Okay, not the insanely obviously wrong ones like `*BSD is GPLed', but there's nothing `wrong' or `pro Linux, anti-BSD' with saying stuff like the following:
"OpenBSD support is limited"
Compared to Linux, it is. In turn, Linux support is also limited in size when compared to Windows. That doesn't mean your platform is bad. It just means that there's less support. Its true, deal with it.
"Support for NetBSD is minimal at best."
Compared to FreeBSD [biog in ISPs] and OpenBSD [big it security circles], support for NetBSD is tiny.
"There is no official commercial support for NetBSD at this time. "
Well, that may be true. I don't know. Keep in mind the word official
"The OpenBSD installation process is "not very friendly, in fact its downright hostile.""
Um, this is true. Don't get cut up over it, acknowledge it, fix it, and prove your maturity. This isn't pro Linux anti-BSD ism. Debian's and Red hat's installers suck too.
OpenBSD is "a very difficult system to configure and use since no configuration front-end exists like FreeBSD's/stand/sysinstall."
Well, was it obvious to the user? This is a mistake, but it might have been an honest one. No tool exists unless it is obvious to most users it is there. coming from the Linux world, one sees this repeatedly with Linux distributions that hide their confioguration tools from their menus. The newbioe isn't being dumb, they're beiong logical -if they ain't showing it to me, it probably doesn't exist. A fair enough assumption to make. People rarely read documentation.
Configuring NetBSD is "an adventure every time."
The NetBSD installer is not for timid -- "it is an old style text based installer."
Oh, cmon - how are you gonna argue this isn't the case?
"NetBSD applications support is minimal as well."
Um, yes. Comapred to Free and Open, yes. Sorry, its a fact of Life. I'm a Linux user. Linux application support is also pretty minimal comapred to Windows or MacOS.
"NetBSD support for network applications, such as ICQ and messenger clients, is seriously lacking."
It is. Not everyone wants to port and compile source. Not everyone knows C. Most people don't. Slashdot is the only place where end-users don't exist, and you can tell somebody to `code it themself'.
"NetBSD is a very minimal operating system."
It is. It lacks most of the polish that most users expect [even system administrators - remember, more people use NT than Unix precisely for that reason]. Stop bitching that this isn't the case. Either shut up and tell them you like minimalism, or try and make it even less minimal than it is today, just to proove them wrong.
You were given bad inforamtion. There is no such piece of software as `Optiionn Pack 4'. You want the `Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack'. No wonder the MS respresentative was confused.
FYI, the Windows NT 4.0 Option pack includes IIS, Transaction Server, Certificate Server, Index server, and various other bits and pieces.
Firstly, you haven't used Windows in more than 2 years if the common dialogues look different in VCL apps.
The last thing freenix needs is a UI Police, arbitrarily setting standards and confiscating noncompliant CVS trees.
Um, no. This is what destroyed closed source Unix, and pretty much everyone acknowledges this is what will destroy just about everything else. Chaos is not a part of Free software development. We have CVS bringing order to revisioning, we have the LSB bringing standards to distriobutions, and we have the FHS bringing standards to file locations.
That kind of thinking is antithetical to Free Software. This is a Free Market of Software. It's Laissez Faire. It's radical libertarianism that
takes great pride in tar and feathering any who would set down rules.
No, they don't. They get on ther mailing list for the standard amnd flame away, giving their input into the standard, so we can settle on something.
There are standards in this world, many standards,. And quite a few of them compete with each other. Just like in the real world.
Sorry, but its plaionly clear lack of consistent UIs hurt the free desktops more than their competition with each other enhances it. Both KDE and GNOME, and QT / GTK, will both exist. If anything, I'm encouraging the competition - for both players to realize they won't win out over each other, and the must accept the fact people won't always use their respective widget sets. I'm not saying the competition must stop, I'm sayign the current way of competing, which hard the UI experience and halves a users avliable apps, is hurting Linux as a desktop.
If you don't like this chaotic situation, and would prefer a regimented world where everyone does what they're told, then stick with Windows.
Er, no. I wouldn't prefer a regimented world. I'd prefer standards theres a difference. And as for sticking with Windows? Fuck you.
I know KDE and GNOME are mostly volunteer projects, even ifn the majority of the core developers are being paid for their work. I'm not going to fire them, or flaming them, I'm providing feedback into what I think is a serious issue irn order to to achieve their stated goal of an easy to use Linux desktop.
Ah, the typical Slashdot `DIY' response. I can't do it myself. Nor do I have any intention of doing so. If Linux is to ever be accepted by mom and pop, which Eazel, Ximian, the GNOME and KDE foudnations / leugues, The Kompany, etc. all set out to to do, they will have to accept the plain reality of life that mom and pop don't know C and never will.
Being a little more educated than mom and pop, I still contribute by doing documentation for various projects. But no, I won't be helping GNOME or KDE beyond giving feedback in the near future, as I don't gave the time.
Or find someone who can and convince them to do it for you
This is either a troll, or an emotional outburst devoid of any rationality. I'll assume the latter.
Sorry. I've spent a week talking with Eazel employees and KDE developers at the conference and the outlook so far seems pretty bleak.
"I have 2 sets of mime types
My KDE panel applets won't launch in the GNOME panel, and vice versa"
This sort of interoperability is being worked on even now as we speak. Don't expect overnight perfection.
Really? According to Marciej and George, who I asked personally about this item at their talk at Linux.conf.au, while the mime types issue *may* be being worked on some time in the future, the Panel applet interoperability is something we *might* expect for GNOME 2, but not something the GNOME team are really working on.
If you look at the history of KDE and GNOME, you'll find that the developers desire this compatibility and have been slowly but surely implementing it. Really? All I see is a standardized drag and drop that's been bandied about for a couple of years and doesn't work consistently. And symlinks in the menus.
"When I add an application the the kpanel, it doesn't appear on the foot menu, and vice versa
It's one thing for the main root menus of the respective desktops to recognize the menus of the other, and display them. I expect this interoperability very soon.
Again, the KDE and GNOME developers I asked about these things generally put it on the very bottom of their things to do list.
But you're talking about *panels* here. Switching between panels is going to be a rare occurance. And the process of adding an item to a panel takes approximately 8.5 seconds.
I meant menus. Sorry.
"QT and GTK are themed using different engines, with no reason why."
Plenty of reason why, if you would just use your head.
But I won't `use my head', I refuse to, because neither will any end user. End users don't give a damn about toolkits. They just want to know why they have to learn to save files in Gimp and how to save files in Kword, because they're `different'.
Both of these toolkits are distinct from each other. They are developed by distinct groups of people.
Really? So are MFC and VCL. They just work together seamlessly...
And their theming engines have distinct goals. QT themes are more powerful than GTK themes in some ways, and GTK themes are more powerful than Qt themes in others.
Then take the best bits and combine them. Sorry, any inherent powerfulness in themes [not the biggest demand from most end users] should be much less on a UI developers list of priorities than consistency of user interface. AFAIK all non-Unix based User Interface engineers acknowledge this, with guides to UI consistency available for MacOS, Windows, and Be.
I for one do not want a theme engine based on the lowest common denominator.
Well, I'm sorrry, every other UI designer does, and useability testing reveals consistency works.
"Imagine a Windows user clicking Start to reveal `MFC applications' `VCL applications' etc."
Apples and oranges. My KDE menu most certainly does NOT distinguish between Motif, Qt, Fox, FLTK and GTK applications. KDE and GNOME are desktops , they are not widget toolkits.
There are KDE and GNOME specific widgets, but I was talking about QT and GTK [without stating it, I thought it would be obvious].
To make the proper analogy, imagine a Windows user clicking the main menu to reveal "Windows applications", "DOS applications", "BeOS applications", "Mac applications",...
Um, no. If I was a troll, I would say something a little more blunt here. But I won't. Those QT, GTK, and Motif apps are alll native Linux binaries. I think it is you who is comparing apples and oranges. I love Linux, and use it as my primary platform. But if we never acknowledge its deficiencies, it won't improve.
I think you have your heart in the right place by defending a good OS against criticism. But it is due criticism based on widely accepted wisdom of UI design which if heeded will improve the platform, IMHO.
Could you tell us what makes you think that DnD is broken? I am sure that the developers would like to know this, and I would love to fix things that are annoying users.
Okay. In Mandrake 7.2, Red Hat 6.2 with the relevant updates, or SuSE 7.0, one cannot drag an FTP link out of a KDE 2.01 Konqueror onto a GNOME 1.2+ desktop.
The 2 sets of mime types is indeed annoying.
KDE docklets work in GNOME just fine.
Perhaps its just that no user interface seems to provide them - when I right click on the gnome panel, I can't see them listed there as possibilities to add [latest versions of both]. Oddly enough, I attended Linux.conf.au and asked Marceij and his companion [apologies about the spelling] about this personally and he said it was something which *might* be in GNOME 2.0.
In general GNOME integrates the KDE menu into its own menu. Ideally we should be sharing the same menu.
I don't think that's a case of ideal. I think its a case of basic logic. Look at Red Hat 7's GNOME 1.2. You need to find an Internet app...will it be under Foot -> Internet ? Foot -> Red Hat -> Internet (even though Red Hat didn't write it)? Or Foot -> KDE Menus -> Internet? There's no reason for end users to distinguish between applications based on toolkits and their preferred desktop. Just like there's currently no reason to theme the artwork around windows differently from the other aspects of my system.
I agree with you about the themes. I have suggested in the past to the KDE people to write together an cross-theme API that would allow theme engines to be written once, and used everywhere, but there was not too much enthusiast on Matthias part. He has since stalled saying that `he has an idea for this, and that he will post later', but the idea has yet to happen. The approach of having a unified subset of the API calls required to have a theme engine is not only doable but simple.
That's excellent - but you don't really need Matthias' permission to start hacking on KDE. Just put an announcement out you're starting work and that anyone interested might like to give you a hand.
More importantly, feel is the more important aspect of `look and feel'. Is there anything done about having a unified style guide for both projects (and possible others)?
Actually, regarding component models, there has been some level of interoperability. If I recall correctly, one can embed Bonobo into KParts and XUL objects into Kparts. It may be vice versa though - neither kde.org nor gnotices show up anything from my search.
Isn't that the filemanagers have some way to go, or that silly apps tell me KPACKAGE NEEDS TO BE RUN AS ROOT! rather than asking me for the password, or that one is more or less favoured by closed source developers, that Ximian installer force installs all its packages, or that one is more or less free than the other.
Its that they both ignore each other. Half my apps don't work properly. The standardized drag and drop doesn't work across in any distribution with the latest GNOME and KDE, dragging from Konqueror to the GNOME desktop doesn't work. Neither does any other cross app drag and drop.
* Drag and drop is broken
* I have 2 sets of mime types
* My KDE panel applets won't launch in the GNOME panel, and vice versa
* When I add an application the the kpanel, it doesn't appear on the foot menu, and vice versa
* KDE and GNOME don't even include apps from each other on their panels
* Childish KDE developers write a GNOME theme importer which calls GNOME `legacy' and childish Eazel developers make Eazel services showcase any app for any toolkit, as long as it isn't KDE and QT.
* QT and GTK are themed using different engines, with no reason why.
Thisn isn't competition. This is insanity, artifically partitioning all my apps. Neither desktop will win. No OS uses a single partition.
Imagine a Windows user clicking Start to reveal `MFC applications' `VCL applications' etc. End users don't give a fuck about toolkits and never have. Why is the KDE team writing KPhotoSuite? Why shouldn't KWord work really well with the GIMP?
Windows uses more than one toolkit. It just does it well. For God's sake, stop partitioning my desktop. Write a combined style guide for GTK and QT based apps. Make sure both toolkits use the same theming engine, and have a similar range of widgets aviable.
And for God's sake, stop using your brilliant minds to hurt each other and combine them to actually make Linux a useable desktop.
I'll have hope the first time a Linux developer actually writes a software installer and doesn't call it `gnorpm'.
Look through their mail archives, and you will find the leaders of the LSB are all focused on making it easier for COMMERCIAL software companies to write Linux software.
Oh my God! COMMERCIAL software! How horrible! Like Red Hat, Ximian Gnome, eSmith... oh, wait, you shouted before you thought and forgot [like so many in the OS community do] that Open-Source != Non Commercial. The opposite of Open Source is closed source or proprietary.
If you're complaining about proprietary software, some of us use Linux because it happens to be the best tool for the job. This is a result of being open source but not all Open Source projects are guaranteed to be so. Some simply don't have enough developers working on them [over a thousand work on the kernel, 25 work on koffice].
I use Microsoft Word for the same reason I use Linux. Its the best tool for the job. StarOffice can't do a word count on a selection - I need that for section and page layout guidelines given by my writing briefs. Corel WPO2K is too slow and not wonderfully stable. Abiword isn't compete. Applixware has an annoying interface and poor Microsoft importing abilitities.
Re:This is the nicest one I know...
on
Infiltration
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· Score: 2
Here's mine - Australia's biggest tunneling group, Cave Clan, with maps of Melbourne's massive network or wartime tunnels connecting army buildings, hospitals, town halls, old utilities, and more. The cave clan site also has maps an safety info, as well as tales of some of the more excitign events to happen in melbourne's dains [like the VW Beetles disassembled, transported into the system, reeassembled, and raced through the larger tunnels].
Porn viewing in and out of itself is a blessing to LOTS of people, and as for gross stuff, cops, doctors and undertakers probably see a LOT worse every day of their lives.
I'm not so sure. There's some pretty intense stufff out there - things like goatse.cx, people tearing their gentitalia apart with hook [thanks to the person on IRC who posted that URL, people being raped or semi-snuff movies, and violence [cadavers after violent encounters] which is marketed and used by some peoplee as porn, Unlike a cop working a local beat and ancountering drunk teenagers and wife beaters, you can pretty much see the world elements of humanity.
Just a thought. I still have a thousand times more respect for the cop, who actually puts himself in danger in dealing with these people. I just think the internet guy has [if he was *really* looking for it] seen worse. It being on screen [and possibly faked] does take some of the shock away though...
I'm not understanding what you're saying. Are you telling me that it is a common occurance for people to install ssh, uninstall ssh, reinstall shh, and so on, on a frequent basis?
No, I'm not. That is obvious. I'm saying people often add services after they've installed and set of their box, because they want to use those services.
A client of mine recently found a need for a external webmail server. This will be added as a service onto an existing box within their DMZ. The same client was also previously using sendmail to transfer mail between the internel mail server and the outside world. As sendmail runs as root [and should, thus, in my opinion, be uninstalled wherever it is encounted] sendmail was replaced with another, straight mail forwarding only service.
Another client recently replaced all their insternal sendmail servers with qmail. Again, this was after the machines were originally installed.
Is it that hard to grasp that a company might not be able to predict its future at the time its servers were installed, and may instead adjust their IT towards their own changing needs?
Instead of making it easier for the user to perform these calisthenics, perhaps the best solution is to tell them to STOP!
The users aren't performing calisthenics. They're doign what all good businesses to: acknowledging need and deficiency and adjusting their systems to meet those needs and address the deficiencies.
Are you telling me that even business servers change their services on a regular basis?
No, I'm telling you they change them on an occasional basis.
How often are companies going to install a new network service? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? How often do new network services even arrive on the scene?
Depending on the needs of the business. This ranges anywhere generally from yearly to bi-monthly, if you must know.
Wow! You don't get out much do you?
I suggest it mis you who needs to get out into the real world where companies actually change, and are smart enough to change their systems to meet those needs.
How often are you going to change your services? Once, at install. After that you don't touch them anymore. If you know SysV style, it's easier. If you know BSD style, it's easier.
Er, no. If it's using a server, and you're working for a company that has a valid reason for installing a new network service [for example, an intranet or instant messenging server], fairly frequently. That's one of the advantages of Linux [compared to the NT world] - you can actually run more than one service on a machine and maintain stability [security is a different matter, and DMZ etc are still an important consideration].
For a desktop machine, all the time. Update monitoring tools, indexing tools for fast searches, ssh if you decide you need secure access to your CLI and GUI apps, etc. Desktop machines change services a lot.
And despite knowing a few hundred Linux users, I've rarely seen anyone actually do the symlinking behaind the scenes themselves. They just run whatever tool came with their distro [especially for business use - wasting time on your clients watch is not a good thing].
Then again, I also know of nobody who actually uses Slackware, apart from the odd IRC encounter. And everybody else knows Slackwares `packaging system' isn't [its a way of installing software and nothing more].
There are no rolling power outages. Shell Beach is across the bridge. And you, you will sleeeeeeeeeep... (smiles and extends hand across face as you close your eyes and fall to the ground)...
I'm a Linux user and administrator, both at home and professionally. Do you really think Linux is geared towards security? I think the default permissions on most Linux systems are good. I think the default permissions on NT and 2000 are bad.
But at the end of the day, the popular Unix rwxs permission system is pathetic. No systems should ever exist where the adminsitrator logs in as root. No daemon should ever run SetUID root either. Capabilities are a hack, and a nasty one at that. Sudo is laughable.
As much as I hate to say it, the ACL permission system used in various trusted Unix systems, various Linux services, and Windows NT/2000, beats the shit out of Linuxs. The Linux Trustees project fixes it, but its currently not in the main kernel. As a result, if you be much easier for MS to make a Windows 2000 that was reasonably secure out of the box than for Red Hat to make a secure Linux.
...with infighting about package formats and which distribution is the best. I'd say technically,.deb is better than.rpm, [with nice things like either/or dependencies, etc, though RPM does have some distinct advantages, like transaction support] but RPM was the earlier project and has won the marketplace. Debians installation process and slow release schedule has a severe effect on popularity. The APT-rpm port [as used in Connectiva, all future versions of Mandrake, and I believe, sometime soon, another large distribution] will likely be the order of the day for most future users. You'll still have CLI, but you'll also have a nice browser based `installer' that lets you find interesting stuff [perhaps sponsored], or with a certain capability [eg, ability to read.doc files]. Screenshots and revies will also exist. Closed source packages could also be purchased via this system.
Then Microsoft will produce lots of documentation "proving" to managers that Linux is much more costly to run. From a MIS point of view, MSs TCO metrics actually ignore the greatest cost of owning a server: downtime. Wages for employees for non-productive work time, overtime, investment in unutilized hardware, lost customers, damanged goodwill, and logistical breaks. Even for a small business, I'd downtime for a single machine can easily pass $AU1000 and hour.
OS/2 was better than it's MS competition. It still lost because it wasn't marketed correctly. Linux has to be seen to be a viable, trustworthy and above all useful alternative for it to be accepted. Agreed.
Much as I hate to say this, MS has the minds of the managers, what Linux needs is...
Easy install and use by "normal" users that are ALREADY used to the MS way.
Agreed
MS compatible applications.
Agreed. Or better yet, native Linux ports of those applications. A closed source app on an Open OS is still more stable. Real engineers use the best tool for the job. Most future business Linux users [not engineeers, but managers] will use Linux because of reliability and quality [although this is a result fo being open source].
And above all, companies that are willing to provide paid for support for it so that other large companies will accept it as an alternative OS. "What do you mean that there isn't anyone responsible for fixing bugs?"
Oh cmon. You cannot be serious! I work for Cybersource, we've done with in conjunction with Red Hat Asia Pacific Consulting, third level support for Dell Linux systems in.au, and more. IBM Global Services [the biggest in the game] is now in the Linux market. Clients who have some of their work done by Praxa [a large multinational who do a lot of outsourced IT] have acquired Linux machines through consolidation of other government departments networks. Linux is on Praxas list of supportable OSs. In the next month, they're expected to add it. I have a friend who works for Red Hat churning out RHCEs, despite the fact most people fail the exam the first time [as they should - its nice to see a hard certification]. We're here, we want your money, we do SLAs, give us a call.
it probably wouldn't even qualify as "circumvention" under DMCA because there are lots of good reasons to encrypt your HD data.
Yes it would. Just because something had a primary useful purpose which is not circumvention of copyright doesn't mean somebody with a lot of money won't push to give it a semi-outlawed legal status.
I remember a certain consortium runnign round recently telling the judge They're DECRYPTING DVDs! Um, yes, and so is every other MPAA licensed player. OMS and the resulting players, Xine and OMS, just chose to reverse engineer their decryption keys rather than pay for an MPAA license and the associated restrictions - because they are open source, they cannot do so anyway.
Releasing less incremental updates makes it easier on users, developers and distributors, in that if they need a feature like, for example, a new VM, they can just blanketly tell users they need Linux 2.4. If the new VM was released for 2.2, you'd have to require people to have a 2.2.27 kernel or newer. That doesn't sound too difficult, but it soon becomes a major headache. `I have 2.2.26 and it doesn't work for me'. Remember, most current Linux users don't match the profile of most future Linux users.
As it is now, bleedign edge folk can get incremental updates via odd kernels.
A new release neatly bundles all those incremental changes. 2.4 is a known quantity. A minor release isn't, becuase nobody can afford to keep track of the incremental updates in each release. If a user needs DVD support for my game, I tell them to get 2.4. I could tell them to get a 2.2.50 if it had those features, but better to break everything in their distribution at one time rather than cause many small annoying issues. Eg, since their 2.2.7 distro didn't create/dev/dvd, despite the fact they have DVD support in their new 2.2.50, my app might fail if it was looking for/dev/dvd [which it should be].
If you want that feature, whey not do it yourself?
on
Linus Talks About 2.4
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· Score: 3
Linus should have his own action-figure line
I have to take the role of the Slashdot troll [usually moderated up, but still a vapid and stupid response] and say if you want this particular feature, you'll have to do it yourself.
You'll need a series of Linus mug shots to subm,it to have the figure made, but thee should be easily acquired from any recent version of Wired, Linux Magazine, etc.
I know both your own post and the Linux based one beneath it are flamebait [no mater what the moderators think], but I do have to ask about the advantage of the FreeBSD IP stack. I thought Linux 2.4s was fully multithreaded, and thus much faster than the partially multithreaded FreeBSD / Windows 2000 one, on i386 machines especially. Are there any other considerators for preferring the BSD stack?
Or am I just being dumb and responding to a troll:-)?
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, not the insanely obviously wrong ones like `*BSD is GPLed', but there's nothing `wrong' or `pro Linux, anti-BSD' with saying stuff like the following:
/stand/sysinstall."
"OpenBSD support is limited"
Compared to Linux, it is. In turn, Linux support is also limited in size when compared to Windows. That doesn't mean your platform is bad. It just means that there's less support. Its true, deal with it.
"Support for NetBSD is minimal at best."
Compared to FreeBSD [biog in ISPs] and OpenBSD [big it security circles], support for NetBSD is tiny.
"There is no official commercial support for NetBSD at this time. "
Well, that may be true. I don't know. Keep in mind the word official
"The OpenBSD installation process is "not very friendly, in fact its downright hostile.""
Um, this is true. Don't get cut up over it, acknowledge it, fix it, and prove your maturity. This isn't pro Linux anti-BSD ism. Debian's and Red hat's installers suck too.
OpenBSD is "a very difficult system to configure and use since no configuration front-end exists like FreeBSD's
Well, was it obvious to the user? This is a mistake, but it might have been an honest one. No tool exists unless it is obvious to most users it is there. coming from the Linux world, one sees this repeatedly with Linux distributions that hide their confioguration tools from their menus. The newbioe isn't being dumb, they're beiong logical -if they ain't showing it to me, it probably doesn't exist. A fair enough assumption to make. People rarely read documentation.
Configuring NetBSD is "an adventure every time."
The NetBSD installer is not for timid -- "it is an old style text based installer."
Oh, cmon - how are you gonna argue this isn't the case?
"NetBSD applications support is minimal as well."
Um, yes. Comapred to Free and Open, yes. Sorry, its a fact of Life. I'm a Linux user. Linux application support is also pretty minimal comapred to Windows or MacOS.
"NetBSD support for network applications, such as ICQ and messenger clients, is seriously lacking."
It is. Not everyone wants to port and compile source. Not everyone knows C. Most people don't. Slashdot is the only place where end-users don't exist, and you can tell somebody to `code it themself'.
"NetBSD is a very minimal operating system."
It is. It lacks most of the polish that most users expect [even system administrators - remember, more people use NT than Unix precisely for that reason]. Stop bitching that this isn't the case. Either shut up and tell them you like minimalism, or try and make it even less minimal than it is today, just to proove them wrong.
Oops. You're right. I'm wrong.
Everybody is singular? What's the plural form? Everybodies?
Everyone
You were given bad inforamtion. There is no such piece of software as `Optiionn Pack 4'. You want the `Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack'. No wonder the MS respresentative was confused.
FYI, the Windows NT 4.0 Option pack includes IIS, Transaction Server, Certificate Server, Index server, and various other bits and pieces.
Firstly, you haven't used Windows in more than 2 years if the common dialogues look different in VCL apps.
The last thing freenix needs is a UI Police, arbitrarily setting standards and confiscating noncompliant CVS trees.
Um, no. This is what destroyed closed source Unix, and pretty much everyone acknowledges this is what will destroy just about everything else. Chaos is not a part of Free software development. We have CVS bringing order to revisioning, we have the LSB bringing standards to distriobutions, and we have the FHS bringing standards to file locations.
That kind of thinking is antithetical to Free Software. This is a Free Market of Software. It's Laissez Faire. It's radical libertarianism that
takes great pride in tar and feathering any who would set down rules.
No, they don't. They get on ther mailing list for the standard amnd flame away, giving their input into the standard, so we can settle on something.
There are standards in this world, many standards,. And quite a few of them compete with each other. Just like in the real world.
Sorry, but its plaionly clear lack of consistent UIs hurt the free desktops more than their competition with each other enhances it. Both KDE and GNOME, and QT / GTK, will both exist. If anything, I'm encouraging the competition - for both players to realize they won't win out over each other, and the must accept the fact people won't always use their respective widget sets. I'm not saying the competition must stop, I'm sayign the current way of competing, which hard the UI experience and halves a users avliable apps, is hurting Linux as a desktop.
If you don't like this chaotic situation, and would prefer a regimented world where everyone does what they're told, then stick with Windows.
Er, no. I wouldn't prefer a regimented world. I'd prefer standards theres a difference. And as for sticking with Windows? Fuck you.
I know KDE and GNOME are mostly volunteer projects, even ifn the majority of the core developers are being paid for their work. I'm not going to fire them, or flaming them, I'm providing feedback into what I think is a serious issue irn order to to achieve their stated goal of an easy to use Linux desktop.
Ah, the typical Slashdot `DIY' response. I can't do it myself. Nor do I have any intention of doing so. If Linux is to ever be accepted by mom and pop, which Eazel, Ximian, the GNOME and KDE foudnations / leugues, The Kompany, etc. all set out to to do, they will have to accept the plain reality of life that mom and pop don't know C and never will.
Being a little more educated than mom and pop, I still contribute by doing documentation for various projects. But no, I won't be helping GNOME or KDE beyond giving feedback in the near future, as I don't gave the time.
Or find someone who can and convince them to do it for you
Um, what do do you think this is?
This is either a troll, or an emotional outburst devoid of any rationality. I'll assume the latter.
...
Sorry. I've spent a week talking with Eazel employees and KDE developers at the conference and the outlook so far seems pretty bleak.
"I have 2 sets of mime types
My KDE panel applets won't launch in the GNOME panel, and vice versa"
This sort of interoperability is being worked on even now as we speak. Don't expect overnight perfection.
Really? According to Marciej and George, who I asked personally about this item at their talk at Linux.conf.au, while the mime types issue *may* be being worked on some time in the future, the Panel applet interoperability is something we *might* expect for GNOME 2, but not something the GNOME team are really working on.
If you look at the history of KDE and GNOME, you'll find that the developers desire this compatibility and have been slowly but surely implementing it.
Really? All I see is a standardized drag and drop that's been bandied about for a couple of years and doesn't work consistently. And symlinks in the menus.
"When I add an application the the kpanel, it doesn't appear on the foot menu, and vice versa
It's one thing for the main root menus of the respective desktops to recognize the menus of the other, and display them. I expect this interoperability very soon.
Again, the KDE and GNOME developers I asked about these things generally put it on the very bottom of their things to do list.
But you're talking about *panels* here. Switching between panels is going to be a rare occurance. And the process of adding an item to a panel takes approximately 8.5 seconds.
I meant menus. Sorry.
"QT and GTK are themed using different engines, with no reason why."
Plenty of reason why, if you would just use your head.
But I won't `use my head', I refuse to, because neither will any end user. End users don't give a damn about toolkits. They just want to know why they have to learn to save files in Gimp and how to save files in Kword, because they're `different'.
Both of these toolkits are distinct from each other. They are developed by distinct groups of people.
Really? So are MFC and VCL. They just work together seamlessly...
And their theming engines have distinct goals. QT themes are more powerful than GTK themes in some ways, and GTK themes are more powerful than Qt themes in others.
Then take the best bits and combine them. Sorry, any inherent powerfulness in themes [not the biggest demand from most end users] should be much less on a UI developers list of priorities than consistency of user interface. AFAIK all non-Unix based User Interface engineers acknowledge this, with guides to UI consistency available for MacOS, Windows, and Be.
I for one do not want a theme engine based on the lowest common denominator.
Well, I'm sorrry, every other UI designer does, and useability testing reveals consistency works.
"Imagine a Windows user clicking Start to reveal `MFC applications' `VCL applications' etc."
Apples and oranges. My KDE menu most certainly does NOT distinguish between Motif, Qt, Fox, FLTK and GTK applications. KDE and GNOME are desktops , they are not widget toolkits.
There are KDE and GNOME specific widgets, but I was talking about QT and GTK [without stating it, I thought it would be obvious].
To make the proper analogy, imagine a Windows user clicking the main menu to reveal "Windows applications", "DOS applications", "BeOS applications", "Mac applications",
Um, no. If I was a troll, I would say something a little more blunt here. But I won't. Those QT, GTK, and Motif apps are alll native Linux binaries. I think it is you who is comparing apples and oranges. I love Linux, and use it as my primary platform. But if we never acknowledge its deficiencies, it won't improve.
I think you have your heart in the right place by defending a good OS against criticism. But it is due criticism based on widely accepted wisdom of UI design which if heeded will improve the platform, IMHO.
Thanks for your reply Miguel.
Could you tell us what makes you think that DnD is broken? I am sure that the developers would like to know this, and I would love to fix things that are annoying users.
Okay. In Mandrake 7.2, Red Hat 6.2 with the relevant updates, or SuSE 7.0, one cannot drag an FTP link out of a KDE 2.01 Konqueror onto a GNOME 1.2+ desktop.
The 2 sets of mime types is indeed annoying.
KDE docklets work in GNOME just fine.
Perhaps its just that no user interface seems to provide them - when I right click on the gnome panel, I can't see them listed there as possibilities to add [latest versions of both]. Oddly enough, I attended Linux.conf.au and asked Marceij and his companion [apologies about the spelling] about this personally and he said it was something which *might* be in GNOME 2.0.
In general GNOME integrates the KDE menu into its own menu. Ideally we should be sharing the same menu.
I don't think that's a case of ideal. I think its a case of basic logic. Look at Red Hat 7's GNOME 1.2. You need to find an Internet app...will it be under Foot -> Internet ? Foot -> Red Hat -> Internet (even though Red Hat didn't write it)? Or Foot -> KDE Menus -> Internet? There's no reason for end users to distinguish between applications based on toolkits and their preferred desktop. Just like there's currently no reason to theme the artwork around windows differently from the other aspects of my system.
I agree with you about the themes. I have suggested in the past to the KDE people to write together an cross-theme API that would allow theme engines to be written once, and used everywhere, but there was not too much enthusiast on Matthias part. He has since stalled saying that `he has an idea for this, and that he will post later', but the idea has yet to happen. The approach of having a unified subset of the API calls required to have a theme engine is not only doable but simple.
That's excellent - but you don't really need Matthias' permission to start hacking on KDE. Just put an announcement out you're starting work and that anyone interested might like to give you a hand.
More importantly, feel is the more important aspect of `look and feel'. Is there anything done about having a unified style guide for both projects (and possible others)?
Actually, regarding component models, there has been some level of interoperability. If I recall correctly, one can embed Bonobo into KParts and XUL objects into Kparts. It may be vice versa though - neither kde.org nor gnotices show up anything from my search.
No OS uses a single partition.
Sorry. I meant to say `No OS uses a single toolkit'
Isn't that the filemanagers have some way to go, or that silly apps tell me KPACKAGE NEEDS TO BE RUN AS ROOT! rather than asking me for the password, or that one is more or less favoured by closed source developers, that Ximian installer force installs all its packages, or that one is more or less free than the other.
Its that they both ignore each other. Half my apps don't work properly. The standardized drag and drop doesn't work across in any distribution with the latest GNOME and KDE, dragging from Konqueror to the GNOME desktop doesn't work. Neither does any other cross app drag and drop.
* Drag and drop is broken
* I have 2 sets of mime types
* My KDE panel applets won't launch in the GNOME panel, and vice versa
* When I add an application the the kpanel, it doesn't appear on the foot menu, and vice versa
* KDE and GNOME don't even include apps from each other on their panels
* Childish KDE developers write a GNOME theme importer which calls GNOME `legacy' and childish Eazel developers make Eazel services showcase any app for any toolkit, as long as it isn't KDE and QT.
* QT and GTK are themed using different engines, with no reason why.
Thisn isn't competition. This is insanity, artifically partitioning all my apps. Neither desktop will win. No OS uses a single partition.
Imagine a Windows user clicking Start to reveal `MFC applications' `VCL applications' etc. End users don't give a fuck about toolkits and never have. Why is the KDE team writing KPhotoSuite? Why shouldn't KWord work really well with the GIMP?
Windows uses more than one toolkit. It just does it well. For God's sake, stop partitioning my desktop. Write a combined style guide for GTK and QT based apps. Make sure both toolkits use the same theming engine, and have a similar range of widgets aviable.
And for God's sake, stop using your brilliant minds to hurt each other and combine them to actually make Linux a useable desktop.
I'll have hope the first time a Linux developer actually writes a software installer and doesn't call it `gnorpm'.
Look through their mail archives, and you will find the leaders of the LSB are all focused on making it easier for COMMERCIAL software companies to write Linux software.
Oh my God! COMMERCIAL software! How horrible! Like Red Hat, Ximian Gnome, eSmith... oh, wait, you shouted before you thought and forgot [like so many in the OS community do] that Open-Source != Non Commercial. The opposite of Open Source is closed source or proprietary.
If you're complaining about proprietary software, some of us use Linux because it happens to be the best tool for the job. This is a result of being open source but not all Open Source projects are guaranteed to be so. Some simply don't have enough developers working on them [over a thousand work on the kernel, 25 work on koffice].
I use Microsoft Word for the same reason I use Linux. Its the best tool for the job. StarOffice can't do a word count on a selection - I need that for section and page layout guidelines given by my writing briefs. Corel WPO2K is too slow and not wonderfully stable. Abiword isn't compete. Applixware has an annoying interface and poor Microsoft importing abilitities.
Here's mine - Australia's biggest tunneling group, Cave Clan, with maps of Melbourne's massive network or wartime tunnels connecting army buildings, hospitals, town halls, old utilities, and more. The cave clan site also has maps an safety info, as well as tales of some of the more excitign events to happen in melbourne's dains [like the VW Beetles disassembled, transported into the system, reeassembled, and raced through the larger tunnels].
Porn viewing in and out of itself is a blessing to LOTS of people, and as for gross stuff, cops, doctors and undertakers probably see a LOT worse every day of their lives.
I'm not so sure. There's some pretty intense stufff out there - things like goatse.cx, people tearing their gentitalia apart with hook [thanks to the person on IRC who posted that URL, people being raped or semi-snuff movies, and violence [cadavers after violent encounters] which is marketed and used by some peoplee as porn, Unlike a cop working a local beat and ancountering drunk teenagers and wife beaters, you can pretty much see the world elements of humanity.
Just a thought. I still have a thousand times more respect for the cop, who actually puts himself in danger in dealing with these people. I just think the internet guy has [if he was *really* looking for it] seen worse. It being on screen [and possibly faked] does take some of the shock away though...
I'm not understanding what you're saying. Are you telling me that it is a common occurance for people to install ssh, uninstall ssh, reinstall shh, and so on, on a frequent basis?
No, I'm not. That is obvious. I'm saying people often add services after they've installed and set of their box, because they want to use those services.
A client of mine recently found a need for a external webmail server. This will be added as a service onto an existing box within their DMZ. The same client was also previously using sendmail to transfer mail between the internel mail server and the outside world. As sendmail runs as root [and should, thus, in my opinion, be uninstalled wherever it is encounted] sendmail was replaced with another, straight mail forwarding only service.
Another client recently replaced all their insternal sendmail servers with qmail. Again, this was after the machines were originally installed.
Is it that hard to grasp that a company might not be able to predict its future at the time its servers were installed, and may instead adjust their IT towards their own changing needs?
Instead of making it easier for the user to perform these calisthenics, perhaps the best solution is to tell them to STOP!
The users aren't performing calisthenics. They're doign what all good businesses to: acknowledging need and deficiency and adjusting their systems to meet those needs and address the deficiencies.
Are you telling me that even business servers change their services on a regular basis?
No, I'm telling you they change them on an occasional basis.
How often are companies going to install a new network service? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? How often do new network services even arrive on the scene?
Depending on the needs of the business. This ranges anywhere generally from yearly to bi-monthly, if you must know.
Wow! You don't get out much do you?
I suggest it mis you who needs to get out into the real world where companies actually change, and are smart enough to change their systems to meet those needs.
Grow up.
How often are you going to change your services? Once, at install. After that you don't touch them anymore. If you know SysV style, it's easier. If you know BSD style, it's easier.
Er, no. If it's using a server, and you're working for a company that has a valid reason for installing a new network service [for example, an intranet or instant messenging server], fairly frequently. That's one of the advantages of Linux [compared to the NT world] - you can actually run more than one service on a machine and maintain stability [security is a different matter, and DMZ etc are still an important consideration].
For a desktop machine, all the time. Update monitoring tools, indexing tools for fast searches, ssh if you decide you need secure access to your CLI and GUI apps, etc. Desktop machines change services a lot.
And despite knowing a few hundred Linux users, I've rarely seen anyone actually do the symlinking behaind the scenes themselves. They just run whatever tool came with their distro [especially for business use - wasting time on your clients watch is not a good thing].
Then again, I also know of nobody who actually uses Slackware, apart from the odd IRC encounter. And everybody else knows Slackwares `packaging system' isn't [its a way of installing software and nothing more].
There are no rolling power outages. Shell Beach is across the bridge. And you, you will sleeeeeeeeeep... (smiles and extends hand across face as you close your eyes and fall to the ground)...
and much more geared to security
I'm a Linux user and administrator, both at home and professionally. Do you really think Linux is geared towards security? I think the default permissions on most Linux systems are good. I think the default permissions on NT and 2000 are bad.
But at the end of the day, the popular Unix rwxs permission system is pathetic. No systems should ever exist where the adminsitrator logs in as root. No daemon should ever run SetUID root either. Capabilities are a hack, and a nasty one at that. Sudo is laughable.
As much as I hate to say it, the ACL permission system used in various trusted Unix systems, various Linux services, and Windows NT/2000, beats the shit out of Linuxs. The Linux Trustees project fixes it, but its currently not in the main kernel. As a result, if you be much easier for MS to make a Windows 2000 that was reasonably secure out of the box than for Red Hat to make a secure Linux.
...with infighting about package formats and which distribution is the best. .deb is better than .rpm, [with nice things like either/or dependencies, etc, though RPM does have some distinct advantages, like transaction support] but RPM was the earlier project and has won the marketplace. Debians installation process and slow release schedule has a severe effect on popularity. The APT-rpm port [as used in Connectiva, all future versions of Mandrake, and I believe, sometime soon, another large distribution] will likely be the order of the day for most future users. You'll still have CLI, but you'll also have a nice browser based `installer' that lets you find interesting stuff [perhaps sponsored], or with a certain capability [eg, ability to read .doc files]. Screenshots and revies will also exist. Closed source packages could also be purchased via this system.
.au, and more. IBM Global Services [the biggest in the game] is now in the Linux market. Clients who have some of their work done by Praxa [a large multinational who do a lot of outsourced IT] have acquired Linux machines through consolidation of other government departments networks. Linux is on Praxas list of supportable OSs. In the next month, they're expected to add it. I have a friend who works for Red Hat churning out RHCEs, despite the fact most people fail the exam the first time [as they should - its nice to see a hard certification]. We're here, we want your money, we do SLAs, give us a call.
I'd say technically,
Then Microsoft will produce lots of documentation "proving" to managers that Linux is much more costly to run.
From a MIS point of view, MSs TCO metrics actually ignore the greatest cost of owning a server: downtime. Wages for employees for non-productive work time, overtime, investment in unutilized hardware, lost customers, damanged goodwill, and logistical breaks. Even for a small business, I'd downtime for a single machine can easily pass $AU1000 and hour.
OS/2 was better than it's MS competition. It still lost because it wasn't marketed correctly. Linux has to be seen to be a viable, trustworthy and above all useful alternative for it to be accepted.
Agreed.
Much as I hate to say this, MS has the minds of the managers, what Linux needs is...
Easy install and use by "normal" users that are ALREADY used to the MS way.
Agreed
MS compatible applications.
Agreed. Or better yet, native Linux ports of those applications. A closed source app on an Open OS is still more stable. Real engineers use the best tool for the job. Most future business Linux users [not engineeers, but managers] will use Linux because of reliability and quality [although this is a result fo being open source].
And above all, companies that are willing to provide paid for support for it so that other large companies will accept it as an alternative OS. "What do you mean that there isn't anyone responsible for fixing bugs?"
Oh cmon. You cannot be serious! I work for Cybersource, we've done with in conjunction with Red Hat Asia Pacific Consulting, third level support for Dell Linux systems in
it probably wouldn't even qualify as "circumvention" under DMCA because there are lots of good reasons to encrypt your HD data.
Yes it would. Just because something had a primary useful purpose which is not circumvention of copyright doesn't mean somebody with a lot of money won't push to give it a semi-outlawed legal status.
I remember a certain consortium runnign round recently telling the judge They're DECRYPTING DVDs! Um, yes, and so is every other MPAA licensed player. OMS and the resulting players, Xine and OMS, just chose to reverse engineer their decryption keys rather than pay for an MPAA license and the associated restrictions - because they are open source, they cannot do so anyway.
Can I mount a StarBand dish antenna on my RV?
What is an RV?
Releasing less incremental updates makes it easier on users, developers and distributors, in that if they need a feature like, for example, a new VM, they can just blanketly tell users they need Linux 2.4. If the new VM was released for 2.2, you'd have to require people to have a 2.2.27 kernel or newer. That doesn't sound too difficult, but it soon becomes a major headache. `I have 2.2.26 and it doesn't work for me'. Remember, most current Linux users don't match the profile of most future Linux users.
/dev/dvd, despite the fact they have DVD support in their new 2.2.50, my app might fail if it was looking for /dev/dvd [which it should be].
As it is now, bleedign edge folk can get incremental updates via odd kernels.
A new release neatly bundles all those incremental changes. 2.4 is a known quantity. A minor release isn't, becuase nobody can afford to keep track of the incremental updates in each release. If a user needs DVD support for my game, I tell them to get 2.4. I could tell them to get a 2.2.50 if it had those features, but better to break everything in their distribution at one time rather than cause many small annoying issues. Eg, since their 2.2.7 distro didn't create
Linus should have his own action-figure line
I have to take the role of the Slashdot troll [usually moderated up, but still a vapid and stupid response] and say if you want this particular feature, you'll have to do it yourself .
You'll need a series of Linus mug shots to subm,it to have the figure made, but thee should be easily acquired from any recent version of Wired, Linux Magazine, etc.
Sorry, I sort of assumed anywhere IP stack performance mattered [eg, machines under high demand], SMP was a given.
:-)
But thanks for the info about UP being slower with mutlithreading. I feel informed.
I know both your own post and the Linux based one beneath it are flamebait [no mater what the moderators think], but I do have to ask about the advantage of the FreeBSD IP stack. I thought Linux 2.4s was fully multithreaded, and thus much faster than the partially multithreaded FreeBSD / Windows 2000 one, on i386 machines especially. Are there any other considerators for preferring the BSD stack?
:-)?
Or am I just being dumb and responding to a troll