Then go ahead. No one is stopping you. No one is forcing you to do otherwise.
However...
You are not the only person in the world. Some people, indeed, might want to actually learn about the system they are using. Maybe they want to administer their home system instead of accepting the default configuration. Or maybe they want to be admins for other machines. After all, every veteran sysadmin was a newbie once. Or maybe they're *gasp* hackers, geeks and nerds! The type of people who insist on knowing how things work!
You can go use the system the way you want to. But don't you dare tell me not to present other options to a newbie who asks what options there are!
First of all, no one is forcing anything on anyone. The question was asked which system is best for a newbie, and I responded that a harder system is best for those wishing to learn about the system. I'm currently using one of those "hard" systems. It's FreeBSD. It does not limit me. I get EVERYTHING the newbie Linux distros offers, except hand holding. Same software. Same functionality.
Some people want a system that's easy to use without learning how. If I step up to a kiosk system, that's certainly what I want. But such a system will make learning more difficult. By design. I found a really good essay on usability versus learnability. It's called Why Windows Causes Stupidity. Ignore the inflammatory title and read it.
Because a microkernel is damned hard to do! The reason UNIX is so successful is because it has an easy to understand kernel. The reason Linux is so successful is because it has an easy to understand kernel. The reason we still don't have Hurd after twenty years is because a microkernel is so difficult to write.
The only successful true microkernel I know is QNX. And it seems to prove Andy's thesis that microkernels are more stable and secure, because QNX is neutronium-solid [sic]. There are Mach and L4, but they're not full production microkernels.
A) By "depose", I did not mean nor imply "assassinate". I meant "remove from power".
B) While WMDs were certainly discussed, they were only incidental to the decision to go to war. The stated purpose was because Saddam was not adhering to UN resolutions. Congress may have talked about imminent threat, but the administration never actually said there was one (of course they never explicitly denied it either).
C) The stated reason isn't the actual reason. The actual reason is manyfold, but removing Saddam from power and setting the stage for an eventual democratic government were very high on the list. Lesser reasons were oil, terrorist sponsorship, etc.
D) The media never understood it (or refused to understand it), and from months before the war drummed up emotion ferver with "OMG WMD!", then lapsed back into neverending ridicule with "No WMD found".
Re:Wow, only 64 MB of RAM?
on
Mozilla's Mini-Me
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The thing I like about Linux is you can get by using only CLI / text-based software if you want to
I was using OS/2 Warp on a 100MHz Pentium with 16MB RAM. Not command line, but full GUI. And it was responsive and quick. And OS/2's GUI was much more heavyweight than Window 95's...
Speaking of WMDs, that was NOT the reason the US invaded Iraq. That reasoning was an invention of the US media. The administration thought that there might still be WMDs in Iraq, espcially since Saddam refused to document to the UN that he had disposed of them, but it was never the reason for going in. I wish people would stop promoting this myth.
The reason we went into Iraq was simply to depose Saddam Hussein. Nothing more, nothing less. This isn't a better or worse reason to be in Iraq, it's just the way it is.
During college my friend got a new roommate. This person was from Indonesia. Not the nicest place in the world, but still not necessarily considered totalitarian central. Anyway, his first night here in the US, we decide to take him out to dinner.
We're walking along the street when suddenly he gets a wild look in his eyes and he leaps over a juniper hedge. We didn't know what was going on. We finally pull him out and demand to know what the problem was. We were suspecting that my friend's new roommate had a serious narcotics problem.
It turns out that a police car was driving up the street, and he did the "normal" thing and hid from it. We couldn't believe it. He was literally afraid of the police. This was outside of our US experience.
On one side of capitalism you have inefficient state intervention. On the other you have vested interests who don't want to have to face dynamic markets, they want everything to be wrapped up, safe and secure, for them.
Actually, the only way they're able to wrap stuff up safe and secure, is through that inefficient state intervention. After all, what is a patent but a state granted monopoly?
These people don't believe in the free markets, they are just on whatever bandwagon it takes to make a profit.
The very rich have never been believers in the free market.
As people have already told you, it depends on the user. If they want to learn Unix, learn the OS and environment inside and out, how it works, etc., then stay away from the newbie distros. The hard systems are the way to go.
Slackware, FreeBSD, or Debian. Without the handholding, they'll actually learn the system. They'll be forced to drop into the command line to configure some stuff. They'll come to understand how it all fits together. This is a Good Thing(tm).
Two scenarios. At home I am starting to get more and more spam, after five years with the same address. For three years the only spam I got was addressed to webmaster at my domain. Maybe I got five spams a month. But in the last year it has been growing. I got twenty yesterday. All of them to an address I do not use, and have not used in four years since I got my domain. I can only guess that this obsolete but still valid address got found by one spammer, then sold to all the rest.
At work I get about twenty to forty spams a day. The origins of these spams are more evident. A few years ago some numbnut in IT configured our mail server as an open relay. It wasn't until our customer base started blocking us that we realized what was going on. But the damage was done.
QMake is free according to the FSF. Actually, it always has been free according to the FSF. Even it's predecessor, tmake, was always free according to the FSF. What have you been smoking?
This was about ten years ago. My friend had a problem with his Packard Bell computer. He was just working along, when he heard a "pop" and then the screen went blank.
Since he bought the computer from Sears, he drove it thirty miles to local Sears service center. A week later they told him that they couldn't figure out what the problem was. They were going to ship it to Packard Bell. One month later Packard Bell calls and says that they can't figure out what the problem is. So they ship it back to Sears, and my friend drives thirty miles to pick it up.
He's kind of depressed. This was a month and a half later. For some reason they wouldn't honor the warranty and replace the system. As a last resort he calls me to look at the system to see what could be salvaged. So I went over to take a look. We open up the case and peer inside...
A chip on the video card had literally exploded. There were scorch marks on the scanner card just above it. There were pieces of black chip ceramic in the bottom of the case. A fifty dollar video card and the system was a good as new.
Worst explanation from tech support? Saying "we can't find the problem"...
Earthlink/Mindfsck are real jokers. It wouldn't surprise me if they actually went out of their way to hire idiots.
I has having a problem with my connection once, and I called them up. During the process I had to disconnect my broadband router (we don't support that), reboot into Windows (we don't support linxit or whatever it's called), install their silly software (we don't support winsock), all to discover that *THEIR* gateway was down.
The patent debates, along with DMCA, UCITA, etc, are pretty much evenly divided between the left and the right. Since F/OSS advocates tend to be liberal or libertarian, it's naturally assumed that "enemy" conservatives hold anti-F/OSS views. This is grossly incorrect. But every time some big name conservative says something in agreement with F/OSS advocacy, such as Phyllis Schlafly panning the DMCA, the free software community is stunned and amazed.
Conservatives are pro-business. But they're not necessarily pro-corporation. For every beltway conservative that wants to give Microsoft a "medal of freedom", there's two mainstream conservatives disgusted with the neo-fascism that the Clinton/Bush administrations have brought about.
They used to be a decent think tank. But like most other think tanks, it became a collection of yes men. Instead of providing answers they changed their business model to provide excuses.
1954 Sponsor: "What impact will this policy have on agriculture" 1954 AdTI: "That will cost you $50,000"
2004 Sponsor: "What impact will this policy have on agriculture" 2004 AdTI: "For $500,000 we will come up with whatever impact you want us to..."
If AdTI are asking these questions, it's clear that they don't know the first thing about the topic their researching. It's like someone writing a history of Europe and then asking Usenet what species of frog the Franks were...
But I can't really blame them. There's so much misinformation about operating systems out there, that it's no wonder they're confused. Between the marketing drivel from Microsoft and rantings from GNU, one might actually start to think that word processors and compilers were operating system components.
Unfortunately, they make me use it at work. I just analyzed my "C:" drive. It has 31% file fragmentation. With half the hardrive not used, this is an absurd number. With UFS at home on FreeBSD, I have never seen fragmentations over 5%, even on the tmp and var partitions.
and neither needs to be defragmented very often at all
I use UFS and I have *NEVER* had to defragment. There's a little bit of fragmentation, to be sure, but never enough to warrant the need to actually go and defrag it. I'm sure ext3, reiserfs, xfs, etc, are in the same category.
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And that's more successful than QNX?
Maybe I want to use my system for something else.
Then go ahead. No one is stopping you. No one is forcing you to do otherwise.
However...
You are not the only person in the world. Some people, indeed, might want to actually learn about the system they are using. Maybe they want to administer their home system instead of accepting the default configuration. Or maybe they want to be admins for other machines. After all, every veteran sysadmin was a newbie once. Or maybe they're *gasp* hackers, geeks and nerds! The type of people who insist on knowing how things work!
You can go use the system the way you want to. But don't you dare tell me not to present other options to a newbie who asks what options there are!
First of all, no one is forcing anything on anyone. The question was asked which system is best for a newbie, and I responded that a harder system is best for those wishing to learn about the system. I'm currently using one of those "hard" systems. It's FreeBSD. It does not limit me. I get EVERYTHING the newbie Linux distros offers, except hand holding. Same software. Same functionality.
Some people want a system that's easy to use without learning how. If I step up to a kiosk system, that's certainly what I want. But such a system will make learning more difficult. By design. I found a really good essay on usability versus learnability. It's called Why Windows Causes Stupidity. Ignore the inflammatory title and read it.
Because a microkernel is damned hard to do! The reason UNIX is so successful is because it has an easy to understand kernel. The reason Linux is so successful is because it has an easy to understand kernel. The reason we still don't have Hurd after twenty years is because a microkernel is so difficult to write.
The only successful true microkernel I know is QNX. And it seems to prove Andy's thesis that microkernels are more stable and secure, because QNX is neutronium-solid [sic]. There are Mach and L4, but they're not full production microkernels.
A) By "depose", I did not mean nor imply "assassinate". I meant "remove from power".
B) While WMDs were certainly discussed, they were only incidental to the decision to go to war. The stated purpose was because Saddam was not adhering to UN resolutions. Congress may have talked about imminent threat, but the administration never actually said there was one (of course they never explicitly denied it either).
C) The stated reason isn't the actual reason. The actual reason is manyfold, but removing Saddam from power and setting the stage for an eventual democratic government were very high on the list. Lesser reasons were oil, terrorist sponsorship, etc.
D) The media never understood it (or refused to understand it), and from months before the war drummed up emotion ferver with "OMG WMD!", then lapsed back into neverending ridicule with "No WMD found".
The thing I like about Linux is you can get by using only CLI / text-based software if you want to
I was using OS/2 Warp on a 100MHz Pentium with 16MB RAM. Not command line, but full GUI. And it was responsive and quick. And OS/2's GUI was much more heavyweight than Window 95's...
Speaking of WMDs, that was NOT the reason the US invaded Iraq. That reasoning was an invention of the US media. The administration thought that there might still be WMDs in Iraq, espcially since Saddam refused to document to the UN that he had disposed of them, but it was never the reason for going in. I wish people would stop promoting this myth.
The reason we went into Iraq was simply to depose Saddam Hussein. Nothing more, nothing less. This isn't a better or worse reason to be in Iraq, it's just the way it is.
During college my friend got a new roommate. This person was from Indonesia. Not the nicest place in the world, but still not necessarily considered totalitarian central. Anyway, his first night here in the US, we decide to take him out to dinner.
We're walking along the street when suddenly he gets a wild look in his eyes and he leaps over a juniper hedge. We didn't know what was going on. We finally pull him out and demand to know what the problem was. We were suspecting that my friend's new roommate had a serious narcotics problem.
It turns out that a police car was driving up the street, and he did the "normal" thing and hid from it. We couldn't believe it. He was literally afraid of the police. This was outside of our US experience.
On one side of capitalism you have inefficient state intervention. On the other you have vested interests who don't want to have to face dynamic markets, they want everything to be wrapped up, safe and secure, for them.
Actually, the only way they're able to wrap stuff up safe and secure, is through that inefficient state intervention. After all, what is a patent but a state granted monopoly?
These people don't believe in the free markets, they are just on whatever bandwagon it takes to make a profit.
The very rich have never been believers in the free market.
As people have already told you, it depends on the user. If they want to learn Unix, learn the OS and environment inside and out, how it works, etc., then stay away from the newbie distros. The hard systems are the way to go.
Slackware, FreeBSD, or Debian. Without the handholding, they'll actually learn the system. They'll be forced to drop into the command line to configure some stuff. They'll come to understand how it all fits together. This is a Good Thing(tm).
Two scenarios. At home I am starting to get more and more spam, after five years with the same address. For three years the only spam I got was addressed to webmaster at my domain. Maybe I got five spams a month. But in the last year it has been growing. I got twenty yesterday. All of them to an address I do not use, and have not used in four years since I got my domain. I can only guess that this obsolete but still valid address got found by one spammer, then sold to all the rest.
At work I get about twenty to forty spams a day. The origins of these spams are more evident. A few years ago some numbnut in IT configured our mail server as an open relay. It wasn't until our customer base started blocking us that we realized what was going on. But the damage was done.
QMake is free according to the FSF. Actually, it always has been free according to the FSF. Even it's predecessor, tmake, was always free according to the FSF. What have you been smoking?
This was about ten years ago. My friend had a problem with his Packard Bell computer. He was just working along, when he heard a "pop" and then the screen went blank.
Since he bought the computer from Sears, he drove it thirty miles to local Sears service center. A week later they told him that they couldn't figure out what the problem was. They were going to ship it to Packard Bell. One month later Packard Bell calls and says that they can't figure out what the problem is. So they ship it back to Sears, and my friend drives thirty miles to pick it up.
He's kind of depressed. This was a month and a half later. For some reason they wouldn't honor the warranty and replace the system. As a last resort he calls me to look at the system to see what could be salvaged. So I went over to take a look. We open up the case and peer inside...
A chip on the video card had literally exploded. There were scorch marks on the scanner card just above it. There were pieces of black chip ceramic in the bottom of the case. A fifty dollar video card and the system was a good as new.
Worst explanation from tech support? Saying "we can't find the problem"...
I had my powerstrip plug weld and fuse to my wall socket during a lightning storm once. Good powerstrip though, it saved my computer!
Earthlink/Mindfsck are real jokers. It wouldn't surprise me if they actually went out of their way to hire idiots.
I has having a problem with my connection once, and I called them up. During the process I had to disconnect my broadband router (we don't support that), reboot into Windows (we don't support linxit or whatever it's called), install their silly software (we don't support winsock), all to discover that *THEIR* gateway was down.
I would have asked for the one port hub just to see what they would have sold you...
Suing someone doesn't give you automatic Big-Brother rights
No, but hiring a lawyer does. You just have to make sure you have more lawyers than the other side does.
The patent debates, along with DMCA, UCITA, etc, are pretty much evenly divided between the left and the right. Since F/OSS advocates tend to be liberal or libertarian, it's naturally assumed that "enemy" conservatives hold anti-F/OSS views. This is grossly incorrect. But every time some big name conservative says something in agreement with F/OSS advocacy, such as Phyllis Schlafly panning the DMCA, the free software community is stunned and amazed.
Conservatives are pro-business. But they're not necessarily pro-corporation. For every beltway conservative that wants to give Microsoft a "medal of freedom", there's two mainstream conservatives disgusted with the neo-fascism that the Clinton/Bush administrations have brought about.
They used to be a decent think tank. But like most other think tanks, it became a collection of yes men. Instead of providing answers they changed their business model to provide excuses.
1954 Sponsor: "What impact will this policy have on agriculture"
1954 AdTI: "That will cost you $50,000"
2004 Sponsor: "What impact will this policy have on agriculture"
2004 AdTI: "For $500,000 we will come up with whatever impact you want us to..."
If AdTI are asking these questions, it's clear that they don't know the first thing about the topic their researching. It's like someone writing a history of Europe and then asking Usenet what species of frog the Franks were...
But I can't really blame them. There's so much misinformation about operating systems out there, that it's no wonder they're confused. Between the marketing drivel from Microsoft and rantings from GNU, one might actually start to think that word processors and compilers were operating system components.
that line alway bugged the heck out of me
That line has meter! It has rhythm! It has strength and character!
You're all going to - no, youre all obligated to see it, having wasted so much of your lives on the other 5.
Actually, I only wasted my time on the last two and one tenth movies...
convert the disk to NTFS
<bigger>It is NTFS!</bigger>
You don't use Windows, do you?
Unfortunately, they make me use it at work. I just analyzed my "C:" drive. It has 31% file fragmentation. With half the hardrive not used, this is an absurd number. With UFS at home on FreeBSD, I have never seen fragmentations over 5%, even on the tmp and var partitions.
and neither needs to be defragmented very often at all
I use UFS and I have *NEVER* had to defragment. There's a little bit of fragmentation, to be sure, but never enough to warrant the need to actually go and defrag it. I'm sure ext3, reiserfs, xfs, etc, are in the same category.