And something is a part of the OS if you can't remove it without breaking the system.
I can remove emacs without breaking the system, yet emacs was the first "component" of the GNU operating system. Likewise, I can deal without 99% of the GNU utilities on a Linux system. Does that remaining 1% sufficient to call the whole thing by the name "GNU"?
That's because we inherited our intellectual rigor from the same people that brought you crop circles and the Coddington Fairies. Our tabloids are pale imitations of the famed anti-intellectual tabloids of London.
Reading most of these posts here, I think the mere existance of FreeBSD is insulting to Linux users. For all their talk of freedom, they just can't stand it when someone uses a different OS.
Scenario. You build a FreeBSD kernel and give it to your friend (it would be wrong to deny your friend if he asks and is in need of a working kernel).
If that kernel is "uncontaminated", you need not worry about a thing. It's truly free with no strings attached. You have no further obligations.
But what if that kernel was "contaminated" by the GPLd ext2fs code? Now you do need to worry. You need to give your friend the source code, or make a guarantee that your will provide him the source code anytime during the next three years if he ever asks. You can't just give him the kernel anymore without incurring legally binding obligations to your friend.
That's pretty minor stuff, really. It's just your friend, right? But what if you put that kernel on your website? Suddenly your are under legal obligations to thousands of people you've never met. Or what if you're an embedded software developer, and that kernel is embedded into a million consumer routers shipped all across the world?
Or worst of all, what if that kernel also contained a driver for your own proprietary hardware? Even though your driver is in no way derivative of the GPL ext2fs, the rules of the GPL say you must still treat it as such.
The big concern in BSDland is not "free versus unfree", but rather "encumbered versus unencumbered." We don't want encumbered software, and the GPL is encumbering in some minor but very real ways.
The operating system is Linux. Nothing from the shell on up is part of the OS. Sure, a Linux distro is going to have scads of GNU software on it, but very little, if any, GNU software is at the OS level.
Thanks to Bill Gates, people now think that the browser is part of the OS. Thanks to RMS, people who would otherwise know better think that text editors and compilers are as well.
On an old 1.33MHz Athlon, I had two partitions for each of FreeBSD and Gentoo Linux. Under FreeBSD, I could continue working on my desktop as normal while updating KDE from source. I don't even notice the load. Under Gentoo I could do the same thing, but I did notice the load. Stuff was noticably sluggish.
Besides, I think FreeBSD's ports system is more robust than Gentoo's.
I'm taking a class from a really tough professor. 10% of the grade was based on the midterm, 90% on the final term paper. The term paper was due on the last day of class of the spring quarter. This was back in the days of 8088's. I had an awesome term paper written up in WordStar. Carefully researched, yada, yada, yada. I print it up the night before, pick it up in the morning, check to make sure it's my paper and not my roommates, and hand it in to the prof. Summer vacation! Yahoo!
Sometime around July my grades arrive in the mail. I got an F. Aaaargh. It was the first F I had ever received in my life. Around August the term paper is mailed back (nice of the prof), and I promptly threw it across the room. It landed on the wall and slid down behind my bed. Otherwise I might have ripped it to shreds and you, the ever patient reader, would never hear the punch line.
Cleaning up my room around November, I found the paper. I had gotten over most of my anguish at failing grade. I was currently taking this same class all over again, just to expunge that black mark from my record. So I started reading the prof's comments to see what I had done horribly wrong, so I wouldn't get another emotionally scarring grade.
First page looked good. Second page looked good. No wait! I didn't write that stuff! The entire rest of the paper was from other documents on the system, plus some random gibberish. WTF!
Lesson learned. Always proofread the entire paper in hardcopy before submitting it. Perhaps the professor might have realized what happened and contacted me before assigning me an F. Or maybe he assumed I was trying to fool him, that he wouldn't actually read the whole paper. In any case, an agonizing failing grade that still leaves a scar upon my soul.
Bingo! I hate all these new motherboards that advertise RAID-0 onboard, as if they were worth anything. First, half of the necessary implementation is a Windows-only driver. Second, they imply that you should set up your whole system as RAID-0 [since they come with only two disk controllers].
I just believe that there has to be a reasonably rich set of titles available for Linux. It must include everything from games to tax preparation software.
I agree. Linux isn't going to get accepted by the mainstream consumer until they have a shrink-wrapped commercial package for everything they currently use. Unfortunately, many Linux users don't like paying for software. How many people have purchased StarOffice for Linux as opposed to downloading free-beer OpenOffice?
Do you really need to hold 20Gigs of video footage in RAM+swap all at the same time? Really?
I fear the day when MSWord requires 4Gig RAM to run just because five users out there might want to embed a uncompressed video in their weekly status report...
His old 640K quote was woefully uninformed. Even without the GUI and a multiuser environment, that's still a pretty low number. All you got to do is say "16 bit microprocessor" and suddenly the limitions of 640K become obviously apparent.
But the 4Gig quote might be more on target. I'm not going to look out fifty years from now and say it will still hold, but neither is Bill. He's saying he can't think of any desktop applications that would need more than that. Frankly, neither can I. I can think of some database applications running on a server administered by a nincompoop that might need more. I can think of some atmospheric modeling simulations that might need more. But for the life of me I can't think of any word processor that would need more than that.
Of course, the operative word here is "need". I can easily imagine software out there that might require it because the programmer was lazy, but it won't "need" it in the sense that you could get the exact same feature set with one gig with a competent programmer.
I was merely pointing out that Windows is not the perfect OS that many of you think it is. Everytime some distro comes out there are dozens of posts here saying "Linux cannot win until..." and then proceed to name stuff that Windows does not do well, or doesn't do at all.
On the average Windows box, you put the CD in and a dialog box pops up offering to install it. Is that too complicated for you?
Did you actually read my post? The common claim is that for Linux to win, it must be able to run all of the software on the store shelves. But Windows cannot do this. You cannot buy a piece of Macintosh software at Best Buy and successfully install it on Windows. I thought that was obvious!
On the other hand, I've never had a problem installing *shrink-wrap* Linux software under Linux. Of course you're going to have problems installing Windows software on Linux, just as you would have installing Linux software on Windows.
What's the standard way to install a Linux app?
If it's something you downloaded off the net, then there's no standard way. This is similar to Windows programs downloaded off the net. Sometimes they're executable installers. Sometimes they're zip files that have an installer in them. Sometimes they're zip files that just have a README saying where to move everything (ugh).
But shrink-wrapped software is a different story. This is commmercial software that the distributors have made installable in standard ways. For Windows this means an autorun file on the CD the launches the installer. For Linux software this means there will be an install script of executable that installs the software.
This isn't about RPM vs DEB vs portage or any of that nonsense. You don't get that mess when you buy shrink-wrapped Linux software. Underneath it may still be an RPM file, but even if it is, there's an installation script so you don't have to worry about it.
This observation is based on direct first hand knowledge of shrink-wrapped Linux software that includes CivCTP, SimCity3K, Opera and StarOffice.
Really? You find them confusing? Wow!
No, I don't find the two different menu styles in WinXP to be confusing. But NEITHER do I find the KDE vs GNOME confusing, or even FOX vs FLTK widget sets confusing.
The common complaint against Linux is that there must be one mandatory desktop and widget set, or it will fail. This is bullshit. Windows has a Win9x widget set, a WinXP widget set and a.NET widget set, and no one bitches about it. WinAmp doesn't look like MediaPlayer doesn't look like Quicktime, but no one bitches about it.
Do you even use Windows? Here's what Windows needs to do if it wants to be a viable operating system:
1) It must seamlessly deal with plug-and-pray peripherals. I sold my old computer last month. Yesterday he called up complaining that the video and audio cards weren't being recognized by the Windows 2000 he installed. Thing is, Win2K out of the box doesn't support the Soundblaster 128PCI or Matrox G450+ out of the box. You still need to specifically install the manufacturer supplied drivers to get them to work. A friend of mine upgraded to WinXP, then found that no WinXP drivers existed for his all-in-one printer-scanner-copier. Not from Microsoft, not from the manufacturer, no where.
2) There must be a way that the average user can easily install software that they purchase at Best Buy. There's an easy way to install Linux software on Linux. But no way to install Linux software on Windows. Or Mac software on Windows. Face it, Windows won't run every piece of shrink-wrapped software available at Best Buy.
3) Microsoft needs to standardize on one single look. It's simply too damned confusing between the new XP menus and the old classic menus. And Microsoft needs to firmly and forcefully halt OEMs from bundling non-Microsoft software with their computers. No more WinAmp preinstalled! No more Quicktime preinstalled. No more McAfee, Symantic or AVG preinstalled. End the confusion!
They decided to trust that their club members would hold off distributing the isos just for the short time of two weeks. In my mind that would've been the decent thing to do.
Yes, that would have been the decent thing to do. But it's still against the spirit of the GPL. The GPL legalese says you can't demand a user not distribute the ISO. The essense of the GPL implies that you shouldn't ask this either.
What if this wasn't Mandrake? What if this was Sun, or Apple or even Microsoft? What would the FSF say if Microsoft told there UNIX Services users "don't redistribute the stuff that came from GNU"? There isn't any clause in their EULA forbidding it, but they're still saying "don't do it". You know full well that the FSF would be all over them like flies on you-know-what.
p.s. Of course, I think you're mischaracterizing the Mandrake Club. My understanding was that they merely got immediate access to certain ftp repositories, and that they were never requested, however politely, to refrain from redistribution.
This is what happens when you have an economy run off the whims of idiots.
The economy is run by us. We're the consumers. We're the ones making the dollars and euros move around. And yes, a lot of us are indeed idiots.
Chasing after stock prices is stupid. I thought we got over this silly obsession when the dot bombed. But I guess not. People tried to make a quick buck in the tulip futures market two hundred years ago. They're still trying to make a quick buck today on stocks. People need to get it through their heads that there is no quick buck out there. The value of a stock is a share in a company, not the price of the certificate.
I don't want to own any stock in a company that doesn't produce any value to the economy. If they don't have a product or service, I'm taking my investment dollars elsewhere. I'm not a psychic, so I'm not putting my money in a company that could implode overnight while I sleep.
SCO is going to implode. They don't offer a product. They don't offer a service. They don't add any value to the economy. They're going to lose this lawsuit and when they do their stock price is going to be two cents. But it's going to implode long before then. It will happen when the public realizes they're full of hot air.
But in the meantime, people are trying to get rich. Good. That means they'll lose their shirts, and make way for the rest of us. The fact that you can't make a quick buck needs to be hammered into the public consciousness, and hammered repeatedly.
Off the top of my head there are any of the three BSD libc's, and Dinkumware. There's also the old libc5, but it might possibly belong to GNU, even though it is labeled "The Linux C Library", and is about half BSD code.
Since all libc's are supposed to have a standard API, it should a trivial matter to replace them. Unfortunately, glibc has numerous extensions that a lot of programs use, preventing their portability.
he asks that the combination of Linus's kernel and the GNU suite be called GNU/Linux
What is this "GNU suite" thing you refer to? RMS has talked about The GNU System, but never the "GNU suite".
Maybe your just mispoke "The GNU System." Fine. If it were truly the case that Redhat/SuSE/Mandrake/etc were merely the combination of the Linux kernel and The GNU System, then RMS would at least have a case. But there was no GNU System when Linux came out. It didn't exist when Linux became a usable operating system.
Actually, that's the definition of an operating system. I think you've been brainwashed by RMS, who refers to GNU Chess as an operating system component. But to be fair, you might have been brainwashed by Bill Gates, who claims that the browser is part of the OS as well.
Applications written for GNU/Linux, require glibc.
They do not. There are other libc's that can be used. In fact, you don't even need a libc. The kernel doesn't need it. But even if I am wrong, what rule states that the OS must be named after the C library? There's lots of Windows systems that use DinkumWare for their libc. Should these be called "DinkumWare/Windows?".
That's nothing! Back in the day I used to try to optimize my code to the rpm of the drum memory. Unfortunately, I made an off-by-one error and the memory vibrated off its axis, rolled across the room killing two admins and a janitor, before crashing through the walls of Fubar Hall to terrorize the art majors in the quad.
After that I switched to mercury resonance memory for my development. Surely no one could get hurt with that...
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And something is a part of the OS if you can't remove it without breaking the system.
I can remove emacs without breaking the system, yet emacs was the first "component" of the GNU operating system. Likewise, I can deal without 99% of the GNU utilities on a Linux system. Does that remaining 1% sufficient to call the whole thing by the name "GNU"?
Most of American knows nothing about science.
That's because we inherited our intellectual rigor from the same people that brought you crop circles and the Coddington Fairies. Our tabloids are pale imitations of the famed anti-intellectual tabloids of London.
Reading most of these posts here, I think the mere existance of FreeBSD is insulting to Linux users. For all their talk of freedom, they just can't stand it when someone uses a different OS.
Scenario. You build a FreeBSD kernel and give it to your friend (it would be wrong to deny your friend if he asks and is in need of a working kernel).
If that kernel is "uncontaminated", you need not worry about a thing. It's truly free with no strings attached. You have no further obligations.
But what if that kernel was "contaminated" by the GPLd ext2fs code? Now you do need to worry. You need to give your friend the source code, or make a guarantee that your will provide him the source code anytime during the next three years if he ever asks. You can't just give him the kernel anymore without incurring legally binding obligations to your friend.
That's pretty minor stuff, really. It's just your friend, right? But what if you put that kernel on your website? Suddenly your are under legal obligations to thousands of people you've never met. Or what if you're an embedded software developer, and that kernel is embedded into a million consumer routers shipped all across the world?
Or worst of all, what if that kernel also contained a driver for your own proprietary hardware? Even though your driver is in no way derivative of the GPL ext2fs, the rules of the GPL say you must still treat it as such.
The big concern in BSDland is not "free versus unfree", but rather "encumbered versus unencumbered." We don't want encumbered software, and the GPL is encumbering in some minor but very real ways.
The operating system is Linux. Nothing from the shell on up is part of the OS. Sure, a Linux distro is going to have scads of GNU software on it, but very little, if any, GNU software is at the OS level.
Thanks to Bill Gates, people now think that the browser is part of the OS. Thanks to RMS, people who would otherwise know better think that text editors and compilers are as well.
On an old 1.33MHz Athlon, I had two partitions for each of FreeBSD and Gentoo Linux. Under FreeBSD, I could continue working on my desktop as normal while updating KDE from source. I don't even notice the load. Under Gentoo I could do the same thing, but I did notice the load. Stuff was noticably sluggish.
Besides, I think FreeBSD's ports system is more robust than Gentoo's.
I wouldn't know, since I can't even install Linux on my brand new system. So I run FreeBSD instead.
Come on man, get a clue! Everyone knows that typing "celebrity pr0n J-lo and Britney" is several orders of magnitude faster than four mouse clicks.
And to think they didn't need WinFS or ReiserFS to do it! Maybe the hiearchical filesystem isn't as obsolete as everyone thinks it is.
RAID, even RAID-0, is pretty pointless if you only have one drive.
New in OpenBSD. FreeBSD 3.0 is getting long in the tooth. Works great for me, but it's read only.
I'm taking a class from a really tough professor. 10% of the grade was based on the midterm, 90% on the final term paper. The term paper was due on the last day of class of the spring quarter. This was back in the days of 8088's. I had an awesome term paper written up in WordStar. Carefully researched, yada, yada, yada. I print it up the night before, pick it up in the morning, check to make sure it's my paper and not my roommates, and hand it in to the prof. Summer vacation! Yahoo!
Sometime around July my grades arrive in the mail. I got an F. Aaaargh. It was the first F I had ever received in my life. Around August the term paper is mailed back (nice of the prof), and I promptly threw it across the room. It landed on the wall and slid down behind my bed. Otherwise I might have ripped it to shreds and you, the ever patient reader, would never hear the punch line.
Cleaning up my room around November, I found the paper. I had gotten over most of my anguish at failing grade. I was currently taking this same class all over again, just to expunge that black mark from my record. So I started reading the prof's comments to see what I had done horribly wrong, so I wouldn't get another emotionally scarring grade.
First page looked good. Second page looked good. No wait! I didn't write that stuff! The entire rest of the paper was from other documents on the system, plus some random gibberish. WTF!
Lesson learned. Always proofread the entire paper in hardcopy before submitting it. Perhaps the professor might have realized what happened and contacted me before assigning me an F. Or maybe he assumed I was trying to fool him, that he wouldn't actually read the whole paper. In any case, an agonizing failing grade that still leaves a scar upon my soul.
Bingo! I hate all these new motherboards that advertise RAID-0 onboard, as if they were worth anything. First, half of the necessary implementation is a Windows-only driver. Second, they imply that you should set up your whole system as RAID-0 [since they come with only two disk controllers].
I just believe that there has to be a reasonably rich set of titles available for Linux. It must include everything from games to tax preparation software.
I agree. Linux isn't going to get accepted by the mainstream consumer until they have a shrink-wrapped commercial package for everything they currently use. Unfortunately, many Linux users don't like paying for software. How many people have purchased StarOffice for Linux as opposed to downloading free-beer OpenOffice?
Do you really need to hold 20Gigs of video footage in RAM+swap all at the same time? Really?
I fear the day when MSWord requires 4Gig RAM to run just because five users out there might want to embed a uncompressed video in their weekly status report...
His old 640K quote was woefully uninformed. Even without the GUI and a multiuser environment, that's still a pretty low number. All you got to do is say "16 bit microprocessor" and suddenly the limitions of 640K become obviously apparent.
But the 4Gig quote might be more on target. I'm not going to look out fifty years from now and say it will still hold, but neither is Bill. He's saying he can't think of any desktop applications that would need more than that. Frankly, neither can I. I can think of some database applications running on a server administered by a nincompoop that might need more. I can think of some atmospheric modeling simulations that might need more. But for the life of me I can't think of any word processor that would need more than that.
Of course, the operative word here is "need". I can easily imagine software out there that might require it because the programmer was lazy, but it won't "need" it in the sense that you could get the exact same feature set with one gig with a competent programmer.
I was merely pointing out that Windows is not the perfect OS that many of you think it is. Everytime some distro comes out there are dozens of posts here saying "Linux cannot win until..." and then proceed to name stuff that Windows does not do well, or doesn't do at all.
.NET widget set, and no one bitches about it. WinAmp doesn't look like MediaPlayer doesn't look like Quicktime, but no one bitches about it.
On the average Windows box, you put the CD in and a dialog box pops up offering to install it. Is that too complicated for you?
Did you actually read my post? The common claim is that for Linux to win, it must be able to run all of the software on the store shelves. But Windows cannot do this. You cannot buy a piece of Macintosh software at Best Buy and successfully install it on Windows. I thought that was obvious!
On the other hand, I've never had a problem installing *shrink-wrap* Linux software under Linux. Of course you're going to have problems installing Windows software on Linux, just as you would have installing Linux software on Windows.
What's the standard way to install a Linux app?
If it's something you downloaded off the net, then there's no standard way. This is similar to Windows programs downloaded off the net. Sometimes they're executable installers. Sometimes they're zip files that have an installer in them. Sometimes they're zip files that just have a README saying where to move everything (ugh).
But shrink-wrapped software is a different story. This is commmercial software that the distributors have made installable in standard ways. For Windows this means an autorun file on the CD the launches the installer. For Linux software this means there will be an install script of executable that installs the software.
This isn't about RPM vs DEB vs portage or any of that nonsense. You don't get that mess when you buy shrink-wrapped Linux software. Underneath it may still be an RPM file, but even if it is, there's an installation script so you don't have to worry about it.
This observation is based on direct first hand knowledge of shrink-wrapped Linux software that includes CivCTP, SimCity3K, Opera and StarOffice.
Really? You find them confusing? Wow!
No, I don't find the two different menu styles in WinXP to be confusing. But NEITHER do I find the KDE vs GNOME confusing, or even FOX vs FLTK widget sets confusing.
The common complaint against Linux is that there must be one mandatory desktop and widget set, or it will fail. This is bullshit. Windows has a Win9x widget set, a WinXP widget set and a
Do you even use Windows? Here's what Windows needs to do if it wants to be a viable operating system:
1) It must seamlessly deal with plug-and-pray peripherals. I sold my old computer last month. Yesterday he called up complaining that the video and audio cards weren't being recognized by the Windows 2000 he installed. Thing is, Win2K out of the box doesn't support the Soundblaster 128PCI or Matrox G450+ out of the box. You still need to specifically install the manufacturer supplied drivers to get them to work. A friend of mine upgraded to WinXP, then found that no WinXP drivers existed for his all-in-one printer-scanner-copier. Not from Microsoft, not from the manufacturer, no where.
2) There must be a way that the average user can easily install software that they purchase at Best Buy. There's an easy way to install Linux software on Linux. But no way to install Linux software on Windows. Or Mac software on Windows. Face it, Windows won't run every piece of shrink-wrapped software available at Best Buy.
3) Microsoft needs to standardize on one single look. It's simply too damned confusing between the new XP menus and the old classic menus. And Microsoft needs to firmly and forcefully halt OEMs from bundling non-Microsoft software with their computers. No more WinAmp preinstalled! No more Quicktime preinstalled. No more McAfee, Symantic or AVG preinstalled. End the confusion!
They decided to trust that their club members would hold off distributing the isos just for the short time of two weeks. In my mind that would've been the decent thing to do.
Yes, that would have been the decent thing to do. But it's still against the spirit of the GPL. The GPL legalese says you can't demand a user not distribute the ISO. The essense of the GPL implies that you shouldn't ask this either.
What if this wasn't Mandrake? What if this was Sun, or Apple or even Microsoft? What would the FSF say if Microsoft told there UNIX Services users "don't redistribute the stuff that came from GNU"? There isn't any clause in their EULA forbidding it, but they're still saying "don't do it". You know full well that the FSF would be all over them like flies on you-know-what.
p.s. Of course, I think you're mischaracterizing the Mandrake Club. My understanding was that they merely got immediate access to certain ftp repositories, and that they were never requested, however politely, to refrain from redistribution.
This is what happens when you have an economy run off the whims of idiots.
The economy is run by us. We're the consumers. We're the ones making the dollars and euros move around. And yes, a lot of us are indeed idiots.
Chasing after stock prices is stupid. I thought we got over this silly obsession when the dot bombed. But I guess not. People tried to make a quick buck in the tulip futures market two hundred years ago. They're still trying to make a quick buck today on stocks. People need to get it through their heads that there is no quick buck out there. The value of a stock is a share in a company, not the price of the certificate.
I don't want to own any stock in a company that doesn't produce any value to the economy. If they don't have a product or service, I'm taking my investment dollars elsewhere. I'm not a psychic, so I'm not putting my money in a company that could implode overnight while I sleep.
SCO is going to implode. They don't offer a product. They don't offer a service. They don't add any value to the economy. They're going to lose this lawsuit and when they do their stock price is going to be two cents. But it's going to implode long before then. It will happen when the public realizes they're full of hot air.
But in the meantime, people are trying to get rich. Good. That means they'll lose their shirts, and make way for the rest of us. The fact that you can't make a quick buck needs to be hammered into the public consciousness, and hammered repeatedly.
Off the top of my head there are any of the three BSD libc's, and Dinkumware. There's also the old libc5, but it might possibly belong to GNU, even though it is labeled "The Linux C Library", and is about half BSD code.
Since all libc's are supposed to have a standard API, it should a trivial matter to replace them. Unfortunately, glibc has numerous extensions that a lot of programs use, preventing their portability.
he asks that the combination of Linus's kernel and the GNU suite be called GNU/Linux
What is this "GNU suite" thing you refer to? RMS has talked about The GNU System, but never the "GNU suite".
Maybe your just mispoke "The GNU System." Fine. If it were truly the case that Redhat/SuSE/Mandrake/etc were merely the combination of the Linux kernel and The GNU System, then RMS would at least have a case. But there was no GNU System when Linux came out. It didn't exist when Linux became a usable operating system.
That's the definition of a kernel.
Actually, that's the definition of an operating system. I think you've been brainwashed by RMS, who refers to GNU Chess as an operating system component. But to be fair, you might have been brainwashed by Bill Gates, who claims that the browser is part of the OS as well.
Applications written for GNU/Linux, require glibc.
They do not. There are other libc's that can be used. In fact, you don't even need a libc. The kernel doesn't need it. But even if I am wrong, what rule states that the OS must be named after the C library? There's lots of Windows systems that use DinkumWare for their libc. Should these be called "DinkumWare/Windows?".
That's nothing! Back in the day I used to try to optimize my code to the rpm of the drum memory. Unfortunately, I made an off-by-one error and the memory vibrated off its axis, rolled across the room killing two admins and a janitor, before crashing through the walls of Fubar Hall to terrorize the art majors in the quad.
After that I switched to mercury resonance memory for my development. Surely no one could get hurt with that...
You're absolutely right. I'm a beer bigot, so that for me, any potable alchohol must come from grain.