Linux NIC Comparison, using something a little more modern [Redhat's kudzu]...
* Linux will find it and install a driver automatically if it exists
* Linux will ask for an IP address or DHCP
* Linux will bring the interface up
Linux's USB also works quite well. Installing Windows ME took three reboots, one of which I was completely without a mouse [incredibly annoying to modify the installed software list]. Mandrake 7.1 got the mouse about three seconds into the install and left it there. The mouse is an MS Intellimouse Explorer.
-----------
Annoying things about Linux:
Most package updating utilities [GNORPM, KPackage, and apt-get] are either very difficult to use or CLI.
Red Hat can't wrap their dumb skulls around timestamps for countries that are ahead of GMT. Ie, using Linuxconf for the first twelve hours on a new install will pop up a stack of error messages whevenver you try and do anything.
Netscape doesn't do fonts properly, but Mozilla will fix that.
Menu arrangement in most Linux distributions currently sucks. Mandrake and HelixGNOME seem to be fixing it.
Linux lacks a good comprehensive set of administration tools. Linuxconf doesn't work properly [yes, I'm using the latest stable release]. KDE's stuff isn't very comprehensive, and Helix's stuff isn't out yet. There's no simple UI for sudo, or other simple utilities, out of the box on most distributions.
Linux's permission system is very inflexible, and there are many times when ACLs would be extremely desirable.
Linux documentation is highly technical and frequently out of date.
Linux does not have a standard UI structure.
Linux isn't expensive, but nobody gives a damn about this. Where it saves vast money is stability - minimising the cost of staff paid to do nothing, investment in equipment which isn't being used, interruption to business processes and more while `the server goes down'. The server must NEVER, EVER `go down'. I have no statistics to back it up, but I most certainly believe downtime is the largest part of TCO.
Motif apps [eg, Adobe Framemaker] often have unusable UIs, but with the move to GTK / GNOME by the older players, these should dissappear.
X currently does not do anti-aliasing or transparency well. But Peter from the XFree86 group is working on these features.
Linux still lacks many desktop apps. StarOffice and Wordperfect office are good, but GNUCash ain't Quicken [no local business rules] and there's no DreamWeaver equivalent AFAIK. This will change with time. Server side, its just a little less supported as Windows.
Linux Java is much slower than Windows. This will change with time.
Linux filesystem layout is not always adhered to. Shitty apps which don't understand the concept that there's no official Linux [and therefore no optional components] still want to install in/opt rather than/usr. AOL wants to install apps, libs, and icons in/usr/lib/aol. All of Corel wants to live in/lib/corel. StarOffice wants to live in/root/office52 [a home directory is shitty place to put it, there's a stack of apps called `office' and the version number in the location makes upgrades a pain].
-----------------------------
Windows criticisms:
Windows has only semi-journalling file systems that do not post user writes to the journal. This means agonizingly long fdisk times, wheras ReiserFS [and likely Ext3] take around half a second for 46Gb of storage.
Windows documentation is near non-esistant, but like Linux has third party [MS Press and others] avaliable for a fee.
Windows does not have a standard UI structure [check out where you modify file locations in Word vs Excel vs Outlook].
Windows certification is easier than Linux.
Windows registry isn't commented within itself./etc is.
Windows does not have a cutomizable GUI.
Windows roadmap is often focused more around leveraging Microsoft than simple improvmenet.
Bue many open-source packages don't have simple names. That okay, most Windows apps don't have them either. But in the case of Windows, the official administrative apps all have label like names. `User Manager'. `Server Manager' `Windows Update' etc.
This allows someone with no knowledge of the operating system to perform basic functions just by browsing thqa pplication menus.
Despite the fact that a well-designed packaging architecture [which both RPM and DEB are] should make it incredibly eay for someone to install software, and there are currently a number of reasonable quality GUI applications for installing packages.
But someone browsing the machine with no Linux knowledge wouldn't know. Because they're called GNORPM [!?!?!??!?!] and KPackage [computer newbies and Linux newbies won't have any idea what packages are packages]. And installing software on Linux is still seen as a difficult task.
For this reason, could Red Carpet [which seems to be a code name of sorts] be eventually called `Installer' or `Software Installer' and be installed on every users desktop? [or root and those capable of su-ing (withg a GUI `Please enter root password' prompt)]?
>Yeah...and if my business was world wide, which domain would I have?
Firstly, there were no world wide business Ilast heard of. There's no MacDonalds in Uzbvekistan last time I checked. You probably mean international.
Secondly, you've registered your business name in every country you're doing business in, right [if you haven't its likely to be illegal]? And those trademarks? Hmnn, you've registered those too, for each country. Hmmmnnn....I have an idea. WHY DON'T YOU REGISTER YOUR NAME FOR EACH COUNTRY TOO!
I can't believe that's not entirely obvious to anyone with half a clue.
Actually, I find proprietary Linux applications generally seem to have worse interfaces than either commerical or non comemrical open source projects. GIMP, Red Hat PPP, GQView, and Helix GNOME all have extremely elegant interfaces. Basically, I know when I download a KDE or GNOME app that's past a 1.0, its going to have a nice interface.
Adobe's Framaker, with its bizarre motif bright blue interface, strikes me as the most overwhelming example of a bad interface. But CDE, XV, Windows drag-and-drop, and many others also spring to mind. Basically, if its got anything to do with motif, it's fucked.
KDE and GNOME already have artists teams - Mosfet and Tigert [I think?] head the teams. KDE also has their own equivalent of Apples Hunam Interface Guidelines. It's likely the Eazel folks are going the same for GNOME.
Perhaps, rather than open-closed source, you're talking about market share. But who says markey leading apps have the best interface? Why the hell do I have to convert my text into every font on my system before I find the one I want when using MS Word? A lot of the innovation in this sector comes from Competition - ie, in Corel Office you get a preview of your text while your mouse moves in the font list box [it's called show-as-you-go]. Its amazing how simple things like this haven't occured earlier.
This wasn't always the case. I remember Red Hat once shipping with FVWM95, which used icons to represent applications. Despitte the fact that FVWM95 was supposed to be stable, they seemed to forget that the purpose of icons was a graphical representation of the content or function - ie, using the Red Hat shadowman for every app defeats the purpose of the excerise.
Actually, I find proprietary Linux applications generally seem to have worse interfaces than either commerical or non comemrical open source projects.
GIMP, Red Hat PPP, GQView, and Helix GNOME all have extremely elegant interfaces. Basically, I know when I download a KDE or GNOME app that's past a 1.0, its going to have a nice interface.
Adobe's Framaker, with its bizarre motif bright blue interface, strikes me as the most overwhelming example. But CDE, XV, Windows drag-and-drop, and many others also spring to mind. Basically, if its got anything to do with motif, it's fucked.
KDE and GNOME already have artists teams - Mosfet and Tigert [I think?] head the teams. KDE also has their own equivalent of Apples Hunam Interface Guidelines. It's likely the Eazel folks are going the same for GNOME.
Perhaps, rather than open-closed source, you're talking about market share. But who says markey leading apps have the best interface? Why the hell do I have to convert my text into every font on my system before I find the one I want when using MS Word? A lot of the innovation in this sector comes from Competition - ie, in Corel Office you get a preview of your text while your mouse moves in the font list box [it's called show-as-you-go]. Its amazing how simple things like this haven't occured earlier.
This wasn't always the case. I remember Red Hat once shipping with FVWM95, which used icons to represent applications. Despitte the fact that FVWM95 was supposed to be stable, they seemed to forget that the purpose of icons was a graphical representation of the content or function - ie, using the Red Hat shadowman for every app defeats the purpose of the excerise.
I was actually trying to get some further information on it for a legal disclaimer on a poster for my local LUG - eg
"Linux is a registered trademark of Linux Torvalds. Open Source is a trademark of the Open Source Initiative. All other trademarks are the property of their respective organizations.".
That's what I settled on. Is it correct? Does the OSI hold the Open Source trademark? Is it rgistered or not?
While AFS may or may not be a hot technology anymore, I seriously doubt that shifting
development to India should be taken as a guide to whether it is suceeding or on IBMs priority list.
There's a lot of companies moving their operations overseas - not because they want to turn their US based development into your special open quotation marks development [which would generally imply some sort of scaled-down operation], but because countries like India and Ireland have vast quantities of extremely well educated people that speak English and hold advanced degrees in mathematical and computer science subjects [and more of them than the US, too].
Pay rates for most development work are around the
same as the US and UK. A company I work for here in Australia was charged three and a half grand recently by a local [and quite well established] company to develop a basic web site. Its a quarter mB of shitty looking Flash, using bitmaps for text, as a single file, with nothing if you don't have Flash installed but a white screen. There seems to be no way we can convince them to do a better job. So they paid them, and have since discovered an Indian company with a mich greater talent for work. That's not a reflection on the entire Australian web design market, just that connectivity allows talented foreign companies
entrances to local marketplaces easily, and that talent wins over mediocrity. And India seems to have the talent all too often these days.
There's a vast quantity of talent coming out of India, a number of rather large startups [for example, where do you think all those old Novell execs ended up - with a bunch of Indian folk at (sorry, name currently eludes me. They're a web acceletation company)]. There's also Hotmail, Cybermedia, Exodus, and quite afew others.
India is not a third or first world, country, it is both, with one of the worlds greatest
disparities between rich and poor.
Here's a question: Whose the world biggest producer of software? If you answered Ireland,
you win.
While AFS may or may not be a hot technology anymore, I seriously doubt that shifting development to India should be taken as a guide to whether it is suceeding or on IBMs priority list.
There's a lot of companies moving their operations overseas - not because they want to turn their US based development into your special open quotation marks [which would generalkly ], but because countries like Indoa and Ireland have vast quantities of extremely well educated people that speak English and hold advanced degrees in mathematical subjects [and more than the US, too]. Pay rates for most development work are around the same as the US and UK. A company I work for here in Australia was charged three and a half grand recently by a local [and quite well established] company to develop a basic page. Its a quarter mB of shitty looking Flash, using bitmaps for text, as a single file, with nothing if you don't have Flash installed but a white screen. There seems to be no way we can convince them to do a better job. So they paid them, and have since discovered an Indian company with a mich greater talent for work. That's not a reflection on the entire Australian web design market, just that connectivity allows talented foreign companies entrances to local marketplaces easily, and that talent wins over mediocrity. And India seems to have the talent all too often these days.
There's a vast quantity of talent coming out of India, a number of rather large startups [for example, where do you think all those old Novell execs ended up - with a bunch of Indian folk at endix].
India is not a third or first world, country, it is both, with one of the worlds greatest disparities between rich and poor.
Here's a question: Whose the world biggest producer of software? If you answered Ireland, you win.
I'm absolutely sick to detah of people saying somethign doesn't affect affect them as long as they're not running `insert vulnerable app here' as root. So it might not be able to take out your machine...but what do you have in your home directory? Of your a Linux desktop user, and use if for wordprocessing, it may well just be a copy of your theses, to which you'd naturally have read and write permission. This is pretty [almost uniquitously] common situation for home users. Lulling people into a flase sense of security is unethical.
The interface [which seems to count for everything in the world of Apple] is completely different.
* A G4 Cube is a fully functional computer, with all the flexibility / difficulty that that entails. The Qube is a more simplistic way of operating a server, where its very easy to perform a small specific set of functions.
* The Cube is designed to have a monitor plugged into it, the Qube is administered primarily through a web based system, and occasioanlly through some buttons and a backlit screen on the unit.
FishPC is an Australian company that market a computer called the FishPC to first computer buyers. They were sued by apple. The machine: * Does use semitransparent plastic. So does the imac. * Comes in 2 units, for processor and monitor. The imac doesn't, and this is a large part of it's aesthetic. * Is shaped like a bloody great big fish, and this is easily its most distinguising feature. * Uses different colors than the imac * Doesn't have some sad imac derivative name - such as Compaqs ipaq units
They've been sued by Apple nevertheless. Judge for yourself at www.fishpc.com.au
When recently watching late night TV I heard and saw perhaps the first piece of popular music I've liked in quite a while, on a chart TV program going between 11PM and 6AM. The track was called Sundown, the group was Elwood. I spent afew hours hunting on the various underground mp3 sites and then realized [about thrity minues ago when I visited napsters web site] they actually make the track available via MP3. If it was on this particular show, it was charting. If it was charting, it was selling - despite the mp3. And perhaps because of it. I knew there were artists that did the MP3 thing, both successful and unsuccessful. But this has to be the first case I believe an artist has actually risen to prominance based on an MP3. And that damned fine track: http://showcase.sputnik7.com/realdownload/audiofil es/Elwood-Sundown.mp3
I'm by no means an expert, but I seem to recall having blocked ICMP packets that this does not affect traceroute, which I have also previously been told does also not use ICMP.
/opt stands for optional. Its function in terms of Unices is to store things that are not part of the base distribution. Eg, anythign which isn't part of the the OS known as solaris lives in/opt.
This is completely irrelevant for Linux systems. There is no official Linux vendor, there is no official Linux set of applications,and quite obviously, peoples definition of optional varies widely.
Is KDE optional? Well I can run Linux without it, so yes.. What about GNU less? Well, I can make a distribution which doesn't use that either. That's optional too.
/usr/local is where third party apps which want their own directory tree should live.
And as for Warcraft, the entire engine has already been cloned and is playable today.
http://www.freecraft.org/
You need the original Warcraft CD for the graphics, or can use a free graphics set already in development [though in need of a little help]. Any graphic artists out there want to lend a hand?
* There seems to be comfusion between the words commercial and prprietary. I use Redhat Linux, a commericial product, released under an open source license for Redhat's own interests [gaining money from my potentially purchasing support]. My company is developing some open - source software for our commerical need of showcasing our development talents and gaining mindshare of our market.
* StarOffice would be an infinitely better product if it were under an open sourece license. Many users complain about about many small issues it would be trivial to fix if the source were publicly availiable. - A computer magazine I write for has to enter into a legal agreement with sun to distribute StarOffice, taking around six months of red tape each time - StarOffices installer is much more complex than the basic click-and-install RPM method most new Linux users are taught. It is very difficult to redistribute an RPM StarOffice - Almost all users on all platforms fins StarOffices taking over the Start Menu / Kpanel / whatever rather irritating. it would be simple to make this feature optional - Legal agreements prevent LUGs from installing StarOffice on nLinux newbies PCs. This is bad for both Sun, the LUG, and the Linux user. - The words Redhat, Debian, and Linux aren't spellchecker. *I* could be bothered fixing it. Sun can't anytime soon. - Staroffice is built arround it's own widget set, which looks uncomfortable surrounded by typical GTK and QT Linux applications.
All of the above would be trivial to fix with appropriate access to the code. Ahh, but we have access you say? True - but I want to work on a project for my own benefit, not for Suns pissing contest with Microsoft. They are not an independent body, not a meritocracy [as are most GPL or similar based projects] and have themselves as their primary concern.
Forgive my typos. Despite the browser wars, nobodys been inoovative enough to include a spellchecker for forms yet. Mozilla?
Moderate this to a five now! Regarding boot managers, XOSL is the best looking boot manager on the market, easily outclassing Caldera Bootmagic and NTLDR in terms of friendliness. It is also licensed under the GPL. The only deficiancy is that, right now, it can't pass options to the Linux kernel like LILO can - if someone with experience in this area would like to contribute this feature, the world would be a better place. If you want to see this piece of gorgeousness, and start hacking the source code to implement those extra lilo features, visit www.xosl.com
I don't know about open source applications, but Bentleigh [number two in the CAD market behind Autodesk] have had a Linux port of Microstation for over a year now, and a very solid reputation.
> Linux does have Linuxconf, but it lacks many > features present in commercial unicies like the > ability to see the shell command that relates to > the current visual configuration command
In Linuxconf: click activate changes, then click see what's being done. This will give you a list of every command about to be executed to activate your change.
But otherwise a good point. ARCServe is in beta [and not too bad either], and hopefully Veritas will follow.
It seems the remaining issues you've brought up have been addressed elsewhere below apart from
Why excactly do you see Corel unable to compete against it? They have a vector based drawing tool, an office suite, an OS [hello, lets build a visio competitor], two photo maqnipulation suites, a 3D landscape generator, a poser to match the 3D landscape generator, a layout engine, a database. Alot of the products are viewed as leaders in their market - eg, CorelDraw, Paradox, or Bryce.
Have you actually seen the `show as you go' feature in Corels Office suite? This is a massive boost to Office productivity. Eg, making a chart for a spreadsheet. Excel - click cells you want to chart. Click the chart tool. Answer perhaps eight or so questions and you have a chart. Quattro Pro - click the ceels, click the chart tool. The chart appears, based on intelligent analysis of your data. Want to change it? Click the chart type button which drops down instantly. As you drag the mouse over the different chart types, the chart updates every time you hover the mouse over a new chart type. It is UNBELIEVABLY fast.
The same thing occurs zooming out to view the entire document. Modify a heading - click the type button, and as you drag the mouse over the different options, the entire document updates in realtime.
Using Corel Office 2K with the service pack [like MS, the inital release was admittedly flaky] actually lives up to the expectation thaty software should increase in speed when your box does. Is Word 2000 any faster than Word 6 doing the same thing? Corel is.
Corel Office can generate PDF by clicking `save to PDF'. With MS, you can pay $AU 399 for Acrobat 4.
It's not all roses. Corels contact manager simply isn't as good as Outlook, and in fact bites like a pirhana. The Windows Corel Office 2K also sticks alot of crap in your system tray. But is certainly the most innovative Office suite on the market today in terms on the WordProcessor and Spreadsheet.
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The other matter which has gone unaddressed are color correction issues, pantone, colorsmart, and other color correction technologies are patentended by Adobe, Apple, Koday and others and unlikely to be released as open source any time soon. However, there is absolutely nothing stopping a binary only release of these features as an XFree86 4 module, which can be closed source.
Slashdot Mirror
Linux NIC Comparison, using something a little more modern [Redhat's kudzu]...
/opt rather than /usr. AOL wants to install apps, libs, and icons in /usr/lib/aol. All of Corel wants to live in /lib/corel. StarOffice wants to live in /root/office52 [a home directory is shitty place to put it, there's a stack of apps called `office' and the version number in the location makes upgrades a pain].
/etc is.
* Linux will find it and install a driver automatically if it exists
* Linux will ask for an IP address or DHCP
* Linux will bring the interface up
Linux's USB also works quite well. Installing Windows ME took three reboots, one of which I was completely without a mouse [incredibly annoying to modify the installed software list]. Mandrake 7.1 got the mouse about three seconds into the install and left it there. The mouse is an MS Intellimouse Explorer.
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Annoying things about Linux:
Most package updating utilities [GNORPM, KPackage, and apt-get] are either very difficult to use or CLI.
Red Hat can't wrap their dumb skulls around timestamps for countries that are ahead of GMT. Ie, using Linuxconf for the first twelve hours on a new install will pop up a stack of error messages whevenver you try and do anything.
Netscape doesn't do fonts properly, but Mozilla will fix that.
Menu arrangement in most Linux distributions currently sucks. Mandrake and HelixGNOME seem to be fixing it.
Linux lacks a good comprehensive set of administration tools. Linuxconf doesn't work properly [yes, I'm using the latest stable release]. KDE's stuff isn't very comprehensive, and Helix's stuff isn't out yet. There's no simple UI for sudo, or other simple utilities, out of the box on most distributions.
Linux's permission system is very inflexible, and there are many times when ACLs would be extremely desirable.
Linux documentation is highly technical and frequently out of date.
Linux does not have a standard UI structure.
Linux isn't expensive, but nobody gives a damn about this. Where it saves vast money is stability - minimising the cost of staff paid to do nothing, investment in equipment which isn't being used, interruption to business processes and more while `the server goes down'. The server must NEVER, EVER `go down'. I have no statistics to back it up, but I most certainly believe downtime is the largest part of TCO.
Motif apps [eg, Adobe Framemaker] often have unusable UIs, but with the move to GTK / GNOME by the older players, these should dissappear.
X currently does not do anti-aliasing or transparency well. But Peter from the XFree86 group is working on these features.
Linux still lacks many desktop apps. StarOffice and Wordperfect office are good, but GNUCash ain't Quicken [no local business rules] and there's no DreamWeaver equivalent AFAIK. This will change with time. Server side, its just a little less supported as Windows.
Linux Java is much slower than Windows. This will change with time.
Linux filesystem layout is not always adhered to. Shitty apps which don't understand the concept that there's no official Linux [and therefore no optional components] still want to install in
-----------------------------
Windows criticisms:
Windows has only semi-journalling file systems that do not post user writes to the journal. This means agonizingly long fdisk times, wheras ReiserFS [and likely Ext3] take around half a second for 46Gb of storage.
Windows documentation is near non-esistant, but like Linux has third party [MS Press and others] avaliable for a fee.
Windows does not have a standard UI structure [check out where you modify file locations in Word vs Excel vs Outlook].
Windows certification is easier than Linux.
Windows registry isn't commented within itself.
Windows does not have a cutomizable GUI.
Windows roadmap is often focused more around leveraging Microsoft than simple improvmenet.
> Exisiting package formats (RPM, deb, etc) are already insecure.
Really? Can I borrow the hardware you seem to be using to break those digital signatures on my all my RPMs?
Bue many open-source packages don't have simple names. That okay, most Windows apps don't have them either. But in the case of Windows, the official administrative apps all have label like names. `User Manager'. `Server Manager' `Windows Update' etc.
This allows someone with no knowledge of the operating system to perform basic functions just by browsing thqa pplication menus.
Despite the fact that a well-designed packaging architecture [which both RPM and DEB are] should make it incredibly eay for someone to install software, and there are currently a number of reasonable quality GUI applications for installing packages.
But someone browsing the machine with no Linux knowledge wouldn't know. Because they're called GNORPM [!?!?!??!?!] and KPackage [computer newbies and Linux newbies won't have any idea what packages are packages]. And installing software on Linux is still seen as a difficult task.
For this reason, could Red Carpet [which seems to be a code name of sorts] be eventually called `Installer' or `Software Installer' and be installed on every users desktop? [or root and those capable of su-ing (withg a GUI `Please enter root password' prompt)]?
He he he. I know the first part, I'm just used to finishing off `Linu...' with an x all the time.
>Yeah...and if my business was world wide, which domain would I have?
Firstly, there were no world wide business Ilast heard of. There's no MacDonalds in Uzbvekistan last time I checked. You probably mean international.
Secondly, you've registered your business name in every country you're doing business in, right [if you haven't its likely to be illegal]? And those trademarks? Hmnn, you've registered those too, for each country. Hmmmnnn....I have an idea. WHY DON'T YOU REGISTER YOUR NAME FOR EACH COUNTRY TOO!
I can't believe that's not entirely obvious to anyone with half a clue.
Actually, I find proprietary Linux applications generally seem to have worse interfaces than either commerical or non comemrical open source projects. GIMP, Red Hat PPP, GQView, and Helix GNOME all have extremely elegant interfaces. Basically, I know when I download a KDE or GNOME app that's past a 1.0, its going to have a nice interface.
Adobe's Framaker, with its bizarre motif bright blue interface, strikes me as the most overwhelming example of a bad interface. But CDE, XV, Windows drag-and-drop, and many others also spring to mind. Basically, if its got anything to do with motif, it's fucked.
KDE and GNOME already have artists teams - Mosfet and Tigert [I think?] head the teams. KDE also has their own equivalent of Apples Hunam Interface Guidelines. It's likely the Eazel folks are going the same for GNOME.
Perhaps, rather than open-closed source, you're talking about market share. But who says markey leading apps have the best interface? Why the hell do I have to convert my text into every font on my system before I find the one I want when using MS Word? A lot of the innovation in this sector comes from Competition - ie, in Corel Office you get a preview of your text while your mouse moves in the font list box [it's called show-as-you-go]. Its amazing how simple things like this haven't occured earlier.
This wasn't always the case. I remember Red Hat once shipping with FVWM95, which used icons to represent applications. Despitte the fact that FVWM95 was supposed to be stable, they seemed to forget that the purpose of icons was a graphical representation of the content or function - ie, using the Red Hat shadowman for every app defeats the purpose of the excerise.
Actually, I find proprietary Linux applications generally seem to have worse interfaces than either commerical or non comemrical open source projects. GIMP, Red Hat PPP, GQView, and Helix GNOME all have extremely elegant interfaces. Basically, I know when I download a KDE or GNOME app that's past a 1.0, its going to have a nice interface. Adobe's Framaker, with its bizarre motif bright blue interface, strikes me as the most overwhelming example. But CDE, XV, Windows drag-and-drop, and many others also spring to mind. Basically, if its got anything to do with motif, it's fucked. KDE and GNOME already have artists teams - Mosfet and Tigert [I think?] head the teams. KDE also has their own equivalent of Apples Hunam Interface Guidelines. It's likely the Eazel folks are going the same for GNOME. Perhaps, rather than open-closed source, you're talking about market share. But who says markey leading apps have the best interface? Why the hell do I have to convert my text into every font on my system before I find the one I want when using MS Word? A lot of the innovation in this sector comes from Competition - ie, in Corel Office you get a preview of your text while your mouse moves in the font list box [it's called show-as-you-go]. Its amazing how simple things like this haven't occured earlier. This wasn't always the case. I remember Red Hat once shipping with FVWM95, which used icons to represent applications. Despitte the fact that FVWM95 was supposed to be stable, they seemed to forget that the purpose of icons was a graphical representation of the content or function - ie, using the Red Hat shadowman for every app defeats the purpose of the excerise.
I was actually trying to get some further information on it for a legal disclaimer on a poster for my local LUG - eg
"Linux is a registered trademark of Linux Torvalds. Open Source is a trademark of the Open Source Initiative. All other trademarks are the property of their respective organizations.".
That's what I settled on. Is it correct? Does the OSI hold the Open Source trademark? Is it rgistered or not?
Thanks for the advice,
Mike
What a pathetic US centric view you have.
While AFS may or may not be a hot technology anymore, I seriously doubt that shifting
development to India should be taken as a guide to whether it is suceeding or on IBMs priority list.
There's a lot of companies moving their operations overseas - not because they want to turn their US based development into your special open quotation marks development [which would generally imply some sort of scaled-down operation], but because countries like India and Ireland have vast quantities of extremely well educated people that speak English and hold advanced degrees in mathematical and computer science subjects [and more of them than the US, too].
Pay rates for most development work are around the
same as the US and UK. A company I work for here in Australia was charged three and a half grand recently by a local [and quite well established] company to develop a basic web site. Its a quarter mB of shitty looking Flash, using bitmaps for text, as a single file, with nothing if you don't have Flash installed but a white screen. There seems to be no way we can convince them to do a better job. So they paid them, and have since discovered an Indian company with a mich greater talent for work. That's not a reflection on the entire Australian web design market, just that connectivity allows talented foreign companies
entrances to local marketplaces easily, and that talent wins over mediocrity. And India seems to have the talent all too often these days.
There's a vast quantity of talent coming out of India, a number of rather large startups [for example, where do you think all those old Novell execs ended up - with a bunch of Indian folk at (sorry, name currently eludes me. They're a web acceletation company)]. There's also Hotmail, Cybermedia, Exodus, and quite afew others.
India is not a third or first world, country, it is both, with one of the worlds greatest
disparities between rich and poor.
Here's a question: Whose the world biggest producer of software? If you answered Ireland,
you win.
x
What a pathetic US centric view you have.
While AFS may or may not be a hot technology anymore, I seriously doubt that shifting development to India should be taken as a guide to whether it is suceeding or on IBMs priority list.
There's a lot of companies moving their operations overseas - not because they want to turn their US based development into your special open quotation marks [which would generalkly ], but because countries like Indoa and Ireland have vast quantities of extremely well educated people that speak English and hold advanced degrees in mathematical subjects [and more than the US, too]. Pay rates for most development work are around the same as the US and UK. A company I work for here in Australia was charged three and a half grand recently by a local [and quite well established] company to develop a basic page. Its a quarter mB of shitty looking Flash, using bitmaps for text, as a single file, with nothing if you don't have Flash installed but a white screen. There seems to be no way we can convince them to do a better job. So they paid them, and have since discovered an Indian company with a mich greater talent for work. That's not a reflection on the entire Australian web design market, just that connectivity allows talented foreign companies entrances to local marketplaces easily, and that talent wins over mediocrity. And India seems to have the talent all too often these days.
There's a vast quantity of talent coming out of India, a number of rather large startups [for example, where do you think all those old Novell execs ended up - with a bunch of Indian folk at endix].
India is not a third or first world, country, it is both, with one of the worlds greatest disparities between rich and poor.
Here's a question: Whose the world biggest producer of software? If you answered Ireland, you win.
I'm absolutely sick to detah of people saying somethign doesn't affect affect them as long as they're not running `insert vulnerable app here' as root. So it might not be able to take out your machine...but what do you have in your home directory? Of your a Linux desktop user, and use if for wordprocessing, it may well just be a copy of your theses, to which you'd naturally have read and write permission. This is pretty [almost uniquitously] common situation for home users. Lulling people into a flase sense of security is unethical.
The interface [which seems to count for everything in the world of Apple] is completely different.
* A G4 Cube is a fully functional computer, with all the flexibility / difficulty that that entails. The Qube is a more simplistic way of operating a server, where its very easy to perform a small specific set of functions.
* The Cube is designed to have a monitor plugged into it, the Qube is administered primarily through a web based system, and occasioanlly through some buttons and a backlit screen on the unit.
FishPC is an Australian company that market a computer called the FishPC to first computer buyers. They were sued by apple. The machine:
* Does use semitransparent plastic. So does the imac.
* Comes in 2 units, for processor and monitor. The imac doesn't, and this is a large part of it's aesthetic.
* Is shaped like a bloody great big fish, and this is easily its most distinguising feature.
* Uses different colors than the imac
* Doesn't have some sad imac derivative name - such as Compaqs ipaq units
They've been sued by Apple nevertheless. Judge for yourself at www.fishpc.com.au
When recently watching late night TV I heard and saw perhaps the first piece of popular music I've liked in quite a while, on a chart TV program going between 11PM and 6AM. The track was called Sundown, the group was Elwood. I spent afew hours hunting on the various underground mp3 sites and then realized [about thrity minues ago when I visited napsters web site] they actually make the track available via MP3. If it was on this particular show, it was charting. If it was charting, it was selling - despite the mp3. And perhaps because of it. I knew there were artists that did the MP3 thing, both successful and unsuccessful. But this has to be the first case I believe an artist has actually risen to prominance based on an MP3. And that damned fine track: http://showcase.sputnik7.com/realdownload/audiofil es/Elwood-Sundown.mp3
I'm by no means an expert, but I seem to recall having blocked ICMP packets that this does not affect traceroute, which I have also previously been told does also not use ICMP.
Are you sure?
Thanks!
Moderators do your worse...
/opt stands for optional. Its function in terms of Unices is to store things that are not part of the base distribution. Eg, anythign which isn't part of the the OS known as solaris lives in /opt.
This is completely irrelevant for Linux systems. There is no official Linux vendor, there is no official Linux set of applications,and quite obviously, peoples definition of optional varies widely.
Is KDE optional? Well I can run Linux without it, so yes.. What about GNU less? Well, I can make a distribution which doesn't use that either. That's optional too.
/usr/local is where third party apps which want their own directory tree should live.
And as for Warcraft, the entire engine has already been cloned and is playable today.
http://www.freecraft.org/
You need the original Warcraft CD for the graphics, or can use a free graphics set already in development [though in need of a little help]. Any graphic artists out there want to lend a hand?
Download at http://fgp.cjb.net/
> BTW, who are you?
Diamond Dave Taylor. Currently of Transmeta, Formerly ID [Doom era] and Crack.com [Abuse].
When you did the map cheat in doom, and typed IDDT, it stood for iD Dave Taylor.
Running all the time would increase your heartrate, and eventually you'd lower your health by having a little red `siezure'.
Stimpacks would lower your heart rate. Adrenalin Packs would raise it but increase the viciousness of hand held weaponry.
* There seems to be comfusion between the words commercial and prprietary. I use Redhat Linux, a commericial product, released under an open source license for Redhat's own interests [gaining money from my potentially purchasing support]. My company is developing some open - source software for our commerical need of showcasing our development talents and gaining mindshare of our market.
* StarOffice would be an infinitely better product if it were under an open sourece license. Many users complain about about many small issues it would be trivial to fix if the source were publicly availiable.
- A computer magazine I write for has to enter into a legal agreement with sun to distribute StarOffice, taking around six months of red tape each time
- StarOffices installer is much more complex than the basic click-and-install RPM method most new Linux users are taught. It is very difficult to redistribute an RPM StarOffice
- Almost all users on all platforms fins StarOffices taking over the Start Menu / Kpanel / whatever rather irritating. it would be simple to make this feature optional
- Legal agreements prevent LUGs from installing StarOffice on nLinux newbies PCs. This is bad for both Sun, the LUG, and the Linux user.
- The words Redhat, Debian, and Linux aren't spellchecker. *I* could be bothered fixing it. Sun can't anytime soon.
- Staroffice is built arround it's own widget set, which looks uncomfortable surrounded by typical GTK and QT Linux applications.
All of the above would be trivial to fix with appropriate access to the code. Ahh, but we have access you say? True - but I want to work on a project for my own benefit, not for Suns pissing contest with Microsoft. They are not an independent body, not a meritocracy [as are most GPL or similar based projects] and have themselves as their primary concern.
Forgive my typos. Despite the browser wars, nobodys been inoovative enough to include a spellchecker for forms yet. Mozilla?
Moderate this to a five now! Regarding boot managers, XOSL is the best looking boot manager on the market, easily outclassing Caldera Bootmagic and NTLDR in terms of friendliness. It is also licensed under the GPL. The only deficiancy is that, right now, it can't pass options to the Linux kernel like LILO can - if someone with experience in this area would like to contribute this feature, the world would be a better place. If you want to see this piece of gorgeousness, and start hacking the source code to implement those extra lilo features, visit www.xosl.com
I don't know about open source applications, but Bentleigh [number two in the CAD market behind Autodesk] have had a Linux port of Microstation for over a year now, and a very solid reputation.
www.microstation.com
> Linux does have Linuxconf, but it lacks many
> features present in commercial unicies like the
> ability to see the shell command that relates to
> the current visual configuration command
In Linuxconf: click activate changes, then click see what's being done. This will give you a list of every command about to be executed to activate your change.
But otherwise a good point. ARCServe is in beta [and not too bad either], and hopefully Veritas will follow.
It seems the remaining issues you've brought up have been addressed elsewhere below apart from
Why excactly do you see Corel unable to compete against it? They have a vector based drawing tool, an office suite, an OS [hello, lets build a visio competitor], two photo maqnipulation suites, a 3D landscape generator, a poser to match the 3D landscape generator, a layout engine, a database. Alot of the products are viewed as leaders in their market - eg, CorelDraw, Paradox, or Bryce.
Have you actually seen the `show as you go' feature in Corels Office suite? This is a massive boost to Office productivity. Eg, making a chart for a spreadsheet. Excel - click cells you want to chart. Click the chart tool. Answer perhaps eight or so questions and you have a chart. Quattro Pro - click the ceels, click the chart tool. The chart appears, based on intelligent analysis of your data. Want to change it? Click the chart type button which drops down instantly. As you drag the mouse over the different chart types, the chart updates every time you hover the mouse over a new chart type. It is UNBELIEVABLY fast.
The same thing occurs zooming out to view the entire document. Modify a heading - click the type button, and as you drag the mouse over the different options, the entire document updates in realtime.
Using Corel Office 2K with the service pack [like MS, the inital release was admittedly flaky] actually lives up to the expectation thaty software should increase in speed when your box does. Is Word 2000 any faster than Word 6 doing the same thing? Corel is.
Corel Office can generate PDF by clicking `save to PDF'. With MS, you can pay $AU 399 for Acrobat 4.
It's not all roses. Corels contact manager simply isn't as good as Outlook, and in fact bites like a pirhana. The Windows Corel Office 2K also sticks alot of crap in your system tray. But is certainly the most innovative Office suite on the market today in terms on the WordProcessor and Spreadsheet.
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The other matter which has gone unaddressed are color correction issues, pantone, colorsmart, and other color correction technologies are patentended by Adobe, Apple, Koday and others and unlikely to be released as open source any time soon. However, there is absolutely nothing stopping a binary only release of these features as an XFree86 4 module, which can be closed source.
Mike