Supporting only two of the three major Operating Systems is not, in my book, "cross platform". Wake me up when MS directly ports, supports, and keeps current,.NET/Silverlight on Linux (cause Mono ain't gonna cut it). And with their track record, even if they DID support it, it would be only long enough to kill off competition, then, suddenly and mysteriously, all the versions except the ones for MS's platform will start to fall behind, experience incompatibilities or interesting bugs, and then break/disappear alltogether.
Emailed (I had already send Democratic Convention an Email months ago). I suggest everyone complain to such sites whenever they are encountered.
To: webmaster@hardrock.com cc: customer_care@hardrock.com Subject: Website is broken
Are you aware that by using Silverlight ONLY on your http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/, you have completely shut out many thousands of users, including me?
It is insulting to get a message that it is so "easy" and only takes a "second" to install Silverlight, when that is simply not true. I can't do that on my Linux home computer. Nor my OpenSolaris based laptop. I also can't get to the site on my Nokia N810 tablet nor on my Wii. In fact, I don't own a SINGLE machine here or at work that can view your site because you selected to use Silverlight.
I hope you give serious consideration to changing your site so everyone, no matter what Operating System they use, can easily view your site!
It is, in reality, a kludge. It will always lag far behind.NET and Silverlight. And when things don't work in it, vendors and site developers aren't going to give a damn. As usual, non MS users are going to be screwed.
Mono isn't a "curveball". In fact, MS *loves* Mono, because they can point to it and say "see,.NET is multiplatform", when it really isn't. Parts of it might be, in THEORY. In practice, Mono is ALWAYS going to be an incompatible, lagging-behind, afterthought. It's existence might actually do more to damage platform neutrality by luring people into thinking that.NET (and Silverlight) is going to make everyone happy... it isn't.
I tell you what, perhaps YOU should use something OTHER than an MS operating system and browser and then tell us how happy you are about Silverlight or IE-only sites, etc.
There are many, MANY reasons to use something other than MS products. And if that is or has been what one choses to use, then the things that MS does that either intentionally or unintentionally causes those people pain is going to piss them off.
Moonlight is hardly a solution. It is complex, incompatible, slow, and will lag waaaaaay behind any current development. People who suggest that as a "solution" to Silverlight for non-MS platforms need to be slapped around a bit.
As far as most non-MS users are concerned, Silverlight is evil and definitely "itsatrap". Flash is evil too, but on an evilness scale of 1-10 in the "real world", Flash is probably a 5, where Silverlight is a 10.
Because we don't want to use XP (gross) nor IE (grosser). If we need to have access to a local web browser with Flash, that can be accomplished with Linux and Firefox.
As for IE-only sites, that is a another topic entirely, and one that greatly frustrates and angers all the IT staff. We have ways to deal with them, but nothing elegant.
My "needs" are dictated by lots of complex factors. But there is no need for my department to exist without the users- they are the customers and our reason to exist.
As far as Flash- users don't "need" Flash at every desktop. Some might "want" it, some might even think they "need" it. Those that really think they do "need" it are welcome to come to the training room to access it:)
That is why on our large, Linux, thin-client network, we do not install nor allow Flash. Yes, you are correct... animation is a HUGE enemy of thin clients. But we also have an enforced site whitelist.
On those few sites that are so broken as to require Flash to do anything productive, employees are welcome to come to the training room and use a specially configured station with a local Firefox + Flash + Java.
In a modern business system environment, if the network goes down, productivity pretty much stops. Period. It doesn't matter if the clients are fat or thin.
>Even with a GUI terminal, if it was stripped down and wasn't Windows based >(and had drastically limited Internet access), I think a lot more would get done around offices.
Bingo! That is exactly what we have- Linux server, Linux apps, Linux thin clients (160). Everything is locked down tight. We have everything users need in order to be productive and nothing else (accounting apps, OpenOffice, Firefox, Sylpheed, IceWM, some utils). Internet access is only through a white list of approved sites. But this ONLY works because the CEO supports the concept and allows us to say "no" to users/departments who think they are "special". And yes, the CEO uses a Linux thin client also (although he and Directors can browse outside the whitelist; but still no Flash, Java, nor sound).
We use Linux servers, Linux apps, and Linux thin clients. Our ratio is two servers for 160 clients/users. But we also have support from the CEO, so when we say "no" to users wanting animation, sound, etc, it means "no". Users have access to everything they need to perform their jobs and costs are very low (compared to thin OR fat MS environments).
We do everything that a typical business would tend to do with it. Our company newsletter (8 pages, with lots of graphics, columns, frames), wiring diagrams, signs, letters, budgets, expense analysis, small databases, manuals, pdf exports, data parsing, inservice presentations, flowcharts, labels, dealing with lots of Emailed.doc,.xls, and.ppt's, etc.
Are there some bugs? Yes. Although we have not hit any that have prevented normal use or to cause us to not trust OO. But having conversed with MS-Office users- they have bugs also. There are bugs in just about every huge/complex program on any platform.
And I have reported some of those bugs and (as you also said) watched some of those bugs not get corrected over years. However, they don't prevent us from using the software, "seriously", for many years.
I represent over 150 business users that use ONLY OpenOffice for word processing, spreadsheet, etc, and I can attest that we do use it seriously with very few problems. Your comment is way-over-the-top wrong.
Are there some missing things that we would like to see? Sure. But that hardly justifies "isn't even useful for more than throwaway work".
I agree with ryanov, the poster might have been commenting about problems with WPA2 on the EEE pre-installed version of Linux, rather than Linux, in general. Or, he might just be a troll.
But cbreaker is also right- loading Mandriva (or certain other distros) on the EEE will certainly solve the WPA2 problem with the stock, limited Linux.
Take a great concept- the netbook... a small, light, inexpensive, flash-based, long-battery life, Linux based system. Then ruin it by making it a large, heavier, expensive, hard-drive based, medium battery life, MS-Windows based system.
It does seem kind of odd that there is no 64bit Mandriva "One" version.
Not that *I* think it is any big deal- I have been running 32bit Linux on my 64 bit machines forever. Why? Because, unless you need more than 4GB of RAM, or running the only few types of apps that really make a difference, 32 bit is almost the exact same performance, and it means just one install disc and set of RPM's for all my machines. Plus there is that whole 32/64 bit Flash issue (which I don't even know if it is really "solved" yet).
In any case, do you know why this was done, having only a 32bit One? Maybe because there are already too many versions of "One"? And if that is so, why not consolidate into fewer, larger ISO's?
It is true that they do try to make money. As a commercial company, they have to in order to survive. They give preference and perks to club members. Personally, I think the rates are reasonable and the product is superior to Ubuntu (to use your example) in significant ways, so it is worth it. They have experimented with different concepts, settling on one that seems to work the best for themselves and their customers.
I do wish all the perks were open to everyone, but I can see where giving something other than just warm fuzzies to people who contribute money has worked for them, even though some view it as an unfortunate necessity. Those who wish to use it completely free, can still do so... they just have to download more of the stuff by hand.
Who knows, maybe their model will change again. At least they have been listening to the people that make the distro possible, financially, without undue burdens on those who don't pay; and have contributed significantly to the Linux community. In any case, it is nice to have choice.
Um, Mandrake/Mandriva has *always* been a commercial company with commercial offerings. But they have also *always* offered free versions of the distro. And this is what Redhat did before they went completely commercial-only, and what SuSE still does.
Actually, the reason most human evolution has stopped progressing forward is medical science. We are able to keep people alive who "should" have died before reproducing. Before you attack me, consider this: I am one of those people. If it were not for medical science, I would have died at least twice before becoming an adult. And both times were due to my genetically poor medical conditions. 100 years ago I would have died. Instead, I am able to pass on my genetic defects to the next generation. Now take hundreds of thousands of people like me. Over time, these conditions will accumulate and amplify through the human genome, making physically poorer and poorer offspring.
Yes, I might have something genetically good to offer (brainpower, work ethic, whatever), but I still think that the accumulated negatives will ultimately outweigh the positives.
That is not necessarily true at all. Linux likes to use swap even when there is plenty of RAM, since it can free it up for something more useful, like disk buffering. Anyway, you can be running out of RAM and eating into swap space and operate at nearly normal speed. It depends on how many processes are actively running, and what they are all doing. Swapping is not a bad thing. Excessing swapping to the point of "thrashing", is, however. In that case, actively running programs are competing for more memory and there isn't enough physical memory to satisfy them, even after buffers are reduced and everything inactive is already swapped out.
Now, if there is a BROKEN program that is gobbling up all the memory, yeah, it will always be a problem, since it will eventually consume everything, anyway.
It is unfortunate that most *ix systems don't handle running out of [physical+swap] memory very well.
I stand corrected. GNUStep *is* available for other platforms, I had assumed it was dead. However I have never seen a GNUstep application in my 20+ years of using various *ix.
Oh, like the developers are going to change GIMP to be a MacOS-only program???? I don't think so. Remember, GTK was essentially invented for the purpose of creating the GIMP.
"Bowen also believes that a ubiquitous Internet voting system could not work without the use of a national ID card system."
For someone who seems to have a clue, she lost a lot of credibility with that statement. There is absolutely no need for a "national ID card system" to have secure and accurate voting. Voting is handled by the States, not the Federal Government.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent up!!!
That has got to be the funniest thing I have read in weeks!!!!! LOL!
Supporting only two of the three major Operating Systems is not, in my book, "cross platform". Wake me up when MS directly ports, supports, and keeps current, .NET/Silverlight on Linux (cause Mono ain't gonna cut it). And with their track record, even if they DID support it, it would be only long enough to kill off competition, then, suddenly and mysteriously, all the versions except the ones for MS's platform will start to fall behind, experience incompatibilities or interesting bugs, and then break/disappear alltogether.
Been there. Done that.
History has a way of repeating itself.
Emailed (I had already send Democratic Convention an Email months ago). I suggest everyone complain to such sites whenever they are encountered.
To: webmaster@hardrock.com
cc: customer_care@hardrock.com
Subject: Website is broken
Are you aware that by using Silverlight ONLY on your http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/, you have completely shut out many thousands of users, including me?
It is insulting to get a message that it is so "easy" and only takes a "second" to install Silverlight, when that is simply not true. I can't do that on my Linux home computer. Nor my OpenSolaris based laptop. I also can't get to the site on my Nokia N810 tablet nor on my Wii. In fact, I don't own a SINGLE machine here or at work that can view your site because you selected to use Silverlight.
I hope you give serious consideration to changing your site so everyone, no matter what Operating System they use, can easily view your site!
You are right. It really ISN'T going anywhere.
It is, in reality, a kludge. It will always lag far behind .NET and Silverlight. And when things don't work in it, vendors and site developers aren't going to give a damn. As usual, non MS users are going to be screwed.
Mono isn't a "curveball". In fact, MS *loves* Mono, because they can point to it and say "see, .NET is multiplatform", when it really isn't. Parts of it might be, in THEORY. In practice, Mono is ALWAYS going to be an incompatible, lagging-behind, afterthought. It's existence might actually do more to damage platform neutrality by luring people into thinking that .NET (and Silverlight) is going to make everyone happy... it isn't.
I tell you what, perhaps YOU should use something OTHER than an MS operating system and browser and then tell us how happy you are about Silverlight or IE-only sites, etc. There are many, MANY reasons to use something other than MS products. And if that is or has been what one choses to use, then the things that MS does that either intentionally or unintentionally causes those people pain is going to piss them off.
Moonlight is hardly a solution. It is complex, incompatible, slow, and will lag waaaaaay behind any current development. People who suggest that as a "solution" to Silverlight for non-MS platforms need to be slapped around a bit.
As far as most non-MS users are concerned, Silverlight is evil and definitely "itsatrap". Flash is evil too, but on an evilness scale of 1-10 in the "real world", Flash is probably a 5, where Silverlight is a 10.
Because we don't want to use XP (gross) nor IE (grosser). If we need to have access to a local web browser with Flash, that can be accomplished with Linux and Firefox.
As for IE-only sites, that is a another topic entirely, and one that greatly frustrates and angers all the IT staff. We have ways to deal with them, but nothing elegant.
My "needs" are dictated by lots of complex factors. But there is no need for my department to exist without the users- they are the customers and our reason to exist.
As far as Flash- users don't "need" Flash at every desktop. Some might "want" it, some might even think they "need" it. Those that really think they do "need" it are welcome to come to the training room to access it :)
That is why on our large, Linux, thin-client network, we do not install nor allow Flash. Yes, you are correct... animation is a HUGE enemy of thin clients. But we also have an enforced site whitelist.
On those few sites that are so broken as to require Flash to do anything productive, employees are welcome to come to the training room and use a specially configured station with a local Firefox + Flash + Java.
In a modern business system environment, if the network goes down, productivity pretty much stops. Period. It doesn't matter if the clients are fat or thin.
>Even with a GUI terminal, if it was stripped down and wasn't Windows based
>(and had drastically limited Internet access), I think a lot more would get done around offices.
Bingo! That is exactly what we have- Linux server, Linux apps, Linux thin clients (160). Everything is locked down tight. We have everything users need in order to be productive and nothing else (accounting apps, OpenOffice, Firefox, Sylpheed, IceWM, some utils). Internet access is only through a white list of approved sites. But this ONLY works because the CEO supports the concept and allows us to say "no" to users/departments who think they are "special". And yes, the CEO uses a Linux thin client also (although he and Directors can browse outside the whitelist; but still no Flash, Java, nor sound).
We use Linux servers, Linux apps, and Linux thin clients. Our ratio is two servers for 160 clients/users. But we also have support from the CEO, so when we say "no" to users wanting animation, sound, etc, it means "no". Users have access to everything they need to perform their jobs and costs are very low (compared to thin OR fat MS environments).
We do everything that a typical business would tend to do with it. Our company newsletter (8 pages, with lots of graphics, columns, frames), wiring diagrams, signs, letters, budgets, expense analysis, small databases, manuals, pdf exports, data parsing, inservice presentations, flowcharts, labels, dealing with lots of Emailed .doc, .xls, and .ppt's, etc.
Are there some bugs? Yes. Although we have not hit any that have prevented normal use or to cause us to not trust OO. But having conversed with MS-Office users- they have bugs also. There are bugs in just about every huge/complex program on any platform.
And I have reported some of those bugs and (as you also said) watched some of those bugs not get corrected over years. However, they don't prevent us from using the software, "seriously", for many years.
I represent over 150 business users that use ONLY OpenOffice for word processing, spreadsheet, etc, and I can attest that we do use it seriously with very few problems. Your comment is way-over-the-top wrong.
Are there some missing things that we would like to see? Sure. But that hardly justifies "isn't even useful for more than throwaway work".
I agree with ryanov, the poster might have been commenting about problems with WPA2 on the EEE pre-installed version of Linux, rather than Linux, in general. Or, he might just be a troll.
But cbreaker is also right- loading Mandriva (or certain other distros) on the EEE will certainly solve the WPA2 problem with the stock, limited Linux.
...then maybe this wouldn't have happened?
Take a great concept- the netbook... a small, light, inexpensive, flash-based, long-battery life, Linux based system. Then ruin it by making it a large, heavier, expensive, hard-drive based, medium battery life, MS-Windows based system.
Oh well. I guess some people didn't "get it".
It does seem kind of odd that there is no 64bit Mandriva "One" version.
Not that *I* think it is any big deal- I have been running 32bit Linux on my 64 bit machines forever. Why? Because, unless you need more than 4GB of RAM, or running the only few types of apps that really make a difference, 32 bit is almost the exact same performance, and it means just one install disc and set of RPM's for all my machines. Plus there is that whole 32/64 bit Flash issue (which I don't even know if it is really "solved" yet).
In any case, do you know why this was done, having only a 32bit One? Maybe because there are already too many versions of "One"? And if that is so, why not consolidate into fewer, larger ISO's?
It is true that they do try to make money. As a commercial company, they have to in order to survive. They give preference and perks to club members. Personally, I think the rates are reasonable and the product is superior to Ubuntu (to use your example) in significant ways, so it is worth it. They have experimented with different concepts, settling on one that seems to work the best for themselves and their customers.
I do wish all the perks were open to everyone, but I can see where giving something other than just warm fuzzies to people who contribute money has worked for them, even though some view it as an unfortunate necessity. Those who wish to use it completely free, can still do so... they just have to download more of the stuff by hand.
Who knows, maybe their model will change again. At least they have been listening to the people that make the distro possible, financially, without undue burdens on those who don't pay; and have contributed significantly to the Linux community. In any case, it is nice to have choice.
Um, Mandrake/Mandriva has *always* been a commercial company with commercial offerings. But they have also *always* offered free versions of the distro. And this is what Redhat did before they went completely commercial-only, and what SuSE still does.
http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/free
Actually, the reason most human evolution has stopped progressing forward is medical science. We are able to keep people alive who "should" have died before reproducing. Before you attack me, consider this: I am one of those people. If it were not for medical science, I would have died at least twice before becoming an adult. And both times were due to my genetically poor medical conditions. 100 years ago I would have died. Instead, I am able to pass on my genetic defects to the next generation. Now take hundreds of thousands of people like me. Over time, these conditions will accumulate and amplify through the human genome, making physically poorer and poorer offspring.
Yes, I might have something genetically good to offer (brainpower, work ethic, whatever), but I still think that the accumulated negatives will ultimately outweigh the positives.
That is not necessarily true at all. Linux likes to use swap even when there is plenty of RAM, since it can free it up for something more useful, like disk buffering. Anyway, you can be running out of RAM and eating into swap space and operate at nearly normal speed. It depends on how many processes are actively running, and what they are all doing. Swapping is not a bad thing. Excessing swapping to the point of "thrashing", is, however. In that case, actively running programs are competing for more memory and there isn't enough physical memory to satisfy them, even after buffers are reduced and everything inactive is already swapped out.
Now, if there is a BROKEN program that is gobbling up all the memory, yeah, it will always be a problem, since it will eventually consume everything, anyway.
It is unfortunate that most *ix systems don't handle running out of [physical+swap] memory very well.
I stand corrected. GNUStep *is* available for other platforms, I had assumed it was dead. However I have never seen a GNUstep application in my 20+ years of using various *ix.
Oh, like the developers are going to change GIMP to be a MacOS-only program???? I don't think so. Remember, GTK was essentially invented for the purpose of creating the GIMP.
"Bowen also believes that a ubiquitous Internet voting system could not work without the use of a national ID card system."
For someone who seems to have a clue, she lost a lot of credibility with that statement. There is absolutely no need for a "national ID card system" to have secure and accurate voting. Voting is handled by the States, not the Federal Government.