We use Free Software Because it's FREE(As in Free Speech). There are many things that are said to be "Linux friendly", but are not really GNU or Free Software Friendly, This is Propietary software. It's not different nor better than a bar made for IE. We want Free Software, not software that runs on Free Plataforms, if it's not free, it's the same. This kind of stuff really bothers me, because The purpose of GNU/Linux is pretty obvious. We want Freedom of knowledge and information. The GNU Comunity has released gigabytes of quality Free Software, and then some company thinks they have the right to release little pieces of propietary software to work in combination with that system. They have the RIGHT to develope and distribute privative software, the same way we have the right to write and distribute Free Software, but, For obvious reasons, it's not ethical to distribute propietary software that's specifically made to run taking advantage of free software, and to trick people into using it as part of a free program, while this plugin is not.
No intention to flame, i just cam to think about it.
People is afraid of change and new knowledge, in this capitalist society where confort, comodities and pleasure are over all things, everything that presents a challenge, and that requires and effort to learn, turns people off. Most People just want instant satisfaction, initiation periods are inaceptable for them. That's why tv is more popular than books. No effort. No thinking. No Learning. Fast Food, ready to eat. That's what sells well, and that's what people will continue to get. This answers many questions, like, for example, "Why microsoft succeds?", or "Why is the tv industry so profitable?". I Think that instead of spending time trying to make free software easier to use, we should spend some time trying to change this situation, and educating people. I Know that's a long term campaign, but if we don't take it, we are in the group of people that i described before, whom are unable to wait to see results.
Interesting Project, In the case of any other distro, i would say that it lacks documentation if it had the amount of docs in slack, but Slackware is a special case. Slackware is self-documenting. Trying to be as unbiased as a Slackware addict can be, i would Say that Slackware doesn't really need documentation, Just generic Unix docs + Specific manpages are all you could ever need. I use to say that slackware only exists at installation time, many distros gets in the middle of your work creating a modified and customized unix environment, in slackware, you know you are running it when you install it, then, it goes away and let you and your system in peace. Simple and Standard, what else can you ask for?.-
Like, for example, PHP or Perl, are a good thing for startes, since they let them understand what coding is all about, and to experience the pleasure of programming. But they are also dangerous because they make it ease for the uninitiated to shoot their foot, in C, it's even easier to shoot yourself in the foot, but you won't go very far with no experience and limited knowledge, so, you will shoot your foot with a simple curses based agenda, and not with an online CMS, with PHP or even Perl, unexperienced people can create large projects, and in those cases, they can blow off the entire house and not just their foot. It's good to see some initiative to prevent these.
Just my 2 cents.
ALMAFUERTE
We definetely have a trouble with some companys ..
on
Top 10 Apple Flops
·
· Score: 0, Interesting
For Example, IBM, Google, Apple, and now, Sun (Which is in a similar situation to IBM).
We would like to be able to love this companys, we are geeks, we love technology, and we tend to try to extend that love to the creators of the technology that we like, but this are busnisses, that are trying to make money. That fact doesn't make them more or less evil, but it shows us that instead of loving or hating them, we should understand that they are part of a market, in which they compete, and that we are their customers. The only card we can play is the decition to be their customer or not, and we should take that decition based on our own ethics, and in the general politics of the company, or on how much we need their products, but _NOT_ on their slashdot karma.
We really have a strong comunity feelling, even when we seem to be divided and separated by stupid technicall or filosofical diferences, and, Since our field (Computing), is a young science, and most of the developers are young people, we are not very used to see a Hacker die...
Like RMS says, we have saints, but we don't have any gods yet...
This has been an awfull accident, but in the years to come, we will see the older generations of Hackers getting older, and dying, It really makes you think, and still feells strange...
not lets poke fun at windows for everything they do even if it is useful.
Why not?:
1) It's funny to do so 2) M$ Keeps doing the same thing to us. 3) Things from m$ can't be usefull, because, even if they were technically good, they would be license-encumbered, and designed so you end up tied to 'em, having to update every fkn year, spending lots, and not being able to hack arround troubles since that would violate the EULA. 4) All m$ products seem perfect on the papers, they talk about the next shit they are going to release for months, even years, and let everyone speculate on what it's actually going to be like, until they actually release it, and we notice it's just more shit. Just name ONE good product from m$ that may prove that there is at least a chance that this shit would be stable, usefull, upgradable, etc.
It's a router. It's not a powerfull server, lots of gigabit NICs, meters and meters of CAT5, fiber, etc,etc,etc. What i mean is: You need to have a big fast, well equiped network allready, and this will improve it. Besides that, if someone actually spents 450k just to play a loosy game, he should be shoot!.
In Unix for _several_ years now. You have the bruteforce aproach (find), and the better aproach, not allways updated, locate.
I just update the locate database everyday at 5 AM, and use find only when i have to work recently created files, or i need some advanced functions that find provides and locate doesn't. And if you need to locate some text inside files, grep -R works ok for me. You usually just keep those searches restringed to a small tree, and with todays speeds in HDDs, plus ext2 is really fast, you can't complain.
Who said Linus invented the Free Software movement in the first place?. If you bother to read the article, they don't talk about specifics like SCO, they don't mention stolen code, they just say that Unix has been stolen many times, and that the Free Software Movement was here long before Linus created his kernel, well DUH!, RMS was there back in '83, but the Free Software concept, was here long before that, actually, it goes back to the very begining of computing, Once it was like that, then came all thise litigious bastards and their software patents.
He's talking like if he has a patent on Free Software: "Mechanisms and development models oriented to aid a comunity to cooperate on the creation of a product that may be redistributed, modified and used by the aformentioned comunity or any other person freely".
Well, About the junk on the screen and problems with SLI, i don't think so, it worked greate for me, back in the time. Regarding the full screen only thing, it is true, may be it was annoyinh, but you have to understand this: Now all the video cards are more or less acelerated. The video cards, has 3d capabilities. Back in 1997, 3D Cards weren't video cards, you had your video card, and the acelerated one conected to it, like the voodoo. This was one of the first 3D cards to make it into the desktop computer. Actually, the 1st Voodoo was a revolution, with it 4 megs and 30 (i think) Mhz was marvellous!. The voodoo 3 changed this, it was 2D and 3D. Let me make myself clear: Nowdays i don't really play, maybe once a month, 30 minutes of quake3, just to keep up my skills. i actually have 3 games on my system: Half Life + Counter Strike Running on wine, and the native demo versions of Quake3 and UT. They work ok. About 40 FPS on Quake and UT, and 30 in CS/HL. Back in 1998, i still dual booted, Win/GNU and i played games, mostly Diablo, Half Life, Quake. That's why i spent a _lot_ of money on a Voodoo 2. I still have it, that's the card that is running Q3, UT and CS on my system. So, to be a video card that is running in a system with a kernel (2.6.5) and librarys newer than the ones the drivers where designed for, over an alternative implementation of the windows API using Mesa linked to a binary only driver from a company that no longer exists, running games that has been designed years after the card was created, i mean, this incredible card is 6 years old!. Say whatever you want, but my voodoo 2 rules, i really don't see the need for a new card.
The 2nd best graphics-related company ever (Behind SGI) Had this technology back in '97. Actually, all the Voodoo Line, the best 3D Card ever, had this tech called SLI, that let you use 2 cards in parallel. All you need was 2 Voodoos of the same kind and a flat cable. You could buy the cable, but the pinout was just exactly the same as the one used for 3 1/2 Floppy Drivers, so if you cutted the part that went to the 2nd drive (The one with a few pins switched), you could make it really cheap, besides the cost of those cards. All voodoos had 2 units, one for textures, the other to do all the math, this way, you could use 1 voodoo to do the math, and the other to process textures.
Nowdays, if you have 2 voodoos 2, and 500Mhz, you can easily take 70 FPS on Quake 3.
Is not those people that uses some kind of Free Unix and will read a bad review about GNOME, because that's the kind of people that doesn't let others decide for them, otherwise, they woudnl't be using Unix.. They will download and test the release, and make their own conclusions about the quality of it. I Think that the problem is those readers that Doesn't Know exactly what they are talking about. Those that doesn't know the diference beetween GNU, GNOME, KDE, Linux, OSS, etc,etc,etc. They just say "This Linux Thingy". If you review something very specific, as, for example, a window manager for X11 used mostly under Free Unices, They will just asociate it to the bigger image they have about it. So, for this people, that won't understand many of the terms in the review, it will mean just "Linux is bad". I think that mainstream media should instead of making such specific notes, first educate the people about the political issues of this movement (AKA What is GNU and why is it a good/bad thing, what is OSS and why is it a bad/good thing), What is Linux, *BSD, HURD, etc. What is X, what is a WM. Let this specific reviews for more selected online magazines that will be seen by better prepared people that will apreciatte them in a different way. If you talk about the new preemptive features of the new stable branch of the Linux Kernel on the NYT, you are just trying to confuse people.
In Soviet Russia, Spammers Sue YOU! ... o ... wait
on
Spammer Sues SpamCop
·
· Score: -1
Do what i do, Code until 4:30 AM Knowing that you have to get up at 9 to go to work. I Could even sleep _inside_ my full tower and the noise woudln't wake me up:)
The net is becoming more and more comercial, and so more and more controlled, About 4 years ago i would tell you that this "Just like tv" phenomen wouldn't go beyond the fronters of the web, that it wouldn'f affect other services, and some part of the web. I was obviously wrong...
We may end up being back to the packet radio times, I have my tin foil hat ready, do you?
Slashdot Mirror
We use Free Software Because it's FREE(As in Free Speech). There are many things that are said to be "Linux friendly", but are not really GNU or Free Software Friendly, This is Propietary software. It's not different nor better than a bar made for IE. We want Free Software, not software that runs on Free Plataforms, if it's not free, it's the same. This kind of stuff really bothers me, because The purpose of GNU/Linux is pretty obvious. We want Freedom of knowledge and information. The GNU Comunity has released gigabytes of quality Free Software, and then some company thinks they have the right to release little pieces of propietary software to work in combination with that system. They have the RIGHT to develope and distribute privative software, the same way we have the right to write and distribute Free Software, but, For obvious reasons, it's not ethical to distribute propietary software that's specifically made to run taking advantage of free software, and to trick people into using it as part of a free program, while this plugin is not.
No intention to flame, i just cam to think about it.
ALMAFUERTE.
People is afraid of change and new knowledge, in this capitalist society where confort, comodities and pleasure are over all things, everything that presents a challenge, and that requires and effort to learn, turns people off. Most People just want instant satisfaction, initiation periods are inaceptable for them. That's why tv is more popular than books. No effort. No thinking. No Learning. Fast Food, ready to eat. That's what sells well, and that's what people will continue to get. This answers many questions, like, for example, "Why microsoft succeds?", or "Why is the tv industry so profitable?".
I Think that instead of spending time trying to make free software easier to use, we should spend some time trying to change this situation, and educating people. I Know that's a long term campaign, but if we don't take it, we are in the group of people that i described before, whom are unable to wait to see results.
Just my 2 cents.
Interesting Project, In the case of any other distro, i would say that it lacks documentation if it had the amount of docs in slack, but Slackware is a special case. Slackware is self-documenting. Trying to be as unbiased as a Slackware addict can be, i would Say that Slackware doesn't really need documentation, Just generic Unix docs + Specific manpages are all you could ever need. I use to say that slackware only exists at installation time, many distros gets in the middle of your work creating a modified and customized unix environment, in slackware, you know you are running it when you install it, then, it goes away and let you and your system in peace. Simple and Standard, what else can you ask for?.-
ALMAFUERTE
Like, for example, PHP or Perl, are a good thing for startes, since they let them understand what coding is all about, and to experience the pleasure of programming. But they are also dangerous because they make it ease for the uninitiated to shoot their foot, in C, it's even easier to shoot yourself in the foot, but you won't go very far with no experience and limited knowledge, so, you will shoot your foot with a simple curses based agenda, and not with an online CMS, with PHP or even Perl, unexperienced people can create large projects, and in those cases, they can blow off the entire house and not just their foot.
It's good to see some initiative to prevent these.
Just my 2 cents.
ALMAFUERTE
For Example, IBM, Google, Apple, and now, Sun (Which is in a similar situation to IBM).
We would like to be able to love this companys, we are geeks, we love technology, and we tend to try to extend that love to the creators of the technology that we like, but this are busnisses, that are trying to make money. That fact doesn't make them more or less evil, but it shows us that instead of loving or hating them, we should understand that they are part of a market, in which they compete, and that we are their customers. The only card we can play is the decition to be their customer or not, and we should take that decition based on our own ethics, and in the general politics of the company, or on how much we need their products, but _NOT_ on their slashdot karma.
ALMAFUERTE
Until it's available for my tango 300 ...
We really have a strong comunity feelling, even when we seem to be divided and separated by stupid technicall or filosofical diferences, and, Since our field (Computing), is a young science, and most of the developers are young people, we are not very used to see a Hacker die ...
...
...
Like RMS says, we have saints, but we don't have any gods yet
This has been an awfull accident, but in the years to come, we will see the older generations of Hackers getting older, and dying, It really makes you think, and still feells strange
ALMAFUERTE
Was he runnning GNU/Linux? =D
Don't you people ever read ubersoft? :)
Click here stupid unix user
:D
Yhea, sure, is konqueror affected too?
not lets poke fun at windows for everything they do even if it is useful.
Why not?:
1) It's funny to do so
2) M$ Keeps doing the same thing to us.
3) Things from m$ can't be usefull, because, even if they were technically good, they would be license-encumbered, and designed so you end up tied to 'em, having to update every fkn year, spending lots, and not being able to hack arround troubles since that would violate the EULA.
4) All m$ products seem perfect on the papers, they talk about the next shit they are going to release for months, even years, and let everyone speculate on what it's actually going to be like, until they actually release it, and we notice it's just more shit. Just name ONE good product from m$ that may prove that there is at least a chance that this shit would be stable, usefull, upgradable, etc.
It's a router.
It's not a powerfull server, lots of gigabit NICs, meters and meters of CAT5, fiber, etc,etc,etc.
What i mean is: You need to have a big fast, well equiped network allready, and this will improve it.
Besides that, if someone actually spents
450k just to play a loosy game, he should be shoot!.
In Unix for _several_ years now. You have the bruteforce aproach (find), and the better aproach, not allways updated, locate.
I just update the locate database everyday at 5 AM, and use find only when i have to work recently created files, or i need some advanced functions that find provides and locate doesn't. And if you need to locate some text inside files, grep -R works ok for me. You usually just keep those searches restringed to a small tree, and with todays speeds in HDDs, plus ext2 is really fast, you can't complain.
Who said Linus invented the Free Software movement in the first place?.
If you bother to read the article, they don't talk about specifics like SCO, they don't mention stolen code, they just say that Unix has been stolen many times, and that the Free Software Movement was here long before Linus created his kernel, well DUH!, RMS was there back in '83, but the Free Software concept, was here long before that, actually, it goes back to the very begining of computing, Once it was like that, then came all thise litigious bastards and their software patents.
He's talking like if he has a patent on Free Software: "Mechanisms and development models oriented to aid a comunity to cooperate on the creation of a product that may be redistributed, modified and used by the aformentioned comunity or any other person freely".
"That may be a more entertaining way for more people to get "treated" than visiting their doctors"
:)
This is slashdot. We'll have to visit our doctor
There are only 3 things you can make with such a cluster:
:)
a) Play Duke Nukem Forever
b) Install LongHorn
c) Benchmark it and talk about the incredible performance you get using the aformentioned games
Well, that's nothing compared to the licenses costs!. :)
I mean, at u$s 699 per machine!
Well, About the junk on the screen and problems with SLI, i don't think so, it worked greate for me, back in the time.
Regarding the full screen only thing, it is true, may be it was annoyinh, but you have to understand this:
Now all the video cards are more or less acelerated. The video cards, has 3d capabilities. Back in 1997, 3D Cards weren't video cards, you had your video card, and the acelerated one conected to it, like the voodoo. This was one of the first 3D cards to make it into the desktop computer. Actually, the 1st Voodoo was a revolution, with it 4 megs and 30 (i think) Mhz was marvellous!. The voodoo 3 changed this, it was 2D and 3D. Let me make myself clear:
Nowdays i don't really play, maybe once a month, 30 minutes of quake3, just to keep up my skills. i actually have 3 games on my system:
Half Life + Counter Strike Running on wine, and the native demo versions of Quake3 and UT. They work ok. About 40 FPS on Quake and UT, and 30 in CS/HL. Back in 1998, i still dual booted, Win/GNU and i played games, mostly Diablo, Half Life, Quake. That's why i spent a _lot_ of money on a Voodoo 2. I still have it, that's the card that is running Q3, UT and CS on my system. So, to be a video card that is running in a system with a kernel (2.6.5) and librarys newer than the ones the drivers where designed for, over an alternative implementation of the windows API using Mesa linked to a binary only driver from a company that no longer exists, running games that has been designed years after the card was created, i mean, this incredible card is 6 years old!.
Say whatever you want, but my voodoo 2 rules, i really don't see the need for a new card.
Does it run Li... o ... ok ...
The 2nd best graphics-related company ever (Behind SGI) Had this technology back in '97.
Actually, all the Voodoo Line, the best 3D Card ever, had this tech called SLI, that let you use 2 cards in parallel. All you need was 2 Voodoos of the same kind and a flat cable. You could buy the cable, but the pinout was just exactly the same as the one used for 3 1/2 Floppy Drivers, so if you cutted the part that went to the 2nd drive (The one with a few pins switched), you could make it really cheap, besides the cost of those cards.
All voodoos had 2 units, one for textures, the other to do all the math, this way, you could use 1 voodoo to do the math, and the other to process textures.
Nowdays, if you have 2 voodoos 2, and 500Mhz, you can easily take 70 FPS on Quake 3.
Is not those people that uses some kind of Free Unix and will read a bad review about GNOME, because that's the kind of people that doesn't let others decide for them, otherwise, they woudnl't be using Unix .. They will download and test the release, and make their own conclusions about the quality of it.
I Think that the problem is those readers that Doesn't Know exactly what they are talking about.
Those that doesn't know the diference beetween GNU, GNOME, KDE, Linux, OSS, etc,etc,etc.
They just say "This Linux Thingy".
If you review something very specific, as, for example, a window manager for X11 used mostly under Free Unices, They will just asociate it to the bigger image they have about it.
So, for this people, that won't understand many of the terms in the review, it will mean just "Linux is bad". I think that mainstream media should instead of making such specific notes, first educate the people about the political issues of this movement (AKA What is GNU and why is it a good/bad thing, what is OSS and why is it a bad/good thing), What is Linux, *BSD, HURD, etc. What is X, what is a WM.
Let this specific reviews for more selected online magazines that will be seen by better prepared people that will apreciatte them in a different way.
If you talk about the new preemptive features of the new stable branch of the Linux Kernel on the NYT, you are just trying to confuse people.
we really need a smarter lameness filter ...
Do what i do, Code until 4:30 AM Knowing that you have to get up at 9 to go to work. I Could even sleep _inside_ my full tower and the noise woudln't wake me up :)
This is a very interesting concept ...
...
The net is becoming more and more comercial, and so more and more controlled, About 4 years ago i would tell you that this "Just like tv" phenomen wouldn't go beyond the fronters of the web, that it wouldn'f affect other services, and some part of the web. I was obviously wrong
We may end up being back to the packet radio times, I have my tin foil hat ready, do you?