine" logo instead of the normal BIOS screen upon bootup. Has Compaq patented having the company logo on the BIOS screen?
My impression is that these are stock generic machines using a generic chipset, but with a sorta nifty case. At best Compaq might be saying that the case is too similar?
Oh, regarding quality of eMachines: Buy the refurbished ones (you can get them at Fry's and etc.). The nice thing about buying a refurbished one is that you know that anything broken was fixed.
One thing you must remember is that the Constitution applies only when the Supremes (the justices of the Supreme Court) says it applies. Thus the Supremes condone blatant violation of the 'takings' clause of the 5th Amendement (see http://www.fear.org ) on the shallowest of pretenses, and I'm sure they could find some shallow pretense to allow stepping into the motion picture industry's puddle ("films are distributed across state lines" or some similar bunk).
Whether they would, in fact, uphold such restrictions is another issue altogether, but never believe that something can't be done just because the Constitution says so. The Constitution, as far as the law is concerned, says what the Supremes say it says. For the most part this makes it about as useful as toilet paper if the Supremes disagree with you.
You are absolutely correct. Movie theatres aren't turning away potential customers because they want to. They're doing so because they were threatened. The government basically said "enforce your own stated policies, or we will pass even more draconian laws regarding your business."
The motion picture rating system is a voluntary system created by the motion picture industry. Unless local jurisdictions say otherwise, these ratings are recommendations, not legally binding requirements. Local jurisdictions usually have laws only regarding "X"-rated pictures, since those qualify as "obscenity" under Supreme Court rulings and thus are not considered to be a "free speech" issue. In other words, you can't blame your local politicians for the theatre hassling your kids. This is something the cinema chains are doing themselves, and that, as private businesses, they have every right to do (no matter how much we disagree). It's like Wal-Mart refusing to carry "skin" magazines and "obscene" albums. While I disagree vehemently with their reasoning, forcing them to do something they don't want to do is just as wrong.
No problems for me either, Linux 2.0.36 on the firewall. Normal "active mode" FTP even works, don't have to do passive mode, as long as ip_masq_ftp.o proxy is modprobe'ed into the kernel.
The reason I say that is because Red Hat 6.0 has a bit of Evilness(tm) in the way it handles modules. Even if you manually 'modprobe' all of your ip_masq*.o proxy modules, Red Hat 6.0 will 'rmmod' them five minutes later (unless they happen to be in use at the time). Solution: Create/etc/rc.d/rc.modules and manually insmod your ip_masq* proxy modules there (don't forget to set the #!/bin/sh comment as the first line and do a chmod a+x on it!), and then in your/etc/crontab find where that @#$%!@ rmmod is taking place and zap it. Distributions which manually specify modules to be loaded, like Debian or (maybe) Caldera, don't have this problem. It's just distributions which try to get fancy by using the kernel-level module auto-loader that have this problem (and only under the 2.2 kernel, which removed the 2.0 kernel's timeout functionality for the auto-loader). With the proxy modules loaded, I've never had any problems with reverse connections on FTP, Quake, etc. That's why I'm suspecting either a) you don't have them loaded, or b) Red Hat 6.0 (or Mandrake 6.0) is helpfully unloading them for you!
-E
Re:Old patent may not be applicable to new product
on
New Transmeta Patent
·
· Score: 2
You're right, it was filed in 1996. While it looks like they were definitely working on a microprocessor design in 1996, it has been over 3 years since then, so they may have shifted gears entirely. So while it looks likely that Transmeta is working on a cool CPU design, who knows, they may actually be working on a cool graphics chip design by now.
YaST also continues to be the reason why the typical Debian or Redhat purist slams SuSE, since YaST is non-free software. But then, Europeans have never been particularly interested in freedom, right? It's interesting that the only people beating the drums for free software (free as in 'freedom') seem to be Americans:-(. But then, we have the Borg of Redmond to teach us what non-free software becomes when unchecked by licenses such as the GNU Public License.
I suggest you check your dictionary. They are two different words. People who are the true "elite", i.e., those who are the best or most skilled at what they do, generally do not engage in "elitism".
"elitism" means (to quote the American Heritage Dictionary): "Belief in rule or domination by an elite".
Frankly, I would prefer not to be ruled by a self-proclaimed "elite". Frankly, that reeks of www.stormfront.org, where you can read the rantings of these self-proclaimed "elites" who want to rule our nation. Ick.
There do exist easy-to-find MP3 players in FreeBSD. Try 'splay'. Or 'freeamp' if you wish. Or even 'x11amp' if you don't care about that stupid license (its template is in/usr/ports).
Web browser: what's the beef? I installed KDE off the FreeBSD CD-ROM by using pkg_add (gosh, how horrible can that be!), then used its built-in web browser to download the FreeBSD version of Netscape off of ftp.netscape.com. What, you don't like Netscape? Tough, that's all you get on Linux too.
The only real problem I had with FreeBSD was that I could not get a commercial-quality office suite working. That's the only reason I switched back to Linux. Otherwise, it's fast, it's stable (more stable than Linux in fact -- the memory leak in the Netscape text input widget occasionally locks up my Linux machine, but all it did on FreeBSD was make Netscape core-dump once it reached the limits of virtual memory), and reasonably well laid out (though I prefer the way OpenBSD is laid out, to tell you the truth -- FreeBSD is trying to get too fancy nowdays).
Of course, there WERE some problems... I had to pull out the sound card I had in it (an Ensonique AudioPCI) and replace it with an old SoundBlaster pulled out my junk box in order to get sound support... but if I hadn't had four years of accumulated Applix files that I did not want to succumb to bit-rot(*), I would probably still be running FreeBSD.
-E
*bit-rot: what happens when a file can no longer be usably read, executed, or altered. Generally happens when the OS that the file was created for no longer will run on obtainable hardware, or when the applications software that it was created with will no longer run due to OS upgrades or etc.
I need Applix Office (or StarOffice if I have to, but I'd prefer not). WordPerfect would also be nice, but not critical.
Looking at the Linux emulation stuff it looks like I can get it to run, but trying to 'brand' all the individual little ELF binaries as 'Linux' did not make it work, so I gave up and switched back to Linux. I did make sure that the emulation worked by running a few little Linux binaries (running the Linux version of 'gnu tar' then feeding it through the FreeBSD version of 'gnu tar' was a blast:-).
I think the guy had a valid point -- while FreeBSD may run many Linux binaries, it is by no means as easy to do for non-trivial programs as some people like to say. ("non-trivial" == "has more than one object module").
A typical inaccuracy was when they blithely repeated that Linux developers were a bunch of young kids and BSD developers a bunch of old pros, in blatant disregard of the facts.
See:
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue33/bentson.html
for the details.
It does appear, though, that Linux has a whole lot of young kid ADVOCATES, some of who think it's, like, l33t (AGHH!!).
Actually, Linux probably shares userland code a lot more than BSD does. That's because Linux really doesn't HAVE a userland -- Linux is a kernel, a few GNU tools necessary to boot, and a lot of little individual packages, most of which use the same code base. For example, there are not four different 'telnet' programs in the Linux world. Everybody uses the same "NetTools" package maintained by some guy whose name I can't remember (sigh). Similarly, everybody uses the same 'libc' library, it's all the same 'glibc' off of fsf.org, though everybody seems to be using a different revision of it (sigh). (even the old libc5 was that way, there was only one libc5, though some people, like Red Hat, for some inexplicable reason chose to ship an old version of it rather than the current version).
I like FreeBSD, but I'm posting this from SuSE Linux because I could not get Applix running despite branding all the ELF binaries in the Applix directory as Linux binaries and making sure the Linux emulation was compiled into the kernel. Bummer. I also did not have success getting WordPerfect 8 to run, though I've heard others say they managed to do it. I did run a couple of little Linux binaries to make sure the emulation was working, and they worked, so I do know the emulator works, but sometimes it's not easy to get multi-part apps to do right with it...
Ever consider the possibility that there are some Microsoft shills posting as Anonymous Cowards, trying to create conflicts in the free software community that don't actually exist?
Is that the same one who mentioned a number of Linux distributions, such as "Red Hat Linux", "Caldera OpenLinux", and "Deviant Linux"?
Tim (Jones) at EST says he's still looking for that "Deviant Linux" distribution. Think it maybe has pictures of nekkid penguins in it or something? Or maybe penguins doing unspeakable things to sheep? Or ???
Slashdot Mirror
Back in 1996 I could never interest anybody in using Linux if I mentioned that it was free. If I mentioned "oh yeah, it's $49.95 from Red Hat Software, and it does the same thing that Windows NT does but it costs $500 less", that's a different thing. Free = worthless in the PHB's head, whereas cheap = "oh boy, what a deal!". The box and manual gave them reassurance that they'd actually bought something, even if that was one of the ugliest boxes in creation (grin). (The old yellow/black RH3.0.3 box, that is).
I think it depends upon what you're doing and how you're doing it. POP is straight file slingin', little CPU involved. IMAP is, as you mention, a bit of a hog.
IMAP for 30,000 users on Linux or *BSD would require a cluster of machines for the front end, but you'd still only need one machine feeding the data into the Netapps on the back end. But the big iron Solaris solution definitely has the cojones to handle this situation without clustering, and will be tremendously easier to configure and maintain than the cluster. And also quite a bit more expensive hardware and software-wise. So it is a tradeoff, and it depends upon how much in-house talent you have. If you have a lot of inhouse talent, the Linux cluster will save quite a bit of money. If you don't, the Solaris solution will require less expensive consultant time to set up and configure, meaning it will be the more cost effective solution. Wanted a simple answer? The only simple answer I can give is "Don't use NT, at least not with Exchange" (grin).
-E
So: Microsoft Sales says that you should use NT because someone who doesn't know what they're doing can successfully configure and maintain it, thus saving on expensive Unix system administrators.
Then it crashes, and the Microsoft apologists say that it's because it takes an expert to install, configure, and maintain an NT installation, and of course it's going to crash if you have the janitor maintaining it.
Typical. Just typical.
My question: If you need a skilled system administrator in the first place, regardless of the operating system, where's the TCO benefit for the Microsoft software?
-E
How about stupidity?
/cgi-bin directory to IIS, Hotmail is still running FreeBSD and Apache.
n
He was talking about the user interface, not the mail server. The mail server is a hacked Qmail running on Solaris. The web servers executing the mod_perl code are FreeBSD.
And what does hotmail being owned by Microsoft have anything to do with it? Microsoft bought Hotmail after it had already been established, after all. Unless Microsoft has suddenly added a
bash-2.03$ telnet www.hotmail.com 80
Trying 216.33.151.7...
Connected to www.hotmail.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
HEAD / HTTP/1.0
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 02:26:01 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.6 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.8 SSLeay/0.9.0b
Location: http://lc3.law5.hotmail.passport.com/cgi-bin/logi
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html
-E
The problem is that it's not the employees doing the pigeon-holing, it's the employers.
....
For example, I spent three years programming in a dBase-style environment. I wanted to do SQL because I'd done some prototype demos of a next-generation of our product using MySQL (the production version would probably have used Empress, but the project got cancelled), and it was a ton faster, easier, and NEATER than doing dBase. With the HR mechatroids it was "hmm, you don't have experience with Oracle version X on Solaris version Y? NEXT!".
The point being that the skills were there, but HR stuck me into the "dBase guy" rut and said "nope, sorry, no SQL for you."
Anyhow: I'm currently working at a job where I was hired for one thing, then pressed into service doing another thing entirely (something somewhat new to me but well within my skill level) and having a blast. If we want to keep people in the computer business that's what has to happen -- employers have to look at these expensive people that they're hiring, and realize that hey, just because he's a great C++ programmer doesn't mean he wouldn't appreciate the chance to learn Java. If diversity is the salt of life, too many hackers are on the bland diet, doing the same old same old day after day after day after day
-E
Learning the ins and outs of a particular industry is years of work. If I am an expert in, say, factory automation, I can share my knowledge as freely as I like with the youngsters, secure in the knowledge that it will be years before they have the knowledge to threaten my job and by that time I will have moved on (either professionally, or knowledge-wise).
Older folks who have experience in fields outside of the computer industry are especially valuable to many companies. For example, if you spent ten years as an insurance agent, and now are entering the computer field, you will be very valuable to every company that writes software aimed at the insurance industry.
The problem is that these companies are usually in rather boring places like Memphis or Dallas, rather than being in the Silicon Valley. This means that people who have invested their entire career into walking that Silicon Valley treadmill are poorly situated for making the transition to later-life geekhood, especially since they probably know little about business practices in already-established industries, which is the one thing that makes older workers valuable. And especially since they'll have to take a pay cut from the bloated Silicon Valley salaries (a $90K Silicon Valley salary suddenly becomes a $40K Dallas salary), meaning that many who have run up large credit card debts or bought houses that have lost half their value or etc. are in bad position...
-E
The problem with code bloat is that it's that much more code to maintain. Simple, elegant algorithms are much easier to maintain than huge amorphous masses that splash all over the place. The huge algorithm may actually be FASTER -- in fact, to get ultimate speed you often have to use sophisticated but bulky algorithms that make the code extremely hard to debug and maintain -- but it will be that much more "stuff" to maintain.
This isn't rocket science by any means. The number of lines of debugged code that a programmer can write in a day is fairly constant no matter how large the program or what language is used. Thus it makes sense to use simple compact algorithms whenever possible (sometimes, due to performance requirements, it's not possible). But that, alas, appears to be a dying art.
-E
Heh. Speak for yourself. While I'm more expensive than a puppy just out of college, I don't earn $90K either (or even $50K, for that matter).
Of course, out here in the hinterlands $35K to $45K is real money... as vs. in the Silicon Valley, where that would not pay the yearly rent on a studio apartment in Sunnyvale!
-E
Innovation train? You mean being able to boot off of the CD-ROM? For cryin' out loud, eMachines didn't even add that capability to their computer, it was built into the AMI BIOS that they purchased to use in their machine. What next, is Compaq going to sue me because I have an ASUS P2B motherboard in my machine that will boot off of CD-ROM?
I repeat: These eMachines are so generic that it's pitiful. They don't make a single component in their system with possibly the exception of the case, and every component in their system (except the case) is identical to that in millions of other computers sold every year by manufacturers large and small. It is obvious that this is just a blatant attempt by Compaq to destroy competition in the low-end computer market. I'm ashamed that a company that has paid so much attention to Linux in the past year or so has done such a thing. But oh, I forget, it was the Digital side of the company that paid attention to Linux, not the Texans in Houston...
-E
The only "unusual" things I can think of regarding the eMachines:
1) the joystick and USB ports on the front. Has Compaq patented this?
2) The non-standard power supply. Compaq loves putting non-standard components into their computers, have they patented non-standard power supplies?
3) The "eMachine" logo instead of the normal BIOS screen upon bootup. Has Compaq patented having the company logo on the BIOS screen?
My impression is that these are stock generic machines using a generic chipset, but with a sorta nifty case. At best Compaq might be saying that the case is too similar?
Oh, regarding quality of eMachines: Buy the refurbished ones (you can get them at Fry's and etc.). The nice thing about buying a refurbished one is that you know that anything broken was fixed.
-E
One thing you must remember is that the Constitution applies only when the Supremes (the justices of the Supreme Court) says it applies. Thus the Supremes condone blatant violation of the 'takings' clause of the 5th Amendement (see http://www.fear.org ) on the shallowest of pretenses, and I'm sure they could find some shallow pretense to allow stepping into the motion picture industry's puddle ("films are distributed across state lines" or some similar bunk).
Whether they would, in fact, uphold such restrictions is another issue altogether, but never believe that something can't be done just because the Constitution says so. The Constitution, as far as the law is concerned, says what the Supremes say it says. For the most part this makes it about as useful as toilet paper if the Supremes disagree with you.
-E
You are absolutely correct. Movie theatres aren't turning away potential customers because they want to. They're doing so because they were threatened. The government basically said "enforce your own stated policies, or we will pass even more draconian laws regarding your business."
-E
The motion picture rating system is a voluntary system created by the motion picture industry. Unless local jurisdictions say otherwise, these ratings are recommendations, not legally binding requirements. Local jurisdictions usually have laws only regarding "X"-rated pictures, since those qualify as "obscenity" under Supreme Court rulings and thus are not considered to be a "free speech" issue.
In other words, you can't blame your local politicians for the theatre hassling your kids. This is something the cinema chains are doing themselves, and that, as private businesses, they have every right to do (no matter how much we disagree). It's like Wal-Mart refusing to carry "skin" magazines and "obscene" albums. While I disagree vehemently with their reasoning, forcing them to do something they don't want to do is just as wrong.
-E
No problems for me either, Linux 2.0.36 on the firewall. Normal "active mode" FTP even works, don't have to do passive mode, as long as ip_masq_ftp.o proxy is modprobe'ed into the kernel.
-E
The reason I say that is because Red Hat 6.0 has a bit of Evilness(tm) in the way it handles modules. Even if you manually 'modprobe' all of your ip_masq*.o proxy modules, Red Hat 6.0 will 'rmmod' them five minutes later (unless they happen to be in use at the time). /etc/rc.d/rc.modules and manually insmod your ip_masq* proxy modules there (don't forget to set the #!/bin/sh comment as the first line and do a chmod a+x on it!), and then in your /etc/crontab find where that @#$%!@ rmmod is taking place and zap it.
Solution: Create
Distributions which manually specify modules to be loaded, like Debian or (maybe) Caldera, don't have this problem. It's just distributions which try to get fancy by using the kernel-level module auto-loader that have this problem (and only under the 2.2 kernel, which removed the 2.0 kernel's timeout functionality for the auto-loader).
With the proxy modules loaded, I've never had any problems with reverse connections on FTP, Quake, etc. That's why I'm suspecting either a) you don't have them loaded, or b) Red Hat 6.0 (or Mandrake 6.0) is helpfully unloading them for you!
-E
You're right, it was filed in 1996. While it looks like they were definitely working on a microprocessor design in 1996, it has been over 3 years since then, so they may have shifted gears entirely. So while it looks likely that Transmeta is working on a cool CPU design, who knows, they may actually be working on a cool graphics chip design by now.
-E
YaST also continues to be the reason why the typical Debian or Redhat purist slams SuSE, since YaST is non-free software. But then, Europeans have never been particularly interested in freedom, right? It's interesting that the only people beating the drums for free software (free as in 'freedom') seem to be Americans :-(. But then, we have the Borg of Redmond to teach us what non-free software becomes when unchecked by licenses such as the GNU Public License.
-E
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue33/bentson.html
Yeah, those Linux developers are just a bunch of college sophomores. Sure. College sophomores with PhD's and 10 years's experience.
'Nuff said.
I suggest you check your dictionary. They are two different words. People who are the true "elite", i.e., those who are the best or most skilled at what they do, generally do not engage in "elitism".
"elitism" means (to quote the American Heritage Dictionary): "Belief in rule or domination by an elite".
Frankly, I would prefer not to be ruled by a self-proclaimed "elite". Frankly, that reeks of www.stormfront.org, where you can read the rantings of these self-proclaimed "elites" who want to rule our nation. Ick.
-- E
There do exist easy-to-find MP3 players in FreeBSD. Try 'splay'. Or 'freeamp' if you wish. Or even 'x11amp' if you don't care about that stupid license (its template is in /usr/ports).
Web browser: what's the beef? I installed KDE off the FreeBSD CD-ROM by using pkg_add (gosh, how horrible can that be!), then used its built-in web browser to download the FreeBSD version of Netscape off of ftp.netscape.com. What, you don't like Netscape? Tough, that's all you get on Linux too.
The only real problem I had with FreeBSD was that I could not get a commercial-quality office suite working. That's the only reason I switched back to Linux. Otherwise, it's fast, it's stable (more stable than Linux in fact -- the memory leak in the Netscape text input widget occasionally locks up my Linux machine, but all it did on FreeBSD was make Netscape core-dump once it reached the limits of virtual memory), and reasonably well laid out (though I prefer the way OpenBSD is laid out, to tell you the truth -- FreeBSD is trying to get too fancy nowdays).
Of course, there WERE some problems... I had to pull out the sound card I had in it (an Ensonique AudioPCI) and replace it with an old SoundBlaster pulled out my junk box in order to get sound support... but if I hadn't had four years of accumulated Applix files that I did not want to succumb to bit-rot(*), I would probably still be running FreeBSD.
-E
*bit-rot: what happens when a file can no longer be usably read, executed, or altered. Generally happens when the OS that the file was created for no longer will run on obtainable hardware, or when the applications software that it was created with will no longer run due to OS upgrades or etc.
'Nuff said.
:-).
I need Applix Office (or StarOffice if I have to, but I'd prefer not). WordPerfect would also be nice, but not critical.
Looking at the Linux emulation stuff it looks like I can get it to run, but trying to 'brand' all the individual little ELF binaries as 'Linux' did not make it work, so I gave up and switched back to Linux. I did make sure that the emulation worked by running a few little Linux binaries (running the Linux version of 'gnu tar' then feeding it through the FreeBSD version of 'gnu tar' was a blast
I think the guy had a valid point -- while FreeBSD may run many Linux binaries, it is by no means as easy to do for non-trivial programs as some people like to say. ("non-trivial" == "has more than one object module").
A typical inaccuracy was when they blithely repeated that Linux developers were a bunch of young kids and BSD developers a bunch of old pros, in blatant disregard of the facts.
l
See:
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue33/bentson.htm
for the details.
It does appear, though, that Linux has a whole lot of young kid ADVOCATES, some of who think it's, like, l33t (AGHH!!).
-E
Actually, Linux probably shares userland code a lot more than BSD does. That's because Linux really doesn't HAVE a userland -- Linux is a kernel, a few GNU tools necessary to boot, and a lot of little individual packages, most of which use the same code base. For example, there are not four different 'telnet' programs in the Linux world. Everybody uses the same "NetTools" package maintained by some guy whose name I can't remember (sigh). Similarly, everybody uses the same 'libc' library, it's all the same 'glibc' off of fsf.org, though everybody seems to be using a different revision of it (sigh). (even the old libc5 was that way, there was only one libc5, though some people, like Red Hat, for some inexplicable reason chose to ship an old version of it rather than the current version).
I like FreeBSD, but I'm posting this from SuSE Linux because I could not get Applix running despite branding all the ELF binaries in the Applix directory as Linux binaries and making sure the Linux emulation was compiled into the kernel. Bummer. I also did not have success getting WordPerfect 8 to run, though I've heard others say they managed to do it. I did run a couple of little Linux binaries to make sure the emulation was working, and they worked, so I do know the emulator works, but sometimes it's not easy to get multi-part apps to do right with it...
-E
Ever consider the possibility that there are some Microsoft shills posting as Anonymous Cowards, trying to create conflicts in the free software community that don't actually exist?
-E
Is that the same one who mentioned a number of Linux distributions, such as "Red Hat Linux", "Caldera OpenLinux", and "Deviant Linux"?
Tim (Jones) at EST says he's still looking for that "Deviant Linux" distribution. Think it maybe has pictures of nekkid penguins in it or something? Or maybe penguins doing unspeakable things to sheep? Or ???
-E