This story has been up for an hour or so and there's no comments, has someone spilt beer on the server? Drew Curtis, I'm looking straight at you, mothafugga...
If I install Flash I'll be subjected to obtrusive and noisy ads that slow my system down while they download, load, and render. Moreover, what flash content is out there is not enough to justify having it on my system - 99% of its usage is unnecessary and a general bother.
Flash is far from harmless, it's a major pain in the ass. I don't care if it gives me HGTTG movie info or the second coming of Jesus, keep that bother off my machine.
*Misses the days when Javascript and Flash wern't even thoughts yet*
I know this is off topic, but if you haven't spent enough time with your dog to know what he/she is thinking, feeling, and expressing without a fscking dog bark translator, then you're probably a crappy 'parent'.
Right now my dog (Jenny) is laying on the chair next to my computer desk with her head propped up on the arm, staring at me with one ear perked straight up. That clearly says "You're supposed to be petting me instead of browsing Slashdot, you moron." Just learn how to speak dog, it's cheaper and more rewarding.
In the Ferengi culture, females are not allowed to wear clothing. If your bride to be has the balls (no pun intended) to go through with a traditional Ferengi wedding, then you truly are marrying a goddess.
In related news, please invite me to your wedding. Thanks.
The big "OMG! It's a chick!" revelation we went through just won't be possible here.
I think that would work very well in a Metroid movie. The whole movie revolves around this massive space suit/cyborg/bounty hunter/killing machine thing with a massively distorted and completely inhuman voice, acting kind of like Arnie from Terminator 2. A biological galactic war happens during the movie, and when it concludes she takes off that massive 50 pound helmet to yell at some politician that fscked up and made the whole thing possible (or something to that effect)...
Little girl in a massive space suit with near godlike powers she inherited during the course of the movie... I'd be watching the people react around me during that scene!
But yeah, a movie needs it's signature fuck toy so you're right on the money. Unfortunately.
Don't know if anyone will read this, but that mag had an article about a _really_ cool SMB3 rom hack that has gotten me addicted. Some crazy bastard edited the game down to the assembly code and created a whole new SMB game. Hard as all hell, but incredibally fun. Link for those who don't want to download and hunt the PDF for it.
Ever look at w3c's standards? They go through incredible lengths for visually disabled people. Not everyone can read the screen that you are looking at right this very second as well as you are.
The internet is a great encyclopedia of knowledge? For only the seeing? I think not!
The standards are there not only so that every (*program) can use it. They are also there for those that can not see/hear a computer program as well as you or I. If you are like me then spend a week using your computer *without your glasses*.
This is the parent poster. This is why he/she deserves a +5. Just take off your glasses.
Mod up, mothafugger! CSS makdes the web pretty for people who can see perfectly while retaining the friendlyness to us "blind as a bat without our glasses" types.
For christ's sakes, must absolutely _everything_ be turned into some anti-MS rant?! Someone gets Gate's CC info and people try to spin it into being MS's fault. This is totally and completely bullshit. There are tons of serious reasons to speak out against the Microsoft, when you go off on them by trying to spin something this idiotic all you do is make everyone else who has valid points look like idiots in relation.
Nobody cares about them being ruled a monopoly anymore becuase of the mindless drones going "Linux raa, Microsoft boo" in Orwelian duckspeak every time they open their mouths. I exclusively use a copy of GNU/Linux I built myself and even I find this crap to be aggrivating! You want to help the forces that are working against Microsoft? Shut up. Just shut. The. Fuck. Up. To say that it's Bill's fault that his CC numbers is stolen is on the same level as saying that a girl diserved to get raped for wearing a sexy dress. Asshole or not, he is the victim and not the perpetrator.
So goddamn tired of the Linux zealots that it makes me ashamed to know I am one.... sheesh...
Screw Anonymous Coward. Kill my karma. I don't give a fsck.
I've been trying to install gnome off and on for the past month and a half. Problem is that it's a major bitch to install, even with neat little shell scripts like CVSGNOME I run into at least a dozen quirky dependencies. Each dependency is hell and a half to get working, and requires at least an hour googling and tweaking to get running.
The first time I tried to install I got up to the point where I needed some XML library, which needed a font library, which needed font config, which needed three other libraries. Got the three libraries working, tried font config. Came up with a build error. Edited the source files myself. Recompile. Came up with another error. Asked about it on the font config mailing list. Was told "get the CVS version". Done. Tried running the shell script that generates the configure and makefiles. It crapped out. Spent a good hour modifying that script trying to get it working. Nada. Finally gave up.
This last time I stopped when it got to the XML DOC DTD so I could install GTK DOC or something of the sort. Spent four hours trying to get it to work, after posting on several boards asking for help when I was done banging my head against the keybard.
My bug report - It's design is based on a virtual clusterfuck of dependencies and is impossible to install, especially in my user space since many of the programs and scripts assume that they'll be installed in/usr. I'm not even argueing that it should be a click and drool install, just that it should be possible. On top of that I find that any good installation documents are non-existant, I'd be more than happy with a simple "install this first, then this, then that, which satisfies X's dependencies..." If I could install it I'd be using GNOME right now, but since I can't I'm using KDE 3.2. Konstruct alone makes KDE kick GNOME's butt.
And please don't mention "just update your distro/use Debian/etc", I'm using Linux from scratch. GNOME is the only program I have found to be totally impossible to install.
I can see tumbleweeds rolling through this thread. Too "Just woke up" to link, google for this stuff.
xfce - Nice little window manager for X, a slight hassle to build but otherwise a great WM for those who want something that screams "minimalist". If only they'd allow me to shove the menubar into the taskbar so I don't have to have two bars on autohide then I'd be using it right now.
Ruby - Goddamn, this is a wonderful language! It's as close to "I think, it does" as you can get without having neural implants.
That's about all that I can think of. Ignoring the usual (gaim, etc) because they're very well known.
When I saw "Autozone" I thought to myself "Great, piss off the rednecks. That's smart." Then I realized, it actually is kind of smart in an I'm smoking crack kind of way. They make all this noise and when they finally "bite" who do they sue? The most "who the hell in their right mind would sue this company to make a technological point" idiot company possible.
SCO's acted thus far as if people take them seriously (and that they have a leg to stand on). For the sake of argument assume that they do. You're raising hell and threatening lawsuits to take back control of your product. When you do sue you can start smacking the big boys around, which is expected. Or you can sue the hell out of the most unexpected company possible and get all the unlicenced small/medium sized businesses quaking in their boots.
Sue McDonald's - big freakin' whoop. Nameless faceless company, it doesn't affect the Joe Schmuck.
Sue the random business that is small enough to where it's not really considered "huge corporation" like Wal-Mart, but big enough to possibly do some actual damage - Oh, crap. Why, I could be next!.
And in related news, I have figured out how to grasp SCO logic. Stay up 36 hours surviving on nothing but coffee, cigarettes, and a new programming language to wrap your mind around. Once you're wired from the caffiene and have most of your neurons fried from the programming language - you too embrace the McBride Side.
SuSE is good for end users. Redhat for businesses. Gentoo has great performance, Debian is easy to configure, etc. Great. But what about the OS itself? What do I have to do to make GAIM blend in when I use KDE? As is its grey doesn't match the KDE grey and everything looks off. Why isn't there a better system than autoconf? When I build a program do I use --with-option, --enable-option, or what? And why is making an autoconf script for my program so fscking difficult?
Over the past three days I have been trying to build GNOME from scratch because my distro is so old it's now unsupported. Ever try sorting through the countless dozens of dependencies that GNOME has before you're able to click on pretty icons?
Why isn't there an installation system that works, and works well standard on all distros? My mother wants to be able to download a program and double click on its install icon without having to worry about compilation, the distro she's using, and other such details. She just wants the bloody thing to install.
How about making installing hardware easier? In Windows I popped in a driver CD and was on my way. In GNU/Linux I have to muck with my freakin' kernel.
The distros have come a very long way but in the end I don't think that "what distro is the biggest/best/etc" really matters. I love Linux but I can easily imagine my mother having another stroke using it.
Linux is a kernel, with a bunch of programs tossed on top of it. While its diversity is a great feature, there is a HUGE need for simplification on the most basic levels of the OS before Betty from accounting can use it. The average end user (non-geek) just wants their computer to run without thinking.
I want to see the GNOME and KDE devs get together because I want changes in the look and feel section of my KDE control center to apply to GTK programs as well. Hell, I want everything to just generally look and feel consistant on the GUI end. I want an installation solution that installs a program without building, supports uninstalation without having the distribution program around, and works on all distros so I don't have to worry about dependencies. I want... simplicity and consistantcy. And no amount of tweaking by the distributors can fix these problems.
The Linux development community as a whole has some technical issues to overcome long before the distros can make a serious dent in the home market. This is why I don't think it's important to focus on what the distros are doing.
Wow, the karma whores aren't even waiting for the site to get slashdotted anymore! Suppose this removes any excuses about not reading the article.......
466mhz Celeron, 256mb ram, 2.4.x kernel, KDE 3.14 built from source, a lot of things installed to make KDE prettier but not necessarily faster, and a ton of stuff loading during boot. Total time to go from off to mucking around in KDE - ~35 seconds. Total time to go from bash prompt to clicking on pretty icons and stuff - ~10 seconds.
Time it took to go from off to clicking on pretty icons in Win2K on the same machine: Well over a minute, possibly two. Can even play movies with mplayer without a skip that would be unwatchable in Windows.
Still no support for USB 1.0...which I understand is a shortcoming with the kernel, but who cares.
How old is the distro that you tried? I'm using a USB mouse just fine, and I'm running SuSE 7.3! (Read: ancient version no longer even supported) Back when I installed it the first thing it did was detect the mouse automatically. Plus my very new HID complient gamepad worked, all in a 1 1/2+ year old distro.
KDE STILL refuses to work with my optical mouse. No endless editing of config files has fixed this.
Methinks your distro sucks the dogs' balls.
I am not going to write a chipset driver to get this OS to work.
No need to. USB has been part of the kernel for years.
Switching to a P/S 2 mouse fixes the problem, but I am not willing to swap mice just to run Linux.
Fair enough, get a recent distro. If my distro that shipped with the 2.4.10 kernel can use it, then your distro either sucks or is horribly outdated.
Maybe in 5 years Linux and KDE will be good enough to supplant my XP install.
KDE doesn't touch the hardware, nor is it really part of the OS. It's just another program, one of a very VERY large number of programs thrown together to create the great clusterfuck that is a thousand different distrobutions. If you try Linux on one distro and it sucks, then it may just be that your distro sucks. Try another distro. Hell, go grab a copy of Gnoppix or SuSE live eval or something, I'm willing to bet that your mouse will work perfectly from the get-go.
And who's the schmuck that modded the parent as troll? Due to GNU/Linux's design (kernel from here, compiler from there, toss that desktop on it, etc), such issues are not only going to happen but are bound to be semi-common. That's not a troll, that's a guy who tried it, couldn't use a basic part of his system, got confused by how "not like Windows" it is, and said "screw it". People with such experiences not only exist, but are very common. Either way, welcome to Slashdot, where anything remotely negative about our favorite little son of a Fin is automatically a troll.
Am I the only one a bit freaked out by seeing the Windows logo in the yin/yang icon?
Good idea, this distro. I was thinking about this just a few hours ago (no joke) that someone should make a distro that installs on a Windows system. That is, everything is kept in a Windows directory (c:\linux\) and thus you can dual boot a GNU/Linux system without having to mess with your system. The only thing that would be touched would be your bootloader. Would help a lot of people dip their toes into GNU/Linux that normally wouldn't do so due to having to backup everything, repartition, etc.
Anyone play the NES game "Kickle's Cubicle" by Irem? Not many have. It was this action/puzzle game that slightly resembled the Lolo series. It was made in a super-cute kiddy fashion (complete with hearts, etc), and was admittedly hella easy up until about the 3rd or 4th world. But after that it started getting more and more difficult and thus more fun. After you beat it you get to play more puzzles that become borderline impossible, and you get hooked hard.
I would LOVE to see that game updated, especially with two player levels. The thought of a quasi-DM/CoOp game using the KC engine makes me laugh -- the thought of two people trying to complete a puzzle together while trying to kill each other at the same time is quite cool.
Oh, and if you haven't played Kickle's Cuble then GET IT. The first few world will mildly entertain you, but as you progress you'll be cussing like a sailor at this kiddie game and loving every second of it.
Although this was not filed in the US, I think I'll bite anyways.
You see, America's economy is changing. Manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas for ages, a lot of other jobs are being shipped overseas (calling centers in India, anyone?), and so on. With the market becoming a worldwide market America's economy is slowly moving towards becoming a service economy. For better or worse, it is happening.
Now, here's a company from Redmond called Microsoft. They basically have the entire worldwide computer industry in a headlock, and are bringing a LOT of international money into the United States. Reguardless of what dirty deeds they may do, they very greatly help out America both as an economy and as a superpower.
This is why you won't see America do dick to hinder Microsoft. The harder Microsoft locks people into their products the more they lock foreign pounds/euros/yen/etc coming into the states. And with the global and national economy shifting as it is, this matters. A lot. For America to break up Microsoft would be to shoot itself in the foot. They'll keep slapping them on the wrist to keep it all from being too obvious, but we'll never see any substantial action being taken against them.
Indeed, with all thats been going on I wouldn't be surprised if the government was working with Microsoft behind the curtain. With all those nations that the US sees as a potential threat using Windows, an OS made by an American corperation whose balls are in America's hand... Even without proof it's hard for me to believe that there's not any secret backdoors in the OS.
So in short - America isn't doing anything because it's in America's best interest not to.
Slashdot Mirror
This story has been up for an hour or so and there's no comments, has someone spilt beer on the server? Drew Curtis, I'm looking straight at you, mothafugga...
If I install Flash I'll be subjected to obtrusive and noisy ads that slow my system down while they download, load, and render. Moreover, what flash content is out there is not enough to justify having it on my system - 99% of its usage is unnecessary and a general bother.
Flash is far from harmless, it's a major pain in the ass. I don't care if it gives me HGTTG movie info or the second coming of Jesus, keep that bother off my machine.
*Misses the days when Javascript and Flash wern't even thoughts yet*
I know this is off topic, but if you haven't spent enough time with your dog to know what he/she is thinking, feeling, and expressing without a fscking dog bark translator, then you're probably a crappy 'parent'.
Right now my dog (Jenny) is laying on the chair next to my computer desk with her head propped up on the arm, staring at me with one ear perked straight up. That clearly says "You're supposed to be petting me instead of browsing Slashdot, you moron." Just learn how to speak dog, it's cheaper and more rewarding.
You're a slashdotter. Even if I could give it back we both know you'd end up wasting it anyways. =)
Direct link to the trailer (~2 megs), for those of us who don't/can't do the "view a movie in my browser" thing.
If you really were king of the pessimistic people, wouldn't you be saying "YOU WILL STOP ME"?
In the Ferengi culture, females are not allowed to wear clothing. If your bride to be has the balls (no pun intended) to go through with a traditional Ferengi wedding, then you truly are marrying a goddess.
In related news, please invite me to your wedding. Thanks.
Little girl in a massive space suit with near godlike powers she inherited during the course of the movie... I'd be watching the people react around me during that scene!
But yeah, a movie needs it's signature fuck toy so you're right on the money. Unfortunately.
Don't know if anyone will read this, but that mag had an article about a _really_ cool SMB3 rom hack that has gotten me addicted. Some crazy bastard edited the game down to the assembly code and created a whole new SMB game. Hard as all hell, but incredibally fun. Link for those who don't want to download and hunt the PDF for it.
Ever look at w3c's standards? They go through incredible lengths for visually disabled people. Not everyone can read the screen that you are looking at right this very second as well as you are.
The internet is a great encyclopedia of knowledge? For only the seeing? I think not!
The standards are there not only so that every (*program) can use it. They are also there for those that can not see/hear a computer program as well as you or I. If you are like me then spend a week using your computer *without your glasses*.
This is the parent poster. This is why he/she deserves a +5. Just take off your glasses.
Mod up, mothafugger! CSS makdes the web pretty for people who can see perfectly while retaining the friendlyness to us "blind as a bat without our glasses" types.
For christ's sakes, must absolutely _everything_ be turned into some anti-MS rant?! Someone gets Gate's CC info and people try to spin it into being MS's fault. This is totally and completely bullshit. There are tons of serious reasons to speak out against the Microsoft, when you go off on them by trying to spin something this idiotic all you do is make everyone else who has valid points look like idiots in relation.
Nobody cares about them being ruled a monopoly anymore becuase of the mindless drones going "Linux raa, Microsoft boo" in Orwelian duckspeak every time they open their mouths. I exclusively use a copy of GNU/Linux I built myself and even I find this crap to be aggrivating! You want to help the forces that are working against Microsoft? Shut up. Just shut. The. Fuck. Up. To say that it's Bill's fault that his CC numbers is stolen is on the same level as saying that a girl diserved to get raped for wearing a sexy dress. Asshole or not, he is the victim and not the perpetrator.
So goddamn tired of the Linux zealots that it makes me ashamed to know I am one.... sheesh...
Screw Anonymous Coward. Kill my karma. I don't give a fsck.
Since you seem to be part of the team, I'll bite.
/usr. I'm not even argueing that it should be a click and drool install, just that it should be possible. On top of that I find that any good installation documents are non-existant, I'd be more than happy with a simple "install this first, then this, then that, which satisfies X's dependencies..." If I could install it I'd be using GNOME right now, but since I can't I'm using KDE 3.2. Konstruct alone makes KDE kick GNOME's butt.
I've been trying to install gnome off and on for the past month and a half. Problem is that it's a major bitch to install, even with neat little shell scripts like CVSGNOME I run into at least a dozen quirky dependencies. Each dependency is hell and a half to get working, and requires at least an hour googling and tweaking to get running.
The first time I tried to install I got up to the point where I needed some XML library, which needed a font library, which needed font config, which needed three other libraries. Got the three libraries working, tried font config. Came up with a build error. Edited the source files myself. Recompile. Came up with another error. Asked about it on the font config mailing list. Was told "get the CVS version". Done. Tried running the shell script that generates the configure and makefiles. It crapped out. Spent a good hour modifying that script trying to get it working. Nada. Finally gave up.
This last time I stopped when it got to the XML DOC DTD so I could install GTK DOC or something of the sort. Spent four hours trying to get it to work, after posting on several boards asking for help when I was done banging my head against the keybard.
My bug report - It's design is based on a virtual clusterfuck of dependencies and is impossible to install, especially in my user space since many of the programs and scripts assume that they'll be installed in
And please don't mention "just update your distro/use Debian/etc", I'm using Linux from scratch. GNOME is the only program I have found to be totally impossible to install.
Note to self - use the preview function.
I can see tumbleweeds rolling through this thread. Too "Just woke up" to link, google for this stuff. xfce - Nice little window manager for X, a slight hassle to build but otherwise a great WM for those who want something that screams "minimalist". If only they'd allow me to shove the menubar into the taskbar so I don't have to have two bars on autohide then I'd be using it right now. Ruby - Goddamn, this is a wonderful language! It's as close to "I think, it does" as you can get without having neural implants. That's about all that I can think of. Ignoring the usual (gaim, etc) because they're very well known.
Good point, but I don't think so.
When I saw "Autozone" I thought to myself "Great, piss off the rednecks. That's smart." Then I realized, it actually is kind of smart in an I'm smoking crack kind of way. They make all this noise and when they finally "bite" who do they sue? The most "who the hell in their right mind would sue this company to make a technological point" idiot company possible.
SCO's acted thus far as if people take them seriously (and that they have a leg to stand on). For the sake of argument assume that they do. You're raising hell and threatening lawsuits to take back control of your product. When you do sue you can start smacking the big boys around, which is expected. Or you can sue the hell out of the most unexpected company possible and get all the unlicenced small/medium sized businesses quaking in their boots.
Sue McDonald's - big freakin' whoop. Nameless faceless company, it doesn't affect the Joe Schmuck.
Sue the random business that is small enough to where it's not really considered "huge corporation" like Wal-Mart, but big enough to possibly do some actual damage - Oh, crap. Why, I could be next!.
And in related news, I have figured out how to grasp SCO logic. Stay up 36 hours surviving on nothing but coffee, cigarettes, and a new programming language to wrap your mind around. Once you're wired from the caffiene and have most of your neurons fried from the programming language - you too embrace the McBride Side.
I mean, Autozone! That's so funny it's cool.
Well, the fastest way to a girl's heart is through her ribcage...
How the hell is this offtopic?
SuSE is good for end users. Redhat for businesses. Gentoo has great performance, Debian is easy to configure, etc. Great. But what about the OS itself? What do I have to do to make GAIM blend in when I use KDE? As is its grey doesn't match the KDE grey and everything looks off. Why isn't there a better system than autoconf? When I build a program do I use --with-option, --enable-option, or what? And why is making an autoconf script for my program so fscking difficult?
Over the past three days I have been trying to build GNOME from scratch because my distro is so old it's now unsupported. Ever try sorting through the countless dozens of dependencies that GNOME has before you're able to click on pretty icons?
Why isn't there an installation system that works, and works well standard on all distros? My mother wants to be able to download a program and double click on its install icon without having to worry about compilation, the distro she's using, and other such details. She just wants the bloody thing to install.
How about making installing hardware easier? In Windows I popped in a driver CD and was on my way. In GNU/Linux I have to muck with my freakin' kernel.
The distros have come a very long way but in the end I don't think that "what distro is the biggest/best/etc" really matters. I love Linux but I can easily imagine my mother having another stroke using it.
Linux is a kernel, with a bunch of programs tossed on top of it. While its diversity is a great feature, there is a HUGE need for simplification on the most basic levels of the OS before Betty from accounting can use it. The average end user (non-geek) just wants their computer to run without thinking.
I want to see the GNOME and KDE devs get together because I want changes in the look and feel section of my KDE control center to apply to GTK programs as well. Hell, I want everything to just generally look and feel consistant on the GUI end. I want an installation solution that installs a program without building, supports uninstalation without having the distribution program around, and works on all distros so I don't have to worry about dependencies. I want... simplicity and consistantcy. And no amount of tweaking by the distributors can fix these problems.
The Linux development community as a whole has some technical issues to overcome long before the distros can make a serious dent in the home market. This is why I don't think it's important to focus on what the distros are doing.
See subject. I'm serious. I mean, distros have come and gone, in the end I think it's the quality of GNU/Linux as a whole that really matters.
Wow, the karma whores aren't even waiting for the site to get slashdotted anymore! Suppose this removes any excuses about not reading the article. ......
DAMN YOU, KARMA WHORING MAN!!!
466mhz Celeron, 256mb ram, 2.4.x kernel, KDE 3.14 built from source, a lot of things installed to make KDE prettier but not necessarily faster, and a ton of stuff loading during boot. Total time to go from off to mucking around in KDE - ~35 seconds. Total time to go from bash prompt to clicking on pretty icons and stuff - ~10 seconds.
Time it took to go from off to clicking on pretty icons in Win2K on the same machine: Well over a minute, possibly two. Can even play movies with mplayer without a skip that would be unwatchable in Windows.
More than fast enough for me.
How old is the distro that you tried? I'm using a USB mouse just fine, and I'm running SuSE 7.3! (Read: ancient version no longer even supported) Back when I installed it the first thing it did was detect the mouse automatically. Plus my very new HID complient gamepad worked, all in a 1 1/2+ year old distro.
KDE STILL refuses to work with my optical mouse. No endless editing of config files has fixed this.
Methinks your distro sucks the dogs' balls.
I am not going to write a chipset driver to get this OS to work.
No need to. USB has been part of the kernel for years.
Switching to a P/S 2 mouse fixes the problem, but I am not willing to swap mice just to run Linux.
Fair enough, get a recent distro. If my distro that shipped with the 2.4.10 kernel can use it, then your distro either sucks or is horribly outdated.
Maybe in 5 years Linux and KDE will be good enough to supplant my XP install.
KDE doesn't touch the hardware, nor is it really part of the OS. It's just another program, one of a very VERY large number of programs thrown together to create the great clusterfuck that is a thousand different distrobutions. If you try Linux on one distro and it sucks, then it may just be that your distro sucks. Try another distro. Hell, go grab a copy of Gnoppix or SuSE live eval or something, I'm willing to bet that your mouse will work perfectly from the get-go.
And who's the schmuck that modded the parent as troll? Due to GNU/Linux's design (kernel from here, compiler from there, toss that desktop on it, etc), such issues are not only going to happen but are bound to be semi-common. That's not a troll, that's a guy who tried it, couldn't use a basic part of his system, got confused by how "not like Windows" it is, and said "screw it". People with such experiences not only exist, but are very common. Either way, welcome to Slashdot, where anything remotely negative about our favorite little son of a Fin is automatically a troll.
Am I the only one a bit freaked out by seeing the Windows logo in the yin/yang icon?
Good idea, this distro. I was thinking about this just a few hours ago (no joke) that someone should make a distro that installs on a Windows system. That is, everything is kept in a Windows directory (c:\linux\) and thus you can dual boot a GNU/Linux system without having to mess with your system. The only thing that would be touched would be your bootloader. Would help a lot of people dip their toes into GNU/Linux that normally wouldn't do so due to having to backup everything, repartition, etc.
This comes pretty damn close to that idea.
Anyone play the NES game "Kickle's Cubicle" by Irem? Not many have. It was this action/puzzle game that slightly resembled the Lolo series. It was made in a super-cute kiddy fashion (complete with hearts, etc), and was admittedly hella easy up until about the 3rd or 4th world. But after that it started getting more and more difficult and thus more fun. After you beat it you get to play more puzzles that become borderline impossible, and you get hooked hard.
I would LOVE to see that game updated, especially with two player levels. The thought of a quasi-DM/CoOp game using the KC engine makes me laugh -- the thought of two people trying to complete a puzzle together while trying to kill each other at the same time is quite cool.
Oh, and if you haven't played Kickle's Cuble then GET IT. The first few world will mildly entertain you, but as you progress you'll be cussing like a sailor at this kiddie game and loving every second of it.
Although this was not filed in the US, I think I'll bite anyways.
You see, America's economy is changing. Manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas for ages, a lot of other jobs are being shipped overseas (calling centers in India, anyone?), and so on. With the market becoming a worldwide market America's economy is slowly moving towards becoming a service economy. For better or worse, it is happening.
Now, here's a company from Redmond called Microsoft. They basically have the entire worldwide computer industry in a headlock, and are bringing a LOT of international money into the United States. Reguardless of what dirty deeds they may do, they very greatly help out America both as an economy and as a superpower.
This is why you won't see America do dick to hinder Microsoft. The harder Microsoft locks people into their products the more they lock foreign pounds/euros/yen/etc coming into the states. And with the global and national economy shifting as it is, this matters. A lot. For America to break up Microsoft would be to shoot itself in the foot. They'll keep slapping them on the wrist to keep it all from being too obvious, but we'll never see any substantial action being taken against them.
Indeed, with all thats been going on I wouldn't be surprised if the government was working with Microsoft behind the curtain. With all those nations that the US sees as a potential threat using Windows, an OS made by an American corperation whose balls are in America's hand... Even without proof it's hard for me to believe that there's not any secret backdoors in the OS.
So in short - America isn't doing anything because it's in America's best interest not to.
Sorry for replying to my own post but I just tried this out -
Ignore my dictionary remark. Already done. Damn, they're good.