I built a system off of the Sharky Extreme budget PC components back in November. I loaded up the basic stuff and had a few extra components laying around like a Geforce 4ti and a Soundblaster Live card.
I only run Linux on it and never even installed Windows at all, everything is fully supported by Linux.
The only problem I have with it is over heating. I have a nice heatsink/fan sitting on the AMD 2500+ and I'm not overclocking it at all. But still, I have to have the case open and a small table fan pointed right at the motherboard to keep the temperatures down to 44c...otherwise it raises to 55c+ with the side panel on and the two case fans running.
I've seen the temp jump up to 61c-62c which from what I've heard is either fine to it's too hot. I've heard the gamut of people saying it's not a problem and not worry about it.
But here's the rub...I run Gentoo Linux, and since I compile everything, I don't want it overheating while in a compile...as an error could easily be compiled into code and be almost impossible to track down a bug....or so I've heard. This has NEVER happened to me. I guess I'm just extra paranoid about the temp.
Other than my paranoia, everything runs tip-top and is very speedy. First computer I've built from scratch (not to mention the first OS I've built from scratch) and everything is ok. Other than me running the memory as single channel DDR instead of Dual channel for 3 months because I had it in the wrong slots. D'OH!
Well, it's obvious that you cannot do simple arithmetic if you call attention to my post that I patched my kernel days ago and you said it wasn't true since it was only out 48 hours ago. 48 hours is 2 days, you didn't seem to grasp that.
But who really gives a damn? So what? It's patched. You seem to be all fired up on these kernel bugs and semantics, but as someone else pointed out Linux's best feature is that shortly after the problem is announced, many different people "scratch their itch" and rush to patch it.
Then you called me a schmuck if I believed nobody discovered it before the patch's author. Where's your proof on this? Or is this just speculation on your part? It's just a guess...but it means nothing. I could easily say that no one knew about this bug at all until this author released the patch. See, how easy it is to say something without having to prove or back it up in any way? And we're talking about THIS bug, not bringing up something that someone else on some other kernel did or didn't reveal. Yeah, I saw your post about Alan Cox withholding all of the info on 4 critical holes in 2.2.20-pre10. 2.2.2? How does that have ANYTHING to do with the bug you first brought up? Are you suggesting that Alan Cox knew about this bug with 2.6 and did nothing? Again, show me the evidence.
But this my post here will do nothing, if you read it you'll fire another post off to show how clever you are, then I'll fire off another to try to show how clever I am....and neither of us will change our minds. So what is the purpose of any of this?
Which one of you wrote Linux?
on
Who Wrote Linux?
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· Score: 3, Funny
I mean, come on...one disk for each movie (don't give me extended versions unless you actually filmed extra footage to include later on special DVDs ala "Lord of the Rings"...seeing footage that was cut because it SHOULD have been cut is not my cup-of-tea. See the extended version of "Dune" and "Superman: The Movie" for stuff that should have stayed out...."Otis, feed the babies"...nuff said....
Ok, we have 3 disks there with plenty of room for commentary tracks. Then we can have an extra disk for the Animatrix shorts AND all the "Making Of" docs you want. There...saved ya 6 other disks. Something tells me that they're not filling up to full capacity the DVD's.
If Hitler wanted to prove he was wrong, then why were the Germans trying hard to make an atomic bomb? Did they have some other theory or means to try this other than E=MC^2? I'm not a physics person at all, but it seems to me that the science is all related.
Where did you hear this? Or is this another one of those stories like: "Einstein was a savant and he couldn't tie his own shoes" you hear so much about?
This is mainly the area of English majors who wish to justify their degrees while out looking for teaching positions. Ignoring them is usually the best thing to do.
Then why is the whole linux-2.6 kernel tree vulnerable to a horribly pitiful bug that allows any user to chmod files in/proc?
Mine isn't...already patched it...days ago. Also, was that bug out in the open and everyone knew about it for months and months before a patch was available? Um...no.
I thought The Beatles made that point adequately with Abbey Road, but it seems to be one of those lessons that needs to learned over and over again.
This is very true, but when I was commenting on the Foo Fighters, I heard Dave Grohl say that they wanted to make the album in his basement...so his record company wanted to put all these state-of-the-art equipment and soundproofing things in there..and he said, "gee, we thought we'd just mike some amps up and do it that way". They would record a bit, then have cook-outs in the back yard for friends and play the songs and just ask "does this sound any good?".
The Beatles were a special case. They had free run of Abbey Road studios. At the time, they DID have state of the art equipment. Remember, they were one of the first bands to record with the new 8-track recording. In fact, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was the first 8 track recording (by anyone) at EMI Abbey Road. And by their last album, "Abbey Road", they master recorded everything to 8-track. But then again, these WERE The Beatles.
But you're of course right, you don't need a multi-million dollar studio...unless you like producing clean, sterile, boring, homoginized, life-less, soul-less...ok, I'm sorry, was going off on a rant there.
But I see great things for the future of music. Sure, in the past a band could record their music on simple recording devices. Hell, I've heard demo-tapes from the 70's that sound better than actual albums. But the catch was, you could have a KILLER tape, but no way to distribute it. No way for people to go out and buy it, listen to it etc etc.
Now we have the Internet, and the record companies are scared. They KNOW they're just the middle-men. The go-between the artists and the listeners. You know it scares the living shit out of them for the artists to make their own music, then sell it directly to the public. But if we only had the record companies to distribute the music, we would have been robbed of recent albums like Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" because their record company "didn't hear a single".
Record companies are going to get what they deserve.
There also used to be the time when a record company would have faith in an artist. They speculated on an artist and saw great, long term things in them.
For instance, look at Bruce Springsteen's first two albums...they tanked. They didn't do anything. He didn't hit it big until "Born to Run".
Now adays, a band has to hit it in a HUGE way on their first time out the gate for the record companies to keep them around.
Record companies had their day...but that day is over. The future of music belongs now to the artists themselves. For instance, the Foo Fighters proved you don't need a state-of-the-art studio to produce a great album. All you need is a few miked up tube amps, seperate the drummer so there's not much bleed-over from the drums, hit record and then edit in pro-tools (but still recorded live...not pieced together, overly produced non-sense).
But as I said, I don't run a server, and I try to keep my desktop pretty cutting edge, which is why I update just about every other night. But like I was saying, I don't even notice it at all as it's always at night. The only time I reboot is when I upgrade my kernel...and that's mainly for security fixes etc. So that's maybe...maybe....once a month.
We've had power failures here too, and I LOVE my UPS, though it's mainly where it lets me shut down gracefully...as when power goes out around here it's usually for days.
I've never ever had to wait for Gentoo to compile.
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Linux Users Are Spoiled
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually, I've used Gentoo now for almost a year...and I've never ever ever had to wait for anything to compile...ever. Even when I first installed it.
How can this be?!?! Well, there is this thing called "let things compile at night while I sleep". I don't turn my computer off, so while it's up at night, it updates.
I've yet to even be around while it's compiling anything, so no, I've never had to wait. Sorry, don't mean to be so sarcastic, but when people complain that Gentoo has to compile everything I just kinda sigh and say it's a moot point.
But this is just me, I don't run a server. If I did, I'd probably run a binary distro like Debian, which again proves there is more than one choice for Linux.
Re:Linux easier than Windows? Unpossible.
on
Linux Users Are Spoiled
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually, it couldn't be easier. "emerge sync && emerge -uD world". wow, how hard is that, I just typed it.
But then again, could also have this done automatically for you if you wish...but is typing our 26 letters....not including spaces...that hard? Are we that lazy now?
Microsoft is having meetings now, company wide to explain this word "choice".
MS Employee at a seminar: "You mean, we can give them different choices of a web browser? Browsers we didn't even write?!?"
Linux Guru Speaker: "Yes, we realize now that we really didn't need to try to build in a web browser into EVERY stinking program we had back in the early 90's. Who needs to browse the fricken web when they only want to manage some files? We also realized that if we just concentrate on building a good, solid OS, then others could build stuff like browsers and word processers etc."
MS employee: "Wow, we were trained for so long to just build everything into the OS. Our next version after Longhorn was to be called "Kitchen Sink". Everything is built in so you don't have to worry about choice...we've made the choice for you! See, it's easy! It has built in web browser in everything including a web browser built into the web browser. Also built in, NOT seperate programs, is a word processor, calculator, spread-sheet, photo retouching, email, wmv-only player (we've made the choice that music software of the future will be wmv based only...again, we've made that choice for you!), all games are built right into the OS including MMORPGs. Now...isn't that easier than having choices? You can concentrate on getting things done instead of thinking of choice. Don't think! WE don't want you to think...it's bad for you. Thinking hurts...just let us decide what you need...we know best. And look, it will be priced at $300, so that means it HAS to be good."
Linux speaker: "Um...ok....did you have a question?"
If you have physical access to your computer...which you should...then of course you could just do it all by hand by booting off of a CD. Why go through all this, unless it's to do something you're not suppose to be doing.
I don't know, what would this be usefull for? Remote admin tasks perhaps?
So, what you're basically saying is you're a pragmatist, aka a sell-out. You are not an idealist. You spend your time playing games, not programming. Given you don't care in the slightest about having access to the source code of every single component on your system, and a guaranteed permission to modify and redistribute it as you see fit, then you really don't need Linux.
Um...I don't program...I don't know how...I never learned and I really don't have the time nor the reason to start learning now.
Does this mean I shouldn't use Linux? Linux is only for those who program? You mean I've been using Linux exclusivly without even dual-booting when I shouldn't have been?
I also use Gentoo which is almost all source code...except for stuff like Sun's Java and nvidia's drivers to name two. So because I don't have the source code for my video card, (plus the fact that it really doesn't bother me that I don't), I should chuck it all and go to Windows or Mac...or else I'm a "sell-out"? You're a programmer, right? Do you charge your employer for the code you write? Or do you just write it for free...and then take the code you write and distribute it to everyone. Aren't you kinda selling out if you charge your employer for your programming? Even if that's what they hired you for...a true idealist would take the job, then never cash their paychecks. Shouldn't you just give the code to your employer to make them a better company! Think of the savings they could incure! If not, you're not an idealist are you?
Or how about this, face the fact that things are not as black and white as you'd like them to be.
Also, I've noticed that ATI doesn't give out their source code either...why doesn't everyone jump on their case? (I don't know this for sure as I don't own any ATI product...but I've not seen any rumblings about it other than people having a hard time getting them to work sometimes).
Whenever you see a public admission of a technology, it's been in widespread use for several years at least, and they have two generations ahead in testing phase.
So they've had self-tuning guitars for years now? And "the clapper" was around in the military for years before the "public admission" of the technology?!?! WHOA!
Just think about putting this thing on like a helicopter...then also put some ultra-sensative microphones on it so you could also listen through the walls...
Then have like a "whisper" mode on the helicopter so you could hover in relative silence while surveilling the structure that you happen to be..um...surveilling.
Have a JAFO onboard to be in charge of the taping (to half inch videotape) and working the cameras.
We could call this Helicopter something catchy...like "Red Lightening" or "Thunder Blue" or something like that...we'll think of something...
Billy G. is looking through his bribe-book and is making a big cross-out in it.
Now he's trying to find John Kerry's phone number to tell him "hey, wanna be President? No problem, you're in...the stuff that happens in November is just a formality, but trust me, my next call is to Diebold to finally tell them who I want to win...just remember to have your guy tell everyone that IE and Windows is the OS of choice now...buh bye"
Well, if you read my post again you will see: We all know market share doesn't automatically mean better. Better comes from application on how it's used.
Google is the best example of this. It's the most popular because it IS the best search engine around at the moment. It wasn't the only game in town either, and came late to the game as Alta-vista and lycos and other search engines were around before. They became popular because they worked hard and made the best out there (again, at the moment).
Windows mainly got it's market share because it used to be any computer you bought automatically had it installed by default. You sell a million PC's and WHAM you have a million Windows installations. So, since everyone had Windows already, developers started writing programs just for Windows...yadda yadda yadda...and we're where we are today. Most people didn't go out and BUY Windows/DOS to put on their computers. (out-of-context-takers please note that I said "most" people...not all)
I'd like to see what would have happened if they sold the early computers with no OS at all, and you had to buy the OS seperately. Would it have been DOS/Windows that still made it? Or would have a different OS worked it's way to the top since it had to actually fight and make a better OS than the competition...instead of just getting a free ride for so long.
Actually, while I don't use Linux because it was free, I use it because I find it better.
But to address your "argument", Linux cost me zero...nothing...nada. Not one dime. Not $30 bucks, not 60, not 90 with a piece of hardware.
As far as usability and driver coverage, everything works fine here....but these are moot points really.
Linux runs fine, Windows runs fine. Some like Linux, some like Windows, some like other OS's. So what? I don't make my choices based on "the Market". The "Market" put things like "Titanic" as the highest grossing movie of all time, does that mean it's the best? We all know market share doesn't automatically mean better. Better comes from application on how it's used. XP is better for you, Linux is better for me...I'm sure there's someone who feels OS/2 is better for them. Who's right? We all are!
I have Cedega loaded and I've been off Windows totally since last November. This machine has never even had Window loaded on it. Since day one it's been Linux (Gentoo btw).
Cedega(Winex) runs everything I would normally play if this were an XP box. My wife still has her XP machine, and the games that I had, I played on that machine. So when I went 100% Linux, I thought I would have to give up my games as I'm not a fan of dual booting...or else just play them on her machine.
As it turns out, the games I play (Warcraft 3, Neverwinter Nights, Everquest, Counterstrike, UT2003/2004) all either have a native Linux client or work great under Cedega. And from what I can tell, it will work with World of Warcraft when it comes out...which is really the only game I'm looking forward to playing in the near future (ther than Call of Cthulhu).
So guess what folks, I Windows ain't needed at all on my computer. Not that I'm a MS hater or anything, just didn't feel like shelling out 100 bucks for the OS as I had to build this machine with little to no money.
This is just my experience, you're milage may vary...especially if you're looking to play a game that isn't supported. But the ones I play, play just the same as if on Windows, yet faster as I can switch to another desktop while playing EQ full screen to check on something quickly. I mean, it's INSTANT switching to another desktop. Playing EQ full screen on my Wife's XP machine you have to wait and wait and wait to get to the desktop, THEN the computer runs like molasses.
It depends on what you are doing and where you came from.
When I got into pre-press, we did EVERYTHING including building the pages on Linotype/Hell Combies or Scitex machines...the pages would come from the customer as page-layout boards.
Then the Mac made it big and people started using Quark and Pagemaker to build their own pages...but still didn't have the horse-power to scan and edit the photos...so we used their pages from Quark, their artwork from Illustrator and then swapped out the low-res place-holder images with high-res that we scanned, color corrected and siloed etc etc. Again, pre-press still had a huge stake in the field.
But now, customers are doing their own in-house scanning, color correcting, proofing, assembly and they send it directly to printers. Yes, film is on the way out as direct-to-plate has finally arrived. This may bode well for printers themselves, but I've seen many shops in the Chicagoland area cut way back on pre-press because it's simply not needed anymore.
I should have clarified my original post and say that it's pre-press that's dying a slow death...printing itself will be around for a long time. Packaging and POS displays will is a good area to focus your efforts into if you're looking to get into printing itself.
But you're right, the industry is not dying, it's shifting gears.
You left out the biggest market share...the multi-billion dollar-a-year printing industry. Macs totally and completely rule this still.
After all these years, Macs still run that industry. Sure, there are people that use PC's in the industry, but they are very few and far between.
But, from what I've seen in my travels around printing, it's dying a slow death thanks to online content. Packaging is the place to be in printing/graphic arts now adays...just FYI for you youngsters out there looking to get into the industry.
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thanks for pointing it out for everyone...but as I said, that's what I've heard...if I'm wrong please enlighten me.
Not everyone is born an expert in these things.
I built a system off of the Sharky Extreme budget PC components back in November. I loaded up the basic stuff and had a few extra components laying around like a Geforce 4ti and a Soundblaster Live card.
I only run Linux on it and never even installed Windows at all, everything is fully supported by Linux.
The only problem I have with it is over heating. I have a nice heatsink/fan sitting on the AMD 2500+ and I'm not overclocking it at all. But still, I have to have the case open and a small table fan pointed right at the motherboard to keep the temperatures down to 44c...otherwise it raises to 55c+ with the side panel on and the two case fans running.
I've seen the temp jump up to 61c-62c which from what I've heard is either fine to it's too hot. I've heard the gamut of people saying it's not a problem and not worry about it.
But here's the rub...I run Gentoo Linux, and since I compile everything, I don't want it overheating while in a compile...as an error could easily be compiled into code and be almost impossible to track down a bug....or so I've heard. This has NEVER happened to me. I guess I'm just extra paranoid about the temp.
Other than my paranoia, everything runs tip-top and is very speedy. First computer I've built from scratch (not to mention the first OS I've built from scratch) and everything is ok. Other than me running the memory as single channel DDR instead of Dual channel for 3 months because I had it in the wrong slots. D'OH!
Well, it's obvious that you cannot do simple arithmetic if you call attention to my post that I patched my kernel days ago and you said it wasn't true since it was only out 48 hours ago. 48 hours is 2 days, you didn't seem to grasp that.
But who really gives a damn? So what? It's patched. You seem to be all fired up on these kernel bugs and semantics, but as someone else pointed out Linux's best feature is that shortly after the problem is announced, many different people "scratch their itch" and rush to patch it.
Then you called me a schmuck if I believed nobody discovered it before the patch's author. Where's your proof on this? Or is this just speculation on your part? It's just a guess...but it means nothing. I could easily say that no one knew about this bug at all until this author released the patch. See, how easy it is to say something without having to prove or back it up in any way? And we're talking about THIS bug, not bringing up something that someone else on some other kernel did or didn't reveal. Yeah, I saw your post about Alan Cox withholding all of the info on 4 critical holes in 2.2.20-pre10. 2.2.2? How does that have ANYTHING to do with the bug you first brought up? Are you suggesting that Alan Cox knew about this bug with 2.6 and did nothing? Again, show me the evidence.
But this my post here will do nothing, if you read it you'll fire another post off to show how clever you are, then I'll fire off another to try to show how clever I am....and neither of us will change our minds. So what is the purpose of any of this?
I am Linuxacus!
No, I am Linuxacus.
Choose me...I am Linuxacus!
I'm Linuxacus and so's my wife...
I mean, come on...one disk for each movie (don't give me extended versions unless you actually filmed extra footage to include later on special DVDs ala "Lord of the Rings"...seeing footage that was cut because it SHOULD have been cut is not my cup-of-tea. See the extended version of "Dune" and "Superman: The Movie" for stuff that should have stayed out...."Otis, feed the babies"...nuff said....
Ok, we have 3 disks there with plenty of room for commentary tracks. Then we can have an extra disk for the Animatrix shorts AND all the "Making Of" docs you want. There...saved ya 6 other disks. Something tells me that they're not filling up to full capacity the DVD's.
48 hours = 2 days = days...plural...days. as in more than one.
Smart guy.
Wrong about what?
General Theory or Special Theory?
If Hitler wanted to prove he was wrong, then why were the Germans trying hard to make an atomic bomb? Did they have some other theory or means to try this other than E=MC^2? I'm not a physics person at all, but it seems to me that the science is all related.
Where did you hear this? Or is this another one of those stories like: "Einstein was a savant and he couldn't tie his own shoes" you hear so much about?
Just wondering.
This is mainly the area of English majors who wish to justify their degrees while out looking for teaching positions. Ignoring them is usually the best thing to do.
Then why is the whole linux-2.6 kernel tree vulnerable to a horribly pitiful bug that allows any user to chmod files in /proc?
Mine isn't...already patched it...days ago. Also, was that bug out in the open and everyone knew about it for months and months before a patch was available? Um...no.
Anything else?
I thought The Beatles made that point adequately with Abbey Road, but it seems to be one of those lessons that needs to learned over and over again.
This is very true, but when I was commenting on the Foo Fighters, I heard Dave Grohl say that they wanted to make the album in his basement...so his record company wanted to put all these state-of-the-art equipment and soundproofing things in there..and he said, "gee, we thought we'd just mike some amps up and do it that way". They would record a bit, then have cook-outs in the back yard for friends and play the songs and just ask "does this sound any good?".
The Beatles were a special case. They had free run of Abbey Road studios. At the time, they DID have state of the art equipment. Remember, they were one of the first bands to record with the new 8-track recording. In fact, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was the first 8 track recording (by anyone) at EMI Abbey Road. And by their last album, "Abbey Road", they master recorded everything to 8-track. But then again, these WERE The Beatles.
But you're of course right, you don't need a multi-million dollar studio...unless you like producing clean, sterile, boring, homoginized, life-less, soul-less...ok, I'm sorry, was going off on a rant there.
But I see great things for the future of music. Sure, in the past a band could record their music on simple recording devices. Hell, I've heard demo-tapes from the 70's that sound better than actual albums. But the catch was, you could have a KILLER tape, but no way to distribute it. No way for people to go out and buy it, listen to it etc etc.
Now we have the Internet, and the record companies are scared. They KNOW they're just the middle-men. The go-between the artists and the listeners. You know it scares the living shit out of them for the artists to make their own music, then sell it directly to the public. But if we only had the record companies to distribute the music, we would have been robbed of recent albums like Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" because their record company "didn't hear a single".
Record companies are going to get what they deserve.
There also used to be the time when a record company would have faith in an artist. They speculated on an artist and saw great, long term things in them.
For instance, look at Bruce Springsteen's first two albums...they tanked. They didn't do anything. He didn't hit it big until "Born to Run".
Now adays, a band has to hit it in a HUGE way on their first time out the gate for the record companies to keep them around.
Record companies had their day...but that day is over. The future of music belongs now to the artists themselves. For instance, the Foo Fighters proved you don't need a state-of-the-art studio to produce a great album. All you need is a few miked up tube amps, seperate the drummer so there's not much bleed-over from the drums, hit record and then edit in pro-tools (but still recorded live...not pieced together, overly produced non-sense).
Ah, that's a good strategy!
But as I said, I don't run a server, and I try to keep my desktop pretty cutting edge, which is why I update just about every other night. But like I was saying, I don't even notice it at all as it's always at night. The only time I reboot is when I upgrade my kernel...and that's mainly for security fixes etc. So that's maybe...maybe....once a month.
We've had power failures here too, and I LOVE my UPS, though it's mainly where it lets me shut down gracefully...as when power goes out around here it's usually for days.
Actually, I've used Gentoo now for almost a year...and I've never ever ever had to wait for anything to compile...ever. Even when I first installed it.
How can this be?!?! Well, there is this thing called "let things compile at night while I sleep". I don't turn my computer off, so while it's up at night, it updates.
I've yet to even be around while it's compiling anything, so no, I've never had to wait. Sorry, don't mean to be so sarcastic, but when people complain that Gentoo has to compile everything I just kinda sigh and say it's a moot point.
But this is just me, I don't run a server. If I did, I'd probably run a binary distro like Debian, which again proves there is more than one choice for Linux.
Actually, it couldn't be easier. "emerge sync && emerge -uD world". wow, how hard is that, I just typed it.
But then again, could also have this done automatically for you if you wish...but is typing our 26 letters....not including spaces...that hard? Are we that lazy now?
Microsoft is having meetings now, company wide to explain this word "choice".
MS Employee at a seminar: "You mean, we can give them different choices of a web browser? Browsers we didn't even write?!?"
Linux Guru Speaker: "Yes, we realize now that we really didn't need to try to build in a web browser into EVERY stinking program we had back in the early 90's. Who needs to browse the fricken web when they only want to manage some files? We also realized that if we just concentrate on building a good, solid OS, then others could build stuff like browsers and word processers etc."
MS employee: "Wow, we were trained for so long to just build everything into the OS. Our next version after Longhorn was to be called "Kitchen Sink". Everything is built in so you don't have to worry about choice...we've made the choice for you! See, it's easy! It has built in web browser in everything including a web browser built into the web browser. Also built in, NOT seperate programs, is a word processor, calculator, spread-sheet, photo retouching, email, wmv-only player (we've made the choice that music software of the future will be wmv based only...again, we've made that choice for you!), all games are built right into the OS including MMORPGs. Now...isn't that easier than having choices? You can concentrate on getting things done instead of thinking of choice. Don't think! WE don't want you to think...it's bad for you. Thinking hurts...just let us decide what you need...we know best. And look, it will be priced at $300, so that means it HAS to be good."
Linux speaker: "Um...ok....did you have a question?"
If you have physical access to your computer...which you should...then of course you could just do it all by hand by booting off of a CD. Why go through all this, unless it's to do something you're not suppose to be doing.
I don't know, what would this be usefull for? Remote admin tasks perhaps?
So, what you're basically saying is you're a pragmatist, aka a sell-out. You are not an idealist. You spend your time playing games, not programming. Given you don't care in the slightest about having access to the source code of every single component on your system, and a guaranteed permission to modify and redistribute it as you see fit, then you really don't need Linux.
Um...I don't program...I don't know how...I never learned and I really don't have the time nor the reason to start learning now.
Does this mean I shouldn't use Linux? Linux is only for those who program? You mean I've been using Linux exclusivly without even dual-booting when I shouldn't have been?
I also use Gentoo which is almost all source code...except for stuff like Sun's Java and nvidia's drivers to name two. So because I don't have the source code for my video card, (plus the fact that it really doesn't bother me that I don't), I should chuck it all and go to Windows or Mac...or else I'm a "sell-out"? You're a programmer, right? Do you charge your employer for the code you write? Or do you just write it for free...and then take the code you write and distribute it to everyone. Aren't you kinda selling out if you charge your employer for your programming? Even if that's what they hired you for...a true idealist would take the job, then never cash their paychecks. Shouldn't you just give the code to your employer to make them a better company! Think of the savings they could incure! If not, you're not an idealist are you?
Or how about this, face the fact that things are not as black and white as you'd like them to be.
Also, I've noticed that ATI doesn't give out their source code either...why doesn't everyone jump on their case? (I don't know this for sure as I don't own any ATI product...but I've not seen any rumblings about it other than people having a hard time getting them to work sometimes).
Whenever you see a public admission of a technology, it's been in widespread use for several years at least, and they have two generations ahead in testing phase.
So they've had self-tuning guitars for years now? And "the clapper" was around in the military for years before the "public admission" of the technology?!?! WHOA!
Just think about putting this thing on like a helicopter...then also put some ultra-sensative microphones on it so you could also listen through the walls...
Then have like a "whisper" mode on the helicopter so you could hover in relative silence while surveilling the structure that you happen to be..um...surveilling.
Have a JAFO onboard to be in charge of the taping (to half inch videotape) and working the cameras.
We could call this Helicopter something catchy...like "Red Lightening" or "Thunder Blue" or something like that...we'll think of something...
Billy G. is looking through his bribe-book and is making a big cross-out in it.
Now he's trying to find John Kerry's phone number to tell him "hey, wanna be President? No problem, you're in...the stuff that happens in November is just a formality, but trust me, my next call is to Diebold to finally tell them who I want to win...just remember to have your guy tell everyone that IE and Windows is the OS of choice now...buh bye"
Well, if you read my post again you will see: We all know market share doesn't automatically mean better. Better comes from application on how it's used.
Google is the best example of this. It's the most popular because it IS the best search engine around at the moment. It wasn't the only game in town either, and came late to the game as Alta-vista and lycos and other search engines were around before. They became popular because they worked hard and made the best out there (again, at the moment).
Windows mainly got it's market share because it used to be any computer you bought automatically had it installed by default. You sell a million PC's and WHAM you have a million Windows installations. So, since everyone had Windows already, developers started writing programs just for Windows...yadda yadda yadda...and we're where we are today. Most people didn't go out and BUY Windows/DOS to put on their computers. (out-of-context-takers please note that I said "most" people...not all)
I'd like to see what would have happened if they sold the early computers with no OS at all, and you had to buy the OS seperately. Would it have been DOS/Windows that still made it? Or would have a different OS worked it's way to the top since it had to actually fight and make a better OS than the competition...instead of just getting a free ride for so long.
Actually, while I don't use Linux because it was free, I use it because I find it better.
But to address your "argument", Linux cost me zero...nothing...nada. Not one dime. Not $30 bucks, not 60, not 90 with a piece of hardware.
As far as usability and driver coverage, everything works fine here....but these are moot points really.
Linux runs fine, Windows runs fine. Some like Linux, some like Windows, some like other OS's. So what? I don't make my choices based on "the Market". The "Market" put things like "Titanic" as the highest grossing movie of all time, does that mean it's the best? We all know market share doesn't automatically mean better. Better comes from application on how it's used. XP is better for you, Linux is better for me...I'm sure there's someone who feels OS/2 is better for them. Who's right? We all are!
I have Cedega loaded and I've been off Windows totally since last November. This machine has never even had Window loaded on it. Since day one it's been Linux (Gentoo btw).
Cedega(Winex) runs everything I would normally play if this were an XP box. My wife still has her XP machine, and the games that I had, I played on that machine. So when I went 100% Linux, I thought I would have to give up my games as I'm not a fan of dual booting...or else just play them on her machine.
As it turns out, the games I play (Warcraft 3, Neverwinter Nights, Everquest, Counterstrike, UT2003/2004) all either have a native Linux client or work great under Cedega. And from what I can tell, it will work with World of Warcraft when it comes out...which is really the only game I'm looking forward to playing in the near future (ther than Call of Cthulhu).
So guess what folks, I Windows ain't needed at all on my computer. Not that I'm a MS hater or anything, just didn't feel like shelling out 100 bucks for the OS as I had to build this machine with little to no money.
This is just my experience, you're milage may vary...especially if you're looking to play a game that isn't supported. But the ones I play, play just the same as if on Windows, yet faster as I can switch to another desktop while playing EQ full screen to check on something quickly. I mean, it's INSTANT switching to another desktop. Playing EQ full screen on my Wife's XP machine you have to wait and wait and wait to get to the desktop, THEN the computer runs like molasses.
It depends on what you are doing and where you came from.
When I got into pre-press, we did EVERYTHING including building the pages on Linotype/Hell Combies or Scitex machines...the pages would come from the customer as page-layout boards.
Then the Mac made it big and people started using Quark and Pagemaker to build their own pages...but still didn't have the horse-power to scan and edit the photos...so we used their pages from Quark, their artwork from Illustrator and then swapped out the low-res place-holder images with high-res that we scanned, color corrected and siloed etc etc. Again, pre-press still had a huge stake in the field.
But now, customers are doing their own in-house scanning, color correcting, proofing, assembly and they send it directly to printers. Yes, film is on the way out as direct-to-plate has finally arrived. This may bode well for printers themselves, but I've seen many shops in the Chicagoland area cut way back on pre-press because it's simply not needed anymore.
I should have clarified my original post and say that it's pre-press that's dying a slow death...printing itself will be around for a long time. Packaging and POS displays will is a good area to focus your efforts into if you're looking to get into printing itself.
But you're right, the industry is not dying, it's shifting gears.
You left out the biggest market share...the multi-billion dollar-a-year printing industry. Macs totally and completely rule this still.
After all these years, Macs still run that industry. Sure, there are people that use PC's in the industry, but they are very few and far between.
But, from what I've seen in my travels around printing, it's dying a slow death thanks to online content. Packaging is the place to be in printing/graphic arts now adays...just FYI for you youngsters out there looking to get into the industry.