The first thing I did with my new installation of XP Pro was convert the desktop to "Classic". The default desktop, teletubby, is TOO "helpful", like a petulant child always trying to 'help' but really just getting in the way and being a nuisance.
However, since I spend 99.9% of my time in Linux (SimplyMEPIS) the XP desktop isn't much of a bother. Later this year, when my need for XP is history, XP will become history.
Plenty of hardware has absolutely dire and/or semi-functioning drivers for Windows too...
Exactly!
A couple of months ago I was asked to a class on a PCL tool so that I could teach how to use it to the guy who asked me. He gave me a new Gateway M675PRR laptop to use (sweet box!) and I decided to buy a copy of XP Pro and put it on one of my Linux boxes (2 years old) as a backup, just in case the laptop went out before my mission was complete. That copy of XP Pro cost $214 (the cheapest I could find on the web) and I ended up installing it TWICE because making VFAT the default OS for C:\ didn't work. (I wanted to be able to read and write all the HD partitions) After the second install the only thing that XP recognized was the HD, monitor, keyboard and mouse. Nothing else. No sound. No DVD. No CD. No WonderTV card. No scanner. No printer. It took several more hours to run down drivers to get everything working. Installing SimplyMEPIS-3.3 on that whitebox took 15 minutes and EVERYTHING was recognized.
Was presented on Oct 25, 1988, on PBS. "Abstract: This video examines the troubling question of scientific fraud: How prevalent is it? Who commits it? And what happens when the perpetrators are caught? Factors contributing to "bad science" include sloppy research, personal bias, lack of objectivity, "cooking and trimming", "publish or perish" pressure, and outright fraud. The limits of peer review and other quality control systems are discussed."
I haven't watch my VHS copy in several years, but IIRC the rate of cheating among all scientists was bout 48%.
In another case two NIH scientists followed up on report of cheating brought to them by other scientists. http://onlineethics.org/reseth/okie.html "As a result of her allegations, O'Toole claims she has been effectively barred from getting a job as a researcher. She worked for her brother's moving company for a while and is currently unemployed. It was likely that any investigations of Baltimore and Imanishi-Kari would have been dropped at this point. However, after persuading O'Toole to send them the data, Stewart and Feder, NIH scientists who have taken it upon themselves to criticize current scientific standards, conducted an unofficial investigation of their own. They concluded that the presentation of the data was misleading and inaccurate and that it seemed to contradict some of the researchers' own main conclusions. Stewart and Feder attempted to publish an article that discussed their findings, but reviewers for NIH claimed that a paper based only on an examination of partial data and without consultation with the Cell paper's authors should not be published. Stewart and Feder sent their paper to the authors and asked for more data, but the authors refused. The NIH finally allowed Stewart and Feder to submit their paper to Cell, but Cell refused to publish it."
If you check out the price of naked PCs and toss in a free Debian clone like SimplyMEPIS you have a powerful GUI Desktop with a powerful package management system called Synaptics. The combined price of equally capable hardware plus MEPIS is MUCH less than that of an Apple computer with Tiger, and that is not including the additional proprietary (EXPENSIVE) software you'd have to purchase for Apple to do anything.
If Apple dropped the hardware they'd have to compete with Windows for a space on Dell's desktops. THEN they'd learn the real meaning of the power of a ruthless monopoly. As long as Bush and money-grubbing politicians are in power don't expect the M$ monopoly to disappear anytime soon.
Need further proof? Just watch the EU resistance to the Microsoft envasion fade away as various politicians receive liberal campaign dontation$, promises of construction and jobs in their regions, etc.... Or, conversely, the threat of plant closings and job losses (which has already happened - google it) if they don't get on board with M$'s "interpretation" of patents and copyrights.
It's a Gateway M675 PRR with a 17" LCD and, except for a single wart, it's works beautifully, especially with SimplyMEPIS-3.3
In fact, the MEPIS side works BETTER than the XP Pro side. I don't have to buy a better firewall or pay for anti-virus software subscriptions. On MEPIS the printer connected via the WPS54G always connects and works flawlessly. On XP the printer connection is not so reliable.
The only downside to Gateway is the Windows centric support protocols, which require installing ActiveX components over the web. And, you HAVE to use IE 5.5+ to use their support IF you want to do an online chat with a techie or allow them to scan your system. FireFox won't work, so you are exposing your systemn to attack while you are seeking help. (Wart? Neither Nero 6.0 or K3B would burn a CD on the DVD/CD multi drive that was installed, which wasn't the one that was ordered, but the cd burner embedded in Windows Explorer would. So, it's a software problem.)
A great laptop with a great wireless network has produced the most useful and easiest to use computer environment I've ever experienced since I purchased an Apple II+ in 1978.
The Best Buy in Lincoln has been offereing the latest versions of SUSE for several years.
In 2002 I purchased SUSE 6.4 from Best Buy, for my employer, to put up a Linux server for phone download of tax return results, because the Win98 + WildCat BBS "solution" kept falling over and the MSCEs were getting tired of coming in on evenings and weekends to reboot the box. In 36 months of 24/7 operation the Linux solution, which was SUSE 6.4 with one bash script and two Python scripts each less than a page long, never crashed once and never lost a call.
Win98+WildCat TCO: $500+ for software, and about 1,000 hours of MSCE time rebooting, reinstalling, and rebuilding the Windows solution. It had to have new Pentium 3 (iirc), 512MB RAM and two 8GB hds.
Linux TCO: $38 for software and 24 hours of my time to write the scripts and test them. I had never written a Python script before that. The MSCEs gave me one of their oldest boxes, a P75 with 64MB RAM and two 1GB hds.
When asked what she thought about the KDE desktop the person who did the file maintenance said it was no different from using Win95. Her re-training costs were $0.
As I write I am also using VNC to connect remotely to SUSE running as a Server, using the KDE 3.2 desktop, and developing/compiling QT3 applications on it. I also use KDevelop on that server. One app had a tab frame with four tabs and the second tab had over 60 textboxes. The app was connected to a PostgreSQL 7.4 database, also on the same server, as a stand in for an Oracle database, since PostgreSQL syntax is so similar to Oracle's. The speed of the app was fantastic. I copied the ASCII source files to my Win2K workstation and changed 6 lines to redirect the app to an Oracle test bed, made a global change of the font, and the app compiled and ran fine. The promise of platform independence was realized on our test bed.
It looks like we will be purchasing a commerical QT4 license when that product is released.
Perhaps HP has recognzied the threat that the XBox 360 is to their home PC market? According to Robert X Cringely, the XBox can, besides playing games, browse the web and do email, which is all that a large majority of home users use a PC for.
I wonder how long it will take them to realize that Microsoft is now in direct competition to them and is using PR to "cutt off the air supply" to their home PC market? Once they realize it will they begin behaving like a truely independent corporation, instead of a subsidiary of Microsoft? Will they offer Linux preinstalled to the US market? Doubtful.
First, all IP addresses that connect to it can be logged by federal agents with using logging tools, and what those USA IP addresses download can be logged too.
Secondly, the federal government can require ISPs in the US to block the IP of The PirateBay and other sites that engage in illegal transfers of copyrighted material.
Rather that blowing off your mouth about the loss of "your rights", like some petulant teenager who slept through civics class, you should be working to get fair use laws enforced so that viewing of legally purchased but encrypted DVDs can be done on any OS, no just Windows. That's really the only problem.
Those in the US who illegally download copyrighted material or make illegal copies to pass around to their friends are raping the Goose that lays the golden eggs. Or, do you think your skills and cash reserves are sufficient to create a work of art of a quality equal to Lucas's Episode III, and then throw away that $200M just to entertain some folks by putting it on ThePriatesBay?
I'll bet you probably run Windows but because/. focuses on FOSS it is users of FOSS that get the blame for all the theft of copyrighted materal.
The KDE-Konqueror team was elated two years ago with the news that Apple was going to use KHTML in their browser. Like the CEO's of new software startups that were wined & dined by Microsoft before they were deflowered of their innovative software, the Konqueror coding crew now knows what it is like "working with" a company whose motivation is not community but profit if not just plain greed.
Apple used KHTML to build their browser but made calls to their own proprietary API, resulting in source that could not be effectively back ported to KDE's Konqueror. The effect of this software 'sharing' of GPL code was that a corporation selling proprietary hardware driven by proprietary software was able to exploit GPL software WITHOUT actually allowing the FOSS community to benefit from their exploitation. The "two street" of code sharing was downhill on one side and uphill on the other... in fact a wall. Apple's OS now includes a browser built on Konqueror GPL code but, IN VIOLATION OF THE GPL, the enhancements to that code were added in such a way that the FOSS community cannot benefit from them. This effectively turned the GPL license into a BSD license! The GPL needs to be modified to address this subtle form of code theft.
The only difference between Microsoft's "thought thefts" and Apple's is that Apple used a little more finess and polish. The RESULTS are identical, however, which puts them both in the same class -- corporate thieves.
I began my PC consulting in 1980, after two years of "moonlighting' on it while teaching fulltime. That was during the Carter Inflation period when the prime interest rate peaked at over 20% and companies were laying off people in the 100,000's. These folks couldn't find other jobs because of the massive layoffs, so they took their savings and/or retirement money and started their own businesses.
While their activity was good for my business (recommending hardware, installing it and writing the software), I watched dozens of these 'startups' last until their money ran out and then fold. I do not know of a single startup that survived, so the rate of failure was much worse than 9 out of 10. Overall I'd say it was closer to 999 out of 1,000, or even worse.
I did noticed some things that were common with the failures. They did NOT understand the demographics of their business, nor the concept of location, and they all used the word "things" in their company name. "Phones and Things" stands out in my mind as one classic example.
I see a similar situation occuring today. Although the Prime rate is low other economic conditions are giving rise to massive layoffs and job losses. The recent court opinion in the United Airlines concerning retirement funds will only make matters worse. While taking my wife to dinner the other day we drove by a new startup. The name on the building included the word "things". I give it six months.
At worst, Groklaw has exaggerated the significance of the history of Project Monterey.
Exaggerated? Hardly. Ransom Love himself, at the LinuxWorld 2000 convention, is RECORDED as saying that SCO was in the process of moving UNIX code to AI-32 and AI-64 Linux as quickly as possible. This was shortly AFTER Caldra acquired SCO. You can catch that comment at the 47 minute mark of his 50 minute speech at: http://technetcast.ddj.com/tnc_stream.html?stream_ id=393 and other places. I have the last 2 min and 50 seconds in an mp3 clip.
I've been using Linux since early1998 and I stopped recompiling kernels five years ago. With the module approach there's no need to recompile kernels anymore.
The amount of disinformation being spread on this subject is amazing. People are responding to accusations as if they were facts.
First, Torvolds has never been against using proprietary software. His has always advocated using the best software for the job at hand. After reading the orignal sources I've come to the conclusion that no one was at fault nor was anyone casting blame. All of the possibilities that people are whining about were considered by Torvolds when he decided to adopt BK for his own use in managing the kernel, including the possibility that McVoy could "turn to the dard side". As far as the claim that Torvolds tried to get Tridge to stop I cite the following extract from a Torvolds email posted three years ago.
http://lwn.net/2002/0314/a/lt-bitkeeper.php3 The most productive thing people could do might be to just do a BK->CVS gateway, if you really feel like it. Or just go on and ignore the fact that some people are using BK - you don't actually have to ever even know. Linus"
Most people appear to be citing sources that are citing sources who heard it from a friend who has barber who cuts Tovold's hair.
If there is a bad thing that has developed because if the use of BK it is that development of a FOSS enterprise class SCM has not recieved the focus and efforts it should have. Now, hopefully, that will change.
SimplyMEPIS-3.3 installed onto my new Gateway M675XL laptop perfectly. It even automatically connected the internal broadcom 11g wireless chip and gave me 54MGz of browsing pleasure!
Slashdot Mirror
The first thing I did with my new installation of XP Pro was convert the desktop to "Classic". The default desktop, teletubby, is TOO "helpful", like a petulant child always trying to 'help' but really just getting in the way and being a nuisance.
However, since I spend 99.9% of my time in Linux (SimplyMEPIS) the XP desktop isn't much of a bother.
Later this year, when my need for XP is history, XP will become history.
Exactly!
A couple of months ago I was asked to a class on a PCL tool so that I could teach how to use it to the guy who asked me. He gave me a new Gateway M675PRR laptop to use (sweet box!) and I decided to buy a copy of XP Pro and put it on one of my Linux boxes (2 years old) as a backup, just in case the laptop went out before my mission was complete. That copy of XP Pro cost $214 (the cheapest I could find on the web) and I ended up installing it TWICE because making VFAT the default OS for C:\ didn't work. (I wanted to be able to read and write all the HD partitions) After the second install the only thing that XP recognized was the HD, monitor, keyboard and mouse. Nothing else. No sound. No DVD. No CD. No WonderTV card. No scanner. No printer. It took several more hours to run down drivers to get everything working. Installing SimplyMEPIS-3.3 on that whitebox took 15 minutes and EVERYTHING was recognized.
Was presented on Oct 25, 1988, on PBS.
e ntist/t-Fraud-investigators
"Abstract:
This video examines the troubling question of scientific fraud: How prevalent is it? Who commits it? And what happens when the perpetrators are caught? Factors contributing to "bad science" include sloppy research, personal bias, lack of objectivity, "cooking and trimming", "publish or perish" pressure, and outright fraud. The limits of peer review and other quality control systems are discussed."
I haven't watch my VHS copy in several years, but IIRC the rate of cheating among all scientists was bout 48%.
In another case two NIH scientists followed up on report of cheating brought to them by other scientists. http://onlineethics.org/reseth/okie.html
"As a result of her allegations, O'Toole claims she has been effectively barred from getting a job as a researcher. She worked for her brother's moving company for a while and is currently unemployed. It was likely that any investigations of Baltimore and Imanishi-Kari would have been dropped at this point. However, after persuading O'Toole to send them the data, Stewart and Feder, NIH scientists who have taken it upon themselves to criticize current scientific standards, conducted an unofficial investigation of their own. They concluded that the presentation of the data was misleading and inaccurate and that it seemed to contradict some of the researchers' own main conclusions. Stewart and Feder attempted to publish an article that discussed their findings, but reviewers for NIH claimed that a paper based only on an examination of partial data and without consultation with the Cell paper's authors should not be published. Stewart and Feder sent their paper to the authors and asked for more data, but the authors refused. The NIH finally allowed Stewart and Feder to submit their paper to Cell, but Cell refused to publish it."
Because of their whistle blowing they eventually lost their jobs. http://felix.unife.it/Root/d-University/d-The-sci
That's what it looks like to me.
The giant Cube can't be far way!
All your printers are belong to us!
If you check out the price of naked PCs and toss in a free Debian clone like SimplyMEPIS you have a powerful GUI Desktop with a powerful package management system called Synaptics. The combined price of equally capable hardware plus MEPIS is MUCH less than that of an Apple computer with Tiger, and that is not including the additional proprietary (EXPENSIVE) software you'd have to purchase for Apple to do anything.
If Apple dropped the hardware they'd have to compete with Windows for a space on Dell's desktops. THEN they'd learn the real meaning of the power of a ruthless monopoly. As long as Bush and money-grubbing politicians are in power don't expect the M$ monopoly to disappear anytime soon.
Need further proof? Just watch the EU resistance to the Microsoft envasion fade away as various politicians receive liberal campaign dontation$, promises of construction and jobs in their regions, etc.... Or, conversely, the threat of plant closings and job losses (which has already happened - google it) if they don't get on board with M$'s "interpretation" of patents and copyrights.
getting my first laptop three months ago.
It's a Gateway M675 PRR with a 17" LCD and, except for a single wart, it's works beautifully, especially with SimplyMEPIS-3.3
In fact, the MEPIS side works BETTER than the XP Pro side. I don't have to buy a better firewall or pay for anti-virus software subscriptions. On MEPIS the printer connected via the WPS54G always connects and works flawlessly. On XP the printer connection is not so reliable.
The only downside to Gateway is the Windows centric support protocols, which require installing ActiveX components over the web. And, you HAVE to use IE 5.5+ to use their support IF you want to do an online chat with a techie or allow them to scan your system. FireFox won't work, so you are exposing your systemn to attack while you are seeking help. (Wart? Neither Nero 6.0 or K3B would burn a CD on the DVD/CD multi drive that was installed, which wasn't the one that was ordered, but the cd burner embedded in Windows Explorer would. So, it's a software problem.)
A great laptop with a great wireless network has produced the most useful and easiest to use computer environment I've ever experienced since I purchased an Apple II+ in 1978.
Don't be.
The Best Buy in Lincoln has been offereing the latest versions of SUSE for several years.
In 2002 I purchased SUSE 6.4 from Best Buy, for my employer, to put up a Linux server for phone download of tax return results, because the Win98 + WildCat BBS "solution" kept falling over and the MSCEs were getting tired of coming in on evenings and weekends to reboot the box. In 36 months of 24/7 operation the Linux solution, which was SUSE 6.4 with one bash script and two Python scripts each less than a page long, never crashed once and never lost a call.
Win98+WildCat TCO: $500+ for software, and about 1,000 hours of MSCE time rebooting, reinstalling, and rebuilding the Windows solution. It had to have new Pentium 3 (iirc), 512MB RAM and two 8GB hds.
Linux TCO: $38 for software and 24 hours of my time to write the scripts and test them. I had never written a Python script before that. The MSCEs gave me one of their oldest boxes, a P75 with 64MB RAM and two 1GB hds.
When asked what she thought about the KDE desktop the person who did the file maintenance said it was no different from using Win95. Her re-training costs were $0.
Can you develop with Novell Desktop Linux?
We're testing that now.
As I write I am also using VNC to connect remotely to SUSE running as a Server, using the KDE 3.2 desktop, and developing/compiling QT3 applications on it. I also use KDevelop on that server. One app had a tab frame with four tabs and the second tab had over 60 textboxes. The app was connected to a PostgreSQL 7.4 database, also on the same server, as a stand in for an Oracle database, since PostgreSQL syntax is so similar to Oracle's. The speed of the app was fantastic. I copied the ASCII source files to my Win2K workstation and changed 6 lines to redirect the app to an Oracle test bed, made a global change of the font, and the app compiled and ran fine. The promise of platform independence was realized on our test bed.
It looks like we will be purchasing a commerical QT4 license when that product is released.
Linux installations I've made over the last year or two, and all of them were done with freely downloaded distros, including SELS9.
So, as a measure for the total number of Linux servers (or desktops) these retail channel figures are WORTHLESS!
Perhaps HP has recognzied the threat that the XBox 360 is to their home PC market? According to Robert X Cringely, the XBox can, besides playing games, browse the web and do email, which is all that a large majority of home users use a PC for.
I wonder how long it will take them to realize that Microsoft is now in direct competition to them and is using PR to "cutt off the air supply" to their home PC market? Once they realize it will they begin behaving like a truely independent corporation, instead of a subsidiary of Microsoft? Will they offer Linux preinstalled to the US market? Doubtful.
ThePirateBay isn't a safe harbor for thieves.
/. focuses on FOSS it is users of FOSS that get the blame for all the theft of copyrighted materal.
First, all IP addresses that connect to it can be logged by federal agents with using logging tools, and what those USA IP addresses download can be logged too.
Secondly, the federal government can require ISPs in the US to block the IP of The PirateBay and other sites that engage in illegal transfers of copyrighted material.
Rather that blowing off your mouth about the loss of "your rights", like some petulant teenager who slept through civics class, you should be working to get fair use laws enforced so that viewing of legally purchased but encrypted DVDs can be done on any OS, no just Windows. That's really the only problem.
Those in the US who illegally download copyrighted material or make illegal copies to pass around to their friends are raping the Goose that lays the golden eggs. Or, do you think your skills and cash reserves are sufficient to create a work of art of a quality equal to Lucas's Episode III, and then throw away that $200M just to entertain some folks by putting it on ThePriatesBay?
I'll bet you probably run Windows but because
This sounds familiar.
... in fact a wall. Apple's OS now includes a browser built on Konqueror GPL code but, IN VIOLATION OF THE GPL, the enhancements to that code were added in such a way that the FOSS community cannot benefit from them. This effectively turned the GPL license into a BSD license! The GPL needs to be modified to address this subtle form of code theft.
The KDE-Konqueror team was elated two years ago with the news that Apple was going to use KHTML in their browser. Like the CEO's of new software startups that were wined & dined by Microsoft before they were deflowered of their innovative software, the Konqueror coding crew now knows what it is like "working with" a company whose motivation is not community but profit if not just plain greed.
Apple used KHTML to build their browser but made calls to their own proprietary API, resulting in source that could not be effectively back ported to KDE's Konqueror. The effect of this software 'sharing' of GPL code was that a corporation selling proprietary hardware driven by proprietary software was able to exploit GPL software WITHOUT actually allowing the FOSS community to benefit from their exploitation. The "two street" of code sharing was downhill on one side and uphill on the other
The only difference between Microsoft's "thought thefts" and Apple's is that Apple used a little more finess and polish. The RESULTS are identical, however, which puts them both in the same class -- corporate thieves.
"Windows is Windows"?
Which windows is that?
Win 3.1
Win 3.11FWG
Win95
Win95 SR2
Win NT 3.5
Win NT 4.0
Win98
Win98SE
WinME
WinCM
Win2000
WinXP
Win2003
LongHorn beta
????
No doubt an app written for XP will be able to run in Win95, or Win3.1, since "Windows is Windows"
It seems you know little about Windows and even less about Linux.
and will probably be that way the rest of the day.
How much will that cost them?
I began my PC consulting in 1980, after two years of "moonlighting' on it while teaching fulltime. That was during the Carter Inflation period when the prime interest rate peaked at over 20% and companies were laying off people in the 100,000's. These folks couldn't find other jobs because of the massive layoffs, so they took their savings and/or retirement money and started their own businesses.
While their activity was good for my business (recommending hardware, installing it and writing the software), I watched dozens of these 'startups' last until their money ran out and then fold. I do not know of a single startup that survived, so the rate of failure was much worse than 9 out of 10. Overall I'd say it was closer to 999 out of 1,000, or even worse.
I did noticed some things that were common with the failures. They did NOT understand the demographics of their business, nor the concept of location, and they all used the word "things" in their company name. "Phones and Things" stands out in my mind as one classic example.
I see a similar situation occuring today. Although the Prime rate is low other economic conditions are giving rise to massive layoffs and job losses. The recent court opinion in the United Airlines concerning retirement funds will only make matters worse. While taking my wife to dinner the other day we drove by a new startup. The name on the building included the word "things". I give it six months.
Exaggerated? Hardly.
Ransom Love himself, at the LinuxWorld 2000 convention, is RECORDED as saying that SCO was in the process of moving UNIX code to AI-32 and AI-64 Linux as quickly as possible. This was shortly AFTER Caldra acquired SCO. You can catch that comment at the 47 minute mark of his 50 minute speech at:
http://technetcast.ddj.com/tnc_stream.html?stream
and other places. I have the last 2 min and 50 seconds in an mp3 clip.
useful idiot.
Did he get paid for being that in print?
If he did visit GrokLaw he's done a good job of concealing it and his culpability is even worse.
..they are hold LongHorn for ransom.
LongHorn looks like just another XP skin, just a bit uglier.
At that rate it would still take a little over 3 years to give every family in the USA one copy of SimplyMEIPS from that single pipe.
Now, with a dozen pipes like that the task could be done in a month....
and so I won't have to worry about trying to connect a Nikon digial camera to my Linux box.
Problem solved.
Exactly!
I've been using Linux since early1998 and I stopped recompiling kernels five years ago. With the module approach there's no need to recompile kernels anymore.
during her second 'vision'.
Can't get past it.
The amount of disinformation being spread on this subject is amazing. People are responding to accusations as if they were facts.
First, Torvolds has never been against using proprietary software. His has always advocated using the best software for the job at hand. After reading the orignal sources I've come to the conclusion that no one was at fault nor was anyone casting blame. All of the possibilities that people are whining about were considered by Torvolds when he decided to adopt BK for his own use in managing the kernel, including the possibility that McVoy could "turn to the dard side". As far as the claim that Torvolds tried to get Tridge to stop I cite the following extract from a Torvolds email posted three years ago.
http://lwn.net/2002/0314/a/lt-bitkeeper.php3
The most productive thing people could do might be to just do a BK->CVS gateway, if you really feel like it. Or just go on and ignore the fact that some people are using BK - you don't actually have to ever even know.
Linus"
Most people appear to be citing sources that are citing sources who heard it from a friend who has barber who cuts Tovold's hair.
If there is a bad thing that has developed because if the use of BK it is that development of a FOSS enterprise class SCM has not recieved the focus and efforts it should have. Now, hopefully, that will change.
SimplyMEPIS-3.3 installed onto my new Gateway M675XL laptop perfectly. It even automatically connected the internal broadcom 11g wireless chip and gave me 54MGz of browsing pleasure!
see subject