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User: Bralkein

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  1. Re:Microsoft won't be allowing dual boot on Former OLPC CTO Aims to Create $75 Laptop · · Score: 2, Interesting
    From the article you linked to:

    While we have investigated the possibility in the past, Microsoft is not developing dual-boot Windows XP support for One Laptop Per Childs XO laptop. As we announced in December, Microsoft plans to publish formal design guidelines early this year that will assist flash-based device manufacturers in designing machines that enable a high-quality Windows experience. Our current goal remains to provide a high-quality Windows experience on the XO device. In addition, there will be limited field trials in January 2008 of Windows XP for One Laptop per Childs XO laptop. Microsoft recommends contacting the company directly for any further updates.

    Yikes! To me, this reads like Microsoft aren't planning to introduce Windows as a dual-boot option, rather they intend to replace Linux entirely on the XO machines. How are they going to do this without increasing the cost of the laptop? I suppose they would have to give the OS away for free, but what are the legal implications here? I recall hearing that it can be illegal to drop your price to zero in order to flush out a competitor. If this is the case, then I wonder if this isn't a rather risky move for MS, especially considering their history of lawsuits for anti-competitive practices.
  2. Re:FINALLY! on ASUS Motherboard Ships With Embedded Linux · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Right, this is exactly the sort of thing I've been waiting to see. People often complain that pre-installed Windows has much better integration with the hardware than when you install a Linux OS yourself. I find this rather frustrating, because the openness and flexibility of Linux should in theory make it much easier to integrate. It was disappointing for me to read reviews of the Dell/Ubuntu machines, since the reviewers often lamented a lack of proper integration with the hardware, which seemed to suggest that Dell just hadn't put in the effort to deliver the quality experience you expect from a pre-installed machine (yes, even from Dell ;-).

    I hope that devices like this motherboard as well as the up-and-coming Linux smartphones will get companies thinking more positively and imaginitively about what they can do with Linux and Free Software in general.

  3. Re:To be fair ... on Walt Mossberg Reviews Ubuntu · · Score: 1

    The problems are indeed silly and minor, and that is what makes them so bad. If Dell had taken a little bit of time to eat their own dog food here, then problems like touchpad oversensitivity probably wouldn't exist. Furthermore, the multimedia capabilities of a fresh Windows install are, IIRC, fairly limited. The reason why a brand new Windows PC will play DVDs etc. is because all of that stuff was set up previously. You'd think that a big player like Dell would be able to arrange for their Linux machines to be able to play a few DVDs and mp3 files, but they clearly haven't put in the effort here.

    I don't expect Dell to even be able to provide decent Linux telephone support, and I appreciate that they do say before they sell you the machine that the Linux range is aimed at advanced users, and that support will only be forthcoming from the community at large. I am disappointed though by the apparent lack of attention towards pre-configuration and software-hardware integration which would for me be the main reason for selling Linux pre-installed in the first place.

  4. Re:Linux fglrx module possibly also exploitable on ATI Driver Flaw Exposes Vista Kernel to Attackers · · Score: 1

    I'm sure anyone who's had much experience with the fglrx driver would be surprised if that piece of crap only contains one vulnerability ;-)

  5. Re:Konqueror FTW on Opera 9.5 To Fully Support CSS? · · Score: 4, Informative

    A quick check of the KDE changelogs shows that Konqueror was brought into compliance with the tests with the release of KDE 3.5.6. Linky.

    3.5.6 was released in January.

  6. Re:Why do they keep trying? on Enforced Ads Coming to Flash Video Players · · Score: 1

    Right. I am interested in how Adobe "features" like this might affect the popularity of GNASH. Granted, GNASH isn't quite there just yet, but I get the feeling that it won't be long before it's a decent drop-in replacement for Adobe's rubbish. If/when it gets to this stage, I wouldn't be surprised if it gains widespread adoption as a consumer-friendly alternative, with support for such features as skipping annoying adverts in Flash videos, blocking crappy flash pop-up ads and malware on websites, and all the rest.

    God knows what's going to be done about Microsoft's "WE MUST OWN THIS MARKET. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE" Silverlight though. I suppose some heroes of Free Software are going to have to sacrifice thousands of hours of their lives to the thankless tasks of reverse-engineering and re-implementing the spec...

  7. Sad on Gary McKinnon Loses Extradition Appeal · · Score: 1

    This guy has clearly committed a crime, and I certainly think that there ought to be some repercussions regarding that. Nonetheless, I can't help but feel that he's being treated very unfairly. The guy is crazy, as evidenced by the fact that he was actually cracking the machines to look for complete conspiracy theory stuff; he wanted to find information about UFOs, anti-gravity technology and "free energy". In addition, he cracked the machines using a simple perl script to find machines with blank or default passwords, which demonstrates that he's not some elite danger-to-society hacker genius.

    I think it's awfully sad that this guy is going to be shipped off to a foreign prison for 45 years, for what honestly seems to be a matter of US pride.

  8. Re:How about a link to the downloadable videos? on Novell/Linux Parody on Apple's Mac vs PC Ads · · Score: 1

    Right click has been there since like, OS8. Maybe earlier. Back then it required a 3rd party mouse, but now Apple even ships mice that have a right click functionality. Heck, their laptops only have one visible button, yet if you tap the trackpad with two fingers you get right-click (scroll with two fingers on the trackpad as well).
    Cool, good to know. You're sounding very reasonable.

    On the physical mouse Apple ships theres just no hacked in visual division of right v left click past the 2D mouse-scrollball in the middle. If you push on the left you get a left click, and a right side press, well I hope you can figure that out. Not to mention 3rd (scroll ball), and 4th (squeeze the side buttons) mouse button.
    Oh now just look at this. Why did that have to happen, man? It was all going so well.

    Do us all a favor, and take a deep breath so you can join the rest of us in the year 2007. That, or you were just looking to find excuses to not want to say something could *gasp* be better/better looking than what you currently use. If a Mac honestly confuses you, you probably can't learn new things very well.
    Yikes! I have to use Macs at my university, and they confuse the hell out of me. All the same, I'm pretty sure that it's nothing to do with my intelligence. In fact, I always thought it was because, like, I never use Macs except for the odd half-hour session every week or so, and they work totally differently to my Linux desktop. Now you're telling me it's because I'm a slow learner? Poor show, man. You know what? Take the chill pill. Just take it.
  9. Re:Or the simpler explanation... on Gifted Children Find Heavy Metal Comforting · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Right. I'm pretty sure preference in music is just a matter of taste (or lack thereof). People have been telling me that I'm clever for as long as I can remember, and I think metal is at best silly and at worst pathetic. My favourite band is Sonic Youth. However, at school I used to hang out with a bunch of other very intelligent people who were similarly ostracised for being good in class. Our group of friends spanned a wide range of musical tastes including classical, hip-hop/r&b, experimental, classic rock, metal, hardcore, electronica, britpop/indie...

    Basically, we all had remarkably different tastes and I would really be very surprised if there was any significant and meaningful correlation between taste in music and intelligence.

  10. Re:Yup, these two are suitable PC and Macs on Apple Mac/PC Ads With a UK Twist · · Score: 1

    I saw this ad in the paper yesterday, and of course Peep Show was the first thing I thought of. The thing is though, in Peep Show, Jeremy is a bit of a pillock. Remember the episode where he tries to chat up some girls at a party with a line about olive oil? Something like: "So - olive oil! Fourth pressing? Fifth pressing? I always go for the first pressing. I mean, why wait 'til everyone else has had their fun with the olives?"

    Also, "The bad thing", the "threesome", and everything else ;-)

  11. Seems like a decent guy on Interview with Developer of BackupHDDVD · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Since the DRM on these new formats is so insulting, I'll always be happy to see it suffering setbacks like this. However, I'd be slightly less happy if the person who cracked it was just some guy who wanted to be able to get everything for free and impress his mates by giving them free movies. Assuming this muslix64 character is telling the truth, he seems like a decent sort. His story is just that he wanted to be able to use his own purchased movies in the way that he wants to, in his own home. So consider him thoroughly endorsed!

    On a different subject, this still leaves Linux (and BSD, ReactOS, Haiku etc., etc.) users in a spot of bother. I don't understand if having a movie key would allow you to watch something on the disc even without the right player software to access the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drive, but even if you don't need special software it still looks like extraction of the movie keys can only be done with Windows software, and presumably OSX software in the future. I'd still really like to see a proper, Free Software, libdvdcss-style crack for these formats. I'd like to think it's only a matter of time...

  12. Re:going for Linux incompatibility, it seems on ZFS Shows Up in New Leopard Build · · Score: 1

    Aargh no I didn't! I am very hung-over.

  13. Re:going for Linux incompatibility, it seems on ZFS Shows Up in New Leopard Build · · Score: 1

    Damnit, replied to the wrong post :-S

  14. Re:going for Linux incompatibility, it seems on ZFS Shows Up in New Leopard Build · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Yes, that's the typical Apple solution: you can sort of use it, but if you really want to use it, you have to commit to using OS X. It's not a good proposition.
    Well, I would think that if you were going to move from Linux to an OS which supports ZFS, you would move to Solaris.

    I seriously doubt there will be an independent implementation of ZFS; that work would probably go into ext5. Even if there were (or if ZFS becomes GPL compatible), I doubt it will get much traction: Linux has had more powerful file systems than ext3 for many years, and people choose not to use them. Impressive feature lists don't make a better file system.
    I agree that ext3 isn't the best thing out there for Linux, and I don't even use it myself. However, I would suggest that the reason for so many people still using ext3 is that most other filesystems aren't better enough to encourage people to move away from ext3. Look at some of the posts under this story - you will find stories of people moving from Linux to Solaris, really just because they want the features of ZFS. There is demand for ZFS in the Linux kernel, and if it becomes a common filesystem on OSX, I predict the demand will only increase. I don't expect ext4 will satisfy this demand, either.
  15. Re:going for Linux incompatibility, it seems on ZFS Shows Up in New Leopard Build · · Score: 1

    ZFS is an impressive filesystem, and Apple have every reason to be interested in it over and above, say, ext3. Of course, Apple aren't the only ones interested in ZFS - I have seen a great deal of excitement in the Linux community, too. I am pretty confident that a Linux driver for ZFS will emerge, and in the long run, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it ended up being a very common filesystem on Linux systems. For anyone wanting (read-only, ATM) access to ZFS partitions on Linux today, there is a ZFS FUSE driver available.

  16. Re:Two things catched my eye on Microsoft Vista User Interface Guidelines Published · · Score: 1

    Yes, and your comment made me realise something else - if your app looks and behaves exactly like a Microsoft one, then it seems like it makes it very easy for Microsoft to replace it! More and more these days it seems like Microsoft are even competing with the people who develop the apps for their platform.

  17. Re:Sounds to me like a rip-off of Vista on Plasma: The Next-Generation KDE Environment Review · · Score: 1

    That's fair enough, but if you don't qualify your opinions, you end up coming across like a troll. I don't mean any offence, but your initial post just looks like you're writing it off without giving any real reason, which annoyed me.

    Still, I think maybe you are being a bit cynical here. Of course, lots of people promise that they are going to do lots of new and innovative things. Some of them are lying, but some of them are not. KDE certainly is doing a bit of catching up here, but that's inevitable. Yes, things like accelerated desktop have been done before, but I don't think it's about that. What I've always understood from what Aaron Seigo et al have been talking about is that the exciting thing is not the accelerated desktop or desktop widgets or whatever, it's what they are going to do with this new technology once they have it in place. From what I've read, the KDE developers have a genuine interest in trying out some cool new things here, and I don't really see their motivation for making a lot of hot air over nothing. Nobody's going to be pre-ordering copies of KDE 4. It's free software, remember? If they hype KDE 4 up to the rafters, all that's going to happen is they're going to look like a bunch of idiots come release day. As far as I know, the reason why we haven't seen anything particularly innovative coming from the KDE team yet is because they're still pretty much putting the technical groundwork in first; i.e. they're converting everything to Qt 4, adjusting kdelibs, implementing their cross-platform stuff, etc. Once that stuff is all pretty much out of the way, I am expecting to see a bit more exciting stuff coming along.

    Anyway, I guess we'll have to wait for the beta. That's when we'll find out who's right! ;-)

  18. Re:Sounds to me like a rip-off of Vista on Plasma: The Next-Generation KDE Environment Review · · Score: 1

    Insightful? The parent poster didn't even give a reason for their opinion. That's probably because the amount of concrete information about KDE 4 is so low that it's very difficult to find a reason for having such an opinion. They're either clairvoyant, or being an ass. I'd suggest the latter.

  19. Re:The Daily Mail! on CCTV Cameras In UK Get Loudspeakers · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can't imagine very many schools here in the UK have such things as this in place (I am only twenty and I have a little sister in school, so I would probably have heard about it), but even if they should become commonplace, I have little faith that anything short of tear gas will bring those little bastards to heel! ;-)

  20. Re:The Daily Mail! on CCTV Cameras In UK Get Loudspeakers · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yeah, I keep seeing Daily Mail stories getting posted here on /., and I definitely find it irritating, because of the reasons you just gave. It's not the impression I really want to be giving to foreigners about my country...

    Anyhow, adding loudspeakers to these cameras might be a good thing (bear with me, don't mod me down yet!). If the number of cameras stays the same, well we are just getting spied on the same as before, but with loudspeakers, now people will notice the spying is taking place. As it stands, cameras are easy to forget about in day-to-day life, but hearing the voice of authority booming down from on high is sure to raise some alarm. Hopefully we will finally see some kind of backlash! (Now you can mod me down)

  21. Things I do on Favorite KDE Tricks? · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have heard a few people here and there complain that Konqueror is of no use to them as a file manager, because it is only single-pane. One thing I never noticed until recently is that Konqueror can actually have as many panes as you like! This is really useful. I have set up the hotkeys for splitting the view panes so that Alt-S will split to the side, Alt-D will split down and Alt-X closes the currently-selected pane. Now, normally I like using single-pane, but sometimes two or more can be easier. Whenever I need that, I use the shortcuts to do that. For example, since I use Konqueror as my browser too, I can go to a website with some images or files that I want, split the pane in two, navigate to my home directory in one of the panes, then it is as simple as dragging and dropping the items I want from the website to the folder.

    For KDE apps that have functionality exposed via DCOP, you can tie mouse gestures or keyboard shortcuts to DCOP calls using the dialogue found in Control Centre->Regional & Accessibility->Input Actions. For applications you use regularly, this can be really useful. There is a DCOP browser you can use to explore the things that you can do with DCOP-enabled applications. Have a play with it and see what you can do. I personally use it for controlling Amarok. (an amazing app for anyone who hasn't used it BTW)

    Have you messed around with the storage media notification configuration? When this feature first appeared, I worried that it might be useless and annoying, all popping up dialogues when you insert a disc, but some of the stuff you can do with it is quite cool. For example, if you use an external hard drive to back up your data, you could add an option to do that on the notification. Then, when you plug the drive in, the notification will pop up, and all you need to do is choose the newly-created option to back up your data. The dialogue you can use to do all this is found in Control Centre->Peripherals.

    I hope some of these suggestions are of use to someone, and I also hope that nobody I know ever reads this post, as it is by far the most disgustingly nerdy thing I have ever written.

  22. Re:Wasp T12 on Consumers Look For More Utilitarian Cellphones · · Score: 1

    *whoosh*

  23. Wasp T12 on Consumers Look For More Utilitarian Cellphones · · Score: 1

    You'll forget all about utilitarian after you check out the Wasp T12. It's totally fucking Mexico!

  24. Re:Good luck with human resource allocation. on 2.6 Linux Kernel in Need of an Overhaul? · · Score: 1

    I don't think that's universally true. Maybe for some people, yes, but lots of free software developers are very proud of their creations, and will strive to make their products as bug-free as possible. Also, the kernel development has leadership, and if they say "Look, features are all very good, but we have so many bugs here that we just have to get them fixed before we can add anything else", then people who want to get their feature included as soon as possible will work to get rid of the bugs so addition of features can resume.

  25. NDAs are a big problem? on Kernel Trap Interview with Theo de Raadt · · Score: 1

    Some Linux (and recently FreeBSD too) developers are willing to sign NDAs so that a few people get the documentation, and I believe that this is the largest problem facing the kernel side of the open source community today.

    Why is this a problem? If you are signing an NDA so you can write an open-source driver that anyone can read, edit and redistribute, surely that's not so bad? Of course it would be better to have completely open hardware specs, but if you really need to understand how this piece of hardware works, can't you take this open driver for it, read it, experiment with it, et cetera?

    This is not a troll, I'm just not a programmer, so if this is a stupid question, that's why.