Most Newbs who will be using that package selection during the install (i.e. not selecting individual packages) aren't going to want to muck around with the more complicated interfaces (Hey, I think it's complicated, and I'm a newb...kde and gnome are reassuring, because they are more like windows than the others. I like the speed of icewm, but config of toolbar/menu is a pain, and KDE is just so much easier.)
I think KDE is a good newbie GUI, and it's pretty effective for the average user. If you include all the window managers (A heck of a lot) it will only confuse the user. Limiting it to two good, solid GUIs that are very user-friendly, especially to people coming from windows/mac, is a good idea on Mandrake's part. If you're a pro, you should be using individual package selection. There's no other way to tailor a distro to an individual's tastes, since everyone is different.
Wow, isn't that great, just blame everything on the pirates. At the same time, they conveniently forget to mention how much artists actually get for what they do, and maybe they're starving just because the jobs don't pay them what they deserve.
I'm not saying piracy is good, but all I know is, artists get screwed over by pretty much everyone. Supporting the MPAA won't mean that all those poor starving artists will suddenly live like rajahs. It'll be the CEOs etc. etc that get to live the good life.
Maybe have a rating system, so that all the crap slowly sifts to the bottom? It's worked for a lot of sites, and I could see it working for iTunes as well.
They could also have a cordoned off section of "indie" type stuff, so people wouldn't even have to look at it if they didn't want to. I think it'd be great, for the artists, the users of iTunes, and Apple too.
How much does storage go for these days? Storage is dirt cheap, and much, MUCH cheaper than producing real CDs.
How in blazing hell will SCO ever figure out who is using linux? Do they have police spy-bots to go around the internet monitoring all the Linux computers connected to the internet? Am I going to come home one day to find a letter from SCO saying I have an illegal copy of linux and I need to buy their UnixWare license?
If that's the case, I'm moving to europe (or at least canada) where they don't have legal systems where parasite companies can take advantage of people and businesses.
Hmm, there's only a SLIGHT bias in MSN's little "report."
I think MSN is wrong in listing those things as "shortfalls" of google. Many of those shortfalls are what many people think are good features of google. I like the fact that more pdfs show up in google, and I can view them directly without having to go to those websites.
When I search for something on google, what I expect to come up, comes up. If I expect shopping sites, they come up. If I expect game review sites, they come up. If I expect wacky news sites, they come up.
I'll never use MSN, mostly because of popups, they're microsoft, and also they try to sell their internet service almost as forcefully as AOL does. And they have the wrong idea of what people want from their search engines.
Google isn't perfect. It has drawbacks and it has built-in problems. But, it works. What more can you ask for from a search engine?
Also, I can never appreciate a company that uses multicolored butterflies as their logo, especially when said butterflies appear as men dressed in tights rollerskating around. I've had enough trauma in my life without being exposed to men in tights trying to sell me MSN and other Microsoft products. Ugh.
I would say they have more claim than SCO. SCO hasn't even shown what code is undoubtedly copied from SysV code.
Also, if SCO wants to argue that they own everything because it's a derivative of SysV, well, the only option is to take it to court. If it's found that SCO can own the derivatives, how relavent is the GPL? Does that nullify the ownage of derivative works, or does it nullify the GPL? SCO seems to think it nullifies the GPL.
This really needs to be decided by a knowledgable judge, and needs to be taken care of quickly, before SCO can bully businesses into paying them for false licenses, without telling people what they are buying the license for (besides protection), until a decision is made.
OK so here are some options for a poll.
SCO:
(1) Hasn't read the GPL
(2) Thinks the GPL is a load of bull
(3) Thinks that GPL won't hold up in court
(4) Hopes that IBM will buy them out before going to court
(5) Are a bunch of fscking idiots
(6) First against the wall when the revolution comes
(7) Will win and 0wnzor you all
(8) Will be bought by CowboyNeal
Seems like SCO is playing a risky game, getting all the little points before the big showdown, so they can drive their stock higher and higher and then profit off it.
I still don't understand why the legal system hasn't stepped in; Basically, SCO is saying IBM and all Linux distros are ILLEGAL, and they wave this Sys V copyright in everyone's face, as if that's proof that they own linux. How far can they go? Will they be able to scare people even more, without any kind of legal backing? How is this not libel/slander? Come on IBM, knock these guys down!
It still mystifies me why IBM isn't doing anything at this point. They really do have to defend themselves, or they will start to look guilty, even if the charges are completely baseless (I still don't see how SCO can believe they own linux).
One thing that really surprises me (And I mean REALLY surprises me) is the fact that AOL Time Warner doesn't tout Mozilla more. I mean, if people knew that Firebird had excellent popup blocking and other features IE should have, people would switch in an instant! I moved my whole family over to Firebird, and they love it, even though it's still 0.6! They love the simplicity, and they especially love the popup blocking. They don't use Internet Explorer at all anymore, and I think this will continue, especially since Microsoft is going to wait until Longhorn for the next IE upgrade.
That's another thing; there are many issues with IE, as has been noted by many people (CSS, transparent.png, etc. etc.) not to mention popups. I just can't see why people would choose IE if they knew what firebird offered.
I can't help wondering, if people just got the word out, more people would use mozilla, and thereby mozilla would get more money in it's coffers. If mozilla can get a relatively large user base (Say, 10-20%) then I would hope they wouldn't have a problem getting funds.
Also, Linux isn't specifically from a company based in the United States. I think the German government might feel a little strange having computers that are run by an operating system which they didn't even own, and was licensed to them by a company in the United States. Come on, it is pretty strange isn't it? Imagine if we had to use an operating system from a company in China, who only "leased" it to us? We'd be pretty suspicious of that as well. Linux just makes sense for other countries, and for people who have a long-term view of their computing systems, since it doesn't lock the user into any kind of leasing scheme.
And it looks like Tycho will need it, to pay for all that bandwidth from the slashdot effect;)
Youuuuuu bastards,,, you slashdotted PA!!!
Honestly, I'd much rather pay a micro fee than having to view annoying flashy ads. I hate them, and I honestly don't see how they really benefit the site owners; Does ad revenue like that really work? It's not like TV ads, and internet ads just don't have the same effect as TV ads, in my opinion. Except that they are much more annoying than TV ads, in general.
Although there certainly is something to say for internet ads; they are pretty much no-hassle, and are much easier than a micropay system. Maybe if it was really streamlined, like amazon's one-click system, it would be convenient...But then they'd get sued;)
Where you get punished for doing things you MIGHT have done, if the superior police force hadn't nabbed you before your little malicious ideas came to fruition!
100% Accurate!
Gah, it's always scary when a movie plot comes true in real life....
OK So maybe the guy "deserved" to get punished, because he was "intentionally" building a device that was designed to "hack" into signals, but the fact is he's being held accountable for things that never happened, except in The Magical Fairyland of DirectTV's wild imagination.
Hmmm, have you tried SodiPodi, quite a nice vector based drawing program. Not sure if you can open Corel Draw 8 files, but you should be able to export to a file format SodiPodi can read in.
If this isn't anti-competitive and monopolist, I don't know what is! Pretty soon Microsoft will cut out all 3rd party vendors! Great.
Where are you, justice system of America? Why aren't you protecting us, and the smaller companies, from the big bad troll?
"Microsoft is the true company!! Use it or you will be punished in hell for eternity! Repent your sinful ways! Disband O ye geeks of linux and mac and unix lore!"
Beyond the problem of actually enforcing the eventually proposed laws, is it worth it? I think it is important for the internet to be open and free, and I'm not sure if you can have laws such as these and maintain an open and free internet. If they can, I don't have a problem with it; but I just can't see how it would work without destroying what is fundamental to the internet.
If people who used the internet were more educated and took the whole thing as a learning experience, and didn't use AOL, then perhaps spam wouldn't be as large a problem.
However, from my perspective, I may not see problems that other people have with spam, since I don't get any. Though it does seem kind of strange to me that people who use AOL and hotmail are targeted so easily.
So when is the justice system going to do it's job and smack down SCO so hard they can't get up? I'm getting tired of these empty threats, it's definitely becoming like the Iraqi Information Minister. When can we get back to reality? This detour into SCO's fantasyland is irking me to no end.
I'm curious, because it seems to me that this kind of major statement would upset a lot of people if it were true. If it is false (Which is very likely) it could force the ill-informed to really trash perfectly valid products based upon the false words of SCO. Aren't there laws against this kind of thing?
I think what people are realizing on this post is that... *Gasp*!! Reviewers are trying to make you upgrade!!! Oh the horror!!
Somebody has to make money, and the computer industry isn't going to make money if people feel satisfied with 3 year old technology. So, whip out the marketing experts!! Whip out the reviewers, smash those old budget comps and tout the brand new shiny 3ghz machines!
Personally it makes me sick, in more than one way; in some ways, it shows how weak the computer industry is for consumers. The fact is, most people just want internet, email, and word processing, and not much else, maybe the occasional game of hearts or solitaire. But they certainly don't need ridiculus speedy machines, and unfortunately, computers don't quite have that macho factor that cars and trucks do.
Anyway, these next few years should be quite interesting, since people will begin to realize they don't need to keep on shelling out money every year or two.
You do know that we're just part of a 10 billion year computer program on Earth, the greatest computer ever built in space and time, and commissioned by mice?
I think it's not even thought of as piracy by the pirater; Games are strange like that. Games are strange because you pay a lot of money for something that you get mindless entertainment from for a few hours, while you press little buttons and little dots on a screen move around. It really is completely pointless, and paying money for it, to some people, seems utterly ridiculus.
You also need to realize that there are some people in the world who have real addictions to video games, and seriously need to get that next videogame to have their next fix. OK, yes, they could stop and halt the endless whirlpool down that their life is probably taking, but try telling that to the big ugly monster on the screen =P
If you play games too much, it's like in all those stories where the hero gets trapped in a dream...Only the gamer doesn't want to escape. If anyone's read that (admittedly slightly childish) new book out by Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, it has some of those elements in it. Of course it draws from ancient mythology, but the idea is what I'm getting at here.
It's really like modern drugs. Hey, I'd rather have those pirates pirating games, then going around shoplifting and holding up banks for their next "fix."
Let me get this straight, based upon the posts here, SCO is suing because linux has identical comments? Because, SysV code is completely useless to Linux since they are so different (SCO doesn't seem to understand that linux wasn't copied from SysV and can't possibly use the same crufty code)
....Sooooo, they're basically full of hot air? Who's going to pop them? I know a million nerds who want to be the first =)) (MEEEEEEEEEE firsssttt!!!)
I mean, really, this is ridiculus, a 1.5 billion lawsuit over some silly nerd jokes?
Whoa, so you're saying gamers don't drop out of society? How is that possible? Games are completely virtual and separate from "real" society, so how can they still be a part of "real" society when they are also part of a virtual society? If the game isn't an MMORPG I can see that... Playing Tower Toppler every few days for a bit is probably not that big a withdrawal from society. But, if you play an MMORPG, how can you not withdraw from society? Imagine if, instead of spending those 8 hours playing a MMORPG like Anarchy Online, that you spent time with your family, or whatever other constructive things you can think of. Or even, sleeping! (MMORPG players are infamous for not sleeping very much; I remember in AO staying up with people until 5 am in the morning, and they had to leave for work at 7...)
I've been wrestling with this, because I really like MMORPGs, but I just can't maintain a real life while I'm playing those games; Of course, I tend to spend 8-12 hours a day playing, so maybe I'm just an addict and shouldn't be let near the darn things. Just so you know I recently stopped playing DAoC...
All I know is, once Star Wars Galaxies is out, you won't be seeing many pasty-faced nerds walking the streets...
BTW what are your motivations for playing games? Mine seem to be that I play them when I can't find anything better to do. Of course, if I wasn't playing games, I probably could find something better to do than the video game.
I have one problem with that non-programmer who looked through the code and found identical comments.... They speak of nothing if the code is identical, or even what function the code plays. How much of the code is the same in both System V and Linux? (I'm assuming this is the kernel). Also, why is it still the same after all this time? Wouldn't it have been changed? And what does "annotations" mean. Is that stuff at the beginning of the file, or is it comments that are interspersed throughout the file?
Also I just have qualms on the grounds that a non-programmer thinks they can speak about the legitimacy of SCO's claims.
This kind of story makes you want to stick your head in the sand and not buy any critical applications from corporations...Unfortunately, for some "leaders of industry," protecting image is more important than the safety of the users. Users are expendable; image is not.
Fortunately, there are still (I hope) some companies out there that are honest and worry about the safety of their users, particularly in life-critical applications.
What a slimy guy though, to prevent any notice of the fault from getting out, and firing managers for trying to get the word out! Man. Makes me angry. *Fumes*
Er, slight problem with defrags...It's not very healthy for the hard drive. You really shouldn't defrag more than once or twice a month (Depending on how heavily you use your computer) and even then, the fragmentation itself often isn't the cause of slow downs; it's usually those invisible files windows uses to keep track of your sessions (Yes, you can search on the internet, I don't know where the information on it is; I think files like NTUSER.dat and stuff do it; not sure. All I remember is when I followed instructions to delete my sessions, windows was like it had been right when I installed it! Of course I don't think I did it right, it made a new folder in the documents and settings directory for me).
Also, I really haven't noticed that much of a speed difference when defragmenting drives. Maybe it's just because I don't use my windows computer much anymore.
Now that I use ReiserFS, I'll find myself getting that urge to defrag, and for about half a minute I'll have this unconscious nagging; then I'll remember "OH it's not necessary!"
It's funny, but I think I got addicted to defragmenting hard drives when I used windows as my main OS.
Are there REALLY that many songs out there, that one person would want to listen to? Whatever happened to having "favorite" artists? Besides, most of the songs with the Microsoft offering probably won't be artists I would want to listen to. The Apple offering is vastly superior for me, because the fact is I don't want to listen to thousands of songs, I listen to select songs that I like. If I get bored with them, it is very easy to hunt around and pick out a few songs that I like the demo of. I don't want to pay money to rent songs; I want to own them, and the iTunes solution is the best I've seen so far.
Of course, I also own cds, so maybe I'm just strange =P
Slashdot Mirror
I think KDE is a good newbie GUI, and it's pretty effective for the average user. If you include all the window managers (A heck of a lot) it will only confuse the user. Limiting it to two good, solid GUIs that are very user-friendly, especially to people coming from windows/mac, is a good idea on Mandrake's part. If you're a pro, you should be using individual package selection. There's no other way to tailor a distro to an individual's tastes, since everyone is different.
I'm not saying piracy is good, but all I know is, artists get screwed over by pretty much everyone. Supporting the MPAA won't mean that all those poor starving artists will suddenly live like rajahs. It'll be the CEOs etc. etc that get to live the good life.
They could also have a cordoned off section of "indie" type stuff, so people wouldn't even have to look at it if they didn't want to. I think it'd be great, for the artists, the users of iTunes, and Apple too.
How much does storage go for these days? Storage is dirt cheap, and much, MUCH cheaper than producing real CDs.
If that's the case, I'm moving to europe (or at least canada) where they don't have legal systems where parasite companies can take advantage of people and businesses.
I think MSN is wrong in listing those things as "shortfalls" of google. Many of those shortfalls are what many people think are good features of google. I like the fact that more pdfs show up in google, and I can view them directly without having to go to those websites.
When I search for something on google, what I expect to come up, comes up. If I expect shopping sites, they come up. If I expect game review sites, they come up. If I expect wacky news sites, they come up.
I'll never use MSN, mostly because of popups, they're microsoft, and also they try to sell their internet service almost as forcefully as AOL does. And they have the wrong idea of what people want from their search engines.
Google isn't perfect. It has drawbacks and it has built-in problems. But, it works. What more can you ask for from a search engine?
Also, I can never appreciate a company that uses multicolored butterflies as their logo, especially when said butterflies appear as men dressed in tights rollerskating around. I've had enough trauma in my life without being exposed to men in tights trying to sell me MSN and other Microsoft products. Ugh.
Also, if SCO wants to argue that they own everything because it's a derivative of SysV, well, the only option is to take it to court. If it's found that SCO can own the derivatives, how relavent is the GPL? Does that nullify the ownage of derivative works, or does it nullify the GPL? SCO seems to think it nullifies the GPL.
This really needs to be decided by a knowledgable judge, and needs to be taken care of quickly, before SCO can bully businesses into paying them for false licenses, without telling people what they are buying the license for (besides protection), until a decision is made.
OK so here are some options for a poll.
SCO:
(1) Hasn't read the GPL
(2) Thinks the GPL is a load of bull
(3) Thinks that GPL won't hold up in court
(4) Hopes that IBM will buy them out before going to court
(5) Are a bunch of fscking idiots
(6) First against the wall when the revolution comes
(7) Will win and 0wnzor you all
(8) Will be bought by CowboyNeal
I still don't understand why the legal system hasn't stepped in; Basically, SCO is saying IBM and all Linux distros are ILLEGAL, and they wave this Sys V copyright in everyone's face, as if that's proof that they own linux. How far can they go? Will they be able to scare people even more, without any kind of legal backing? How is this not libel/slander? Come on IBM, knock these guys down!
It still mystifies me why IBM isn't doing anything at this point. They really do have to defend themselves, or they will start to look guilty, even if the charges are completely baseless (I still don't see how SCO can believe they own linux).
That's another thing; there are many issues with IE, as has been noted by many people (CSS, transparent .png, etc. etc.) not to mention popups. I just can't see why people would choose IE if they knew what firebird offered.
I can't help wondering, if people just got the word out, more people would use mozilla, and thereby mozilla would get more money in it's coffers. If mozilla can get a relatively large user base (Say, 10-20%) then I would hope they wouldn't have a problem getting funds.
Also, Linux isn't specifically from a company based in the United States. I think the German government might feel a little strange having computers that are run by an operating system which they didn't even own, and was licensed to them by a company in the United States. Come on, it is pretty strange isn't it? Imagine if we had to use an operating system from a company in China, who only "leased" it to us? We'd be pretty suspicious of that as well. Linux just makes sense for other countries, and for people who have a long-term view of their computing systems, since it doesn't lock the user into any kind of leasing scheme.
Youuuuuu bastards,,, you slashdotted PA!!!
Honestly, I'd much rather pay a micro fee than having to view annoying flashy ads. I hate them, and I honestly don't see how they really benefit the site owners; Does ad revenue like that really work? It's not like TV ads, and internet ads just don't have the same effect as TV ads, in my opinion. Except that they are much more annoying than TV ads, in general.
Although there certainly is something to say for internet ads; they are pretty much no-hassle, and are much easier than a micropay system. Maybe if it was really streamlined, like amazon's one-click system, it would be convenient...But then they'd get sued ;)
Where you get punished for doing things you MIGHT have done, if the superior police force hadn't nabbed you before your little malicious ideas came to fruition!
100% Accurate!
Gah, it's always scary when a movie plot comes true in real life....
OK So maybe the guy "deserved" to get punished, because he was "intentionally" building a device that was designed to "hack" into signals, but the fact is he's being held accountable for things that never happened, except in The Magical Fairyland of DirectTV's wild imagination.
Hmmm, have you tried SodiPodi, quite a nice vector based drawing program. Not sure if you can open Corel Draw 8 files, but you should be able to export to a file format SodiPodi can read in.
Where are you, justice system of America? Why aren't you protecting us, and the smaller companies, from the big bad troll?
"Microsoft is the true company!! Use it or you will be punished in hell for eternity! Repent your sinful ways! Disband O ye geeks of linux and mac and unix lore!"
If people who used the internet were more educated and took the whole thing as a learning experience, and didn't use AOL, then perhaps spam wouldn't be as large a problem.
However, from my perspective, I may not see problems that other people have with spam, since I don't get any. Though it does seem kind of strange to me that people who use AOL and hotmail are targeted so easily.
I'm curious, because it seems to me that this kind of major statement would upset a lot of people if it were true. If it is false (Which is very likely) it could force the ill-informed to really trash perfectly valid products based upon the false words of SCO. Aren't there laws against this kind of thing?
Somebody has to make money, and the computer industry isn't going to make money if people feel satisfied with 3 year old technology. So, whip out the marketing experts!! Whip out the reviewers, smash those old budget comps and tout the brand new shiny 3ghz machines!
Personally it makes me sick, in more than one way; in some ways, it shows how weak the computer industry is for consumers. The fact is, most people just want internet, email, and word processing, and not much else, maybe the occasional game of hearts or solitaire. But they certainly don't need ridiculus speedy machines, and unfortunately, computers don't quite have that macho factor that cars and trucks do.
Anyway, these next few years should be quite interesting, since people will begin to realize they don't need to keep on shelling out money every year or two.
You do know that we're just part of a 10 billion year computer program on Earth, the greatest computer ever built in space and time, and commissioned by mice?
You also need to realize that there are some people in the world who have real addictions to video games, and seriously need to get that next videogame to have their next fix. OK, yes, they could stop and halt the endless whirlpool down that their life is probably taking, but try telling that to the big ugly monster on the screen =P
If you play games too much, it's like in all those stories where the hero gets trapped in a dream...Only the gamer doesn't want to escape. If anyone's read that (admittedly slightly childish) new book out by Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men, it has some of those elements in it. Of course it draws from ancient mythology, but the idea is what I'm getting at here.
It's really like modern drugs. Hey, I'd rather have those pirates pirating games, then going around shoplifting and holding up banks for their next "fix."
....Sooooo, they're basically full of hot air? Who's going to pop them? I know a million nerds who want to be the first =)) (MEEEEEEEEEE firsssttt!!!)
I mean, really, this is ridiculus, a 1.5 billion lawsuit over some silly nerd jokes?
I've been wrestling with this, because I really like MMORPGs, but I just can't maintain a real life while I'm playing those games; Of course, I tend to spend 8-12 hours a day playing, so maybe I'm just an addict and shouldn't be let near the darn things. Just so you know I recently stopped playing DAoC...
All I know is, once Star Wars Galaxies is out, you won't be seeing many pasty-faced nerds walking the streets...
BTW what are your motivations for playing games? Mine seem to be that I play them when I can't find anything better to do. Of course, if I wasn't playing games, I probably could find something better to do than the video game.
Also I just have qualms on the grounds that a non-programmer thinks they can speak about the legitimacy of SCO's claims.
Fortunately, there are still (I hope) some companies out there that are honest and worry about the safety of their users, particularly in life-critical applications.
What a slimy guy though, to prevent any notice of the fault from getting out, and firing managers for trying to get the word out! Man. Makes me angry. *Fumes*
Also, I really haven't noticed that much of a speed difference when defragmenting drives. Maybe it's just because I don't use my windows computer much anymore.
Now that I use ReiserFS, I'll find myself getting that urge to defrag, and for about half a minute I'll have this unconscious nagging; then I'll remember "OH it's not necessary!"
It's funny, but I think I got addicted to defragmenting hard drives when I used windows as my main OS.
Of course, I also own cds, so maybe I'm just strange =P