The significance is this: I just installed Vector 4 on a 233MHz machine with 32 meg of RAM that I bought for 1 (One pound sterling) from my employer who was chucking it out.
Yes, yes, I understand that you can build a function Linux system using cast-off hardware, etc. (I ran my email/web server for a couple of years on an old 486DX2-66 with RH 5.x, and never noticed any sort of "performance hit," other than that I could not run X on it with the old 1MB Trident ISA graphics card that I had on it.
But that's not really the answer to the question I posed.
Certainly there cant be a significant speed increase between distros, but if you know what you want, then you can compile your packages and set options well enough on YOUR system and get a significant boost.
I guess that's the point of my confusion. I mean, you get the entire RH distro source code (as you do all "legitimate" distros--don't know what Lindows provides, for example), and you can essentially roll your own, if you know how (and anyone who's so obsessed with performance IS going to know how).
So in the end, it's Linux, and you can customize however you want. True, systems like Gentoo make it EASY for you to customize, and you have features like the ports system or RPM, whatever, but as far as SYSTEM PERFORMANCE (as distinct from system administration), it's just Linux.
Being software-illiterate, will someone please explain to me how this really matters?
A Linux "distribution" is (or so I have always thought) the kernel, plus system support files, plus all the tools (typical "GNU") that go into making a working OS. So how is it that you can have significant differences between distros in "performance"? And how does that matter if you build the system on your own hardware (a la Gentoo)?
Is this just another example of irrelevant Geek pissing contests, or is there some actual significance here?
Yeah, the government WILL probably end up "paying you to drive something different," and then they'll turn around and tax the bejeebers out of you to pay for it.
Less government, more happiness. That is an iron-clad truism.
There is coverage of what's good with the technologies (a program called Poseidon that helps ensure folks don't drown in swimming pools) and what's bad (death of privacy).
The problem with this "dichotomy" is that it is FALSE. The reason we have had a steady erosion of "privacy rights" is because people have been willing to live with the "bad" in order to receive the "good."
Politicians ALWAYS obscure the notion that there are HARD CHOICES to be made. they want you to think that we can, for example, simply "raise taxes" in order to have all these government goodies. They DON'T tell you that the downside is that people who actually make the economy work--and thus generate the taxable incomes on which government depends--are seriously hobbled by higher taxes.
Same with privacy rights. They want you to think that you can have the "good" (you'll always have an eye on you so you don't drown in the swimming pool) without the "bad" (you'll always have an eye on you...)
Stupid.
You have to MAKE A CHOICE, people! If you choose PRIVACY, then you're going to just have to live (or die) with the notion that you won't have Big Mommy watching out for you all the time. You'll have to realize that bad people can hide their bad deeds from scrutiny in order to make sure that Big Brother doesn't have you under constant surveillance.
Make your choice. But stop swallowing this politicians' bilge about "having it all."
...I'm going to fiddle around and never reply to those offers to lengthen my penis 2-3 inches and increase its girth by an appreciable amount.
I'm such a procrastinator; I always say I'll "get around to it eventually," and many times I never do and the opportunity passes.
One fine day I'm going to wake up, decide it's time to upgrade my Schwanzstucker from Vienna Sausage to Bratwurst, and then realize that the channel to the product that will help me realize my dream is DRIED UP by these infernal meddlers, the anti-Spammers!
Nevertheless I agree with one reviewer on IMDB who said that "any cartoon character not prominently featured on kids' underwear at some point isn't worth bothering with."
Yeah, it still works (actually, so does the ATAPI internal drive, which is about two years younger).
So I bought the Paraport drive in 1995 shortly after they first came out, and it was GREAT for awhile. But now, what do I use it for?
100 MB is trivial now, and networks, email and other electronic transport mechanisms make it innocuous. CD- and DVD-ROM are cheaper ways to store backups.
Bands make money on tour, and what is the best way to get fans excited about seeing their favorite band on tour? That is right, free mp3's!
You have it exactly backward. Bands don't make records so that you will buy concert tickets; they play concerts so you will buy their records. That hasn't changed in about a hundred years. Touring is expensive, and the number of fans who are willing to buy tickets is far more limited than the number who will purchase recorded music. You simply cannot make a living touring.
Comments like yours, by the way, portray the ignorance and rationalization, in equal measure, behind this stupid "I have a right to download whatever I want" mentality. It's very juvenile.
The record companies do, as you say, "rape" musicians regularly, pimp them and use them to feed their money machine (c.f. Joni Mitchell's song "Free Man in Paris.") But my strong suspicion is that even if musicians could take control of their own media distribution rights, they would be hindered by flagrant violation of their intellectual property rights.
In the end, I think, we may see a discontinuation of big-name musical acts making polished records with high production values, because it won't be economically feasible.
In the world of Opera, for example, the big-name opera companies, of which there are really only a very few, are able to continue to mount lavish productions because they are heavily subsidized by philanthropic patronage.
I don't think there will be such philanthropy on behalf of pop music.
Well, my further question is: How do you expect people to continue making "free" music for you? Do you think they will just give their stuff away for free and then count on you to spend big bucks on concert tickets?
In the past, bands toured to support sales of albums; only a few top-name acts like the Rolling Stones or the Grateful Dead were able to rake in a big bunch of cash from playing live.
But for the vast majority, touring is a "loss leader" that was designed to promote sales of recorded music, where the real money is. In fact, many top acts like Steely Dan, stopped touring at all and became (for many years in the case of the Dan) "studio acts" only, because the cost of touring both personal and financial was just too much.
So that can't be the answer. Now, it is true that technology has rendered the cost of making records "trivial" in comparison with the past, as THIS THREAD explains.
But still, musicians have to eat and pay their bills like anyone else. They have the cost of doing business in terms of equipment, upkeep and, yes, touring.
So how do you expect THEM to keep putting out music for YOU to listen to for free?
I readily agree that the cost of an audio CD is heavily burdened with the bloated bureaucracy of those corporations who are behind RIAA. Technology is about to make them as obsolete as buggy-whip manufacturers, but "free" is not the same as "at a reasonable cost."
I just wonder if, after RIAA has gone the way of the dinosaur, and musicians serve up their own platters without a bloated middle-man network, people like you are going to be willing to shell out $5.00 per CD, when there are always ways to pirate for free.
Slashdot Mirror
But how about bizarre sh*t like THIS?
And it won't EVER be subverted for nefarious purposes, will it?
Yes, yes, I understand that you can build a function Linux system using cast-off hardware, etc. (I ran my email/web server for a couple of years on an old 486DX2-66 with RH 5.x, and never noticed any sort of "performance hit," other than that I could not run X on it with the old 1MB Trident ISA graphics card that I had on it.
But that's not really the answer to the question I posed.
I guess that's the point of my confusion. I mean, you get the entire RH distro source code (as you do all "legitimate" distros--don't know what Lindows provides, for example), and you can essentially roll your own, if you know how (and anyone who's so obsessed with performance IS going to know how).
So in the end, it's Linux, and you can customize however you want. True, systems like Gentoo make it EASY for you to customize, and you have features like the ports system or RPM, whatever, but as far as SYSTEM PERFORMANCE (as distinct from system administration), it's just Linux.
A Linux "distribution" is (or so I have always thought) the kernel, plus system support files, plus all the tools (typical "GNU") that go into making a working OS. So how is it that you can have significant differences between distros in "performance"? And how does that matter if you build the system on your own hardware (a la Gentoo)?
Is this just another example of irrelevant Geek pissing contests, or is there some actual significance here?
Shame on you!
Chicklet keys are forever!
...can't even do that. (Can't find where to stick the ethernet card).
Less government, more happiness. That is an iron-clad truism.
It's proof positive that evolution is real!
Just think: 500 new species of fish created in the last several years!
"Psil?"
I always wanted a chance to try POLISH NOTATION, so that I could compare it to RPN.
Politicians ALWAYS obscure the notion that there are HARD CHOICES to be made. they want you to think that we can, for example, simply "raise taxes" in order to have all these government goodies. They DON'T tell you that the downside is that people who actually make the economy work--and thus generate the taxable incomes on which government depends--are seriously hobbled by higher taxes.
Same with privacy rights. They want you to think that you can have the "good" (you'll always have an eye on you so you don't drown in the swimming pool) without the "bad" (you'll always have an eye on you...)
Stupid.
You have to MAKE A CHOICE, people! If you choose PRIVACY, then you're going to just have to live (or die) with the notion that you won't have Big Mommy watching out for you all the time. You'll have to realize that bad people can hide their bad deeds from scrutiny in order to make sure that Big Brother doesn't have you under constant surveillance.
Make your choice. But stop swallowing this politicians' bilge about "having it all."
Who do you have to know around here?
YMMV, because Rhapsody is more geared toward the cube-bound (or SoHo denizens like me). It isn't pointed toward MP3, but streaming playback.
However, since you can burn an awful lot of the music to CD, and then RIP the CDs, even that's a moot point.
For me, the large selection and ease of use of Rhapsody beat something like iTunes all to hell.
...hasn't seen "Bill Nye the Science Guy!"
...Still purveying "vaporware" after all these years!
Any American who really believes that ought to have his head examined.
Any American GOVERNMENT or MILITARY official who truly believes that ought to be shot.
It's okay. I hear they've got a patch coming out soon...
HINT TO BILL: Maybe hardly EVER needing a patch is a GOOD THING.
I'm such a procrastinator; I always say I'll "get around to it eventually," and many times I never do and the opportunity passes.
One fine day I'm going to wake up, decide it's time to upgrade my Schwanzstucker from Vienna Sausage to Bratwurst, and then realize that the channel to the product that will help me realize my dream is DRIED UP by these infernal meddlers, the anti-Spammers!
Nevertheless I agree with one reviewer on IMDB who said that "any cartoon character not prominently featured on kids' underwear at some point isn't worth bothering with."
So I bought the Paraport drive in 1995 shortly after they first came out, and it was GREAT for awhile. But now, what do I use it for?
100 MB is trivial now, and networks, email and other electronic transport mechanisms make it innocuous. CD- and DVD-ROM are cheaper ways to store backups.
So it just sits there frowning at me.
But yes, it still very much works.
Why? Who the hell knows?
You have it exactly backward. Bands don't make records so that you will buy concert tickets; they play concerts so you will buy their records. That hasn't changed in about a hundred years. Touring is expensive, and the number of fans who are willing to buy tickets is far more limited than the number who will purchase recorded music. You simply cannot make a living touring.
Comments like yours, by the way, portray the ignorance and rationalization, in equal measure, behind this stupid "I have a right to download whatever I want" mentality. It's very juvenile.
The record companies do, as you say, "rape" musicians regularly, pimp them and use them to feed their money machine (c.f. Joni Mitchell's song "Free Man in Paris.") But my strong suspicion is that even if musicians could take control of their own media distribution rights, they would be hindered by flagrant violation of their intellectual property rights.
In the end, I think, we may see a discontinuation of big-name musical acts making polished records with high production values, because it won't be economically feasible.
In the world of Opera, for example, the big-name opera companies, of which there are really only a very few, are able to continue to mount lavish productions because they are heavily subsidized by philanthropic patronage.
I don't think there will be such philanthropy on behalf of pop music.
In the past, bands toured to support sales of albums; only a few top-name acts like the Rolling Stones or the Grateful Dead were able to rake in a big bunch of cash from playing live.
But for the vast majority, touring is a "loss leader" that was designed to promote sales of recorded music, where the real money is. In fact, many top acts like Steely Dan, stopped touring at all and became (for many years in the case of the Dan) "studio acts" only, because the cost of touring both personal and financial was just too much.
So that can't be the answer. Now, it is true that technology has rendered the cost of making records "trivial" in comparison with the past, as THIS THREAD explains.
But still, musicians have to eat and pay their bills like anyone else. They have the cost of doing business in terms of equipment, upkeep and, yes, touring.
So how do you expect THEM to keep putting out music for YOU to listen to for free?
I readily agree that the cost of an audio CD is heavily burdened with the bloated bureaucracy of those corporations who are behind RIAA. Technology is about to make them as obsolete as buggy-whip manufacturers, but "free" is not the same as "at a reasonable cost."
I just wonder if, after RIAA has gone the way of the dinosaur, and musicians serve up their own platters without a bloated middle-man network, people like you are going to be willing to shell out $5.00 per CD, when there are always ways to pirate for free.