Question wasn't whether it was better. Question was, in what ways.
"Neither difficult nor complex" is relative.
They are still separate distros with separate iso's. I never said they didn't use the same repositories. I call them the same distro, because they use the same repositories. Keep in mind, also, that they still manage to completely fill the CD -- I assert that if I'm only interested in one or the other, it makes more sense to use that room on the CD for other things.
a blended system gives you the best of both apps. I know quite a few people that use Gnome, but fire up k3b (a KDE/QT app) when they want to burn discs, because it is just better in lots of ways. And I run Firefox (a GTK+ app) because I kind of need Firebug for work, even though I use KDE.
But that is a bit outside the norm. Both CDs come, out of the box, with most of what you need. If you're advanced enough to actively go looking for k3b, you can probably afford another 30 cents for a separate disk.
Still, there's no inherent technological barrier to providing both. I suspect I'd be using Debian if it was that much of an issue.
"Correct me if I'm wrong - Ubuntu ships Compiz, just like other distributions do. The way it is written makes it sound like Ubuntu developers made up the whole thing from scratch and it's something unique to it." Your suggestion didn't solve that, it was more akin to trying to call it "GNU/Linux".
Maybe this phrasing: "Ubuntu includes Compiz, which provides all this stuff." But that's still so close to the other way that it's pretty possibly accidental -- and, for that matter, the person making the comment may not even know it's called Compiz.
Ultimately, no matter what you say, you're going to piss someone off. I haven't heard you call it "Mandriva GNU/Linux", and I go so far as to call my OS "Ubuntu", thus denying Linus and the kernel team credit.
Contrary to what you may think, you do not have *the right* to watch a movie whenever you feel like it. Your reading comprehension is pathetic, as long as we're trading ad-hominims.
Did I ever say I had the right? No, I'm countering the point about "many fine stores" -- fact is, piracy currently provides features not found anywhere else, for any price. And, for software, it may also provide better quality, given how harmful the DRM schemes themselves can be until the pirate group removes their teeth.
There are quite a few independent movie studious out there releasing hundreds of movies every year. The same is true with regards to music. And again, when I find these, I try to support them. Especially when one of them gets it.
I went to an Umphrey's McGee concert. Right outside, on your way out, they had a couple of towers of CD burners. They would burn and sell you a CD of the concert, right there and then.
Wait a couple of days, and it's up on the website, for a reasonable price, and in DRM-free flac. Yes, flac, not just mp3.
It could be worse. In Canada, you're paying a 'piracy tax' on blank media like CD/DVD-Rs because they automatically assume you're going to use it for illicit purposes. I know.
Get over it. Oh, bullshit.
You really want to play that game? Alright, how's this: Major studios and labels are finding that their business model is failing in the marketplace. They can't compete with "free" without drastically revamping their business model. Get over it.
Or you could, y'know, actually agree that it's wrong.
Comparing your plight for bootlegged movies and music to the struggles of civil rights icons just shows how much of a complete idiot you are. Well, you didn't read my post, I couldn't expect you to read the GP's.
Next time you feel the urge to type this type of comment, just don't. Open up a browser, go to Wikipedia or some other online reference, and educate yourself You first.
Oh, by the way, notice how I was modded insightful, and you were modded troll?
This time, read my signature. Then read my comment. Then take a deep breath, take a walk, get some fresh air, and calm the fuck down.
And then come back with something better than calling me a "petulant child" -- that's called an ad hominem, and using it is a flaw in your argument, not mine.
And you're right. It doesn't feel integrated, it's not really as accelerated, and it's not really going to be easy to replace the default UI with an X window manager -- or run OS X apps under X (particularly for things like actual remote X terminals).
Now, there are some fairly interesting things about the OS X graphics system, but there's exactly one proprietary implementation, so it's not really a good target for a standard.
Keep in mind, this TV show I missed -- truth, I swear! -- is both huge (around 70 gigs) and has a pretty bad ratio (I'm connected to 108 leechers and 4 seeders). However, I have noticed more than a few Comcast IPs on this torrent, so maybe that has something to do with it...
I wonder what I can tweak, though. Having a share ratio of 4.1 on a torrent that big is well and good, but it would be a bit frustrating if I didn't already have another season and a half to watch (assuming the torrent was stalled, and it'll have another season or five by then).
However, even if you are using FDE, you are susceptible to rubber hose cryptanalysis. Not if the key isn't physically on me. I'm trying to protect against the most common kind of attack -- obviously, if they hold me long enough to get enough information necessary to go to my house and get the data, I'm screwed.
Of course, I could always give them a false password that nukes the system, if it gets that far.
Additionally, it will single you out for further examination, perhaps by someone more competent. Short of that rubber hose, I don't really see what they could do. Would someone more competent be able to break RSA and AES?
Rather than potentially BREAKING the GUI on a significant number of machines Not like it can't fall back to something.
the last SEVERAL releases of Mandriva have it ready to use and integrated with one click on "3-D desktop". Alright, that's what I was asking.
Mandriva has been around before there was an Ubuntu. It is just as or more pretty, powerful, flexible, stable, easy to use, and polished. It was distributed on HP's and several other hardware vendors long before Ubuntu was offered on Dell. Anything specific that makes it better, though?
For example: Ubuntu has a release every six months. It's based on Debian, and maybe it's a matter of personal taste, but I like dpkg/apt better than rpm. It's popular, and in open source, popularity usually corresponds to quality -- not because people are attracted to quality, but because more people will be contributing to it.
I know what the strengths of Ubuntu are. I'm curious what the strengths of Mandriva are.
By the way, this one doesn't count:
Unlike Ubuntu, a single Mandriva DVD can install a default KDE or Gnome or combined (or other) system... they don't seem to have the need to have separate Gnomedriva and KDEdriva distro versions. First, this is a feature for most users. No more paralysis of choice -- Ubuntu has chosen for you which UI it will focus more on, and which one you will install, unless you go out of your way to override the defaults.
And second, you're wrong. Kubuntu and Ubuntu share repositories -- while it's not the most pleasant experience, it's entirely possible to install from an Ubuntu CD, and later install the 'kubuntu-desktop' package, then remove the 'ubuntu-desktop' package.
In fact, that's the whole point of the "Alternate" ISO -- install a base Ubuntu system in a way that's more compatible than a livecd, and once you've got it working, add the pieces you need to get a working system.
Strictly speaking, because of debootstrap, I don't even need an Ubuntu ISO -- I just need ANY working Linux system from which to run the installation program. I could do that with Gentoo, and I loved it -- took me a very long time to figure out how to do it on Ubuntu, and it's not as smooth. Can Mandriva do that?
Every time I see ANY article/posting refering to something that applies to all Linux distros under a single distro name, it is almost always Ubuntu users who do it. It is tiring, arrogant, and insulting to users and developers of other distros. Does it apply to "all" Linux distros? I have Debian/ARM on an old Jornada handheld. I can barely run X at all, and I doubt anyone's ever run Compiz on ARM.
And yet, Compiz also runs on FreeBSD, at least. And OpenSolaris.
My point was that you should not use the term "Ubuntu" instead of "Linux distros" when it is something that really refers to many, most, or all distros. Then what term should I use? "Don't worry, most Linux distros, but not all, and also some BSDs, and Solaris, have them."
No, if I want to talk about a feature Ubuntu has, I'll talk about a feature Ubuntu has. I'm not going to download all of these Linux distributions just to make sure I'm not leaving anybody out of the credit. Nor am I going to make generic statements about "Linux distributions" or "Linux in general", when I can't possibly know anything about most Linux distributions, and Linux itself is just a kernel.
I may, however, spare a moment to give credit to the people who are actually responsible for this: The Compiz project.
Would it ruin plausible deniability to have a stenographically hidden (i.e. truecrypt) directory pointing to a set of files that you want to directly access? Something along the lines of a file system driver so it appears as a file system folder. Well, it is possible to build very strange and wondrous filesystem drivers, on Linux at least, with fuse.
The main problem, though, is you want to remove all possibility of proving that you were the one requesting a particular document via your node. This could be a tricky problem -- for example, if you just mount it and double-click on it, it'll probably appear in some "recently used" list.
I think that this would detract, at least somewhat, from the idea that the locally-encrypted files are hidden, even from you. And even if that wasn't an issue, it seems like it would be very complicated to get right.
Nor is FIOS from what I have read from other users here on/, Depends.
I don't actually get fiber from Verizon. I get it from a local ISP, and I had DSL from them before I had fiber.
Right now, I'm downloading a torrent at a pretty steady 300k -- as in, 300 kilobytes per second. I'm uploading at 1 megabyte per second. On a better torrent, I can easily get up to 2-3 megabytes down. It's pretty close to sharing files over a LAN.
Face it we are screwed thanks to Net Neutrality. Which definition?
The original definition is that the network should be neutral.
The twisted Telecom definition is that the government should be neutral about the network.
I support the original net neutrality, and I support the government taking action towards that.
What is truly sad is that we just kick our feet back and do not care. Why can't I run my own software on my iphone? Well, actually, you can.
We need to write to our legislatures and see if we can overturn net neutrality. Again, WTF? What do you think net neutrality means? What do you think you'd be overturning?
You have the option to buy it at many locations nationwide for reasonable prices. I don't consider $20 for a DRM'd (and thus defective) movie, or $30 for an even more heavily DRM'd (but hi-def and shiny!) movie, to be a reasonable price.
Now, rentals, I do consider to be reasonable prices -- but I'd much rather not have to actually go to the store. Netflix is a good idea, but their "watch now" service is heavily DRM'd.
So tell me where else I can go, when I want to watch a movie right now, without going to a video store -- or maybe it's not even at the video store yet -- oh, and I want to watch it on Linux.
The business model is just screaming for someone to implement it.
There's no monopoly on movies, music or software at the moment. The majority of movies come from a shockingly small number of studios. The majority of music comes from a shockingly small number of labels.
And there are certainly monopolies within software. Microsoft, anyone?
We all agree the MPAA and RIAA exaggerate the damages, but it's also not a victimless crime, not by any stretch of the imagination. I used to feel bad about it, yes. Then they started suing 12-year-old children, grandmothers, and dead people for $100/song. Now I really don't care.
I will go out of my way to pay for indie music, when I find a band I like. But with the things the MPAA and the RIAA does in response to piracy... Seriously, proposing a "piracy tax" on ISPs? If they already assume their customers are their enemies, then I really don't care.
The Civil Rights Movement didn't succeed because Martin Luthor King, Jr sat on his ass all day, then occasionally stole a candy bar from the corner store under the guise of "justice." At the same time, Rosa Parks didn't wait for the law to change. Neither am I.
Oh give me a break. You are saying it is ok to rip people or companies off? I'm not.
Mind if I grab into your pocket to steal your wallet? If you don't see the difference between theft and copying, there's not really much intelligent I can say to you.
If you grab my wallet, I'm out something like $50 -- which you actually took from me. If you copy my movie, I'm out... $0. Because you didn't take anything from me.
I'm not saying copyright infringement is OK, but be clear in your analogies. Stealing potatoes is, again, quite different than copying.
World of Warcraft updates were delivered via BitTorrent, last I checked.
Oh, and then there's the legal media downloads via BitTorrent. Azureus Vuze comes to mind.
And I am sure it is clogging the networks of Comcast and other network providers. Their fault for overselling. Not my fault for using what I paid for.
It's about time someone stood up to you no-good file sharing thieves. Does that extend to World of Warcraft? It distributes patches via BitTorrent.
What about Linux? I download Ubuntu install DVDs via BitTorrent.
How about music and movies which I've bought? There are now at least two major services through which I can buy a movie online, and download it via BitTorrent. Allow me to take a moment to mock you:
Just because the internet existed when you were born does not mean that free music and movies are a birthright. And just because you were senile before the Internet existed does not mean that a fucking protocol is the devil.
Remember -- these fucktards are throttling BitTorrent, which is a protocol. It happens to be popular among filesharing, but this is not the way to go about stopping these "thieves".
And fuck your nitpicking - copying is stealing. Period. Fuck your generalizing. Some things are actually public domain, and copying is legal, and is what the original author intended.
In fact, copying stuff which I bought, to other devices which I own, so that I can enjoy it for myself, is also legal, but often prevented by DRM, because morons like you couldn't wrap your head around the difference between copying and copyright infringement, let alone stealing.
I get fiber-to-the-home. I may have to call at some point, as I'm supposed to get 100 mbits, and their test actually results in more like 60. But you know, a doller/month/megabit is a damned good deal. Full duplex, too -- I often seed torrents at one megabyte per second.
The difference is, of course, Fiber rocks, and also, my ISP actually believes in net neutrality, or claims to. If they're throttling my traffic, fine, I'm still downloading at 300 kilobytes/second. Again, kilobytes, not bits.
You get a total of 8 activations, each of which gives you six hours of use. So if you did write such a script, you'd have no "p2p access" after two days.
No, my question is, how long till students either revolt or go somewhere else? More importantly, is this a university which can afford to lose their CS department? (Do they have one to begin with? I don't know, just asking...)
Either they'd be left with close to zero students who care about the Internet -- there goes their CS department -- or they're going to have a few very expensive students who find ways around it.
Either way, it's also going to be the loss of a hell of a lot of intelligent people. You want to select out the morons, not the other way around. Doing it this way will eventually come back to bite them in the ass.
Well, there's always things like wmii, which is so minimal that it's often distributed in source form, so you can "configure" it by editing a header and recompiling.
And there's things like window managers which actually manage windows -- you generally don't get to resize windows, position them, etc; you work at a higher level. And some I'd call "wild" simply because you'd have to be insane to use them -- no window manager and an xterm, or Fluxbox with no panel or menu and a hotkey for a 'run' command. (I did that for a very long time, and even worked the same way with Beryl for awhile, before finally switching to KDE.)
There are even systems which use Firefox (heavily extended) as a window manager and desktop environment.
Well, X is a standard. So is dbus. Gstreamer will be supported by Phonon, so KDE4 will natively support it the way Gnome apps do.
Various pieces are often turned into libraries which are intended to work on both. Wrappers are often written so that you don't have to think about it -- I can check one little checkbox and all my gtk apps will use a qt theme, so if I wasn't a tech, I wouldn't even know Firefox wasn't a KDE app.
In order to do this, though, you have to understand just what it is you want to standardize.
Tell me one thing: Which problem are you trying to solve?
Are you trying to solve the problem of apps working on one system or the other? Completely solved. I use KDE, but I often use Firefox, and occasionally VLC -- both use gtk+, and were likely written for GNOME.
Seriously, I can type "sudo apt-get install foo", and I'll get an entry "foo" somewhere in my launch menu. Hell, even Wine can do that now -- I can double-click on an EXE and Wine will run the installer, drop menus in my Launch Menu under "Wine", and place shortcuts on the desktop. Yes, the desktop -- a folder called (surprise!) "Desktop", and shared between GNOME and KDE.
Are you trying to solve the problem of users having to choose at install time? (Oh no, a choice! Woe is me!) That's easy, too -- give them Ubuntu. It makes the choice for them -- they get GNOME. Those who later learn enough to care might switch to Kubuntu and KDE -- that doesn't even require a reinstall.
Are you trying to solve the problem of wasted effort within the projects? Don't bother. The GNOME people aren't ever going to provide as much configurability as KDE (I can choose what happens when I middle-click on a title bar!). But GNOME is the default choice for Ubuntu, so it gets a lot of polish -- it won't ever completely die.
Besides, competition is good. Each project does things the other won't. Each project is often improved in an effort to compete with the other.
And again, the big, important stuff often ends up being shared.
Are you trying to solve the problem of RAM usage? If that's a problem, in a day when often the minimum you'll get is 2 gigs, you've got bigger problems. And if you really do have those bigger problems, you can probably use a slimmed-down KDE or XFCE -- you'll probably be choosing apps specifically for low RAM usage (ruling out Firefox, maybe?) so all this means is you have to consider toolkit, also.
That is not "Ubuntu has them", that is "Linux has them".... Beryl and Compiz have been used in plenty of other distros for a loooong time. First: Beryl is dead, long live the Compiz merge.
Second: Does Mandriva use them as the default, "integrated" or not?
Ubuntu is big, and popular, and distributed by Dell. What does Mandriva have that Ubuntu doesn't?
But more importantly, I think it is quicker and cleaner to simply talk about a distro, without mentioning Linux. It won't piss off RMS quite as much, as we are clearly talking about a distribution and a derivative work -- it's Ubuntu, not Ubuntu/Gnu/Linux. And it'll avoid people making embarrassing mistakes by mentioning a feature that "Linux" has, but might only be present in KDE, or only in GNOME -- or only in proprietary software, or, in fact, only a particular distro.
Ubuntu has them. Mandriva also has them. Both of these statements are correct.
"Linux has them" is actually less correct, as Linux is just a kernel, and you can have a working Linux systems in all kinds of places which physically don't support a GUI, let alone desktop effects.
Well, KDE 3 can be configured to look and act very much like OS X -- right down to the menu bar at the top. (KDE 4 has some of the newer desktop effects toys, but it also has about half the features of GNOME, which has less than half the features of KDE 3.)
But actually, we do have something like that -- it's called X. The problem is, of course, that Windows and OS X both threw away decades of work and started from scratch, so you can't just write an X window manager and expect it to work anywhere but Linux. (Or BSD. Or OpenDarwin. Or Plan9. Or Solaris. Or Cygwin. Or...)
Personally, I think the better solution would be a common runtime -- either high level (think Java, or the Web/AJAX) or low level (think x86_64 + Linux + X.org) -- so that I can customize my environment as much as I want, and then run the apps I want in that environment. Much more flexible when I can actually write brand-new window-managing software than try to create a common spec for configuring existing window managers.
That's a good idea, but in my experience I'm not always able to use VPNs or nonstandard TCP ports while I'm using a hotel's internet access. What's weird is that UDP often works.
More relevantly, if you control the endpoint, you could use something like an HTTP tunnel.
I'd say, encrypt the files via your own means, then upload them to Amazon. Yes, you still have to trust Amazon, but only to be reliable and fast -- not to be particularly secure.
with SFTP support and lots of bandwidth. That's about the only problem I have with this concept. Good, fast crypto is what's required here, or at least decent authentication -- you can always encrypt the file contents themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
Almost poetic how it requires exactly double the space.
I wonder if it provides even half the functionality...
"Neither difficult nor complex" is relative. They are still separate distros with separate iso's. I never said they didn't use the same repositories. I call them the same distro, because they use the same repositories. Keep in mind, also, that they still manage to completely fill the CD -- I assert that if I'm only interested in one or the other, it makes more sense to use that room on the CD for other things. a blended system gives you the best of both apps. I know quite a few people that use Gnome, but fire up k3b (a KDE/QT app) when they want to burn discs, because it is just better in lots of ways. And I run Firefox (a GTK+ app) because I kind of need Firebug for work, even though I use KDE.
But that is a bit outside the norm. Both CDs come, out of the box, with most of what you need. If you're advanced enough to actively go looking for k3b, you can probably afford another 30 cents for a separate disk.
Still, there's no inherent technological barrier to providing both. I suspect I'd be using Debian if it was that much of an issue. "Correct me if I'm wrong - Ubuntu ships Compiz, just like other distributions do. The way it is written makes it sound like Ubuntu developers made up the whole thing from scratch and it's something unique to it." Your suggestion didn't solve that, it was more akin to trying to call it "GNU/Linux".
Maybe this phrasing: "Ubuntu includes Compiz, which provides all this stuff." But that's still so close to the other way that it's pretty possibly accidental -- and, for that matter, the person making the comment may not even know it's called Compiz.
Ultimately, no matter what you say, you're going to piss someone off. I haven't heard you call it "Mandriva GNU/Linux", and I go so far as to call my OS "Ubuntu", thus denying Linus and the kernel team credit.
Did I ever say I had the right? No, I'm countering the point about "many fine stores" -- fact is, piracy currently provides features not found anywhere else, for any price. And, for software, it may also provide better quality, given how harmful the DRM schemes themselves can be until the pirate group removes their teeth. There are quite a few independent movie studious out there releasing hundreds of movies every year. The same is true with regards to music. And again, when I find these, I try to support them. Especially when one of them gets it.
I went to an Umphrey's McGee concert. Right outside, on your way out, they had a couple of towers of CD burners. They would burn and sell you a CD of the concert, right there and then.
Wait a couple of days, and it's up on the website, for a reasonable price, and in DRM-free flac. Yes, flac, not just mp3. It could be worse. In Canada, you're paying a 'piracy tax' on blank media like CD/DVD-Rs because they automatically assume you're going to use it for illicit purposes. I know. Get over it. Oh, bullshit.
You really want to play that game? Alright, how's this: Major studios and labels are finding that their business model is failing in the marketplace. They can't compete with "free" without drastically revamping their business model. Get over it.
Or you could, y'know, actually agree that it's wrong. Comparing your plight for bootlegged movies and music to the struggles of civil rights icons just shows how much of a complete idiot you are. Well, you didn't read my post, I couldn't expect you to read the GP's. Next time you feel the urge to type this type of comment, just don't. Open up a browser, go to Wikipedia or some other online reference, and educate yourself You first.
Oh, by the way, notice how I was modded insightful, and you were modded troll?
This time, read my signature. Then read my comment. Then take a deep breath, take a walk, get some fresh air, and calm the fuck down.
And then come back with something better than calling me a "petulant child" -- that's called an ad hominem, and using it is a flaw in your argument, not mine.
Yes, I know, I had a Mac.
And you're right. It doesn't feel integrated, it's not really as accelerated, and it's not really going to be easy to replace the default UI with an X window manager -- or run OS X apps under X (particularly for things like actual remote X terminals).
Now, there are some fairly interesting things about the OS X graphics system, but there's exactly one proprietary implementation, so it's not really a good target for a standard.
Went up to 500k later...
Keep in mind, this TV show I missed -- truth, I swear! -- is both huge (around 70 gigs) and has a pretty bad ratio (I'm connected to 108 leechers and 4 seeders). However, I have noticed more than a few Comcast IPs on this torrent, so maybe that has something to do with it...
I wonder what I can tweak, though. Having a share ratio of 4.1 on a torrent that big is well and good, but it would be a bit frustrating if I didn't already have another season and a half to watch (assuming the torrent was stalled, and it'll have another season or five by then).
Of course, I could always give them a false password that nukes the system, if it gets that far. Additionally, it will single you out for further examination, perhaps by someone more competent. Short of that rubber hose, I don't really see what they could do. Would someone more competent be able to break RSA and AES?
For example: Ubuntu has a release every six months. It's based on Debian, and maybe it's a matter of personal taste, but I like dpkg/apt better than rpm. It's popular, and in open source, popularity usually corresponds to quality -- not because people are attracted to quality, but because more people will be contributing to it.
I know what the strengths of Ubuntu are. I'm curious what the strengths of Mandriva are.
By the way, this one doesn't count: Unlike Ubuntu, a single Mandriva DVD can install a default KDE or Gnome or combined (or other) system... they don't seem to have the need to have separate Gnomedriva and KDEdriva distro versions. First, this is a feature for most users. No more paralysis of choice -- Ubuntu has chosen for you which UI it will focus more on, and which one you will install, unless you go out of your way to override the defaults.
And second, you're wrong. Kubuntu and Ubuntu share repositories -- while it's not the most pleasant experience, it's entirely possible to install from an Ubuntu CD, and later install the 'kubuntu-desktop' package, then remove the 'ubuntu-desktop' package.
In fact, that's the whole point of the "Alternate" ISO -- install a base Ubuntu system in a way that's more compatible than a livecd, and once you've got it working, add the pieces you need to get a working system.
Strictly speaking, because of debootstrap, I don't even need an Ubuntu ISO -- I just need ANY working Linux system from which to run the installation program. I could do that with Gentoo, and I loved it -- took me a very long time to figure out how to do it on Ubuntu, and it's not as smooth. Can Mandriva do that? Every time I see ANY article/posting refering to something that applies to all Linux distros under a single distro name, it is almost always Ubuntu users who do it. It is tiring, arrogant, and insulting to users and developers of other distros. Does it apply to "all" Linux distros? I have Debian/ARM on an old Jornada handheld. I can barely run X at all, and I doubt anyone's ever run Compiz on ARM.
And yet, Compiz also runs on FreeBSD, at least. And OpenSolaris. My point was that you should not use the term "Ubuntu" instead of "Linux distros" when it is something that really refers to many, most, or all distros. Then what term should I use? "Don't worry, most Linux distros, but not all, and also some BSDs, and Solaris, have them."
No, if I want to talk about a feature Ubuntu has, I'll talk about a feature Ubuntu has. I'm not going to download all of these Linux distributions just to make sure I'm not leaving anybody out of the credit. Nor am I going to make generic statements about "Linux distributions" or "Linux in general", when I can't possibly know anything about most Linux distributions, and Linux itself is just a kernel.
I may, however, spare a moment to give credit to the people who are actually responsible for this: The Compiz project.
The main problem, though, is you want to remove all possibility of proving that you were the one requesting a particular document via your node. This could be a tricky problem -- for example, if you just mount it and double-click on it, it'll probably appear in some "recently used" list.
I think that this would detract, at least somewhat, from the idea that the locally-encrypted files are hidden, even from you. And even if that wasn't an issue, it seems like it would be very complicated to get right.
I don't actually get fiber from Verizon. I get it from a local ISP, and I had DSL from them before I had fiber.
Right now, I'm downloading a torrent at a pretty steady 300k -- as in, 300 kilobytes per second. I'm uploading at 1 megabyte per second. On a better torrent, I can easily get up to 2-3 megabytes down. It's pretty close to sharing files over a LAN. Face it we are screwed thanks to Net Neutrality. Which definition?
The original definition is that the network should be neutral.
The twisted Telecom definition is that the government should be neutral about the network.
I support the original net neutrality, and I support the government taking action towards that. What is truly sad is that we just kick our feet back and do not care. Why can't I run my own software on my iphone? Well, actually, you can. We need to write to our legislatures and see if we can overturn net neutrality. Again, WTF? What do you think net neutrality means? What do you think you'd be overturning?
Now, rentals, I do consider to be reasonable prices -- but I'd much rather not have to actually go to the store. Netflix is a good idea, but their "watch now" service is heavily DRM'd.
So tell me where else I can go, when I want to watch a movie right now, without going to a video store -- or maybe it's not even at the video store yet -- oh, and I want to watch it on Linux.
The business model is just screaming for someone to implement it. There's no monopoly on movies, music or software at the moment. The majority of movies come from a shockingly small number of studios. The majority of music comes from a shockingly small number of labels.
And there are certainly monopolies within software. Microsoft, anyone? We all agree the MPAA and RIAA exaggerate the damages, but it's also not a victimless crime, not by any stretch of the imagination. I used to feel bad about it, yes. Then they started suing 12-year-old children, grandmothers, and dead people for $100/song. Now I really don't care.
I will go out of my way to pay for indie music, when I find a band I like. But with the things the MPAA and the RIAA does in response to piracy... Seriously, proposing a "piracy tax" on ISPs? If they already assume their customers are their enemies, then I really don't care. The Civil Rights Movement didn't succeed because Martin Luthor King, Jr sat on his ass all day, then occasionally stole a candy bar from the corner store under the guise of "justice." At the same time, Rosa Parks didn't wait for the law to change. Neither am I.
If you grab my wallet, I'm out something like $50 -- which you actually took from me. If you copy my movie, I'm out... $0. Because you didn't take anything from me.
I'm not saying copyright infringement is OK, but be clear in your analogies. Stealing potatoes is, again, quite different than copying.
Oh, and then there's the legal media downloads via BitTorrent. Azureus Vuze comes to mind. And I am sure it is clogging the networks of Comcast and other network providers. Their fault for overselling. Not my fault for using what I paid for.
What about Linux? I download Ubuntu install DVDs via BitTorrent.
How about music and movies which I've bought? There are now at least two major services through which I can buy a movie online, and download it via BitTorrent. Allow me to take a moment to mock you: Just because the internet existed when you were born does not mean that free music and movies are a birthright. And just because you were senile before the Internet existed does not mean that a fucking protocol is the devil.
Remember -- these fucktards are throttling BitTorrent, which is a protocol. It happens to be popular among filesharing, but this is not the way to go about stopping these "thieves". And fuck your nitpicking - copying is stealing. Period. Fuck your generalizing. Some things are actually public domain, and copying is legal, and is what the original author intended.
In fact, copying stuff which I bought, to other devices which I own, so that I can enjoy it for myself, is also legal, but often prevented by DRM, because morons like you couldn't wrap your head around the difference between copying and copyright infringement, let alone stealing.
I'd probably settle for 50%.
I get fiber-to-the-home. I may have to call at some point, as I'm supposed to get 100 mbits, and their test actually results in more like 60. But you know, a doller/month/megabit is a damned good deal. Full duplex, too -- I often seed torrents at one megabyte per second.
The difference is, of course, Fiber rocks, and also, my ISP actually believes in net neutrality, or claims to. If they're throttling my traffic, fine, I'm still downloading at 300 kilobytes/second. Again, kilobytes, not bits.
You get a total of 8 activations, each of which gives you six hours of use. So if you did write such a script, you'd have no "p2p access" after two days.
No, my question is, how long till students either revolt or go somewhere else? More importantly, is this a university which can afford to lose their CS department? (Do they have one to begin with? I don't know, just asking...)
Either they'd be left with close to zero students who care about the Internet -- there goes their CS department -- or they're going to have a few very expensive students who find ways around it.
Either way, it's also going to be the loss of a hell of a lot of intelligent people. You want to select out the morons, not the other way around. Doing it this way will eventually come back to bite them in the ass.
I'm guessing that could also have been meant as another "way around it" -- encrypt your P2P traffic, and they can't block it.
Well, there's always things like wmii, which is so minimal that it's often distributed in source form, so you can "configure" it by editing a header and recompiling.
And there's things like window managers which actually manage windows -- you generally don't get to resize windows, position them, etc; you work at a higher level. And some I'd call "wild" simply because you'd have to be insane to use them -- no window manager and an xterm, or Fluxbox with no panel or menu and a hotkey for a 'run' command. (I did that for a very long time, and even worked the same way with Beryl for awhile, before finally switching to KDE.)
There are even systems which use Firefox (heavily extended) as a window manager and desktop environment.
Well, X is a standard. So is dbus. Gstreamer will be supported by Phonon, so KDE4 will natively support it the way Gnome apps do.
Various pieces are often turned into libraries which are intended to work on both. Wrappers are often written so that you don't have to think about it -- I can check one little checkbox and all my gtk apps will use a qt theme, so if I wasn't a tech, I wouldn't even know Firefox wasn't a KDE app.
In order to do this, though, you have to understand just what it is you want to standardize.
Tell me one thing: Which problem are you trying to solve?
Are you trying to solve the problem of apps working on one system or the other? Completely solved. I use KDE, but I often use Firefox, and occasionally VLC -- both use gtk+, and were likely written for GNOME.
Seriously, I can type "sudo apt-get install foo", and I'll get an entry "foo" somewhere in my launch menu. Hell, even Wine can do that now -- I can double-click on an EXE and Wine will run the installer, drop menus in my Launch Menu under "Wine", and place shortcuts on the desktop. Yes, the desktop -- a folder called (surprise!) "Desktop", and shared between GNOME and KDE.
Are you trying to solve the problem of users having to choose at install time? (Oh no, a choice! Woe is me!) That's easy, too -- give them Ubuntu. It makes the choice for them -- they get GNOME. Those who later learn enough to care might switch to Kubuntu and KDE -- that doesn't even require a reinstall.
Are you trying to solve the problem of wasted effort within the projects? Don't bother. The GNOME people aren't ever going to provide as much configurability as KDE (I can choose what happens when I middle-click on a title bar!). But GNOME is the default choice for Ubuntu, so it gets a lot of polish -- it won't ever completely die.
Besides, competition is good. Each project does things the other won't. Each project is often improved in an effort to compete with the other.
And again, the big, important stuff often ends up being shared.
Are you trying to solve the problem of RAM usage? If that's a problem, in a day when often the minimum you'll get is 2 gigs, you've got bigger problems. And if you really do have those bigger problems, you can probably use a slimmed-down KDE or XFCE -- you'll probably be choosing apps specifically for low RAM usage (ruling out Firefox, maybe?) so all this means is you have to consider toolkit, also.
Or you just install Xubuntu and be done with it.
Second: Does Mandriva use them as the default, "integrated" or not?
Ubuntu is big, and popular, and distributed by Dell. What does Mandriva have that Ubuntu doesn't?
But more importantly, I think it is quicker and cleaner to simply talk about a distro, without mentioning Linux. It won't piss off RMS quite as much, as we are clearly talking about a distribution and a derivative work -- it's Ubuntu, not Ubuntu/Gnu/Linux. And it'll avoid people making embarrassing mistakes by mentioning a feature that "Linux" has, but might only be present in KDE, or only in GNOME -- or only in proprietary software, or, in fact, only a particular distro.
Ubuntu has them. Mandriva also has them. Both of these statements are correct.
"Linux has them" is actually less correct, as Linux is just a kernel, and you can have a working Linux systems in all kinds of places which physically don't support a GUI, let alone desktop effects.
Well, KDE 3 can be configured to look and act very much like OS X -- right down to the menu bar at the top. (KDE 4 has some of the newer desktop effects toys, but it also has about half the features of GNOME, which has less than half the features of KDE 3.)
But actually, we do have something like that -- it's called X. The problem is, of course, that Windows and OS X both threw away decades of work and started from scratch, so you can't just write an X window manager and expect it to work anywhere but Linux. (Or BSD. Or OpenDarwin. Or Plan9. Or Solaris. Or Cygwin. Or...)
Personally, I think the better solution would be a common runtime -- either high level (think Java, or the Web/AJAX) or low level (think x86_64 + Linux + X.org) -- so that I can customize my environment as much as I want, and then run the apps I want in that environment. Much more flexible when I can actually write brand-new window-managing software than try to create a common spec for configuring existing window managers.
More relevantly, if you control the endpoint, you could use something like an HTTP tunnel.
I'd say, encrypt the files via your own means, then upload them to Amazon. Yes, you still have to trust Amazon, but only to be reliable and fast -- not to be particularly secure.
The simple solution, then, is to avoid Yahoo Groups. It's not difficult to create a discussion system which preserves long strings.