IIRC, rhythmbox doesn't have smart playlists the way iTunes does.
The only real reason I'm still using xmms instead of rhthymbox, though, is that their "shuffle" mode is crappy. In XMMS, I randomize the playlist, then turn shuffle off, so that I only hear each song once per iteration through the playlist (which works out to once every 4 days, assuming I listened to the playlist continuously, without stopping for food or sleep:)
In rhythmbox, there is no "randomize playlist", only "shuffle", which is a 'pure' random play, which gives you screwy results like hearing the same song 3 times in an hour, and never hearing one other song, ever. That drives me nuts.
Installing Windows XP is a matter of putting the CD in your drive and clicking "Next" a few times.
Last time I saw an XP installer, it was far more involved than that. Perhaps what I saw is not what you get when you buy XP retail, since it was a warez'd copy on a friend's machine, but it started out being totally DOS-based, asking some partitioning questions, and then doing most of the install before loading up a graphical thing to hit "Next" a few times.
RH9, on the same machine, also involved some partitioning questions, but for the most part it was just setting the language and making sure that it detected the right type of mouse, etc, and clicking next. We did custom package selection, because I'm a control freak like that, but we could have just as easily hit "Workstation" and have it all installed for us without any real substantive questions.
I agree with you that the basic installation of knoppix is easy, but the problem with knoppix is that it's debian, and the problem with debian is that it provides very few GUI tools for configuration. What I'm saying is, Joe Sixpack would have a difficult time setting up his printer (for example) with knoppix, whereas on RedHat, it would be detected for him without any hassles.
Microsoft has thousands of employees and 50 bil in the bank, which pretty much allows them to develop any [...] technology they want and hire the best people in the industry.
Unfortunately, that hasn't stopped them from developing the worst OS, the worst Office suite, the worst email client, the worst web server, etc etc etc.
Linux is already easier to install than Windows, the problem is that people haven't heard about Linux, and even when they do, they won't switch because they want their games.
What linux really needs in order to make inroads on the desktop is to be preinstalled. And to have more games ship with Linux support right out of the box.
How about a guide on setting up a heat-sensitive fan so your system is silent when idle?
Well, that's not hard. There are a number of fans that come with temperature sensors in them (I personally use the volcano9), just put the temp sensor under the cpu, wire it into the speed control (the volcano9 has a connector for 3 different speed controllers; one is a jumper for 100% speed all the time, one is a knob for manual speed control, and another is the temp sensor, which I use).
Then it speeds up as it heats up, it works fairly well. It's not totally silent when idle, but it's quiet enough for me.
If one defines freedom by lack of restrictions, GPLed code is less free than public domain code by virtue of the GPL's specific copying conditions. Thus the only thing seperating GPLed code from other proprietary code is those cost and conditions.
You're right, of course, but your mistake is that you've defined "freedom" incorrectly:)
Saying that the public domain is more free than the GPL is sort of like saying that people living in a state of anarchy are more free than people living in a constitutional democracy. In a literal sense it might be true, but the people in the democracy generally regard it as a Good Thing that they don't have the freedom to kill each other. So, you might be less free in a democracy than in anarchy, but you'll be alive longer to enjoy your freedom.
It's the same thing, just think of software projects as the people in my analogy, and killing is taking code and putting it under a proprietary license.
To me, it's more important to be assured that I'll still have my freedom tomorrow (GPL), than it is to have pure, unadulterated freedom (public domain).
While the patent in question is questionable at best, how is Eolas evil? They filed for and were given a patent. They have now successfully defended that patent against an infringer.
The patent is obvious, and it's only being selectively enforced. What happens when Eolas goes after Mozilla, or Apple (Safari), or Opera, etc?
Also, if MS were to buy Eolas you think they'd just suddenly go and license that patent to everyone out of the goodness of their heart?
I agree with you on that one. The only thing worse than Eolas owning this patent would be Microsoft owning this patent. They'd use it, like they use their marketing clout, to destroy the competition without actually bothering to develop a technically superior product.
I seem to remember having the same problem, but I think it does start, it's just very, VERY slow. Remember, this is OpenOffice, which is a slow loader to begin with, plus it has to be decompressed first, which is slow, and it needs to be read from a CD, which is also slow.
Try having some more patience, I think it does actually load eventually.
Yeah, knoppix is great. I brought it over to a friend's house once, and we booted it on his roommate's WinXP box that we didn't have a login for... we mounted his drive and read all his files anyway. We found his stash of porn, it was hilarious:)
Sunday night's showed Marshall using a compiler!:)
Yeah, that was funny. He was trying to de-fang some amazing AI virus that was about to take over the world, the only shots of the screen that we got to see showed us a standard configure script and a Makefile.:)
If the government requires that all communications be in MS Word format, everybody wanting to do business with the government suddenly has to pay money to Microsoft. Either that, or break the law. Neither option is really all that great.
And don't try to tell me that you can save your OpenOffice documents in MSWord format, that's flakey at best.
If, on the other hand, the government required all communication to be in PDF, then it would be a level playing field. You can create PDFs with OpenOffice, or Adobe products, or whatever. You can create PDFs with vim, but that's easier said than done:)
Why should any sane business make themselves relient on any single supplier?
They absolutely should not, if they feel like having any long-term relevance.
This what makes Open Source so good, though; there's no such thing as a single supplier under the GPL, anybody can be a supplier, for any program.
Eg, if you run Mandrake, and MandrakeSoft folds, all the component software on that system will still be developed by the developers. You could even pay some other company (like RedHat) to help you with the mess that Mandrake left before for you when it died.
A more extreme and contrived example... if Linus Torvalds himself were assassinated, it wouldn't really stop Linux development. There might be some slowdown as the community re-organized itself, but there are a lot of developers with their own kernel trees that could easily become the "official" tree.
Why not have a standard set of textbooks for these subjects and keep printing them for decades, without gratuitous changes to create new editions.
But then the publishing cartels wouldn't make any money! They's publish these books one year, and then every subsequent year, the filthy students would buy these books used!
This Appgen company, sold a proprietary product that developers depended on. Then they disappeared, and now the developers are in a bind. They've sunk a lot of money into it, and have nothing to show for it.
Browsers, on the other hand, come in many varieties, many of which are open source. The fact that there are open source browsers means that the browser will *always* be there. Mozilla isn't going to disappear overnight, because the code is in the wild. Even if all the developers quit tomorrow, somebody, somewhere could easily pick up where they left off. In other words, you can't kill an Open Source project (they can die on their own right through lack of interest, but they can't actively be killed).
That's why developing for appgen makes you a sharecropper, while developing for the web does not.
Why would they bother? They're astronauts, not janitors. The only time I could see them putting any effort into cleaning ink stains off something is if the ink was obscuring some important information (such as the display sceen on a control panel or something similar).
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, of course.
I think most windows developers are just fed up with all of windows' flaws, and when they responded to the poll, they were thinking "whatever 'linux' is, it has to be better than this":)
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IIRC, rhythmbox doesn't have smart playlists the way iTunes does.
:)
The only real reason I'm still using xmms instead of rhthymbox, though, is that their "shuffle" mode is crappy. In XMMS, I randomize the playlist, then turn shuffle off, so that I only hear each song once per iteration through the playlist (which works out to once every 4 days, assuming I listened to the playlist continuously, without stopping for food or sleep
In rhythmbox, there is no "randomize playlist", only "shuffle", which is a 'pure' random play, which gives you screwy results like hearing the same song 3 times in an hour, and never hearing one other song, ever. That drives me nuts.
Installing Windows XP is a matter of putting the CD in your drive and clicking "Next" a few times.
Last time I saw an XP installer, it was far more involved than that. Perhaps what I saw is not what you get when you buy XP retail, since it was a warez'd copy on a friend's machine, but it started out being totally DOS-based, asking some partitioning questions, and then doing most of the install before loading up a graphical thing to hit "Next" a few times.
RH9, on the same machine, also involved some partitioning questions, but for the most part it was just setting the language and making sure that it detected the right type of mouse, etc, and clicking next. We did custom package selection, because I'm a control freak like that, but we could have just as easily hit "Workstation" and have it all installed for us without any real substantive questions.
I agree with you that the basic installation of knoppix is easy, but the problem with knoppix is that it's debian, and the problem with debian is that it provides very few GUI tools for configuration. What I'm saying is, Joe Sixpack would have a difficult time setting up his printer (for example) with knoppix, whereas on RedHat, it would be detected for him without any hassles.
Slightly out of context:
Microsoft has thousands of employees and 50 bil in the bank, which pretty much allows them to develop any [...] technology they want and hire the best people in the industry.
Unfortunately, that hasn't stopped them from developing the worst OS, the worst Office suite, the worst email client, the worst web server, etc etc etc.
We need easier setup and a useable interface.
Linux is already easier to install than Windows, the problem is that people haven't heard about Linux, and even when they do, they won't switch because they want their games.
What linux really needs in order to make inroads on the desktop is to be preinstalled. And to have more games ship with Linux support right out of the box.
I wonder what disrespects Microsoft more: pirating their shitty office suite, or hating it so much that you refuse to even pirate it.
Actually, pirating Office just furthers their monopoly lock-in, and helps them with their plans for world domination.
By pirating office, you're only making the world a worse place for everybody but Microsoft. For your own sake, use OpenOffice!
I wonder if the software blocks porn and anti-gun sites as well?
The article just said that they don't block anti-gun sites.
Hell, it's in the summary. Christ!
I love that graph.
:)
At no point in history has Apache ever had less marketshare than Microsoft's webserver.
How about a guide on setting up a heat-sensitive fan so your system is silent when idle?
Well, that's not hard. There are a number of fans that come with temperature sensors in them (I personally use the volcano9), just put the temp sensor under the cpu, wire it into the speed control (the volcano9 has a connector for 3 different speed controllers; one is a jumper for 100% speed all the time, one is a knob for manual speed control, and another is the temp sensor, which I use).
Then it speeds up as it heats up, it works fairly well. It's not totally silent when idle, but it's quiet enough for me.
Most of ESR's page doesn't validate as XHTML anyway, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.
Besides, his other contributions have been worthy enough that I'm not going to chastise him for forgetting a single slash.
If one defines freedom by lack of restrictions, GPLed code is less free than public domain code by virtue of the GPL's specific copying conditions. Thus the only thing seperating GPLed code from other proprietary code is those cost and conditions.
:)
You're right, of course, but your mistake is that you've defined "freedom" incorrectly
Saying that the public domain is more free than the GPL is sort of like saying that people living in a state of anarchy are more free than people living in a constitutional democracy. In a literal sense it might be true, but the people in the democracy generally regard it as a Good Thing that they don't have the freedom to kill each other. So, you might be less free in a democracy than in anarchy, but you'll be alive longer to enjoy your freedom.
It's the same thing, just think of software projects as the people in my analogy, and killing is taking code and putting it under a proprietary license.
To me, it's more important to be assured that I'll still have my freedom tomorrow (GPL), than it is to have pure, unadulterated freedom (public domain).
While the patent in question is questionable at best, how is Eolas evil? They filed for and were given a patent. They have now successfully defended that patent against an infringer.
The patent is obvious, and it's only being selectively enforced. What happens when Eolas goes after Mozilla, or Apple (Safari), or Opera, etc?
Also, if MS were to buy Eolas you think they'd just suddenly go and license that patent to everyone out of the goodness of their heart?
I agree with you on that one. The only thing worse than Eolas owning this patent would be Microsoft owning this patent. They'd use it, like they use their marketing clout, to destroy the competition without actually bothering to develop a technically superior product.
I seem to remember having the same problem, but I think it does start, it's just very, VERY slow. Remember, this is OpenOffice, which is a slow loader to begin with, plus it has to be decompressed first, which is slow, and it needs to be read from a CD, which is also slow.
Try having some more patience, I think it does actually load eventually.
Yeah, knoppix is great. I brought it over to a friend's house once, and we booted it on his roommate's WinXP box that we didn't have a login for... we mounted his drive and read all his files anyway. We found his stash of porn, it was hilarious :)
Sunday night's showed Marshall using a compiler! :)
:)
Yeah, that was funny. He was trying to de-fang some amazing AI virus that was about to take over the world, the only shots of the screen that we got to see showed us a standard configure script and a Makefile.
No, Inherently bad is correct.
:)
If the government requires that all communications be in MS Word format, everybody wanting to do business with the government suddenly has to pay money to Microsoft. Either that, or break the law. Neither option is really all that great.
And don't try to tell me that you can save your OpenOffice documents in MSWord format, that's flakey at best.
If, on the other hand, the government required all communication to be in PDF, then it would be a level playing field. You can create PDFs with OpenOffice, or Adobe products, or whatever. You can create PDFs with vim, but that's easier said than done
Why should any sane business make themselves relient on any single supplier?
They absolutely should not, if they feel like having any long-term relevance.
This what makes Open Source so good, though; there's no such thing as a single supplier under the GPL, anybody can be a supplier, for any program.
Eg, if you run Mandrake, and MandrakeSoft folds, all the component software on that system will still be developed by the developers. You could even pay some other company (like RedHat) to help you with the mess that Mandrake left before for you when it died.
A more extreme and contrived example... if Linus Torvalds himself were assassinated, it wouldn't really stop Linux development. There might be some slowdown as the community re-organized itself, but there are a lot of developers with their own kernel trees that could easily become the "official" tree.
Why not have a standard set of textbooks for these subjects and keep printing them for decades, without gratuitous changes to create new editions.
But then the publishing cartels wouldn't make any money! They's publish these books one year, and then every subsequent year, the filthy students would buy these books used!
Please, think of the cartels!
Bzzt. Wrong. You lose, but thanks for playing.
Windows is hardly "100% right". Unless you *want* all those viruses and crap. I don't.
Linux is "100% right", for me at least. I haven't owned a PC with Windows installed on it for 3 years.
Something that does everything I need to do can hardly be described as "20% right"
Well, that's what this whole article is about.
This Appgen company, sold a proprietary product that developers depended on. Then they disappeared, and now the developers are in a bind. They've sunk a lot of money into it, and have nothing to show for it.
Browsers, on the other hand, come in many varieties, many of which are open source. The fact that there are open source browsers means that the browser will *always* be there. Mozilla isn't going to disappear overnight, because the code is in the wild. Even if all the developers quit tomorrow, somebody, somewhere could easily pick up where they left off. In other words, you can't kill an Open Source project (they can die on their own right through lack of interest, but they can't actively be killed).
That's why developing for appgen makes you a sharecropper, while developing for the web does not.
Imagine the pain of trying to clean off the walls
Why would they bother? They're astronauts, not janitors. The only time I could see them putting any effort into cleaning ink stains off something is if the ink was obscuring some important information (such as the display sceen on a control panel or something similar).
I cannot even think of a company ... I'm proud to support
Redhat? Google?
Yeah, I'm grasping at straws too.
Capitalism in the USA has devolved into corporate welfarism.
I think tradition would demand it be called SARS: SARS Ain't Rsync, See?. It's recursive, plus it's named after a nasty virus as a bonus! :)
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, of course.
:)
I think most windows developers are just fed up with all of windows' flaws, and when they responded to the poll, they were thinking "whatever 'linux' is, it has to be better than this"
whatever happened to using the right tool for the right job
I think what he was trying to say is that the Right Tool stops being right when you're not allowed to use it anymore (ie, if the company folds).
Therefore, it's better to use a tool that's 90% right, if it'll be there forever, as opposed to a tool that's 100%, but might be gone tomorrow.