Once a company hits a certain market penetration, I think they have a bit of a responsibility to the public. eBay controls online auctions, and as the auctions are technically legal, they should keep out of it. IMHO, of course.
Notice how I said "Don't become a kernel hacker"? But if you can't tell that your car is just out of gas, and it won't matter if you turn the key, well, then I will call you stupid. But knowing that it's out of gas takes just a teeny bit of learning about the machine, and that's all you really need to do with Linux. Computers are complicated. Don't think they aren't because you know the quirks of Windows. Perhaps you should take a step back and realize how much you actually have to know about Windows to make it do what you want. You've actually spent a lot of time acquiring those 'skills'. All you need to do is invest a little time in Linux, and you could switch.
I'm not telling you that you should be able to hack together a network driver. But I am telling you that you'll have to make a few more decisions than just blithely clicking "yes" like a retarded muppet.
When someone doesn't care enough to do a little bit of work for something they want and would rather whine, I call that lazy. I think most people would. And he's talking about the install. Installation is not an "easy" thing no matter which way you slice it, especially on current system architectures, so yes, it is a stupid question to be asking.
Thanks for playing though:) I still suggest that the GGPP just stay with Windows because thinking and research is apparently out of the question, and he would rather be told what to do.
But will you bitch when you can't save your documents from Windows? Or should it resize the Windows partition by default and make your system dual boot? Or perhaps a LiveCD would be more your speed.
I suppose that my point is that if you are so lazy and stupid that you can't go to the trouble of understanding just a little bit about your machine, stay with Windows. My mom could stick the ubuntu disc in and follow a printed-out install guide fairly easily. If you can't, you're the kind of person that drives 20,000 miles without changing oil in your car and can't understand why that might be bad.
Now I know someone is gonna say "This is why people won't switch to linux, you geeks are always wanting people to understand things!". The long and short of it is yes, I do. I get tired of people who are proud of their inability or unwillingness to comprehend even the smallest of things. I don't think everyone should have to be a kernel hacker. But I do think that people ought to have half a clue about the things they do, no matter if it's with computers, cooking, driving, whatever.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
- Robert Heinlein
OSS software never stops being free. You have no such assurances with Windows. I know if I were an African nation, I wouldn't want to be beholden to a monopolistic American company with a history of fucking over competitors and users.
And your implication that Windows is perfect on shipping is stupid, because it's far from it. Especially a custom-developed system. Ever see the problems that BMW had with their embedded systems? And they actually paid for that crap.
"C'mon kids, the first hit is free... we'll only start charging you once we've got you hooked. Sure, you can get the source to other software and actually be assured that the rug won't be yanked out from under you with the other stuff, but why? This is free, too! Look, shiny!"
And on the other hand, I have a minimal install of Ubuntu that's the only distro I found that will detect and use my HD3000 card right out of the box, and works wonderfully with MythTV 0.19. Anecdotes prove nothing.
Try ubuntu then. They've got LiveCD's, use.deb, have a huge community and it's all centered around the user. I don't know how good SimplyMEPIS is, but it's worth a try if you want to look at something else.
A million is actually a hell of a lot. The population of the USA is less than 300 million people, and the vast majority of those aren't gamers, and even if a large fraction of them are, they aren't going to be getting a $500 system on a whim, or are going to be sharing a system with roommates/siblings/children/whoever. 1-6 million units actually sounds just about right, especially for a launch. Hell, a previous poster said that the 360 hasn't even gotten through all 150k units shipped to Japan.
I'm sure they do. But a command line has much lower resolution than a full X11 setup, and believe it or not, graphics can sometimes convey more information faster than lines of text (you have heard the picture is worth 1000 words saying, right?). But performance is why the DE's that these use are things like FVWM and Fluxbox rather than KDE for the most part.
Do you also realize that when you "install" software this way in Windows, they usually just create their expected registry keys when they don't find them? When you delete the program, those keys are left behind. Which is why you have to reinstall so often. An install/uninstall in Windows does more than just copy files around, hopefully. Same in Linux. It sets up services, changes configurations, and just gets things running in general. Doing things in the non-standard way by an admittedly non-expert user just causes you grief, and makes you look silly in front of people who do know what they're doing.
The TweakUI powertoy from MS actually lets you do things like X-style mouse focus. It's not perfectly Linux like, and some apps are just freaking stupid about it, but it's better than nothing when you're forced to use Windows.
Ummm... pawn shop anyone? I always haggle prices down. Go in a few times, see what's not selling, and offer to take it off their hands for a better price:) (assuming I actually want the item in question.) Patience is a virtue.
Repetition is how you learn things. Give me a reason to repeat something, and I'll learn it. But just learning the tables for the sake of learning the tables... meh. I never did get the hang of that.
I was always amused, because they started us out with like, up to 6. I'd get about in the middle of the pack of the scores, and then they'd spring tables including 7's. I'd always be one of the first few done with those, if not the first. I could do the math. I never cared to just memorize bullshit until I actually needed it though. I'd memorize some of the big ones (6x6, 7x5, stuff like that) and then just do a little addition or subtraction to get the answer.
Ugh... you could stand using WinME? At least XP has some decent wireless settings options, and you can kill a lot of services to make it run about as fast as 2000 in about as much RAM.
If you're really using open source, you shouldn't need much by way of AV, except maybe a mail scanner, and it's domain of scanned files should stay away from the system. And at any rate, configure it so it doesn't auto-delete or even quarantine things things. Make sure it's ok to remove the vmlinuz or kernel.dll file personally.
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot:
3. Buy shredder
4. Remember to use it. For everything.
I personally prefer just being my own email host. Makes life much easier.
Once a company hits a certain market penetration, I think they have a bit of a responsibility to the public. eBay controls online auctions, and as the auctions are technically legal, they should keep out of it. IMHO, of course.
Notice how I said "Don't become a kernel hacker"? But if you can't tell that your car is just out of gas, and it won't matter if you turn the key, well, then I will call you stupid. But knowing that it's out of gas takes just a teeny bit of learning about the machine, and that's all you really need to do with Linux. Computers are complicated. Don't think they aren't because you know the quirks of Windows. Perhaps you should take a step back and realize how much you actually have to know about Windows to make it do what you want. You've actually spent a lot of time acquiring those 'skills'. All you need to do is invest a little time in Linux, and you could switch.
I'm not telling you that you should be able to hack together a network driver. But I am telling you that you'll have to make a few more decisions than just blithely clicking "yes" like a retarded muppet.
When someone doesn't care enough to do a little bit of work for something they want and would rather whine, I call that lazy. I think most people would. And he's talking about the install. Installation is not an "easy" thing no matter which way you slice it, especially on current system architectures, so yes, it is a stupid question to be asking. :) I still suggest that the GGPP just stay with Windows because thinking and research is apparently out of the question, and he would rather be told what to do.
Thanks for playing though
But will you bitch when you can't save your documents from Windows? Or should it resize the Windows partition by default and make your system dual boot? Or perhaps a LiveCD would be more your speed.
I suppose that my point is that if you are so lazy and stupid that you can't go to the trouble of understanding just a little bit about your machine, stay with Windows. My mom could stick the ubuntu disc in and follow a printed-out install guide fairly easily. If you can't, you're the kind of person that drives 20,000 miles without changing oil in your car and can't understand why that might be bad.
Now I know someone is gonna say "This is why people won't switch to linux, you geeks are always wanting people to understand things!". The long and short of it is yes, I do. I get tired of people who are proud of their inability or unwillingness to comprehend even the smallest of things. I don't think everyone should have to be a kernel hacker. But I do think that people ought to have half a clue about the things they do, no matter if it's with computers, cooking, driving, whatever.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
- Robert Heinlein
I'll kick ya in the shin, but I don't think this is a dream :(
OSS software never stops being free. You have no such assurances with Windows. I know if I were an African nation, I wouldn't want to be beholden to a monopolistic American company with a history of fucking over competitors and users.
And your implication that Windows is perfect on shipping is stupid, because it's far from it. Especially a custom-developed system. Ever see the problems that BMW had with their embedded systems? And they actually paid for that crap.
"C'mon kids, the first hit is free... we'll only start charging you once we've got you hooked. Sure, you can get the source to other software and actually be assured that the rug won't be yanked out from under you with the other stuff, but why? This is free, too! Look, shiny!"
And on the other hand, I have a minimal install of Ubuntu that's the only distro I found that will detect and use my HD3000 card right out of the box, and works wonderfully with MythTV 0.19. Anecdotes prove nothing.
Try ubuntu then. They've got LiveCD's, use .deb, have a huge community and it's all centered around the user. I don't know how good SimplyMEPIS is, but it's worth a try if you want to look at something else.
A million is actually a hell of a lot. The population of the USA is less than 300 million people, and the vast majority of those aren't gamers, and even if a large fraction of them are, they aren't going to be getting a $500 system on a whim, or are going to be sharing a system with roommates/siblings/children/whoever. 1-6 million units actually sounds just about right, especially for a launch. Hell, a previous poster said that the 360 hasn't even gotten through all 150k units shipped to Japan.
Because most people don't want to use a PC on their big-screen TV, and a PC is more temperamental than "stick disc in and hit power"?
I'm sure they do. But a command line has much lower resolution than a full X11 setup, and believe it or not, graphics can sometimes convey more information faster than lines of text (you have heard the picture is worth 1000 words saying, right?). But performance is why the DE's that these use are things like FVWM and Fluxbox rather than KDE for the most part.
You know, this might have been an interesting post if it was coherent...
Can you donate like, 1/4th of your RAM to someone needy? That'd run something like 15 datacenters apparently... :)
I see someone accidentally did an rm -fr * when they meant to do a rm -fr .* recently...
Do you also realize that when you "install" software this way in Windows, they usually just create their expected registry keys when they don't find them? When you delete the program, those keys are left behind. Which is why you have to reinstall so often. An install/uninstall in Windows does more than just copy files around, hopefully. Same in Linux. It sets up services, changes configurations, and just gets things running in general. Doing things in the non-standard way by an admittedly non-expert user just causes you grief, and makes you look silly in front of people who do know what they're doing.
The TweakUI powertoy from MS actually lets you do things like X-style mouse focus. It's not perfectly Linux like, and some apps are just freaking stupid about it, but it's better than nothing when you're forced to use Windows.
I only respect those who do the same for me. And "those" includes the company I work for. Fortunately, they are good people ;)
Ummm... pawn shop anyone? I always haggle prices down. Go in a few times, see what's not selling, and offer to take it off their hands for a better price :) (assuming I actually want the item in question.) Patience is a virtue.
Repetition is how you learn things. Give me a reason to repeat something, and I'll learn it. But just learning the tables for the sake of learning the tables... meh. I never did get the hang of that.
I was always amused, because they started us out with like, up to 6. I'd get about in the middle of the pack of the scores, and then they'd spring tables including 7's. I'd always be one of the first few done with those, if not the first. I could do the math. I never cared to just memorize bullshit until I actually needed it though. I'd memorize some of the big ones (6x6, 7x5, stuff like that) and then just do a little addition or subtraction to get the answer.
Ugh... you could stand using WinME? At least XP has some decent wireless settings options, and you can kill a lot of services to make it run about as fast as 2000 in about as much RAM.
If you're really using open source, you shouldn't need much by way of AV, except maybe a mail scanner, and it's domain of scanned files should stay away from the system. And at any rate, configure it so it doesn't auto-delete or even quarantine things things. Make sure it's ok to remove the vmlinuz or kernel.dll file personally.
Meanwhile your credit card data is being sent to Kathmandu...
So spit and polish is a hate crime? :)