Considering the mix-and-match factor of most big-name PC builders (Dell, Compaq, Gateway) is quite low, and the poster mentioned that he wanted to pick his components, a Dell really isn't the way to go.
Not that I mind Dell-- they make great PCs for people that don't really have specific components in mind, and their support is terrific IMO.
This guy is probably best-off going with a local small PC store that will just integrate off-the-shelf hardware. They usually tend to get a better deal (due to volume discounts) on commodity hardware, and he mix and match whatever components he wants.
Besides, once you've built one PC from scratch, its all the same anyway. He could get just as much of a geek 'fix upgrading the PC later.
I use Mandrake and I'm using the packaged installer for Mozilla, partially because the last time I checked the mozilla mdk RPM (1.0-rc2 I think), it required an update of 30-something packages. This, on a newly-installed Mandrake 8.2 system. That is NOT necessary just to install the latest copy of Mozilla.
Quite the contary to your post, I believe the installer version of Mozilla is much more conveinent than the RPM version. It installs the entire application in one folder (/usr/local/mozilla), which you can quickly remove if you need to.
Needless to say, there is a version of the Mozilla installer that includes all of the components (at a sizable 12.5MB download), where you can pick and choose components (I bypassed the mail client and Chatzilla). I still have Mozilla-0.9.8 installed as an RPM (as Nautilus and several other programs require it being there), but I never run that version anymore. 1.0 is all I need.
I really want a Humvee, but I probably couldn't even afford the tires for one. Does that mean it's ok if I just rip one off at the lot?
This is comparing apples to oranges. When you steal a Humvee, someone will be missing that Humvee. When you share a copyrighted song, no one is missing the song. The record label MAY be missing revenue based on that song, provided that you were going to buy it in the first place. I'm not saying that trading copyrighted MP3s is right (the RIAA certainly doesn't think so), but if you are going to make a "you steal from me" comparison, you need to be using the correct context.
Oh, and to the original starter of this thread, there is a license for the "GPLing of music": the Open Audio License.
A Handspring Visor Deluxe 8MB (in an Ice case)... I think they are down to $100-$150 now. I got mine from my employer 2 years ago.
Since it uses PalmOS 3.0 (upgraded to 3.1), and is nearly identical to the Palm series, I'll leave future posters to describe their likes and dislikes with their Palms. The only problem I have come across is a problem with the system's RAM, which Handspring has posted a fix for on their website. Once I patched the problem, it has been working like a charm for the last 2 years. Never had a problem with the screen or touch sensitivity, and even after loading plenty of programs into it, I still have well over half of its RAM left. Even after importing my company's entire LDAP directory into it (via an exported CSV file from the company LDAP server) with 5000-or-so records, I still have plenty of space left to store whatever I please.
I think the biggest reason I like this thing so much is because it was free. Although if it were taken away from me, I'd march right down to my local geek toy store and buy one on the spot.
Re:Fear over action - not the Doom I remember
on
E3 Doom III Preview
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· Score: 2
I don't know about the rest of you but for me Doom was the action orientated gameplay, where for example often you had to take on over a dozen imps with a mere shotgun. It would be great to relive that experience all over again in a 3D fully environment powered by a cutting engine.
According to the Starband website (PC requirements section), Starband can work with either USB or Ethernet. I would think that an Ethernet-based model would work fine.
I think the point is that you *CAN* deinstall Konqueror and KDE will still function. Granted some additional functionality might be missing, but it can be done quite easily via a 'rpm -e' or otherwise.
With IE, there is no way at all to deinstall the program.
IIRC, they *CAN'T* open their driver source for licensing reasons. I believe the NVIDIA drivers borrow (read license) code from SGI for their OpenGL support, and it is against the SGI license for NVIDIA to opensource the drivers.
Hence the reason why we have some nice binary drivers, but no source code to go with it. Have a look at the FreeBSD NVIDIA driver initiative FAQ page for more information regarding this matter.
Personally I think that schools are miserably mismanaged. Quite a few of the people managing the school systems are teachers with no real experience in management or business.
Considering most MBAs and people with "real management experience" would rather take a janitorial position at Microsoft over working for the peanuts that school system employees are paid, I am not convinced by your argument. The only people who are truely qualified to run schools (principals, superintendents) are teachers who have learned a few things by running with the system for a little while, especially in the underpaid and underbudget conditions they are given.
Seriously, I just installed FreeBSD on an old NEC Versa 4000C laptop (P75, 24MB RAM, 6GB HDD) and it works great, sans the minor adjustments I had to make for various components (Xircom 10/100 realport NIC-- not cardbus, ESS sound chip). Base install was just over 500 MB, system sources included. The nice thing about FreeBSD is that you can completely rebuild the system from source after its installed (in fact, it is suggested as keeping part of the STABLE release branch). Once I let the machine sit overnight and recompile itself, it did improve performance a little (much more so on a faster machine, but there you go).
According to the Linux Media Arts website, Broadcast 2000 is still an open source package, however I see no mention of it being under the GPL, nor any place to download it or the source code without actually being a LMA customer.
My guess is that the software is open source while still being a commercial program (ie: not free-as-in-beer-or-as-in-freedom software)
Now if its Macromedia's Shockwave that you are referring to, then yes, it is not currently available on Linux. I gasp at even thinking about people trying to do web sites ENTIRELY in Shockwave...
I believe I did this by de-installing GDM and replacing it with the vanilla XDM. From there, you can specify your window manager (and all other startup programs) via.xsession
I don't know how much familiarity you have with Mandrake, but I've been using it as my desktop OS on 3 boxes since 7.1. You've ALWAYS had the option to deinstall most of the bloat during the install, and it even removes the dependencies for you as well! Every time I've installed it (7.1, 7.2, 8.0, and 8.1), I have simply deselected the qt libraries to get rid of all KDE/qt stuff which I don't really have a use for. Then, just deselect gnome-libs and all the GNOME stuff dies too. Now usually I manually re-add gnome-libs and gnome-libs-devel by themseleves so I can run Gnome apps, and still not have all (of what I consider) the bloat of the GNOME and KDE desktops. You can also opt to install using only the install disk (as opposed to the supplemental disks 2 and 3 with 8.1), to further reduce apps.
In the end, an rpm -qa, then an rpm -qi on each "questionable" package helps me to remove packages that don't sound/look after the install.
These distros aren't "killing Linux", they're just doing what they should be doing-- showing new users the wealth of open source and free software programs available with a wonderful free OS. If you don't like the extra crap, then feel free to not install it/deinstall it later.
I'd rather a newbie have more apps to play with, then him get a stripped-down Linux box with no 'fun' programs and having him ask where all the real software is. Linux could use more desktop market share, and more applications with a default install help to fuel that.
I'm also a Security Engineer, albeit for an ISP and not a backbone provider, but we're all 'working' for Christmas and New Years. Unfortunately for us, we're all on salary and there's no extra pay for holiday work-- all part of our job description. There's 8 of us (for one of the largest national ISPs here in the US)-- each one has a cell phone that's on during the holidays, and the usual on-call rotation.
Thankfully, my on-call rotation didn't go throught Christmas this year and I got to spend the majority of the time with my fiancee and our families. I get the fun of being on-call next week, when all of the good New Year's parties are happening.
That's when I'll be drunk in front of my workstation trying to h@x0r porn sites or something:)
Excessive failed login lockouts are not always the best idea. At the local university, nasty freshmen who want to sabotage another student repeatedly attempt bogus logins to that persons account until it gets locked. Victims find this particularly annoying when an assignment is due the next day and the system administrator has already gone home.
This doesn't really cause a problem with CryptoCards unless the offending student/lUser has access to someone else's actual CryptoCard, since it is not a user's account that gets locked-out, it is the card itself. Anyone that leaves their CryptoCard out so someone else can lockout the card deserves what he/she gets IMO.
I currently maintain the token-based authentication system at my workplace (a large ISP). We use CryptoCards to authenticate users into our secure networks, coupled with their EasyRADIUS server for RADIUS auth. It works pretty well, and requires little maintence on our part (running on what seems like a stone-aged FreeBSD 3.3-STABLE machine) save the occational reboot if our routing equiptment on the inside of the CryptoCard connection freezes-up. My main beef with CryptoCards is their administration utility, cadmin. It offers basic user accounting (via username and group), but it lacks more intuitive cross-referencing capabilities. For instance, if a user were to find someone else's CryptoCard that was lost, and all the card shows is its serial number, there is no easy way to search the database for serial numbers to find the owner of the card! In circumstances like that, I usually have to blank the card, wait for someone to come crying that they lost it, and then reissue it (and scold their manager for letting an irresponsible person have the authorization for a CryptoCard in the first place). All in all, its a pretty OK system to use (I don't have any experience with the others, so I can't compare) save for the small admin headaches I get every once and a while.
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Considering the mix-and-match factor of most big-name PC builders (Dell, Compaq, Gateway) is quite low, and the poster mentioned that he wanted to pick his components, a Dell really isn't the way to go.
Not that I mind Dell-- they make great PCs for people that don't really have specific components in mind, and their support is terrific IMO.
This guy is probably best-off going with a local small PC store that will just integrate off-the-shelf hardware. They usually tend to get a better deal (due to volume discounts) on commodity hardware, and he mix and match whatever components he wants.
Besides, once you've built one PC from scratch, its all the same anyway. He could get just as much of a geek 'fix upgrading the PC later.
I use Mandrake and I'm using the packaged installer for Mozilla, partially because the last time I checked the mozilla mdk RPM (1.0-rc2 I think), it required an update of 30-something packages. This, on a newly-installed Mandrake 8.2 system. That is NOT necessary just to install the latest copy of Mozilla.
Quite the contary to your post, I believe the installer version of Mozilla is much more conveinent than the RPM version. It installs the entire application in one folder (/usr/local/mozilla), which you can quickly remove if you need to.
Needless to say, there is a version of the Mozilla installer that includes all of the components (at a sizable 12.5MB download), where you can pick and choose components (I bypassed the mail client and Chatzilla). I still have Mozilla-0.9.8 installed as an RPM (as Nautilus and several other programs require it being there), but I never run that version anymore. 1.0 is all I need.
I really want a Humvee, but I probably couldn't even afford the tires for one. Does that mean it's ok if I just rip one off at the lot?
This is comparing apples to oranges. When you steal a Humvee, someone will be missing that Humvee. When you share a copyrighted song, no one is missing the song. The record label MAY be missing revenue based on that song, provided that you were going to buy it in the first place. I'm not saying that trading copyrighted MP3s is right (the RIAA certainly doesn't think so), but if you are going to make a "you steal from me" comparison, you need to be using the correct context.
Oh, and to the original starter of this thread, there is a license for the "GPLing of music": the Open Audio License.
A Handspring Visor Deluxe 8MB (in an Ice case)... I think they are down to $100-$150 now. I got mine from my employer 2 years ago.
Since it uses PalmOS 3.0 (upgraded to 3.1), and is nearly identical to the Palm series, I'll leave future posters to describe their likes and dislikes with their Palms. The only problem I have come across is a problem with the system's RAM, which Handspring has posted a fix for on their website. Once I patched the problem, it has been working like a charm for the last 2 years. Never had a problem with the screen or touch sensitivity, and even after loading plenty of programs into it, I still have well over half of its RAM left. Even after importing my company's entire LDAP directory into it (via an exported CSV file from the company LDAP server) with 5000-or-so records, I still have plenty of space left to store whatever I please.
I think the biggest reason I like this thing so much is because it was free. Although if it were taken away from me, I'd march right down to my local geek toy store and buy one on the spot.
I don't know about the rest of you but for me Doom was the action orientated gameplay, where for example often you had to take on over a dozen imps with a mere shotgun. It would be great to relive that experience all over again in a 3D fully environment powered by a cutting engine.
I relived this same experience playing Max Payne.
Check out the City Stories website-- a weblogging community of local events and culture.
According to the Starband website (PC requirements section), Starband can work with either USB or Ethernet. I would think that an Ethernet-based model would work fine.
I think the point is that you *CAN* deinstall Konqueror and KDE will still function. Granted some additional functionality might be missing, but it can be done quite easily via a 'rpm -e' or otherwise.
With IE, there is no way at all to deinstall the program.
Nah... its just rot13 encoding, you know, to protect his true identity.
His real name is Oynfvhf Sybpu
IIRC, they *CAN'T* open their driver source for licensing reasons. I believe the NVIDIA drivers borrow (read license) code from SGI for their OpenGL support, and it is against the SGI license for NVIDIA to opensource the drivers.
Hence the reason why we have some nice binary drivers, but no source code to go with it. Have a look at the FreeBSD NVIDIA driver initiative FAQ page for more information regarding this matter.
Considering most MBAs and people with "real management experience" would rather take a janitorial position at Microsoft over working for the peanuts that school system employees are paid, I am not convinced by your argument. The only people who are truely qualified to run schools (principals, superintendents) are teachers who have learned a few things by running with the system for a little while, especially in the underpaid and underbudget conditions they are given.
I just upgraded to Mozilla 1.0-RC1 this morning, and I am having no trouble with this page (or any others I have visited today for that matter).
I'll bet they add lo-jack to this system, JUST for people like yourself...
Sure, try FreeBSD :>
Seriously, I just installed FreeBSD on an old NEC Versa 4000C laptop (P75, 24MB RAM, 6GB HDD) and it works great, sans the minor adjustments I had to make for various components (Xircom 10/100 realport NIC-- not cardbus, ESS sound chip). Base install was just over 500 MB, system sources included. The nice thing about FreeBSD is that you can completely rebuild the system from source after its installed (in fact, it is suggested as keeping part of the STABLE release branch). Once I let the machine sit overnight and recompile itself, it did improve performance a little (much more so on a faster machine, but there you go).
According to the Linux Media Arts website, Broadcast 2000 is still an open source package, however I see no mention of it being under the GPL, nor any place to download it or the source code without actually being a LMA customer. My guess is that the software is open source while still being a commercial program (ie: not free-as-in-beer-or-as-in-freedom software)
P2P media sharing won't even exist if we don't stop people like Senator Hollings from bending-over for the RIAA and MPAA.
He said his dad bought the card to go with a laptop, which would definitely put it in the $100 - $150 range.
You forgot Celine Dion and William Shattner (yes, he sang the melody on a stange Ben Folds Five love song whose name escapes me at the moment).
They do make a Flash plugin for Linux (I'm using it on Mozilla right now)...
Flash for Linux v5.0r47
Now if its Macromedia's Shockwave that you are referring to, then yes, it is not currently available on Linux. I gasp at even thinking about people trying to do web sites ENTIRELY in Shockwave...
Ok...
$ rpm --rebuild package.src.rpm
done
I believe I did this by de-installing GDM and replacing it with the vanilla XDM. From there, you can specify your window manager (and all other startup programs) via .xsession
I don't know how much familiarity you have with Mandrake, but I've been using it as my desktop OS on 3 boxes since 7.1. You've ALWAYS had the option to deinstall most of the bloat during the install, and it even removes the dependencies for you as well! Every time I've installed it (7.1, 7.2, 8.0, and 8.1), I have simply deselected the qt libraries to get rid of all KDE/qt stuff which I don't really have a use for. Then, just deselect gnome-libs and all the GNOME stuff dies too. Now usually I manually re-add gnome-libs and gnome-libs-devel by themseleves so I can run Gnome apps, and still not have all (of what I consider) the bloat of the GNOME and KDE desktops. You can also opt to install using only the install disk (as opposed to the supplemental disks 2 and 3 with 8.1), to further reduce apps.
In the end, an rpm -qa, then an rpm -qi on each "questionable" package helps me to remove packages that don't sound/look after the install.
These distros aren't "killing Linux", they're just doing what they should be doing-- showing new users the wealth of open source and free software programs available with a wonderful free OS. If you don't like the extra crap, then feel free to not install it/deinstall it later.
I'd rather a newbie have more apps to play with, then him get a stripped-down Linux box with no 'fun' programs and having him ask where all the real software is. Linux could use more desktop market share, and more applications with a default install help to fuel that.
I'm also a Security Engineer, albeit for an ISP and not a backbone provider, but we're all 'working' for Christmas and New Years. Unfortunately for us, we're all on salary and there's no extra pay for holiday work-- all part of our job description. There's 8 of us (for one of the largest national ISPs here in the US)-- each one has a cell phone that's on during the holidays, and the usual on-call rotation.
:)
/.
Thankfully, my on-call rotation didn't go throught Christmas this year and I got to spend the majority of the time with my fiancee and our families. I get the fun of being on-call next week, when all of the good New Year's parties are happening.
That's when I'll be drunk in front of my workstation trying to h@x0r porn sites or something
Happy Hollidays
This doesn't really cause a problem with CryptoCards unless the offending student/lUser has access to someone else's actual CryptoCard, since it is not a user's account that gets locked-out, it is the card itself. Anyone that leaves their CryptoCard out so someone else can lockout the card deserves what he/she gets IMO.
I currently maintain the token-based authentication system at my workplace (a large ISP). We use CryptoCards to authenticate users into our secure networks, coupled with their EasyRADIUS server for RADIUS auth. It works pretty well, and requires little maintence on our part (running on what seems like a stone-aged FreeBSD 3.3-STABLE machine) save the occational reboot if our routing equiptment on the inside of the CryptoCard connection freezes-up. My main beef with CryptoCards is their administration utility, cadmin. It offers basic user accounting (via username and group), but it lacks more intuitive cross-referencing capabilities. For instance, if a user were to find someone else's CryptoCard that was lost, and all the card shows is its serial number, there is no easy way to search the database for serial numbers to find the owner of the card! In circumstances like that, I usually have to blank the card, wait for someone to come crying that they lost it, and then reissue it (and scold their manager for letting an irresponsible person have the authorization for a CryptoCard in the first place). All in all, its a pretty OK system to use (I don't have any experience with the others, so I can't compare) save for the small admin headaches I get every once and a while.