Natch. that honour goes to their fellow Aryans, the mid-40s National Socialists (whose symbol incidentally was a bad copy of the Hindu swastika), who were xenophobic, racist and elitist, and claimed the lives of 6 million Jews to prove it.
Ok, I'm genuinely curious here. The Aryans, as an ancient civilization, grew up in what is now known as Iran (note the similarities in spelling) and were originally known as Persia. Of course, nobody actually called them Persians, they were the Aryan Kingdoms and non-Aryan lands. They are also credited as being the civilization that introduced the concept of conquering the world, which is quite differet than just quibbling and fighting pitched battles and so forth, which was quite common. So how did this ancient civilization located in what is now Iran become Germany? Aren't the Germans descended from white european tribes that were painting themselves blue when the Aryan race originally struck out to conquer the world? (An action which predates Rome, of course, and Greece, by quite some time. The Persians would be put in check by Alexander the Great, who also rose up to conquer the world, and may have likely developed the idea independently of the Persians)
Besides all that, there is more than pure irony in the fact that Hitler copied a Hindu symbol and adopted it as the symbol of the super-race. Birds of a feather, and so forth. THe difference being that India never industrialized on their own, and to my knowledge has never been a world power (even in anciet times), while Germany has done both of these. Give India a chance, and we'll see who is really untouchable and who is not.
That is GENIUS, people. That might be the most accurate and biting social commentary I've heard in years.
Caste systems BLOW monkeys. Innocent monkeys.
Yeah, I got modded down for it. Your reply got modded down too, I noticed. Serves us right for holding opinions and sticking to them, even in the face of nationalism in the US. (Disclaimer: I don't know if you're USian or not, but I am)
It's a good feeling to know that the fine proud and proper Brahmins in Delhi feel no sense of responsibility at all for the helping the hundreds of thousands of the poorest, most hopeless, most destitute people in the world begging on the streets of Calcutta.
You know, the bleeding-hearts modded me down as flamebait for providing a more graphic description of the attitude you're talking about here. You're insightful, but I'm flamebait. They really need to create an inciteful mod, that mods up, so that I can be properly modded.:)
That would be the same Pakistan where women regularly have acid thrown in their faces? Or where democracy is a pipe dream?
It's probably the same Pakistan that circumcises women. You know, cutting off their clitoris and stitching the labia together. That particular practice...
Thought you meant USians until I read the rest of the paragraph. What makes you think one of the races in India is xenophobic, racist and elitist? And which one of the Indian races do you think that is?
All who support the caste system, which is widespread, socially-endorsed racism. What makes me think that? Careful study....:)
What is the "return on investment" of roads, highways and interstates???
The Anonymous Coward is right.:)
The Eisenhower Interstate system was built by one of the former generals of the US Army, a man who served during WWII and saw the military advantage of the European highways built by, uhhh, Hitler.
Then, why don't we have (toll) highways owned and maintained by PRIVATE ENTREPRISE????...
I-35 through Kansas is a toll road. Toll roads abound in other parts of the country.
I would describe your post as nationalistic.:) Question your government, for they are only your government by your consent. They should be accountable for their actions. This accountability cannot be achieved by bandwagon nationalism, but only through thoughtful questioning by the citizens that support them.
(ok, I have to show off my geekness here (and the fact that I have a 4 year old that has watched all 5 movies movies more times than I have since they were new (I'm almost 30) in only the couple years here's been watching them)).
I'm in the same boat, except I also have a 3-year old that loves those movies.
True and a very good point, but in any story, things can happen at the same time, but you need to explain them since without a split screen, you have to go backwards and forwards a lot. Perhaps while we see the scene of the probe shooting out is when Luke was out on his patrol. It was later on when the probe homed in on the Rebel's Main powersource, is when Chewie and Han blasted the damn thing (thus Han and Chewie getting theere so fast - the thing was real close). They ran into it a good little while after Luke got nailed by the Snow Creature thing (the name I honestly forget). The probe had plenty of time to get closer for investigation.
There's only 3-6 months between the two movies. During that time, the imperial fleet chases the rebels to and fro, finding them in one hiding place and chasing them out. Hoth was the rebels' last chance to have a base, after that (at the end of the movie) they had to escape outside the galaxy.
Now, we don't know what methods the imperials used for all this time. I get the impression that they used probes such as these a LOT, or perhaps as their primary means of finding the rebels. Therefore, in the 3-6 months between the movies, it's quite likely that they sent enough probes out to cover a good enough percentage of planets to locate the rebels.
Now, for all that, let's keep in mind that if the imperials didn't find them on Hoth, they wouldn't have attacked, and the entire movie would have been different. Obviously, the story they intended to tell was quite different.
Also, let's not forget the Captain that received the signal and said "There are so many uncharted settlements, if we followed up on every lead...". So obviously the Empire knew that any lead coming through didn't necessarily mean anything. But Darth Vader, using the force, was able to determine that that lead *was* the rebels, "and Skywalker is with them."
I mean, the AT-ATs knew exactly where to go. Perhaps the communication that 3PO couldn't interperet was the transmission of the coordinates of the Master Power Generator of the Rebel Base.
The communication 3PO didn't understand was the probe droid, sending its signal. You see, first we see the Empire receiving the signal and identifying that the rebels are there and moving to attack. Then we see the rebels discovering the signal and begin evacuating, after Han says "I didn't hit it that hard, it must have had a self-destruct mechanism" followed soon with "It's a good bet the Empire knows we're here."
Finally, a small timeline.:) First, we watch a series of probes shoot out from a star destroyer. Then the camera follows one all the way to Hoth. Then we see it crash. Then we see Luke watching it crash. Then he calls Han, and we see Han. Then Luke gets taken by the snow monster (never given a name) and the sequence about Han finding him. While Luke's in the bacta tank, Han and Chewie go out and investigate. Wehn they get back, the evacuation is already starting and Luke is in shape. (Also in here somewhere is Han and Leia's argument in the south corridor)
Just to be pedantic. I also have the Star Wars Trivial Puruit, if you ever feel like matching me.:)
Now, I don't have anything particular about India - I'd say this about any country. More countries having nuclear ICBM capability is simply not a recipe for world peace.
I don't know that it's such a good thing for the most xenophobic, racist, and elitist society in history to have the ability to destroy the world all by themselves. What are we gonna do if they decide that us westerners are just a bunch of untouchables?
Put it this way: Do you want the KKK to have nukes and ICBM capabilities?
Wasting money for a manned mission to mars doesn't give us the return on investments that we really should have with government spending.
You must not be from around here. Are you Canadian? How dare you expect a return on investment from the US government? Next thing you'll be telling me we're capitalist, and should expect a return on investment from our jobs, our homes, and our lives.
It's a good feeling to know that the fine proud and proper Brahmins in Delhi feel no sense of responsibility at all for the helping the hundreds of thousands of the poorest, most hopeless, most destitute people in the world begging on the streets of Calcutta.
They're untouchables. Who gives a shit about them? It's not like they're real people or anything. You know? They're just pollution for the higher classes, that is, if you bother to acknowledge them as real people. Which they're not.
That is probably the most sarcastic paragraph I've ever written. I can't even think of a followup to it that would do it justice.
Its always funny until someone has to pay a dual royalty for having two children. At $2499 each, that means you own SCO 5 grand, and that price will double in less than a year when they hit 18 months! Still laughing?
Man, I was so worried, util I realized that they're only going after first-born kids, right? 'cause I got a 4yo, a 3yo, and a newborn.
I'm in favor of working up a financial app in XUL, making it Mozilla-based and completely cross-platform. Anyone interested?:)
Are you?:)
Honestly, I'm very interested. Look at the possibilities! Flash buttons (yay)! Well, I guess that's it. Put the database on a server (of course!), and you could also work up a web interface for it. Having access to my own checkbook program anywhere I am is a compelling reason to have it.
As far as interest in actually programming, I'm very interested, and I'd be happy to participate and/or lead the project. However, I cannot make any time commitments right ow.:( That's the only catch. I'm pretty good with Javascript, and it shouldn't take much for me to get the hang of XUL once I put my mind to it. But there's the small matter of having the time to do it....
Anyway, if *I* were gonna organize such a project, I'd separate the backend from the interface. I'd have a daemon running that sits in between the database server and the client, supports multiple clients (of course), and routes requests for data between the two. This would provide database freedom (as soon as the accounting back-end supports it) as well as providing a c++ module that hands the accounting logic, so that the client only has to do data-entry and reporting. In this arrangement, I'd like to have a c++ programmer or three using the wxBase library for the daemon, and I'd work up a reference implementation client using XUL. We'd encourage people to come up with Qt, GTK, and even native win32 clients, all using the same backend.
Like I said, I cannot make a time commitment right now (maybe soon), but if you want to send me an email about it, follow the link in my sig, click the "Contact" link on the site, and you'll get a cheesy form (powered by FormMail!) that you can send me email with.
obviously, if it doesn't do what you want, don't use it, or better yet, HELP SO IT DOES.
NOt that easy, not with this project. I volunteered my own time to add budgeting, said I would add it however they wanted it. They told me to whip up a proposal. I did that. Then there was some time spent ripping up the proposal on the list, making new oes, etc. Until finally someone said they'd work up a uml diagram to show me what they wanted, and I haven't heard anything since then. I no longer have the time, they lost my window of opportunity.
I realize it's not easy, especially when there's only 7 developers. But I wonder if they'd be better off tearing down and starting from scratch. There's lots of good stuff in there, certainly, but there's also just--lots. Lots of dependencies, and they have choices now that they didn't have before, etc.
I'm in favor of working up a financial app in XUL, making it Mozilla-based and completely cross-platform. Anyone interested?:)
I'm not trying to flame, but Jesus Christ it took you six months to figure out that using the distro's packages whenever possible would result in fewer problems?
Yeah, it did. One of the reasons it took so long was because the packages with Mandrake 8.2 were mostly broken, and I didn't get good distro-provided packages until 9.0. 9.0 also saw some updates to the urpmi script and their GUI software manager tool that straightened out a lot of the problems 8.2 had.
but my point being that what happens in the user's eyes and what happens in the kernel's can be quite different
I totally missed that point in your original post.:) HOwever, your assessment is not only logical and reasonable, it is in fact a building block upon which all interfaces are built. The purpose of the interface is to help the user do what they want to do. The purpose of the kernel (or rather, backend software, for the remainder of this post) is to do it. Those are two completely different jobs. I really love the way unix shell commands traditionally do one thing really well, with a whole ton of options. I really love the way they require the user to know what they're doing. I really and truly believe it is not the individual shell commands' jobs to dtermine what the user is tryig to do, or to help them to do it. QUite the contrary, their job is to just do it, and do it the best way possible. They require an interface, in the form of a GUI, wrapper script, or just a terminal-based interface to be built as a separate layer to figure out what the user wants to do and then utilize the appropriate commands to do it. The user does't give a shit if the kernel copies the file byte for byte, as long as it ends up in the directory he wants it in.
# Choosing an immature unrealeased beta gcc version for a production release.
I'd like to make a commet o this, and I don't happen to have a link handy to back up my facts.
Redhat took code from the GCC cvs and merged it into an older GCC (2.95 I believe), and called it gcc 2.96. The gcc project immediately disowned it (or at least as soon as they found out about it), and Redhat took a lot of shit over it. I understand that Redhat apologized and promised not to do anything stupid again.
Not to defend Redhat, or anything, but they didn't actually put a beta gcc as their production compiler in a distribution. They put a completely broke gcc that was subsequently disowned by the project in a distribution, and pissed off a whole bunch of developers in the process.
By far, hunting down layer after layer of dependency while trying to install software, only to meet conflicts is my biggest problem.
I had this same problem when I was a newbie, and I'd really like to see a article on the web to address this issue. The problem isn't that the system's inherently broke, the problem is that there isn't a document that contains the following steps:
"How to install software"
Check if your distribution includes a version of the software you wish to install. ALWAYS do this step, it WILL save you time.
If you distribution has the software you need and the version is sufficiently new to satisfy your needs, install it using the distribution's package manager, whatever it is, even if you hate it.
If your distribution does not have the software package you need, find the webpage for the software package and read the FAQs posted, and ANYTHING that might contain a list of depencies.
After establishing a list of dependencies, check with your distribution to see what it has and what is doesn't have. Install them as above, using the package manager for your distribution, whatever it is, even if you hate it.
If you are about to compile the software from source, repeat the last step with all of the -devel packages provided by the distributor.
Now download and install FROM SOURCE the remaining dependency packages. Make sure you stick with stable versions. This is where you are most likely to encounter trouble with installing the software.
Now download ad install FROM SOURCE the software you are intending to install.
Took me 6 months before I figured out that the distribution had solved all the dependency problems if I would just use their fucking binaries. Stick with the distribution, be loyal. Give them two or three versions before canning them, if you don't like something. Mandrake has improved dramatically since 8.2, which is what I started with. When they don't provide the binary, resolve the dependencies yourself as much as possible with the distro-provided packages. Your life will be MUCH easier.
I agree with you. I have been using Linux for 9 years and I think that the community attitude has become WORSE as the years progressed.
I'd say that's more likely because more and more of the herd are joining the community. In case you hadn't noticed, in the last 9 years society in general has gotten less and less polite, ad that's just the most recent 9 years of what I understand has been a hundred-year downward curve of politeness. As the community gets larger, it will reflect society in general more and more.
I'm tired of reading the manual page for tar just to see how to untar a.tar.bz2 file when I encounter a different environment.
Two options, and I use one of them.:)
Type "Konqueror" from the command line in the directory you want (saves you from opening up a Konqueror window and then navigating to the directory), right-click on the file and choose "Extract here".
alias. Put it in your.bashrc file. Simple as that. Read the man page once to get the options you need, then make an alias.
While I realize a lot of people wouldn't like to do option 1 because they hate guis, I think it's actually bad to do option 2 because it means that when you go sit in front of someone else's unix box, you don't know how to use the command line. You're a wizard on your own machine, but you can't use someone else's. For this reason, I just keep checking man pages or looking i scripts I've writte to find the arguments I'm looking for, and I don't bitch. I made a conscious choice to keep my skillset portable to any machine, and I make a conscious effort to keep that up.
That's so cool! I never knew that...if I hadn't already posted to this thread, I would mod you up.
It does't seem to work in Mozilla on Windows, though, and I find that frustrating.:( I use Widows at work, and Linux at home, and I find a lot of the things I do in apps in Linux don't work in the SAME apps in Windows.
Slashdot Mirror
Natch. that honour goes to their fellow Aryans, the mid-40s National Socialists (whose symbol incidentally was a bad copy of the Hindu swastika), who were xenophobic, racist and elitist, and claimed the lives of 6 million Jews to prove it.
Ok, I'm genuinely curious here. The Aryans, as an ancient civilization, grew up in what is now known as Iran (note the similarities in spelling) and were originally known as Persia. Of course, nobody actually called them Persians, they were the Aryan Kingdoms and non-Aryan lands. They are also credited as being the civilization that introduced the concept of conquering the world, which is quite differet than just quibbling and fighting pitched battles and so forth, which was quite common. So how did this ancient civilization located in what is now Iran become Germany? Aren't the Germans descended from white european tribes that were painting themselves blue when the Aryan race originally struck out to conquer the world? (An action which predates Rome, of course, and Greece, by quite some time. The Persians would be put in check by Alexander the Great, who also rose up to conquer the world, and may have likely developed the idea independently of the Persians)
Besides all that, there is more than pure irony in the fact that Hitler copied a Hindu symbol and adopted it as the symbol of the super-race. Birds of a feather, and so forth. THe difference being that India never industrialized on their own, and to my knowledge has never been a world power (even in anciet times), while Germany has done both of these. Give India a chance, and we'll see who is really untouchable and who is not.
That is GENIUS, people. That might be the most accurate and biting social commentary I've heard in years. Caste systems BLOW monkeys. Innocent monkeys.
Yeah, I got modded down for it. Your reply got modded down too, I noticed. Serves us right for holding opinions and sticking to them, even in the face of nationalism in the US. (Disclaimer: I don't know if you're USian or not, but I am)
It's a good feeling to know that the fine proud and proper Brahmins in Delhi feel no sense of responsibility at all for the helping the hundreds of thousands of the poorest, most hopeless, most destitute people in the world begging on the streets of Calcutta.
You know, the bleeding-hearts modded me down as flamebait for providing a more graphic description of the attitude you're talking about here. You're insightful, but I'm flamebait. They really need to create an inciteful mod, that mods up, so that I can be properly modded. :)
That would be the same Pakistan where women regularly have acid thrown in their faces? Or where democracy is a pipe dream?
It's probably the same Pakistan that circumcises women. You know, cutting off their clitoris and stitching the labia together. That particular practice...
Thought you meant USians until I read the rest of the paragraph. What makes you think one of the races in India is xenophobic, racist and elitist? And which one of the Indian races do you think that is?
All who support the caste system, which is widespread, socially-endorsed racism. What makes me think that? Careful study.... :)
What is the "return on investment" of roads, highways and interstates???
The Anonymous Coward is right. :)
The Eisenhower Interstate system was built by one of the former generals of the US Army, a man who served during WWII and saw the military advantage of the European highways built by, uhhh, Hitler.
Then, why don't we have (toll) highways owned and maintained by PRIVATE ENTREPRISE???? ...
I-35 through Kansas is a toll road. Toll roads abound in other parts of the country.
I would describe your post as nationalistic. :) Question your government, for they are only your government by your consent. They should be accountable for their actions. This accountability cannot be achieved by bandwagon nationalism, but only through thoughtful questioning by the citizens that support them.
(ok, I have to show off my geekness here (and the fact that I have a 4 year old that has watched all 5 movies movies more times than I have since they were new (I'm almost 30) in only the couple years here's been watching them)).
I'm in the same boat, except I also have a 3-year old that loves those movies.
True and a very good point, but in any story, things can happen at the same time, but you need to explain them since without a split screen, you have to go backwards and forwards a lot. Perhaps while we see the scene of the probe shooting out is when Luke was out on his patrol. It was later on when the probe homed in on the Rebel's Main powersource, is when Chewie and Han blasted the damn thing (thus Han and Chewie getting theere so fast - the thing was real close). They ran into it a good little while after Luke got nailed by the Snow Creature thing (the name I honestly forget). The probe had plenty of time to get closer for investigation.
There's only 3-6 months between the two movies. During that time, the imperial fleet chases the rebels to and fro, finding them in one hiding place and chasing them out. Hoth was the rebels' last chance to have a base, after that (at the end of the movie) they had to escape outside the galaxy.
Now, we don't know what methods the imperials used for all this time. I get the impression that they used probes such as these a LOT, or perhaps as their primary means of finding the rebels. Therefore, in the 3-6 months between the movies, it's quite likely that they sent enough probes out to cover a good enough percentage of planets to locate the rebels.
Now, for all that, let's keep in mind that if the imperials didn't find them on Hoth, they wouldn't have attacked, and the entire movie would have been different. Obviously, the story they intended to tell was quite different.
Also, let's not forget the Captain that received the signal and said "There are so many uncharted settlements, if we followed up on every lead...". So obviously the Empire knew that any lead coming through didn't necessarily mean anything. But Darth Vader, using the force, was able to determine that that lead *was* the rebels, "and Skywalker is with them."
I mean, the AT-ATs knew exactly where to go. Perhaps the communication that 3PO couldn't interperet was the transmission of the coordinates of the Master Power Generator of the Rebel Base.
The communication 3PO didn't understand was the probe droid, sending its signal. You see, first we see the Empire receiving the signal and identifying that the rebels are there and moving to attack. Then we see the rebels discovering the signal and begin evacuating, after Han says "I didn't hit it that hard, it must have had a self-destruct mechanism" followed soon with "It's a good bet the Empire knows we're here."
Finally, a small timeline. :) First, we watch a series of probes shoot out from a star destroyer. Then the camera follows one all the way to Hoth. Then we see it crash. Then we see Luke watching it crash. Then he calls Han, and we see Han. Then Luke gets taken by the snow monster (never given a name) and the sequence about Han finding him. While Luke's in the bacta tank, Han and Chewie go out and investigate. Wehn they get back, the evacuation is already starting and Luke is in shape. (Also in here somewhere is Han and Leia's argument in the south corridor)
Just to be pedantic. I also have the Star Wars Trivial Puruit, if you ever feel like matching me. :)
They need to feed their people first. A trip to the moon is a huge waste of money.
Simple.
Then all the convicts on the moon can have a little revolution and toss rocks at us. :)
They can just take one of those nuclear weapons from their ongoing cold war with Pakistan, strap it onto a chimp's back and let 'er fly!
Why hurt the innocent chimps when there are so many untouchables available?
Now, I don't have anything particular about India - I'd say this about any country. More countries having nuclear ICBM capability is simply not a recipe for world peace.
I don't know that it's such a good thing for the most xenophobic, racist, and elitist society in history to have the ability to destroy the world all by themselves. What are we gonna do if they decide that us westerners are just a bunch of untouchables?
Put it this way: Do you want the KKK to have nukes and ICBM capabilities?
By the way before people label my ideas socialist, each one of these ideas came from the Republican Party.
Explain to me again how that should prevent us from labeling your ideas socialist? I think I must've missed something....
Wasting money for a manned mission to mars doesn't give us the return on investments that we really should have with government spending.
You must not be from around here. Are you Canadian? How dare you expect a return on investment from the US government? Next thing you'll be telling me we're capitalist, and should expect a return on investment from our jobs, our homes, and our lives.
It's a good feeling to know that the fine proud and proper Brahmins in Delhi feel no sense of responsibility at all for the helping the hundreds of thousands of the poorest, most hopeless, most destitute people in the world begging on the streets of Calcutta.
They're untouchables. Who gives a shit about them? It's not like they're real people or anything. You know? They're just pollution for the higher classes, that is, if you bother to acknowledge them as real people. Which they're not.
That is probably the most sarcastic paragraph I've ever written. I can't even think of a followup to it that would do it justice.
Thanks to the power of modern genetics, we can provide something the world really needs. ...like a monkey with five asses!
Neil Young and Pearl Jam already gave us this, but I forget what the album's called.
Its always funny until someone has to pay a dual royalty for having two children. At $2499 each, that means you own SCO 5 grand, and that price will double in less than a year when they hit 18 months! Still laughing?
Man, I was so worried, util I realized that they're only going after first-born kids, right? 'cause I got a 4yo, a 3yo, and a newborn.
I'm in favor of working up a financial app in XUL, making it Mozilla-based and completely cross-platform. Anyone interested? :)
Are you? :)
Honestly, I'm very interested. Look at the possibilities! Flash buttons (yay)! Well, I guess that's it. Put the database on a server (of course!), and you could also work up a web interface for it. Having access to my own checkbook program anywhere I am is a compelling reason to have it.
As far as interest in actually programming, I'm very interested, and I'd be happy to participate and/or lead the project. However, I cannot make any time commitments right ow. :( That's the only catch. I'm pretty good with Javascript, and it shouldn't take much for me to get the hang of XUL once I put my mind to it. But there's the small matter of having the time to do it....
Anyway, if *I* were gonna organize such a project, I'd separate the backend from the interface. I'd have a daemon running that sits in between the database server and the client, supports multiple clients (of course), and routes requests for data between the two. This would provide database freedom (as soon as the accounting back-end supports it) as well as providing a c++ module that hands the accounting logic, so that the client only has to do data-entry and reporting. In this arrangement, I'd like to have a c++ programmer or three using the wxBase library for the daemon, and I'd work up a reference implementation client using XUL. We'd encourage people to come up with Qt, GTK, and even native win32 clients, all using the same backend.
Like I said, I cannot make a time commitment right now (maybe soon), but if you want to send me an email about it, follow the link in my sig, click the "Contact" link on the site, and you'll get a cheesy form (powered by FormMail!) that you can send me email with.
I would add that, if you are using python, you can get cross-GUI portability with wxPython.
Or you can use wxWIndows directly and remove the Python dependency from your code. :)
obviously, if it doesn't do what you want, don't use it, or better yet, HELP SO IT DOES.
NOt that easy, not with this project. I volunteered my own time to add budgeting, said I would add it however they wanted it. They told me to whip up a proposal. I did that. Then there was some time spent ripping up the proposal on the list, making new oes, etc. Until finally someone said they'd work up a uml diagram to show me what they wanted, and I haven't heard anything since then. I no longer have the time, they lost my window of opportunity.
I realize it's not easy, especially when there's only 7 developers. But I wonder if they'd be better off tearing down and starting from scratch. There's lots of good stuff in there, certainly, but there's also just--lots. Lots of dependencies, and they have choices now that they didn't have before, etc.
I'm in favor of working up a financial app in XUL, making it Mozilla-based and completely cross-platform. Anyone interested? :)
I'm not trying to flame, but Jesus Christ it took you six months to figure out that using the distro's packages whenever possible would result in fewer problems?
Yeah, it did. One of the reasons it took so long was because the packages with Mandrake 8.2 were mostly broken, and I didn't get good distro-provided packages until 9.0. 9.0 also saw some updates to the urpmi script and their GUI software manager tool that straightened out a lot of the problems 8.2 had.
but my point being that what happens in the user's eyes and what happens in the kernel's can be quite different
I totally missed that point in your original post. :) HOwever, your assessment is not only logical and reasonable, it is in fact a building block upon which all interfaces are built. The purpose of the interface is to help the user do what they want to do. The purpose of the kernel (or rather, backend software, for the remainder of this post) is to do it. Those are two completely different jobs. I really love the way unix shell commands traditionally do one thing really well, with a whole ton of options. I really love the way they require the user to know what they're doing. I really and truly believe it is not the individual shell commands' jobs to dtermine what the user is tryig to do, or to help them to do it. QUite the contrary, their job is to just do it, and do it the best way possible. They require an interface, in the form of a GUI, wrapper script, or just a terminal-based interface to be built as a separate layer to figure out what the user wants to do and then utilize the appropriate commands to do it. The user does't give a shit if the kernel copies the file byte for byte, as long as it ends up in the directory he wants it in.
# Choosing an immature unrealeased beta gcc version for a production release.
I'd like to make a commet o this, and I don't happen to have a link handy to back up my facts.
Redhat took code from the GCC cvs and merged it into an older GCC (2.95 I believe), and called it gcc 2.96. The gcc project immediately disowned it (or at least as soon as they found out about it), and Redhat took a lot of shit over it. I understand that Redhat apologized and promised not to do anything stupid again.
Not to defend Redhat, or anything, but they didn't actually put a beta gcc as their production compiler in a distribution. They put a completely broke gcc that was subsequently disowned by the project in a distribution, and pissed off a whole bunch of developers in the process.
Just to clarify. :)
By far, hunting down layer after layer of dependency while trying to install software, only to meet conflicts is my biggest problem.
I had this same problem when I was a newbie, and I'd really like to see a article on the web to address this issue. The problem isn't that the system's inherently broke, the problem is that there isn't a document that contains the following steps:
"How to install software"
Took me 6 months before I figured out that the distribution had solved all the dependency problems if I would just use their fucking binaries. Stick with the distribution, be loyal. Give them two or three versions before canning them, if you don't like something. Mandrake has improved dramatically since 8.2, which is what I started with. When they don't provide the binary, resolve the dependencies yourself as much as possible with the distro-provided packages. Your life will be MUCH easier.
I agree with you. I have been using Linux for 9 years and I think that the community attitude has become WORSE as the years progressed.
I'd say that's more likely because more and more of the herd are joining the community. In case you hadn't noticed, in the last 9 years society in general has gotten less and less polite, ad that's just the most recent 9 years of what I understand has been a hundred-year downward curve of politeness. As the community gets larger, it will reflect society in general more and more.
I'm tired of reading the manual page for tar just to see how to untar a .tar.bz2 file when I encounter a different environment.
Two options, and I use one of them. :)
While I realize a lot of people wouldn't like to do option 1 because they hate guis, I think it's actually bad to do option 2 because it means that when you go sit in front of someone else's unix box, you don't know how to use the command line. You're a wizard on your own machine, but you can't use someone else's. For this reason, I just keep checking man pages or looking i scripts I've writte to find the arguments I'm looking for, and I don't bitch. I made a conscious choice to keep my skillset portable to any machine, and I make a conscious effort to keep that up.
That's so cool! I never knew that...if I hadn't already posted to this thread, I would mod you up.
It does't seem to work in Mozilla on Windows, though, and I find that frustrating. :( I use Widows at work, and Linux at home, and I find a lot of the things I do in apps in Linux don't work in the SAME apps in Windows.