Your Windows XP in VMWare also is incapable of doing much else other than the most basic of desktop computing tasks, I'm sure.
The rest of the world tends to use their computer for leisure including but not limited to gaming, which ends up requiring more resources. Your 128MB of RAM is quickly eaten up by the base OS and a few programs on top of it and then it's swap time.
Give me a break, my own personal desktop in XP uses almost 450MB of my 1GB of RAM once the entire thing is up and running, I'm looking at an extra gig real soon just so that I don't have to worry about new games causing me to swap like crazy. And yes I'm serious, after all of my startup programs load along with my copy of avast! the system is using a considerable amount of my memory.
Just because you can get XP running on a machine with such a minor amount of RAM, doesn't mean it's going to be very accommodating to the applications running on top of it.
You have attained the rank of "Master Skimmer" with the skillful avoidance of the line "(reguardless if you think the U.S. is hypacritical or not!)". That bastard thought he was going to escape smartass remarks by politely making a note in his post to understand we're talking about the values American doctrine has preached, but you showed him! Nothing gets past you! The nation thanks you for pointing out that we're not exactly the bastion of freedom and light we love to tell ourselves we are, right from childhood. Nevermind that the point of all that has always been to work towards that goal, not to make anyone believe that it's the Actual Way It Is(tm).
P.S. - Speak for yourself, and find a better way of trying to karma-whore. Even the "M$" moniker is less used here on/. than that tripe.
I'll check this out in a little while here when I boot my Gentoo, since I'm not really waiting for my eMule queue to finish anymore. Thanks for the idea!
No, I sold my Radeon 9800 Pro a long time ago and picked up a GeForce 6600GT, precisely because Linux drivers from ATI sucked much more than NVidia's. Not to say NVidia's the bomb, either.
I'm using Gentoo 64-bit, first off, but I am not convinced that that's why my game is nearly unplayable in Wine. I can't target anything with my mouse, and my character's textures are largely absent (some of them show). Not to mention the ground looks extremely funny. If you're interested I can try to get a screengrab but it's simply unplayable in my Linux, and I havn't had better luck with 32-bit setups, either. Not since patch 1.8, but other people seem to be more fortunate than I.
I'll try compiling Wine with bare-bones flags, maybe that will help, but I'm already looking at a WineX subscription when I get more funds that I don't have to save.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
I didn't trust the Bush Administration in the first place, from day one. I'd have to be a fool to place any trust in them to not mishandle the information they're requesting here when they've shown a willingness to decieve even with matters of much greater importance. Think about it -- Would you hang around someone you know has done things to hurt you or your friends behind your back many times recently? I wouldn't even hang around someone who's done that, period, ever. I'd be a fool to make the current administration exempt from that logic when they wield far more power than any random joe that I come across.
By the way, trying to take an Occam's Razor-like approach to situations like this is how governments get away with whatever they please, since people assume no harm shall ever be done. Better to assume harm shall be done, and keep an extremely vigilant eye.
How kind of you to let me know that I actually don't care about human rights in China. Go figure, I was just being a shill the whole time being concerned with people being treated the way people should be treated. You'd have to be a fool to say America is perfect when it comes to their own human rights record, but a bigger one to say we should ignore it when countries treat their citizens like dogs moreso than people.
1.) That's none of the labor union's concern, I would imagine. A concern of a unions members, maybe and quite possibly, but a concern of the union as a whole, to focus its efforts on? That's really wasteful when there are issues to take care of at home.
2.) Way to generalize, bud. Seriously, try some critical thinking sometime. Personally, I don't think that the Cuba thing is any sort of conspiracy, but it was retaliation for escalating tension. Looking at it's history, I'd say it's been past time to do away with the embargo, since it really seems to hurt more than it helps, however well-intentioned it may have been.
3.) I don't think it's bad to prevent our technology from falling into the hands of anyone we don't want to just give it to, or even sell it to. Develop it yourself if you're so adamant about it, there's no global accord stating everyone must share such knowledge, and I don't like the idea of arming other nations with advanced weaponry, even current allies. I suppose that may be considered a hardline position but that's really the cause of so many of our woes, not to mention others in the regions affected.
4.) There are no obligations anywhere for anyone to be given control of the root DNS servers. If you don't like it, create your own internet and stop being a nuisance having a hissy fit. I have yet to hear a genuinely excellent and thoroughly convincing argument otherwise. Nobody's stopping you from getting what you want, it's just a matter of how far you're willing to go.
5.) Maybe because those companies aren't helping to further capital punishment by doing business here? Jeez, get some perspective here. Microsoft is actively aiding the Chinese government with it's questionable behaviour, what the hell is Nestle doing other than selling their wares that have absolutely nothing to do with the complaint at hand? What the hell is Mercedes doing, selling cars to be used to run over people as capital punishment? I'd be happy to hear your theories on Nestle furthering the death penality in the USA. There needs to be an air of corporate responsibility, and soon, because things definitely aren't getting any better when we're saying "Anything for a buck, boss!" Principles have no intrinsic value, they're worth protecting because of the large value that we ourselves as human beings put into them. Are we really going to say that we are an unthinking economic mass, there should be no responsibility, no ethics?
I don't care what your political beliefs are, or what country you are from, I bet I can point out a whole bunch of inconsistant and hipocritical positions on "human rights"!
Just because people make mistakes in going after one bad guy while leaving the other alone does not mean neither bad guy should be pursued, alright? What you're saying is the same as saying two wrongs make a right, or saying "We've all got blood on our hands so, hell, let's just go hog wild, I don't care anymore!" If you need explaination about why that's bad, sorry, really.
Why are people's views on human rights so inconsistant? Because people don't care about human rights: People care about their own economic self interest or their own political agenda, and human rights is a rhetorical tool. If you look at people's views based on what benifits them economicly or politically, you will find their views are 100% rational and consistant.
So, come to me with human rights issues when "human rights" means something more than a p
If you think "a card that can handle today's games" costs ~$500 then you're sorely mistaken. Take a look at the prices sometime please before you decide to go on a rant about expensive video cards, because only the extreme high-end models cost more than 200 bucks tops, and my GeForce 6600GT, which can play any game on the market today, cost me $150 and is now about $180 for the AGP version and $150 for the PCI-Express version.
Whoever modded you insightful has as much a clue as to what the current market looks like as you yourself, which is to say not much.
P.S. -- All the x86_64 processors on the market today are perfectly capable of running 32-bit, nobody's being forced onto the 64-bit OS bandwagon that will leave a lot of old software behind as legacy. Again, research something before you attempt to make an informed post.
I hate to post a reply to myself but I just wanted to give an addition for anyone who thinks I'm talking out of my ass regarding what you potentially could do. This particular idea, running X/KDE via Cygwin as the shell, is an example of what's possible. You don't have to load explorer.exe and there are alternative file browsers/web browsers, so what else does explorer.exe need to be around for? It's awesome how I got modded a troll by the slashbots, and I hate Windows and use Linux most of the time, I guess I must be astroturfing though, trying to give people ideas that Windows has capabilities they might not know about.
Right, then. Why was there any mention of a lightwight, mid, heavywight desktop environment? Remember when laughingcoyote was talking about this:
What did they use? GNOME? KDE? Something in the vein of a blackbox or fluxbox? Or no GUI at all? The ability to choose heavy, light, or no GUI is one of Linux's main strengths in itself, and one Win currently cannot match.
That implies GNOME and KDE, along with stuff like IceWM and Fluxbox are GUIs. Now, if this is the case then my point was completely valid, since you're choosing the desktop interface to your computer system. This is possible on Windows through many utilities. What the hell else is GNOME, KDE, or any of the plethora of window managers/etc? Now if laughingcoyote meant X server by GUI, well yeah, he has a point in that there are plenty of graphical servers one can use, including commercial X variants, and as far as I know there's no equivalent for Windows systems.
And please don't try to make it sound like anyone was talking about toolkits, either, if that's what you're getting at. Maybe I'm really dense and can't see what you're talking about, but judging from how you responded to my harmless post you'll let me know if I am. Cheers.
P.S. -- the whole point was lowering memory requirements, and 10MB on extremely aged hardware means a lot. Keep up with the thread please.
You can most certainly pick your shell in Windows to lighten up your load if you so desire. You can even run the system with explorer.exe unloaded and nothing to take it's place. Most people prefer Litestep, though, it seems.
This is why I tell people I use Explorer for Windows and GNOME for Linux (But more and more I'm using KDE as it lightens it's load, not that GNOME is a feather, either).
"It's also not at all clear that Ubuntu is targeted at a Western audience. It's based in South Africa and includes better internationalization support than any other linux distribution I've seen. I think that the assumption that it's targetted towards Western audiences is just egocentrism."
Not only is the rest of your post spot on, sir, but this statement is beautiful. I always feel weird making a "hear, hear!" post but hey, what else can I do when I can't moderate.
1. Great, so success is not determined by the name, thanks for proving my point.
2. This is common sense, you don't need to emphasize that point to me.
3. The largest and most important market for OSes is not just in the West, especially when you consider that a very large portion of the world's population resides in a single country in Asia, which is rapidly developing technologically and using F/OSS extensively. Furthermore, Ubuntu's aim of user friendliness combined with how easy it is to obtain makes it a great system to use in education as well as other fields such as, well, whatever governments use their computers for, memos, I guess. Licensing costs and a short learning curve, those are the primary factors, not "Is the name something I can pick up and run with right away?" (P.S. -- Remember that little thing called a Mac? Apple? Hmmm, very intuitive naming, yet still quite popular, especially back in the day)
4. Sure you did, but in any case, the point has repeatedly been made that there are a bevy of programs available for both Windows and Linux that have names not very obviously (or at all) related to their actual function, and those programs succeed based on merit in every case. WTF was a KaZaA? A Grokster? A Napster? There are plenty of other examples but I won't bore you by listing every single one.
5. Really? I'm surprised you think Internet Explorer is an apt name for the same program that you manage your harddisk with. Konqueror as a name implies that it's a powerful tool and it's often listed in desktop Linux distributions under the File Manager and Web Browsers menus, so you at the very least get an idea of what to expect. I'm not going to deal with your flame of Konqueror because it's irrelevant and childish in the first place, nobody was discussing the technical merits of any program, AFAIK.
6. AIM, sure. ICQ, maybe. MSN/Windows Messenger, yeah. Y!IM, okay. GAIM is at the very least following (somewhat) the same convention the other programs use, but the other one I mentioned, Trillian, is another one of those programs that has succeeded in spite of it's name, which again proves the point that naming is at best a minor issue to the average user.
7. I know the history of the Firefox web browser, I was using it since it's inception, and Mozilla (Another stupid name for a web browser, but hey, it worked!). Netscape Navigator was a great name for a web browser, imho, I won't argue that point; but hey, props for noticing.
8. I didn't notice an ad hominem, but I was being sarcastic and trying to clue you in that not every user is as stupid as you seem to think they are. I mean sheesh, give your fellow man some credit for being able to figure things out.
*rolls his eyes* Again, it's a moot point, flame warrior.
Ubuntu does mean something other than "A Linux distro with a weird name" and it actually makes sense to use it as the name of a project with the goals Ubuntu has.
A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.
Heaven forbid we assume people have an IQ greater than 10, as well, when it comes to naming a product. Get a clue and realize that it's a moot point, especially with the success of naming schemes like GAIM, Trillian, Red Hat, Fedora, Firefox and all the other names that don't tell you what the product does until you actually look it up. Also, to people who think Internet Explorer itself is a surprisingly intuitive name, I find it to be extremely misleading, because Internet Explorer is the same Explorer you use for browsing your disk, so a naming scheme like the one Konqueror has makes much more sense in such a scenario. Food for thought.
Re:Lets hope they open source it
on
Google to Buy Opera?
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· Score: 3, Informative
The first result for Googling 'adblock opera' brings up this page with a list of possibilities for adblock-like functionality within Opera. I've used the C++ Adblock for a long time with Opera and it does great.
As far as I know, Opera has extension-like functionality, you aren't stuck with the base browser if you don't want just the base browser. Don't see what much else you'd need other than Adblock, but lots of people swear by those Greasemonkey extensions, dunno if that's in Operaland yet.
Moral of the story (and many others): Google it, damnit.
Maybe your account is burned for making uninsightful comments such as the one you just did. Let me know when Microsoft makes it easy to remove Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, and let's not forget Windows Messenger which you have to remove manually with a command at the prompt. Last but not least let's not forget Outlook Express, which even causes long delays with Windows Messenger removed unless you edit your registry.
Look, I use primarily Windows XP these days because even though I hate the operating system I'm too cheap for a Transgaming subscription for WineX and I play World of Warcraft every day (64-bit Linux, WINE works like crud, at least for me, other people seem to be fine), but this doesn't negate the fact that Microsoft doesn't just bundle applications, they force the average user to keep the application installed and accessible by whatever calls it (When did removing a shortcut become synonymous with the term 'uninstall' when the program is left intact and still intertwined into the underlying system?). Sometimes we're lucky and there's someone that discovers a way to remove this unwanted junk from a Windows installation, but that's not always the case. By the way, in case you're wondering why it would be valuable to be able to remove these unwanted pieces of junk called software from the system, for me personally it's not only to conserve disk space and/or memory usage (I'm eating my 100GB partition like nothing and constantly having to delete stuff I don't want/need/play anymore) but also to keep viruses, spyware and malware off my system since I'm not the only one that ever uses it.
And don't bother mentioning XPlite, please. One shouldn't need third-party solutions that the software vendor themselves could quite easily implement (If it's a difficult task for Microsoft, well, that's just sad with all the money and talent they have).
I'm just a little curious as to what you're referring to when you say "fucked-up Mac-like button order" because, well, as far as I've been able to notice, the UI is not only themable but fully supports customizing the toolbars quite extensively, and as far as I can tell the dialogs follow the standard UI procedures (Read: It looks pretty much the same as IE). What theme do you have to install to change any button orders? I'm genuinely curious as both a Linux and Windows user (Gentoo. And by the way, yes, Konqueror 3.5 has an adblock feature built-in, and it functions the same as the Firefox extension, now if only Konqueror didn't suck in terms of performannce with scripting, and hard. Yes, it bothers me greatly and I refuse to use it as my primary browser for that reason).
That said, it's been a long time since I've had any problems with Firefox crashing on me, and I use unofficial nightly community builds (I'm crazy, I like to see how fast I can finish BenchJS [joke], and try out new features and functionality not present in the current official release). Usually, when Firefox does give me grief, it's around the same time I either exit a video game after playing it for a real long time, or I alt-tab out of the game directly to Firefox. Again, this hasn't happened for some time, and it's not like Firefox is the only piece of software on my computer that crashes every now and then.
P.S. - A crash never happens "for no reason at all" so you probably meant "for no apparent reason at all".
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." -- Dom Helda Camara.
Sure the people working in those sweatshops (By the way, I advise everyone I know to avoid labels that I know have repeatedly used sweatshops, and I don't purchase any of their goods, ever, nor wear them. Nike is a prime example) are making money and are thus able to put some food on the table, but the problem is that these people are first off being paid jack squat, compared to residents in nations that are further developed, and second off the workplace environments are more often than not to the point where they'd be shut down permanently in, again, many nations that are further developed. And if you believe that these jobs are actually helping the country progress in a positive nature, I've a bridge to sell you. All they do is keep the status quo, no more.
These people are being exploited and that's the whole point.
That whoosh sound was his point flying directly over your head. I suggest you re-read and notice especially where he said "How the fuck does the existance of 'worse' forgive 'bad'?"
Evolution is an observable fact, you're incorrect here. The point of contention seems to always lie with people who don't believe that we evolved from monkeys, which is fine, I don't necessarily think that should be taught in class, but evolution is something that we know to happen on a gradual basis.
Teach students the theory of evolution, sure, but it's not the school's place nor the teacher's place to attempt to claim that it is a fact of science that we evolved from apes. Anyways, I don't know when you were in school being taught this sort of stuff, but when I was, about 2-6 years ago (My HS career) we were explicitely informed that it's a theory and it does leave many questions unanswered in the scientific communities.
Now if you think that proposing an observed scientific theory be definitively linked with the origins of ourselves and the rest of life on Earth is a bad idea, I don't see how it would be any better to attempt to tell students, in a class of science, that intelligent design (Which is a trojan horse, no more, no less) is something to look into, really. The belief of a higher being, a creator, isn't something to be taught in public schools, that's something for one to find on their own or through their family. Preferably on their own so they can truly make up their mind on what they feel is best.
The good thing about Microsoft having the ability to drive hooks for MSN search wherever they please in future IE/Windows releases is that they have at least been beaten to the punch by every single competitor in the web/OS market. For Windows on the desktop, customers can already choose between the various offerings from Mozilla and the excellent and now-free Opera web browsers, as far as Internet Explorer, I believe their "Search" button already uses MSN search, anyways. Furthermore, Microsoft has released MSN Search Toolbar that includes Windows Desktop Search, but until they become a standard package with Internet Explorer, and preferably don't have any kinds of privacy risks I usually associate with any toolbar for any browser, it's not going to seriously take off.
Meanwhile, desktop users of Linux systems have the same great offerings from Mozilla as well as Opera, and then there's Konqueror for KDE-styled systems that offers a level of integration far greater than Windows can even imagine at this point. If most people know of half the things you can do with the integration that Konqueror provides, from the web to your files to your media devices, I really think it would have a much greater market share than it currently does. In any case, I'm going to keep hoping that maybe we can get a product for Windows that offers as much and doesn't require you to upgrade your OS. That's a reference to how the MSN Toolbar requires Windows XP/Server 2k3/2k or greater & IE 5.01 or later. As long as they don't remove support for XP anytime in the (near) future, I think they'll be alright, for the most part.
By the way, the days of being able to quash technologically superior alternatives by simply slapping a user in the face with an unremovable and inferior product are soon to be gone, if they aren't already. Technology as a whole is becoming much more prevalent, and people are simply getting more and more fed up with their systems. Maybe I'm making a mistake by basing my observations on mostly youths between 10-30 (The crowd I hang around with most) years of age, but these are the people who will shape the future of computing, ultimately, as consumers and creators of technology. Hopefully Linux gets more momentum from game developers sometime soon (I would settle for Mac but I don't even care much for Apple, either, although I love their OS and hardware) so it can take off with a whole new market segment, as opposed to being "good enough for most people, as long as you don't game" like it is now. Personally, I just want a World of Warcraft port.
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Your Windows XP in VMWare also is incapable of doing much else other than the most basic of desktop computing tasks, I'm sure.
The rest of the world tends to use their computer for leisure including but not limited to gaming, which ends up requiring more resources. Your 128MB of RAM is quickly eaten up by the base OS and a few programs on top of it and then it's swap time.
Give me a break, my own personal desktop in XP uses almost 450MB of my 1GB of RAM once the entire thing is up and running, I'm looking at an extra gig real soon just so that I don't have to worry about new games causing me to swap like crazy. And yes I'm serious, after all of my startup programs load along with my copy of avast! the system is using a considerable amount of my memory.
Just because you can get XP running on a machine with such a minor amount of RAM, doesn't mean it's going to be very accommodating to the applications running on top of it.
You have attained the rank of "Master Skimmer" with the skillful avoidance of the line "(reguardless if you think the U.S. is hypacritical or not!)". That bastard thought he was going to escape smartass remarks by politely making a note in his post to understand we're talking about the values American doctrine has preached, but you showed him! Nothing gets past you! The nation thanks you for pointing out that we're not exactly the bastion of freedom and light we love to tell ourselves we are, right from childhood. Nevermind that the point of all that has always been to work towards that goal, not to make anyone believe that it's the Actual Way It Is(tm).
P.S. - Speak for yourself, and find a better way of trying to karma-whore. Even the "M$" moniker is less used here on /. than that tripe.
I'll check this out in a little while here when I boot my Gentoo, since I'm not really waiting for my eMule queue to finish anymore. Thanks for the idea!
No, I sold my Radeon 9800 Pro a long time ago and picked up a GeForce 6600GT, precisely because Linux drivers from ATI sucked much more than NVidia's. Not to say NVidia's the bomb, either.
I'm using Gentoo 64-bit, first off, but I am not convinced that that's why my game is nearly unplayable in Wine. I can't target anything with my mouse, and my character's textures are largely absent (some of them show). Not to mention the ground looks extremely funny. If you're interested I can try to get a screengrab but it's simply unplayable in my Linux, and I havn't had better luck with 32-bit setups, either. Not since patch 1.8, but other people seem to be more fortunate than I.
I'll try compiling Wine with bare-bones flags, maybe that will help, but I'm already looking at a WineX subscription when I get more funds that I don't have to save.
Oh how badly we need a Linux port of WoW. I honestly don't have Windows for any other reason anymore.
If I had mod points... I mentioned this quote just yesterday with a friend and it couldn't be more true, especially in this day and age.
Hicks was ahead of his time, by far.
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
I didn't trust the Bush Administration in the first place, from day one. I'd have to be a fool to place any trust in them to not mishandle the information they're requesting here when they've shown a willingness to decieve even with matters of much greater importance. Think about it -- Would you hang around someone you know has done things to hurt you or your friends behind your back many times recently? I wouldn't even hang around someone who's done that, period, ever. I'd be a fool to make the current administration exempt from that logic when they wield far more power than any random joe that I come across.
By the way, trying to take an Occam's Razor-like approach to situations like this is how governments get away with whatever they please, since people assume no harm shall ever be done. Better to assume harm shall be done, and keep an extremely vigilant eye.
How kind of you to let me know that I actually don't care about human rights in China. Go figure, I was just being a shill the whole time being concerned with people being treated the way people should be treated. You'd have to be a fool to say America is perfect when it comes to their own human rights record, but a bigger one to say we should ignore it when countries treat their citizens like dogs moreso than people.
1.) That's none of the labor union's concern, I would imagine. A concern of a unions members, maybe and quite possibly, but a concern of the union as a whole, to focus its efforts on? That's really wasteful when there are issues to take care of at home.
2.) Way to generalize, bud. Seriously, try some critical thinking sometime. Personally, I don't think that the Cuba thing is any sort of conspiracy, but it was retaliation for escalating tension. Looking at it's history, I'd say it's been past time to do away with the embargo, since it really seems to hurt more than it helps, however well-intentioned it may have been.
3.) I don't think it's bad to prevent our technology from falling into the hands of anyone we don't want to just give it to, or even sell it to. Develop it yourself if you're so adamant about it, there's no global accord stating everyone must share such knowledge, and I don't like the idea of arming other nations with advanced weaponry, even current allies. I suppose that may be considered a hardline position but that's really the cause of so many of our woes, not to mention others in the regions affected.
4.) There are no obligations anywhere for anyone to be given control of the root DNS servers. If you don't like it, create your own internet and stop being a nuisance having a hissy fit. I have yet to hear a genuinely excellent and thoroughly convincing argument otherwise. Nobody's stopping you from getting what you want, it's just a matter of how far you're willing to go.
5.) Maybe because those companies aren't helping to further capital punishment by doing business here? Jeez, get some perspective here. Microsoft is actively aiding the Chinese government with it's questionable behaviour, what the hell is Nestle doing other than selling their wares that have absolutely nothing to do with the complaint at hand? What the hell is Mercedes doing, selling cars to be used to run over people as capital punishment? I'd be happy to hear your theories on Nestle furthering the death penality in the USA. There needs to be an air of corporate responsibility, and soon, because things definitely aren't getting any better when we're saying "Anything for a buck, boss!" Principles have no intrinsic value, they're worth protecting because of the large value that we ourselves as human beings put into them. Are we really going to say that we are an unthinking economic mass, there should be no responsibility, no ethics?
Just because people make mistakes in going after one bad guy while leaving the other alone does not mean neither bad guy should be pursued, alright? What you're saying is the same as saying two wrongs make a right, or saying "We've all got blood on our hands so, hell, let's just go hog wild, I don't care anymore!" If you need explaination about why that's bad, sorry, really.
If you think "a card that can handle today's games" costs ~$500 then you're sorely mistaken. Take a look at the prices sometime please before you decide to go on a rant about expensive video cards, because only the extreme high-end models cost more than 200 bucks tops, and my GeForce 6600GT, which can play any game on the market today, cost me $150 and is now about $180 for the AGP version and $150 for the PCI-Express version.
Whoever modded you insightful has as much a clue as to what the current market looks like as you yourself, which is to say not much.
P.S. -- All the x86_64 processors on the market today are perfectly capable of running 32-bit, nobody's being forced onto the 64-bit OS bandwagon that will leave a lot of old software behind as legacy. Again, research something before you attempt to make an informed post.
I hate to post a reply to myself but I just wanted to give an addition for anyone who thinks I'm talking out of my ass regarding what you potentially could do. This particular idea, running X/KDE via Cygwin as the shell, is an example of what's possible. You don't have to load explorer.exe and there are alternative file browsers/web browsers, so what else does explorer.exe need to be around for? It's awesome how I got modded a troll by the slashbots, and I hate Windows and use Linux most of the time, I guess I must be astroturfing though, trying to give people ideas that Windows has capabilities they might not know about.
Right, then. Why was there any mention of a lightwight, mid, heavywight desktop environment? Remember when laughingcoyote was talking about this:
That implies GNOME and KDE, along with stuff like IceWM and Fluxbox are GUIs. Now, if this is the case then my point was completely valid, since you're choosing the desktop interface to your computer system. This is possible on Windows through many utilities. What the hell else is GNOME, KDE, or any of the plethora of window managers/etc? Now if laughingcoyote meant X server by GUI, well yeah, he has a point in that there are plenty of graphical servers one can use, including commercial X variants, and as far as I know there's no equivalent for Windows systems.
And please don't try to make it sound like anyone was talking about toolkits, either, if that's what you're getting at. Maybe I'm really dense and can't see what you're talking about, but judging from how you responded to my harmless post you'll let me know if I am. Cheers.
P.S. -- the whole point was lowering memory requirements, and 10MB on extremely aged hardware means a lot . Keep up with the thread please.
You can most certainly pick your shell in Windows to lighten up your load if you so desire. You can even run the system with explorer.exe unloaded and nothing to take it's place. Most people prefer Litestep, though, it seems.
This is why I tell people I use Explorer for Windows and GNOME for Linux (But more and more I'm using KDE as it lightens it's load, not that GNOME is a feather, either).
For what it's worth, Opera is free now and has been for a long while.
Not only is the rest of your post spot on, sir, but this statement is beautiful. I always feel weird making a "hear, hear!" post but hey, what else can I do when I can't moderate.
1. Great, so success is not determined by the name, thanks for proving my point.
2. This is common sense, you don't need to emphasize that point to me.
3. The largest and most important market for OSes is not just in the West, especially when you consider that a very large portion of the world's population resides in a single country in Asia, which is rapidly developing technologically and using F/OSS extensively. Furthermore, Ubuntu's aim of user friendliness combined with how easy it is to obtain makes it a great system to use in education as well as other fields such as, well, whatever governments use their computers for, memos, I guess. Licensing costs and a short learning curve, those are the primary factors, not "Is the name something I can pick up and run with right away?" (P.S. -- Remember that little thing called a Mac? Apple? Hmmm, very intuitive naming, yet still quite popular, especially back in the day)
4. Sure you did, but in any case, the point has repeatedly been made that there are a bevy of programs available for both Windows and Linux that have names not very obviously (or at all) related to their actual function, and those programs succeed based on merit in every case. WTF was a KaZaA? A Grokster? A Napster? There are plenty of other examples but I won't bore you by listing every single one.
5. Really? I'm surprised you think Internet Explorer is an apt name for the same program that you manage your harddisk with. Konqueror as a name implies that it's a powerful tool and it's often listed in desktop Linux distributions under the File Manager and Web Browsers menus, so you at the very least get an idea of what to expect. I'm not going to deal with your flame of Konqueror because it's irrelevant and childish in the first place, nobody was discussing the technical merits of any program, AFAIK.
6. AIM, sure. ICQ, maybe. MSN/Windows Messenger, yeah. Y!IM, okay. GAIM is at the very least following (somewhat) the same convention the other programs use, but the other one I mentioned, Trillian, is another one of those programs that has succeeded in spite of it's name, which again proves the point that naming is at best a minor issue to the average user.
7. I know the history of the Firefox web browser, I was using it since it's inception, and Mozilla (Another stupid name for a web browser, but hey, it worked!). Netscape Navigator was a great name for a web browser, imho, I won't argue that point; but hey, props for noticing.
8. I didn't notice an ad hominem, but I was being sarcastic and trying to clue you in that not every user is as stupid as you seem to think they are. I mean sheesh, give your fellow man some credit for being able to figure things out.
*rolls his eyes* Again, it's a moot point, flame warrior.
Ubuntu does mean something other than "A Linux distro with a weird name" and it actually makes sense to use it as the name of a project with the goals Ubuntu has.
Heaven forbid we assume people have an IQ greater than 10, as well, when it comes to naming a product. Get a clue and realize that it's a moot point, especially with the success of naming schemes like GAIM, Trillian, Red Hat, Fedora, Firefox and all the other names that don't tell you what the product does until you actually look it up. Also, to people who think Internet Explorer itself is a surprisingly intuitive name, I find it to be extremely misleading, because Internet Explorer is the same Explorer you use for browsing your disk, so a naming scheme like the one Konqueror has makes much more sense in such a scenario. Food for thought.
The first result for Googling 'adblock opera' brings up this page with a list of possibilities for adblock-like functionality within Opera. I've used the C++ Adblock for a long time with Opera and it does great.
As far as I know, Opera has extension-like functionality, you aren't stuck with the base browser if you don't want just the base browser. Don't see what much else you'd need other than Adblock, but lots of people swear by those Greasemonkey extensions, dunno if that's in Operaland yet.
Moral of the story (and many others): Google it, damnit.
Maybe your account is burned for making uninsightful comments such as the one you just did. Let me know when Microsoft makes it easy to remove Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, and let's not forget Windows Messenger which you have to remove manually with a command at the prompt. Last but not least let's not forget Outlook Express, which even causes long delays with Windows Messenger removed unless you edit your registry.
Look, I use primarily Windows XP these days because even though I hate the operating system I'm too cheap for a Transgaming subscription for WineX and I play World of Warcraft every day (64-bit Linux, WINE works like crud, at least for me, other people seem to be fine), but this doesn't negate the fact that Microsoft doesn't just bundle applications, they force the average user to keep the application installed and accessible by whatever calls it (When did removing a shortcut become synonymous with the term 'uninstall' when the program is left intact and still intertwined into the underlying system?). Sometimes we're lucky and there's someone that discovers a way to remove this unwanted junk from a Windows installation, but that's not always the case. By the way, in case you're wondering why it would be valuable to be able to remove these unwanted pieces of junk called software from the system, for me personally it's not only to conserve disk space and/or memory usage (I'm eating my 100GB partition like nothing and constantly having to delete stuff I don't want/need/play anymore) but also to keep viruses, spyware and malware off my system since I'm not the only one that ever uses it.
And don't bother mentioning XPlite, please. One shouldn't need third-party solutions that the software vendor themselves could quite easily implement (If it's a difficult task for Microsoft, well, that's just sad with all the money and talent they have).
I'm just a little curious as to what you're referring to when you say "fucked-up Mac-like button order" because, well, as far as I've been able to notice, the UI is not only themable but fully supports customizing the toolbars quite extensively, and as far as I can tell the dialogs follow the standard UI procedures (Read: It looks pretty much the same as IE). What theme do you have to install to change any button orders? I'm genuinely curious as both a Linux and Windows user (Gentoo. And by the way, yes, Konqueror 3.5 has an adblock feature built-in, and it functions the same as the Firefox extension, now if only Konqueror didn't suck in terms of performannce with scripting, and hard. Yes, it bothers me greatly and I refuse to use it as my primary browser for that reason).
That said, it's been a long time since I've had any problems with Firefox crashing on me, and I use unofficial nightly community builds (I'm crazy, I like to see how fast I can finish BenchJS [joke], and try out new features and functionality not present in the current official release). Usually, when Firefox does give me grief, it's around the same time I either exit a video game after playing it for a real long time, or I alt-tab out of the game directly to Firefox. Again, this hasn't happened for some time, and it's not like Firefox is the only piece of software on my computer that crashes every now and then.
P.S. - A crash never happens "for no reason at all" so you probably meant "for no apparent reason at all".
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." -- Dom Helda Camara.
Sure the people working in those sweatshops (By the way, I advise everyone I know to avoid labels that I know have repeatedly used sweatshops, and I don't purchase any of their goods, ever, nor wear them. Nike is a prime example) are making money and are thus able to put some food on the table, but the problem is that these people are first off being paid jack squat, compared to residents in nations that are further developed, and second off the workplace environments are more often than not to the point where they'd be shut down permanently in, again, many nations that are further developed. And if you believe that these jobs are actually helping the country progress in a positive nature, I've a bridge to sell you. All they do is keep the status quo, no more.
These people are being exploited and that's the whole point.
That whoosh sound was his point flying directly over your head. I suggest you re-read and notice especially where he said "How the fuck does the existance of 'worse' forgive 'bad'?"
Evolution is an observable fact, you're incorrect here. The point of contention seems to always lie with people who don't believe that we evolved from monkeys, which is fine, I don't necessarily think that should be taught in class, but evolution is something that we know to happen on a gradual basis.
Teach students the theory of evolution, sure, but it's not the school's place nor the teacher's place to attempt to claim that it is a fact of science that we evolved from apes. Anyways, I don't know when you were in school being taught this sort of stuff, but when I was, about 2-6 years ago (My HS career) we were explicitely informed that it's a theory and it does leave many questions unanswered in the scientific communities.
Now if you think that proposing an observed scientific theory be definitively linked with the origins of ourselves and the rest of life on Earth is a bad idea, I don't see how it would be any better to attempt to tell students, in a class of science, that intelligent design (Which is a trojan horse, no more, no less) is something to look into, really. The belief of a higher being, a creator, isn't something to be taught in public schools, that's something for one to find on their own or through their family. Preferably on their own so they can truly make up their mind on what they feel is best.
I appreciate your reply, and am glad to find yet another Linux user who sold out to NVidia because of driver support. Hehe.
The good thing about Microsoft having the ability to drive hooks for MSN search wherever they please in future IE/Windows releases is that they have at least been beaten to the punch by every single competitor in the web/OS market. For Windows on the desktop, customers can already choose between the various offerings from Mozilla and the excellent and now-free Opera web browsers, as far as Internet Explorer, I believe their "Search" button already uses MSN search, anyways. Furthermore, Microsoft has released MSN Search Toolbar that includes Windows Desktop Search, but until they become a standard package with Internet Explorer, and preferably don't have any kinds of privacy risks I usually associate with any toolbar for any browser, it's not going to seriously take off.
Meanwhile, desktop users of Linux systems have the same great offerings from Mozilla as well as Opera, and then there's Konqueror for KDE-styled systems that offers a level of integration far greater than Windows can even imagine at this point. If most people know of half the things you can do with the integration that Konqueror provides, from the web to your files to your media devices, I really think it would have a much greater market share than it currently does. In any case, I'm going to keep hoping that maybe we can get a product for Windows that offers as much and doesn't require you to upgrade your OS. That's a reference to how the MSN Toolbar requires Windows XP/Server 2k3/2k or greater & IE 5.01 or later. As long as they don't remove support for XP anytime in the (near) future, I think they'll be alright, for the most part.
By the way, the days of being able to quash technologically superior alternatives by simply slapping a user in the face with an unremovable and inferior product are soon to be gone, if they aren't already. Technology as a whole is becoming much more prevalent, and people are simply getting more and more fed up with their systems. Maybe I'm making a mistake by basing my observations on mostly youths between 10-30 (The crowd I hang around with most) years of age, but these are the people who will shape the future of computing, ultimately, as consumers and creators of technology. Hopefully Linux gets more momentum from game developers sometime soon (I would settle for Mac but I don't even care much for Apple, either, although I love their OS and hardware) so it can take off with a whole new market segment, as opposed to being "good enough for most people, as long as you don't game" like it is now. Personally, I just want a World of Warcraft port.