As far as the machine speed is concerned, I find Gnome unusable on a Pentium 100 with some crappy S3 video. Now I admit that this is a pretty lame "workstation."
On the other hand, I find Gnome slow (that is, not "snappy" like KDE) on a PII 400 (running at 448 on a 112mhz FSB) with 128 meg RAM on a LVD drive, with a TNT video card (running the very nice Nvidia provided Xserver.) I hope this qualifies as a "fast box." One of the main points of my post was that on a box that runs KDE "fast" Gnome feels "slow." The question I posed was "what do I gain." Anything can theoretically be made fast by throwing enough hardware at it.
Finally, paraphrasing my general reply, I do use what works for me. I am just interested in others experience and viewpoints on why things are the way they are.
Lots of interesting info. I have run E without Gnome, and I must admit it is quite pretty, but it is not shy about consuming resources.
I would also like to mention that there was a lot of "you should do this or that." I have used several window managers, and I am not a sycophant who can't remember life before "desktops" (i.e. KDE and Gnome, as differentiated from WMs like AfterStep or Xfce (I kind of dig Xfce, even though I am not a big fan of Slowlaris, but I digress.)) My intent was to start a bit of a dialogue, and get a clearer idea of what other people think of these two projects.
I have a general question, and then some personal observations.
First, isn't the religious reason for Gnome the fact that QT is not GPL, and KDE needs QT? Maybe I fundamentally misunderstand the situation, but couldn't the effort that created Gnome have created a GPL work-alike to QT? In fact, as I recall, the KDE developers could not even VIEW the QT source when KDE was originally written, so mimicking the documented interface and functionality of QT should have been trivial (from a design standpoint. I am not trying to minimize the amount of work involved.)
This is not a troll. I intend this as a serious question. I am sure that there is a perfectly valid answer, that is why I am asking.
With the above aside:
In my personal experience KDE is slow on a slow system, and fast on a fast system. On the other hand, Gnome is S-L-O-W on a slow system, and slow on a fast system. As a matter of taste, I prefer KDE's less "frilly" appearance, and find it nice to use. Gnome is not bad, but I don't see what the performance penalty is buying me.
The general response to this question is "Gnome is not slow for me." If this is true for you, perhaps you have some configuration hints you can share. I don't have any benchmarks to back up my impression that Gnome is (considerably) slower than KDE on the same hardware, but a lot of people agree that it is a dog, and I don't think that it is just a conspiracy to get people on a slippery slope of using non-free (lebre) software (in this case QT.)
The short version: Why should I run Gnome instead of KDE, assuming that I don't care about QT licensing quibbles? What do I gain for the (possibly only perceived) poor performance of Gnome.
(To disclaim again, I am posting these questions in good faith.)
I think that this has exposed one of the major rifts in the open source "community."
There is the Stallman camp: Anything other than OSS is wrong. (I know I am taking some liberties here.)
Then there is the Torvalds camp: OSS works really well for a lot of things.
I happen to be a "member" of the second group. I also happen to think that this is the more rational position.
There is no more hypocrisy in Linus contributing to proprietary software than there is in someone writing CGIs in Perl and a math program in C. They are tools, not religions.
Closed thinkers dismiss alternatives out of zealotry. Don't be one!
Unfortunately (for all of us) you are not Microsoft. I think that they are taking the approach that they can survive a tidal wave by pretending that it is an insignificant little splash. It seems like it would be smarter to try to ride it.
I think that mandrake releases more often. I could come out with a Redhat based "pete's Linux version 392" tomorrow. Version numbers are only meaningful in the context of other versions of the same product, and sometimes even that is shaky.
As for MS linux. Let 'em. Makes no difference. If they try to hijack it every copyright holder can individually sue them. I don't know how many people this is, but I would bet copyrights for a typical distro are held by several thousand people, and MS has MIGHTY DEEP POCKETS (that is a lot to lose.)
Besides they will never do it because their whole strategy is to downplay Linux capabilities. If they released a distro it would be "admitting" that Linux has value.
You make interesting points, though I don't think you have proven anything.
I think it is easy to get bogged down with these sort of qualitative arguments.
It is very common for these sort of arguments to be taken on faith or based on some sort of psudo-scientific research. The strength of these arguments is that they cannot be disproven. Their weakness is that they can be no more proven than disproven. I think it is simply wishful thinking on your part that a substantial portion of "great thinkers" secretly use drugs.
I am quite tired of people blaming their problems on society. You know what? We do have a society. There are rules, and there are repercussions for failing to follow those rules. I don't hold those rules as sacred, and in fact they are often quite wrong. I even think that it is our responsibility to break those rules when they are wrong, but this does not absolve one of the repercussions. There are countless individuals that can come up with ways to blame society for improper behavior, but instead choose to the right (and difficult) thing; they take responsibility for themselves. It CAN BE DONE. Anyone who is not in control of his own actions is mentally ill and should be compassionately treated for their illness.
I don't deny the possibility that the brain can be enhanced chemically, but evidence suggests that people who engage in this behavior think it makes them smarter (maybe deeper is a better word) and that people who observe them disagree.
I do happen to have personal experience with the mind-altering drug alcohol, both as the user and as the observer. It has a similar effect. People who are on it think that they are more fun, wittier, and more interesting (maybe even better looking.) Observers tend to find the user more obnoxious.
Just as I side note, I am for legalization of all drugs. I'm not some tight ass who can't have an original thought, or imagine anyone having beliefs other than his own; I just don't believe that drug use is a "geek value."
I don't even have anything against drinking (which I do) or smoking a little grass (which I don't, at least not yet.) I just disagree with the assertions that I can't have an informed opinion about something without experiencing it, the assertion that drug use is part of the geek sub-culture, and that drugs make you smarter (or more insightful or whatever.)
I seem to be rambling.
Anyway, I respect your opinion. As far as I am concerned, this is what slashdot is all about.
1. This Plant person is an academic, not a geek. This is a subtle difference, and there is a HUGE amount of overlap, but she is, maybe 90% academic and 10% geek.
2. IMHO geeks pride them (our) selves on CLEAR HEADEDNESS. The ability to see a beautiful solution to a complex problem. AFAIK drugs tend to make you THINK this is what you are doing, but you are really just going (best stoner voice) "Whoah, chicken hats. No one ever thought of that before! Drugs make me smart."
I always wanted to be smarter that I am. Drugs make you dumb. This is not a geek value.
As a final thought: There may be a lot of drug use by internet users (particularly "internet feminists", whatever those are) but there is also a lot of homosexual, S & M, fat-girl porn on the internet, but that does not make it "prevalent among geeks."
About a week ago I was looking at the Xircom web site. There was a streaming Quicktime presentation on one of the products (The Portstation. It's real nice! I'm all ready for 2.4 with my USB stuff!)
Anyway, I wrote a very professional note to Xircom about how disappointed I am that they choose to limit their market to Windows and MacOS users.
I CCed apple in this message, but it bounced. So I pasted the message into their comments page, making sure that I put To: whoever@xircom.com; CC:whoever@Apple.com at the top.
The idea here is to make Apple realize that they are pushing away potential corporate customers (i.e. the ones who pay the bills) by excluding other major OSes.
I think that we need to make Apple's PAYING customers realize that they should demand the release of a client.
I think that this is much more valuable that a bunch of people who are notorious for not wanting to pay for anything (software) clamoring for a free client.
I understand that your opinion differs from mine, and I am not trying to sway you. I would like to make a couple of clarifying remarks.
I am a capitalist. I respect other people's intellectual property, and expect reciprocation. I have no quarrel with anyone selling software (with or without source) or putting his software into the public domain.
Second, I said "arguably." Perhaps comparing commercial SW vendors with murders was not appropriate, but the purpose of the GPL is only to prevent the explicit freedom of distribution (that is being on the receiving end of distribution) from being taken by another licensee (i.e. commercial software vendor.)
If you wrote a piece of software and put it in the public domain there is a very real possibility that it would be rendered obsolete by proprietary extensions/patches/modifications. This is viewed as more distasteful by people who prefer the GPL than restricting the freedom of licensees to make proprietary extensions/patches/modifications that are distributed in a binary only form.
This is, in my opinion, ARGUABLY more free, hence the quotes.
To summarize, the only freedom that a truly free person must give up is the freedom to deprive others of freedom.
It is true that the GPL is not completely free. Authors (who continue to hold the copyright to there code are making a conscious trade off when choosing the GPL over "freer" licenses.
That choice is to put two major restrictions on the code.
1. A licensee cannot deny the source to others (by action or inaction) when distributing binaries.
2. This holds true even if the licensee makes improvements.
I don't know about any one else, but I would use the GPL if I did not intend to make money on something I had written. But I would feel that I had lost something if I chose to GPL something the I wrote (that is OWNED) and someone violated these two simple stipulations.
Finally, I would like to point out that in a significant way the GPL is more free than public domain software. This is the same way that a country that outlaws murder is more free. Honest people find it liberating to feel there is some protection against being murdered, only murderers lose freedom under this system. In the same way the GPL only prevents (arguably) dishonest people from unfairly profiting from the work of others, while the honest only have their freedoms protected.
For a $1200 desktop IDE does fine. A lot of people spend $30-60k on a server. Many (most?) will happily spent $2000 on a 64bit controller with some nice redundancy, management, and performance characteristics.
I do not dispute that there is a considerable market for IDE, but existing implementations do not satisfy high-end requirements.
I don't deny that there is a place for the kind of config you mention, but it floors me that you really think that this is "all anyone needs."
By the way, slashdot logins are free. You might want to get one.
160 mb works quite nicely on 64 bit PCI, chuckle-head.
You are obviously more familiar with what is happening at a low level than I (or you are a decent BSer), but you don't seem to have experience in the "mission critical" world. I stand behind what I said, at least from a conceptual point of view.
People who are spending real money, in order to make real money, will be buying SCSI for a while longer. I am glad you have found a configuration that satisfies your technical and financial needs, but your requirements are not in line with most server customers.
I don't think Joe User needs SCSI for storing his MP3s, browsing the web, or balancing his check book. IDE definitely has its place, but it is not the enterprise.
New York Second: The amount of time that elapses between a light turning green and a taxi driver honking his horn. ~= 1/1000 seconds
A Quake Key Second: The amount of time that elapses between a "cd key" system being implemented for Quake, and a keygen being released. ~= 1/1000 New York Seconds
"I just got kicked again, let me generate 400 new cd keys."
Of course there will be growing pains, but if CoolGuy can't hit the broad side of a barn with a rocket launcher, and all of a sudden he is jumping, spining, strafing, and hitting every railgun shot (with perfect lead) it is a good guess that CoolGuy needs a little talking to.
Possibly more importantly, people who are part of a real community are FAR less likely to cheat at all, even if it is just a.97 client damage multiplier or something.
No matter how "strong" Carmack's "anti-cheat" device is, it will be circumvented. Some joker will build a workalike to this complex proxy system that "tells the server what it wants to hear."
A real solution would be to build an actual community. This word is bantered around quite a bit, so allow me to explain further.
If people were positively identified by the server, they would be accountable to others on their server for their actions. I think that the Slashdot model would work very well in this situation, in fact probably better than it does on Slashdot.
You could, of course, only allow "known" players to login. You could also allow an "unknown" player to login, but allow any "known" player to, say, kick him out and ban his IP for 20 min.
This could be implemented as simply as a username and password, and as complexly as, say, you must send your username (player name) and the date and time signed by PGP.
"Oh, yeah, I know pete-classic. Naw, he doesn't cheat. Watch out when he has the Railgun though!"
I have been on vacation, and I have not been able (willing) to keep up.
Let me make a general reply to the "I don't have the manual." replies.
Waaah. Wah wah wah.
If you are going to be a system administrator act like one. If you "heard Linux is ready for desktop (l)users." you heard wrong.
Linux is still a "work in progress" to an extent. More importantly, it is a POWERFUL, FLEXABLE system. If you want something where you plug-n-pray run Windows or MacOS. If you are ready to be a system administrator, run UNIX.
Slashdot Mirror
I have already made a general reply, but . . .
;-)
As far as the machine speed is concerned, I find Gnome unusable on a Pentium 100 with some crappy S3 video. Now I admit that this is a pretty lame "workstation."
On the other hand, I find Gnome slow (that is, not "snappy" like KDE) on a PII 400 (running at 448 on a 112mhz FSB) with 128 meg RAM on a LVD drive, with a TNT video card (running the very nice Nvidia provided Xserver.) I hope this qualifies as a "fast box." One of the main points of my post was that on a box that runs KDE "fast" Gnome feels "slow." The question I posed was "what do I gain." Anything can theoretically be made fast by throwing enough hardware at it.
Finally, paraphrasing my general reply, I do use what works for me. I am just interested in others experience and viewpoints on why things are the way they are.
Thanks for replying
-Peter
Wow, I can't believe the activity on this thread!
Lots of interesting info. I have run E without Gnome, and I must admit it is quite pretty, but it is not shy about consuming resources.
I would also like to mention that there was a lot of "you should do this or that." I have used several window managers, and I am not a sycophant who can't remember life before "desktops" (i.e. KDE and Gnome, as differentiated from WMs like AfterStep or Xfce (I kind of dig Xfce, even though I am not a big fan of Slowlaris, but I digress.)) My intent was to start a bit of a dialogue, and get a clearer idea of what other people think of these two projects.
-Peter
I have a general question, and then some personal observations.
First, isn't the religious reason for Gnome the fact that QT is not GPL, and KDE needs QT? Maybe I fundamentally misunderstand the situation, but couldn't the effort that created Gnome have created a GPL work-alike to QT? In fact, as I recall, the KDE developers could not even VIEW the QT source when KDE was originally written, so mimicking the documented interface and functionality of QT should have been trivial (from a design standpoint. I am not trying to minimize the amount of work involved.)
This is not a troll. I intend this as a serious question. I am sure that there is a perfectly valid answer, that is why I am asking.
With the above aside:
In my personal experience KDE is slow on a slow system, and fast on a fast system. On the other hand, Gnome is S-L-O-W on a slow system, and slow on a fast system. As a matter of taste, I prefer KDE's less "frilly" appearance, and find it nice to use. Gnome is not bad, but I don't see what the performance penalty is buying me.
The general response to this question is "Gnome is not slow for me." If this is true for you, perhaps you have some configuration hints you can share. I don't have any benchmarks to back up my impression that Gnome is (considerably) slower than KDE on the same hardware, but a lot of people agree that it is a dog, and I don't think that it is just a conspiracy to get people on a slippery slope of using non-free (lebre) software (in this case QT.)
The short version: Why should I run Gnome instead of KDE, assuming that I don't care about QT licensing quibbles? What do I gain for the (possibly only perceived) poor performance of Gnome.
(To disclaim again, I am posting these questions in good faith.)
-Peter
I think that this has exposed one of the major rifts in the open source "community."
There is the Stallman camp: Anything other than OSS is wrong. (I know I am taking some liberties here.)
Then there is the Torvalds camp: OSS works really well for a lot of things.
I happen to be a "member" of the second group. I also happen to think that this is the more rational position.
There is no more hypocrisy in Linus contributing to proprietary software than there is in someone writing CGIs in Perl and a math program in C. They are tools, not religions.
Closed thinkers dismiss alternatives out of zealotry. Don't be one!
-Peter
This is a well-known phenomenon among military special ops types.
It is common among Ranger school students.
-Peter
Well, I am sorry that you don't like our product.
We have a philosophy that just because something is traditional does not make it the best.
We intend to INNOVATE in the Linux marked. We intend to EMBRACE AND EXTEND current Linux implementations.
I would say more, but we are in our quiet period. You can read more about our philosophy in our business plan at http://peteux.petesoftware.com.
-Peter
I agree with everything you said.
Unfortunately (for all of us) you are not Microsoft. I think that they are taking the approach that they can survive a tidal wave by pretending that it is an insignificant little splash. It seems like it would be smarter to try to ride it.
-Peter
I think that mandrake releases more often. I could come out with a Redhat based "pete's Linux version 392" tomorrow. Version numbers are only meaningful in the context of other versions of the same product, and sometimes even that is shaky.
As for MS linux. Let 'em. Makes no difference. If they try to hijack it every copyright holder can individually sue them. I don't know how many people this is, but I would bet copyrights for a typical distro are held by several thousand people, and MS has MIGHTY DEEP POCKETS (that is a lot to lose.)
Besides they will never do it because their whole strategy is to downplay Linux capabilities. If they released a distro it would be "admitting" that Linux has value.
-Peter
I refer you to my follow-up post
Also, let me clarify my definition of criminals, for my previous comment, as people who victimize other people in violation of the law.
In other words, let's exclude people who use drugs and have consensual sex with other adults in violation of the law, etc.
-Peter
The first born twin DOES NOT OWN the second born twin, whether natural or artificial.
Why is it that when you use the word "clone" everyone loses their minds?
-Peter
You make interesting points, though I don't think you have proven anything.
I think it is easy to get bogged down with these sort of qualitative arguments.
It is very common for these sort of arguments to be taken on faith or based on some sort of psudo-scientific research. The strength of these arguments is that they cannot be disproven. Their weakness is that they can be no more proven than disproven. I think it is simply wishful thinking on your part that a substantial portion of "great thinkers" secretly use drugs.
I am quite tired of people blaming their problems on society. You know what? We do have a society. There are rules, and there are repercussions for failing to follow those rules. I don't hold those rules as sacred, and in fact they are often quite wrong. I even think that it is our responsibility to break those rules when they are wrong, but this does not absolve one of the repercussions. There are countless individuals that can come up with ways to blame society for improper behavior, but instead choose to the right (and difficult) thing; they take responsibility for themselves. It CAN BE DONE. Anyone who is not in control of his own actions is mentally ill and should be compassionately treated for their illness.
I don't deny the possibility that the brain can be enhanced chemically, but evidence suggests that people who engage in this behavior think it makes them smarter (maybe deeper is a better word) and that people who observe them disagree.
I do happen to have personal experience with the mind-altering drug alcohol, both as the user and as the observer. It has a similar effect. People who are on it think that they are more fun, wittier, and more interesting (maybe even better looking.) Observers tend to find the user more obnoxious.
Just as I side note, I am for legalization of all drugs. I'm not some tight ass who can't have an original thought, or imagine anyone having beliefs other than his own; I just don't believe that drug use is a "geek value."
I don't even have anything against drinking (which I do) or smoking a little grass (which I don't, at least not yet.) I just disagree with the assertions that I can't have an informed opinion about something without experiencing it, the assertion that drug use is part of the geek sub-culture, and that drugs make you smarter (or more insightful or whatever.)
I seem to be rambling.
Anyway, I respect your opinion. As far as I am concerned, this is what slashdot is all about.
-Peter
Q: Have you been to the moon?
A: No
Q: How do you know it is rock and not green cheese?
A: Empirical evidence.
I in fact do not use drugs. My conclusions are based on evidence, not experience.
Here is a little evidence for you:
A disproportionately low number PhDs and Nobel laureates use drugs.
A disproportionately high number of high school dropouts and criminals do use drugs.
Two possible conclusions:
1. Stupid people have a propensity for drug usage.
2. Drugs make you stupid.
Respond.
-Peter
1. This Plant person is an academic, not a geek. This is a subtle difference, and there is a HUGE amount of overlap, but she is, maybe 90% academic and 10% geek.
2. IMHO geeks pride them (our) selves on CLEAR HEADEDNESS. The ability to see a beautiful solution to a complex problem. AFAIK drugs tend to make you THINK this is what you are doing, but you are really just going (best stoner voice) "Whoah, chicken hats. No one ever thought of that before! Drugs make me smart."
I always wanted to be smarter that I am. Drugs make you dumb. This is not a geek value.
As a final thought: There may be a lot of drug use by internet users (particularly "internet feminists", whatever those are) but there is also a lot of homosexual, S & M, fat-girl porn on the internet, but that does not make it "prevalent among geeks."
-Peter
About a week ago I was looking at the Xircom web site. There was a streaming Quicktime presentation on one of the products (The Portstation. It's real nice! I'm all ready for 2.4 with my USB stuff!)
Anyway, I wrote a very professional note to Xircom about how disappointed I am that they choose to limit their market to Windows and MacOS users.
I CCed apple in this message, but it bounced. So I pasted the message into their comments page, making sure that I put To: whoever@xircom.com; CC:whoever@Apple.com at the top.
The idea here is to make Apple realize that they are pushing away potential corporate customers (i.e. the ones who pay the bills) by excluding other major OSes.
I think that we need to make Apple's PAYING customers realize that they should demand the release of a client.
I think that this is much more valuable that a bunch of people who are notorious for not wanting to pay for anything (software) clamoring for a free client.
-Peter
I understand that your opinion differs from mine, and I am not trying to sway you. I would like to make a couple of clarifying remarks.
I am a capitalist. I respect other people's intellectual property, and expect reciprocation. I have no quarrel with anyone selling software (with or without source) or putting his software into the public domain.
Second, I said "arguably." Perhaps comparing commercial SW vendors with murders was not appropriate, but the purpose of the GPL is only to prevent the explicit freedom of distribution (that is being on the receiving end of distribution) from being taken by another licensee (i.e. commercial software vendor.)
If you wrote a piece of software and put it in the public domain there is a very real possibility that it would be rendered obsolete by proprietary extensions/patches/modifications. This is viewed as more distasteful by people who prefer the GPL than restricting the freedom of licensees to make proprietary extensions/patches/modifications that are distributed in a binary only form.
This is, in my opinion, ARGUABLY more free, hence the quotes.
To summarize, the only freedom that a truly free person must give up is the freedom to deprive others of freedom.
-Peter
Something is lost.
It is true that the GPL is not completely free. Authors (who continue to hold the copyright to there code
are making a conscious trade off when choosing the GPL over "freer" licenses.
That choice is to put two major restrictions on the code.
1. A licensee cannot deny the source to others (by action or inaction) when distributing binaries.
2. This holds true even if the licensee makes improvements.
I don't know about any one else, but I would use the GPL if I did not intend to make money on something I had
written. But I would feel that I had lost something if I chose to GPL something the I wrote (that is
OWNED) and someone violated these two simple stipulations.
Finally, I would like to point out that in a significant way the GPL is more free than public domain software. This
is the same way that a country that outlaws murder is more free. Honest people find it liberating to feel there is
some protection against being murdered, only murderers lose freedom under this system. In the same way the
GPL only prevents (arguably) dishonest people from unfairly profiting from the work of others, while the honest
only have their freedoms protected.
See?
-Peter
I don't know if you are just baiting me or what.
For a $1200 desktop IDE does fine. A lot of people spend $30-60k on a server. Many (most?) will happily spent $2000 on a 64bit controller with some nice redundancy, management, and performance characteristics.
I do not dispute that there is a considerable market for IDE, but existing implementations do not satisfy high-end requirements.
I don't deny that there is a place for the kind of config you mention, but it floors me that you really think that this is "all anyone needs."
By the way, slashdot logins are free. You might want to get one.
-Peter
160 mb works quite nicely on 64 bit PCI, chuckle-head.
You are obviously more familiar with what is happening at a low level than I (or you are a decent BSer), but you don't seem to have experience in the "mission critical" world. I stand behind what I said, at least from a conceptual point of view.
People who are spending real money, in order to make real money, will be buying SCSI for a while longer. I am glad you have found a configuration that satisfies your technical and financial needs, but your requirements are not in line with most server customers.
I don't think Joe User needs SCSI for storing his MP3s, browsing the web, or balancing his check book. IDE definitely has its place, but it is not the enterprise.
-Peter
High end systems will be using SCSI for a bit.
1. ATA-66 can't touch 160 mb SCSI, even single drive to single drive, with serial access.
2. ATA performs very poorly when multiple reads and writes queue up.
3. SCSI handles large numbers (>4) drives much better, ATA sees problems with just 2 drives per channel.
Maybe ATA-262 will have a shot.
-Peter
I have never known MS to give out free tech support. Maybe 30 days with retail OSes.
It seems like they make OEMs do the support for the most part.
By the way, I do tech support for a major OEM, and I don't think MS pays my company to offset the cost of paying me to support Windows.
I happen to also support Redhat Linux, also installed by my company.
I think your critical thinking skills are rather poor.
-Peter
Uh, DIVX is dead.
-P
New York Second: The amount of time that elapses between a light turning green and a taxi driver honking his horn. ~= 1/1000 seconds
;-)
A Quake Key Second: The amount of time that elapses between a "cd key" system being implemented for Quake, and a keygen being released. ~= 1/1000 New York Seconds
"I just got kicked again, let me generate 400 new cd keys."
Back to the drawing board Mr. Coyote
Of course there will be growing pains, but if CoolGuy can't hit the broad side of a barn with a rocket launcher, and all of a sudden he is jumping, spining, strafing, and hitting every railgun shot (with perfect lead) it is a good guess that CoolGuy needs a little talking to.
.97 client damage multiplier or something.
Possibly more importantly, people who are part of a real community are FAR less likely to cheat at all, even if it is just a
-P
No matter how "strong" Carmack's "anti-cheat" device is, it will be circumvented. Some joker will build a workalike to this complex proxy system that "tells the server what it wants to hear."
A real solution would be to build an actual community. This word is bantered around quite a bit, so allow me to explain further.
If people were positively identified by the server, they would be accountable to others on their server for their actions. I think that the Slashdot model would work very well in this situation, in fact probably better than it does on Slashdot.
You could, of course, only allow "known" players to login. You could also allow an "unknown" player to login, but allow any "known" player to, say, kick him out and ban his IP for 20 min.
This could be implemented as simply as a username and password, and as complexly as, say, you must send your username (player name) and the date and time signed by PGP.
"Oh, yeah, I know pete-classic. Naw, he doesn't cheat. Watch out when he has the Railgun though!"
-Pete
I have been on vacation, and I have not been able (willing) to keep up.
Let me make a general reply to the "I don't have the manual." replies.
Waaah. Wah wah wah.
If you are going to be a system administrator act like one. If you "heard Linux is ready for desktop (l)users." you heard wrong.
Linux is still a "work in progress" to an extent. More importantly, it is a POWERFUL, FLEXABLE system. If you want something where you plug-n-pray run Windows or MacOS. If you are ready to be a system administrator, run UNIX.