After all, a ~500MHz, 128Mb RAM desktop PC is barely useful for Windows 2k or XP, but still works fine as a Linux desktop.
I dual-boot Debian and XP on a K6-II, 500Mhz, 512Mb RAM PC.
XP runs smoother.
That's because XP is just memory-hungry, but my CPU usage will be most of the time below 30%. KDE is relatively cheap on memory, but very very taxing on processing.
So I mostly don't use Debian, now that GNU Octave has a Win32 port, and I might as well get rid of it when the need for HD space arises.
How hard do you think it is for someone to switch from a properly functioning product (Mac/Windows/commercial Unix) to an inferior similar that costs +inf% less than what they used?
I happen to like cashmere and silk, but most of my clothing is cotton or cotton+polyester.
I think everyone has seen the creepy creepy creepy plunge the S&P 500 has taken the September 10th, 2001.
But just looky at the MSFT chart, specially if compared with the S&P 500 chart plot for the same period.
MSFT has dived a whole 10% in one week.
Yes, it's nothing as obvious and strong as the September 10th mini-crash, but leaked sources don't exactly mean the same as the world as we know it being under attack.
While I don't keep my computer on for days, I "hybernate" instead of "shutting down", something that essentially dumps my RAM to permanent storage and recovers the whole thing when I boot back up. I've done that for three-four months before noticeable performance effects.
But then again, I run Firebird and Thunderbird and SIM (the best icq/msn oss clone out there) and generally software I trust to work okay. Microsoft is just not good at the web browser/email client game, and perhaps they should just let those go, and partner with someone who can actually write those things and make them good.
IE and Outlook Express have done more damage to Windows' reputation than any of its own bugs.
Really, there's been only one serious XP bug so far. When you compare it to dozens of nightmare linux stories of frying standard hardware. No one being held responsible for those because it's "free software, use it at yor own risk", et cetera.
if you install potentially malicious software from unknown sources, you're bound to end up with a broken system. this is not a flaw in the OS.
if you install potentially malicious software from unknown sources, you're bound to end up with a broken system. this is not a flaw in the OS.
if you install potentially malicious software from unknown sources, you're bound to end up with a broken system. this is not a flaw in the OS.
Sure, I can write a fake su or sudo in three lines of bash script. The way beginner Linux distros sudo their way to hell, zillions of users will be affected by this the day Linux gets to the vast unwashed desktop masses.
The _current_ exchange rates and the _theoretical_ exchange rates are quite different. The current exchange rates are either determined in financial markets or by governments, according to the conditions of the international payment balance.
The theoretical exchange rate is commonly called a PPP (power of purchase parity) exchange rate, and is evaluated by comparing the cost of simmilar baskets of products in different countries.
This can be tricky, as seldom the very same product exists all over the world - and if it does, the costs involved can be very different because of relative prices. "The Economist" often publishes the Big Mac Index, which attempts to estimate the theoretical (PPP) exchange rate comparing the prices of Big Macs all over the world - since it's a product that's pretty much the same everywhere and involves the same costs.
When current exchange rates are unbalanced, there's a strong effect over the importation/exportation ratio. In Brazil, during the mid-90's, US$ 1 was approximately R$ 1, which was totally insane in PPP terms. It was a time during which everyone bought imported goods insanely, and travelled a lot abroad - while people coming to Brazil, specially from other latin american countries, could barely afford a can of coke. That happened because the government wanted to control inflation - and it pretty much worked. But after a while, it lead to a major financial crisis, because there weren't any dollars to pay the importation - exportation balance, and they had to let the dollar rate fluctuate in the financial markets.
If one was to do a very extensive PPP research that took into comparison prices like this, perhaps some of these distortions will be elliminated. But then again, there's the "just under 1 buck" factor. In any case, this should serve as a big caveat when comparing cost of living in different countries.
In contrast to the numerous Linux distributions, there are only three open source BSDs. Each BSD project maintains its own source tree and its own kernel. In practice, though, there appear to be fewer divergences between the userland code of the projects than there is in Linux.
It is difficult to categorize the goals of each project: the differences are very subjective. Basically,
*
FreeBSD aims for high performance and ease of use by end users, and is a favourite of web content providers. It runs on PCs and Compaq's Alpha processors. The FreeBSD project has significantly more users than the other projects.
*
NetBSD aims for maximum portability: ``of course it runs NetBSD''. It runs on machines from palmtops to large servers, and has even been used on NASA space missions. It is a particularly good choice for running on old non-Intel hardware.
*
OpenBSD aims for security and code purity: it uses a combination of the open source concept and rigorous code reviews to create a system which is demonstrably correct, making it the choice of security-conscious organizations such as banks, stock exchanges and US Government departments. Like NetBSD, it runs on a number of platforms.
There are also two additional BSD UNIX operating systems which are not open source, BSD/OS and Apple's Mac OS(R) X:
*
BSD/OS is the oldest of the 4.4BSD derivatives. It is not open source, though source code licenses are available at relatively low cost. It resembles FreeBSD in many ways.
*
Mac OS X is the latest version of the operating system for Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh(R) line. The BSD core of this operating system, Darwin, is available as a fully functional open source operating system for x86 and PPC computers. The Aqua/Quartz graphics system and many other proprietary aspects of Mac OS X remain closed-source, however. Several Darwin developers are also FreeBSD committers, and vice-versa.
The SFU page still has a lot of pricing information, and the.exe you can download is a beta. Sure, they could have switched to the classic Mirabilis strategy of making every product a beta, but it's still not clear if it is to remain free-beer.
Two things that seem to speed up the "refillment" of noradrenaline after you're busted out are soy nuts and bananas. Don't have any info on that, it's just my empirical case.
Caffeine might heighten your short-term intellectual awareness, but overall it diminishes your intellectual performance. Mainly because
1) You are less able to focus while on caffeine.
2) All that caffeine does is speed up the consumption of noradrenaline in your brain. For a while I tried to take heavy doses so I could cram a lot of study in little time, but one's brain has a limited stock of noradrenaline that takes some time to refill, and if you take too much of it and/or try to renew the effect after it's wearing out, you're bound to be _really fscking dumb_ for a period of time that will vary with your intake. I remember situations where I was totally braindead for three or four days. It can be despairing.
My academic record has improved immensely since I started taking caffeine only for entertainment purposes (and during my vacations!). Please, save yourself the trouble I got myself into. (
Slashdot Mirror
"The young, being immature and impulsive, always attempt to do the impossible - and achieve it, generation after generation".
After all, a ~500MHz, 128Mb RAM desktop PC is barely useful for Windows 2k or XP, but still works fine as a Linux desktop.
I dual-boot Debian and XP on a K6-II, 500Mhz, 512Mb RAM PC.
XP runs smoother.
That's because XP is just memory-hungry, but my CPU usage will be most of the time below 30%. KDE is relatively cheap on memory, but very very taxing on processing.
So I mostly don't use Debian, now that GNU Octave has a Win32 port, and I might as well get rid of it when the need for HD space arises.
Duh.
How hard do you think it is for someone to switch from a properly functioning product (Mac/Windows/commercial Unix) to an inferior similar that costs +inf% less than what they used?
I happen to like cashmere and silk, but most of my clothing is cotton or cotton+polyester.
Duh.
I think everyone has seen the creepy creepy creepy plunge the S&P 500 has taken the September 10th, 2001.
But just looky at the MSFT chart, specially if compared with the S&P 500 chart plot for the same period.
MSFT has dived a whole 10% in one week.
Yes, it's nothing as obvious and strong as the September 10th mini-crash, but leaked sources don't exactly mean the same as the world as we know it being under attack.
Just clicky the charts.
Get them started on Haskell!
To quote themselves, "Haskell is a general purpose, purely functional programming language".
The focus on the high-level "what" rather than the low-level "how" is the distinguishing characteristic of functional programming languages.
Of course, this sortof harks back to the recent debate on how all programmers should know assembly language. Guess what, they don't.
What IS "Firefox" supposed to mean anyway?
I used to tell people "Firebird" was a reference to Igor Stravinsky's seminal ballet. What the foque do I tell them now?
Then again, all you need to do is write software that will display a single color in fullscreen mode reacting to the information you want it to.
It's doable in three lines of VB.
My first contact with GNU was GNU Chess on Win3.1, mind you.
It was a pretty good player (better than the other chess programs I had), but it was so desperately unstable, it'd crash at random times.
Sheesh, some things never change.
but why does every chess player have funny hair?
Once, registering domains was free too :(
While I don't keep my computer on for days, I "hybernate" instead of "shutting down", something that essentially dumps my RAM to permanent storage and recovers the whole thing when I boot back up. I've done that for three-four months before noticeable performance effects.
But then again, I run Firebird and Thunderbird and SIM (the best icq/msn oss clone out there) and generally software I trust to work okay. Microsoft is just not good at the web browser/email client game, and perhaps they should just let those go, and partner with someone who can actually write those things and make them good.
IE and Outlook Express have done more damage to Windows' reputation than any of its own bugs.
Really, there's been only one serious XP bug so far. When you compare it to dozens of nightmare linux stories of frying standard hardware. No one being held responsible for those because it's "free software, use it at yor own risk", et cetera.
Strike that, it would be strange if SCO still had anyone working for them that could code.
Despite their business tactics, the Unix that SCO manufactures is still more stable and reliable for mission-critical tasks than Linux.
Air-traffic control systems don't run no Linux. They either run QNX or SCO.
if you install potentially malicious software from unknown sources, you're bound to end up with a broken system. this is not a flaw in the OS.
if you install potentially malicious software from unknown sources, you're bound to end up with a broken system. this is not a flaw in the OS.
if you install potentially malicious software from unknown sources, you're bound to end up with a broken system. this is not a flaw in the OS.
Sure, I can write a fake su or sudo in three lines of bash script. The way beginner Linux distros sudo their way to hell, zillions of users will be affected by this the day Linux gets to the vast unwashed desktop masses.
Gentlemen, I refer you to this Slashdot post.
The _current_ exchange rates and the _theoretical_ exchange rates are quite different. The current exchange rates are either determined in financial markets or by governments, according to the conditions of the international payment balance.
The theoretical exchange rate is commonly called a PPP (power of purchase parity) exchange rate, and is evaluated by comparing the cost of simmilar baskets of products in different countries.
This can be tricky, as seldom the very same product exists all over the world - and if it does, the costs involved can be very different because of relative prices. "The Economist" often publishes the Big Mac Index, which attempts to estimate the theoretical (PPP) exchange rate comparing the prices of Big Macs all over the world - since it's a product that's pretty much the same everywhere and involves the same costs.
When current exchange rates are unbalanced, there's a strong effect over the importation/exportation ratio. In Brazil, during the mid-90's, US$ 1 was approximately R$ 1, which was totally insane in PPP terms. It was a time during which everyone bought imported goods insanely, and travelled a lot abroad - while people coming to Brazil, specially from other latin american countries, could barely afford a can of coke. That happened because the government wanted to control inflation - and it pretty much worked. But after a while, it lead to a major financial crisis, because there weren't any dollars to pay the importation - exportation balance, and they had to let the dollar rate fluctuate in the financial markets.
If one was to do a very extensive PPP research that took into comparison prices like this, perhaps some of these distortions will be elliminated. But then again, there's the "just under 1 buck" factor. In any case, this should serve as a big caveat when comparing cost of living in different countries.
Not from the featured article, but from here:
4.4 What versions of BSD are available?
In contrast to the numerous Linux distributions, there are only three open source BSDs. Each BSD project maintains its own source tree and its own kernel. In practice, though, there appear to be fewer divergences between the userland code of the projects than there is in Linux.
It is difficult to categorize the goals of each project: the differences are very subjective. Basically,
*
FreeBSD aims for high performance and ease of use by end users, and is a favourite of web content providers. It runs on PCs and Compaq's Alpha processors. The FreeBSD project has significantly more users than the other projects.
*
NetBSD aims for maximum portability: ``of course it runs NetBSD''. It runs on machines from palmtops to large servers, and has even been used on NASA space missions. It is a particularly good choice for running on old non-Intel hardware.
*
OpenBSD aims for security and code purity: it uses a combination of the open source concept and rigorous code reviews to create a system which is demonstrably correct, making it the choice of security-conscious organizations such as banks, stock exchanges and US Government departments. Like NetBSD, it runs on a number of platforms.
There are also two additional BSD UNIX operating systems which are not open source, BSD/OS and Apple's Mac OS(R) X:
*
BSD/OS is the oldest of the 4.4BSD derivatives. It is not open source, though source code licenses are available at relatively low cost. It resembles FreeBSD in many ways.
*
Mac OS X is the latest version of the operating system for Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh(R) line. The BSD core of this operating system, Darwin, is available as a fully functional open source operating system for x86 and PPC computers. The Aqua/Quartz graphics system and many other proprietary aspects of Mac OS X remain closed-source, however. Several Darwin developers are also FreeBSD committers, and vice-versa.
I don't have any information, but aren't closed-source Linuxes like Lindows and Xandros violating the GPL in several places?
The SFU page still has a lot of pricing information, and the .exe you can download is a beta. Sure, they could have switched to the classic Mirabilis strategy of making every product a beta, but it's still not clear if it is to remain free-beer.
If I was to set up a web server, I'd use a Linux+Apache config too. But that's because I ain't got no money, not because I particularly trust Apache.
I remember when it was Multimedia. Now it's open source. So why are we celebrating that IBM is using new hype words to motivate its workers?
So what about their past sins?
Two things that seem to speed up the "refillment" of noradrenaline after you're busted out are soy nuts and bananas. Don't have any info on that, it's just my empirical case.
Caffeine might heighten your short-term intellectual awareness, but overall it diminishes your intellectual performance. Mainly because
1) You are less able to focus while on caffeine.
2) All that caffeine does is speed up the consumption of noradrenaline in your brain. For a while I tried to take heavy doses so I could cram a lot of study in little time, but one's brain has a limited stock of noradrenaline that takes some time to refill, and if you take too much of it and/or try to renew the effect after it's wearing out, you're bound to be _really fscking dumb_ for a period of time that will vary with your intake. I remember situations where I was totally braindead for three or four days. It can be despairing.
My academic record has improved immensely since I started taking caffeine only for entertainment purposes (and during my vacations!). Please, save yourself the trouble I got myself into. (
Gosh, is it even surprising?
Please, gentlemen, repeat with me: "supply and demand". "Supply and demand". "Supply and demand".
A good course in general equilibrium microeconomics would serve highschoolers much better than chemistry or physics topics, you know.
... to the whole concept of push content.
Smart! Not being able to market Linux as a viable desktop environment, market it as a virus!
I'm sure it will do wonders for the public image of the open source community as a whole.