I am glad we understand each others views so well:-)
All too often flames ensue, though as another poster wrote the analogies to politics are somewhat flawed. We're both likely right ironically. Your primary contributions are as a coder, whereas I know enough coding to know that I should keep the hell away from the CVS:-) I'll donate money and clear bug reports instead. I guess the real thing is deb is a dev distro whereas ubuntu is a user distro?
Dam I wanted to mod in this thread but I can't mod you fairly: "fair point but I really disagree" (underrated I suppose?)
Anyway, I feel that a benevolent dictatorship is actually the prize winner in the dev cycle. Once you get into the "please everyone, get a majority vote" mode of operation you run into endless debate as one side tries to convince the other side of the merits of their idea(s). Now I want a unanimous decision on a jury, but for a distro I want a clear path and direction. The dictatorship forces that path to exist. While I may want the path a different color, so long as it's going the same general direction I am then I'm OK with it.
The direction I'm interested in is a mainstream linux that I can deploy on joe sixpack's computer. I want a linux that is as friendly as OSX, and as compatible with hardware as Windows. I want a distro for the masses, and thus while you are entitled to fork it and tweak it, I think the main tree should be ruled by an authoritarian, rather than a committee.
I also think that the "open market" will decide this for us. Suppliers (donors of code and money) will "sell" to their ideals and buyers will install to their needs. -nB
I too was thinking retro. I'm torn between wanting a fully loaded and totally decked out (functional) PDP/11 or a Cray Y/MP . . . but if you want the imagination station:
I want a computer with the following specs: numa memory 1024 bit vector math units (128 of em should do) 64x64bit CISC processors (core two duo EE) a couple dozen of those multithreading jobbies from sun and a full memory addressable array of spartan FPGAs ready to go. For disk I would like 1TB of DDR2 ram battery backed with redundant controllers with lazy write back to FC disk as working disk and 64TB as archive disk. 64GB of numa flat memory should do the trick for all those CPUs (give each one a dedicated gig as well)
That, along with a really cool OS (open BSD perchance?) oh, and I want a wall o monitors (6 or 12 [2x3 or 3x4 array] 22" wide screen deals). -nB
just one more thing.... remember those really old memories that used the persistence of phosphor as memory in a CRT? I want one of those glued on capable of showing the stack of any given CPU as a bitmap, cuz that'd be cool.
Right, so plan "b" then. Uh.... I think it's "password" Didn't work? hmmm... "Password?", nope? "PaSsWoRd?" still no? eh got me! I can't remember. Think I'm lying? prove it. -nB
So thought experiment time... If the computer had HDD encryption and the browser cache/history/etc. was on the encrypted volume would you be protected from divulging the key based on the 5th? I've often said (and believe) that you would be, but failing that there is the ollie north defense of "I forgot" and as I understand it you then could only face contempt (as opposed to the damning evidence on that encrypted volume). -nB
I'm using your router, so while I'm not anonymous I am not me either.:p
Seriously I'm beginning to think that the best defense is to have an open WiFi connection and claim to be a "data communist" when confronted with IP logs. -nB
I hate you. . . . you just proved I've been in the industry too long as I was able to read that without any form of parsing. Now I have to burn down my building and get a job with the construction/cleanup crew. -nB
Yes and no. We should not settle down about having a pre-installed Linux option, but we should settle down on what distro. Specifically I want the following: A mainstream distro with all devices that ship with the PC supported. Whatever is easiest for Dell/HP/Acer/whatever within the above constraint is fine. *Gnome Vs. KDE? I Don't Care (If I want "the other one" I'll change it) *Emacs Vs. VI? IDK *Ubuntu/FC6/Suss10.2/Slackware? IDK (though I think the slack may be a bit too geekish) Give me any mainstream distro, with a desktop and window manager. Give me drivers for all the devices in the box. Make it "nice" to joe sixpack. I'll geek it out myself.
Now what wouldn't hurt is if the community came up with a "tweaked" distro (or even an entirely different build) if Dell would host a repository of.iso files with the good ol "we disclaim any liability from these distros, they are un-supported blah blah blah..." warning. -nB
This was my concern as well. Seeing as I operate a gripe site that has been threatened, I am constantly wary of developments like this. So far I have confidence that I am in the right in my site's right to exist according to US code Title 15 and 22, but all it takes is a big enough lobby group to remove those rights from me.
Partly feeding the troll: My wife is not a MS shill, she is a usability study. In order to gain adoption the replacement must be as drop-in as possible to the application it is replacing. She is as non-geek as they come. Not afraid of the computer, but not wanting to geek one solution when another works easier, even if costlier. This is about the same as the rest of the people in her school that are not in the EE/CS programs. -nB
Anyway, yes this is first hand experience. I have no issue with making it work (I take issue with the insane bloating though). Fact is my wife finds it un-usable and she is basically jane sixpack. If she says it's not good enough then I have to agree. -nB
You are right. I have donated both money and time. My coding skills are nowhere good enough to donate code, but I do my damndest to submit thorough bug reports to developers of apps I use. I've donated money before, and I will again. I'm rather broke so my donations are usually $20 or less, but everything helps. -nB
You've got my vote. That or acquisition talks, but I think licensing is more likely (though it could lead to acquisition in the future, it often does when the licenses are wholesale like this). -nB
Pirate Office or suffer the minor inconviences of OO.o [...] almost nobody who pirates is a heavy user most would find OO.o more than adequate for their needs I have at least one case where this is not true. My wife is working on her masters thesis. OO.o is simply not compatible enough with MS office to be usable. A couple years ago I made a big push to go legit on all my apps. This meant dumping or paying for many tools I use regularly. I own Premiere 6 and PS6, but I was using newer versions. Dumped the newer versions. I was using many instances of windows not licensed, thus having a nice homogeneous network. Now I have a couple win2KPro machines and a couple WinXP Pro machines, my server was migrated to SOL18 (hey, it works for my needs perfectly), and my kids PCs are now running ubuntu and Wine for the reader rabbit software they so love. When it came down to office I tried to migrate to OO.o because of the rather enormous cost of MS office Pro. No dice. Popwerpoint and its OO.o equiv were horribly incompatible. Word and it's equivalent had irreconcilable differences. I simply owned up to having to buy a copy and purchased the student edition, bummer it can't be in two places. I acquired an old site license for office 97 and am using that on all the windows machines other than the wife's notebook.
Until there is a good office suite with exchange compatibility there will be real trouble getting people off windows. Until the linux community comes to an agreement and throws their support to a desktop linux distro and quits with the religious wars there will be trouble getting people off windows (linspire/ubunto maybe?). Until the random hardware from the random computer store plugs and plays on the above intra-distro supported desktop there will be trouble getting people off windows.
Face it. While we can all have our boutique distro, if you want joe sixpack to use linux it the community must standardize on 1 (one) window manager, 1 (one) desktop, and 1 (one) functional application suite. Joe doesn't like choices, joe likes feeling safe with the default choice. -nB
I don't disagree at all with your statement. I simply wanted to provide initial poster with a known working solution to backing up disney DVDs which I have found to be highly problematic in most copy situations. AnyDVD seems to work well at the sector based protection that DVDdecryptor can't handle very well, while DVDdecryptor can rip all the wonderful stream information. AutoGK makes nice reasonable sized files in Xvid or Divx format that XBMC can play flawlessly. It's an end-to-end solution that actually works without some of the asinine setup required for media center clients. My server is an old PIII 550MHz machine with half a gig of ram running SOL18. There is no way I could run WinMCE on this thing to use those retail thin clients, and keeping a P4 on full time seems like a waste. I have two TVs and a stereo, all three of which have an Xbox on them. XBMC allows control via port 80, thus for the stereo I just hop on any PC (including the server) http over to the xbox and start a playlist. -nB
I store all my kids movies on a home server and stream them to an Xbox running XBMC(which can read from a simple SMB share). I made this decision when I had a damaged "Beauty and the Beast" disk. I wrote disney to ask what the replacement cost would be if I turned in the damaged copy and they said "buy a new copy". They are not in stores anymore and I dare you to get in a bidding war on fleabay. So I netflixed it and ripped it. Never looked back. Ripped my entire collection of DVDs and moved them offsite to my parents house. Next up is those few VHS tapes I still have. We'll round it out with a couple Betamax tapes laying around (old home movies). -nB
Slashdot Mirror
I am glad we understand each others views so well :-)
:-) I'll donate money and clear bug reports instead. I guess the real thing is deb is a dev distro whereas ubuntu is a user distro?
All too often flames ensue, though as another poster wrote the analogies to politics are somewhat flawed.
We're both likely right ironically. Your primary contributions are as a coder, whereas I know enough coding to know that I should keep the hell away from the CVS
Cheers,
-nB
Dam I wanted to mod in this thread but I can't mod you fairly: "fair point but I really disagree" (underrated I suppose?)
Anyway, I feel that a benevolent dictatorship is actually the prize winner in the dev cycle. Once you get into the "please everyone, get a majority vote" mode of operation you run into endless debate as one side tries to convince the other side of the merits of their idea(s). Now I want a unanimous decision on a jury, but for a distro I want a clear path and direction. The dictatorship forces that path to exist. While I may want the path a different color, so long as it's going the same general direction I am then I'm OK with it.
The direction I'm interested in is a mainstream linux that I can deploy on joe sixpack's computer. I want a linux that is as friendly as OSX, and as compatible with hardware as Windows. I want a distro for the masses, and thus while you are entitled to fork it and tweak it, I think the main tree should be ruled by an authoritarian, rather than a committee.
I also think that the "open market" will decide this for us. Suppliers (donors of code and money) will "sell" to their ideals and buyers will install to their needs.
-nB
IS that not what copyright is for?
-nB
you know, now that I'm reading my post, fuck it. :-)
/. is afraid I'm spamming.
I want a functional quantum computer and a spaceship with warp 9.9 speed.
-nB
it's been one minute since my last post and
I'll take the sausage, spam, eggs, and spam with a side of vikings please.
I too was thinking retro. I'm torn between wanting a fully loaded and totally decked out (functional) PDP/11 or a Cray Y/MP . . .
but if you want the imagination station:
I want a computer with the following specs:
numa memory
1024 bit vector math units (128 of em should do)
64x64bit CISC processors (core two duo EE)
a couple dozen of those multithreading jobbies from sun
and a full memory addressable array of spartan FPGAs ready to go.
For disk I would like 1TB of DDR2 ram battery backed with redundant controllers with lazy write back to FC disk as working disk and 64TB as archive disk.
64GB of numa flat memory should do the trick for all those CPUs (give each one a dedicated gig as well)
That, along with a really cool OS (open BSD perchance?)
oh, and I want a wall o monitors (6 or 12 [2x3 or 3x4 array] 22" wide screen deals).
-nB
just one more thing....
remember those really old memories that used the persistence of phosphor as memory in a CRT? I want one of those glued on capable of showing the stack of any given CPU as a bitmap, cuz that'd be cool.
It's tit for tat.
Jack has complained that the bar is stifling his free speech, and then goes and stifles someone else's?
I call shenanigans.
-nB
Right, so plan "b" then.
Uh.... I think it's "password" Didn't work? hmmm... "Password?", nope? "PaSsWoRd?" still no? eh got me! I can't remember. Think I'm lying? prove it.
-nB
So thought experiment time...
If the computer had HDD encryption and the browser cache/history/etc. was on the encrypted volume would you be protected from divulging the key based on the 5th?
I've often said (and believe) that you would be, but failing that there is the ollie north defense of "I forgot" and as I understand it you then could only face contempt (as opposed to the damning evidence on that encrypted volume).
-nB
I'm using your router, so while I'm not anonymous I am not me either. :p
Seriously I'm beginning to think that the best defense is to have an open WiFi connection and claim to be a "data communist" when confronted with IP logs.
-nB
wow, didn't know you needed a guide to do that.
I hate you.
.
.
.
you just proved I've been in the industry too long as I was able to read that without any form of parsing.
Now I have to burn down my building and get a job with the construction/cleanup crew.
-nB
Or more to the point:
The poison dart frog is a 100% natural (and possibly organic) product. I dare you to lick and or eat one.
-nB
Besides they're all pwned as open relays and proxies.
-nB
Yes and no.
.iso files with the good ol "we disclaim any liability from these distros, they are un-supported blah blah blah..." warning.
We should not settle down about having a pre-installed Linux option, but we should settle down on what distro.
Specifically I want the following:
A mainstream distro with all devices that ship with the PC supported.
Whatever is easiest for Dell/HP/Acer/whatever within the above constraint is fine.
*Gnome Vs. KDE? I Don't Care (If I want "the other one" I'll change it)
*Emacs Vs. VI? IDK
*Ubuntu/FC6/Suss10.2/Slackware? IDK (though I think the slack may be a bit too geekish)
Give me any mainstream distro, with a desktop and window manager. Give me drivers for all the devices in the box. Make it "nice" to joe sixpack. I'll geek it out myself.
Now what wouldn't hurt is if the community came up with a "tweaked" distro (or even an entirely different build) if Dell would host a repository of
-nB
This was my concern as well. Seeing as I operate a gripe site that has been threatened, I am constantly wary of developments like this. So far I have confidence that I am in the right in my site's right to exist according to US code Title 15 and 22, but all it takes is a big enough lobby group to remove those rights from me.
s html
For those interested in the lawyers threat and my response (with annotations to US code) it can be found here: http://farmersreallysucks.com/editorialtakedown1.
-nB
Sanitation worker
mop maker
mop bucket maker
soap maker Construction Saw maker
Pencil maker
nail maker
hammer maker Doctor/Nurse/Receptionist Janitor
Sanitation worker
mop maker
mop bucket maker
soap maker
sponge shaper
knife maker
forceps maker
table maker *(arguably the carpenter from construction) Teacher/Superintendent Janitor
Sanitation worker
mop maker
mop bucket maker
soap maker
paper maker
pencil maker
archivist / Librarian (of course cataloging knowledge is a challenge made simpler by computers so...)
Ad Nausium
-nB
Partly feeding the troll:
My wife is not a MS shill, she is a usability study. In order to gain adoption the replacement must be as drop-in as possible to the application it is replacing. She is as non-geek as they come. Not afraid of the computer, but not wanting to geek one solution when another works easier, even if costlier. This is about the same as the rest of the people in her school that are not in the EE/CS programs.
-nB
Why AC?
Anyway, yes this is first hand experience. I have no issue with making it work (I take issue with the insane bloating though). Fact is my wife finds it un-usable and she is basically jane sixpack. If she says it's not good enough then I have to agree.
-nB
You are right.
I have donated both money and time. My coding skills are nowhere good enough to donate code, but I do my damndest to submit thorough bug reports to developers of apps I use. I've donated money before, and I will again. I'm rather broke so my donations are usually $20 or less, but everything helps.
-nB
You've got my vote.
That or acquisition talks, but I think licensing is more likely (though it could lead to acquisition in the future, it often does when the licenses are wholesale like this).
-nB
My wife is working on her masters thesis. OO.o is simply not compatible enough with MS office to be usable. A couple years ago I made a big push to go legit on all my apps. This meant dumping or paying for many tools I use regularly. I own Premiere 6 and PS6, but I was using newer versions. Dumped the newer versions. I was using many instances of windows not licensed, thus having a nice homogeneous network. Now I have a couple win2KPro machines and a couple WinXP Pro machines, my server was migrated to SOL18 (hey, it works for my needs perfectly), and my kids PCs are now running ubuntu and Wine for the reader rabbit software they so love.
When it came down to office I tried to migrate to OO.o because of the rather enormous cost of MS office Pro. No dice. Popwerpoint and its OO.o equiv were horribly incompatible. Word and it's equivalent had irreconcilable differences. I simply owned up to having to buy a copy and purchased the student edition, bummer it can't be in two places. I acquired an old site license for office 97 and am using that on all the windows machines other than the wife's notebook.
Until there is a good office suite with exchange compatibility there will be real trouble getting people off windows.
Until the linux community comes to an agreement and throws their support to a desktop linux distro and quits with the religious wars there will be trouble getting people off windows (linspire/ubunto maybe?).
Until the random hardware from the random computer store plugs and plays on the above intra-distro supported desktop there will be trouble getting people off windows.
Face it. While we can all have our boutique distro, if you want joe sixpack to use linux it the community must standardize on 1 (one) window manager, 1 (one) desktop, and 1 (one) functional application suite. Joe doesn't like choices, joe likes feeling safe with the default choice.
-nB
I don't disagree at all with your statement.
I simply wanted to provide initial poster with a known working solution to backing up disney DVDs which I have found to be highly problematic in most copy situations.
AnyDVD seems to work well at the sector based protection that DVDdecryptor can't handle very well, while DVDdecryptor can rip all the wonderful stream information.
AutoGK makes nice reasonable sized files in Xvid or Divx format that XBMC can play flawlessly. It's an end-to-end solution that actually works without some of the asinine setup required for media center clients. My server is an old PIII 550MHz machine with half a gig of ram running SOL18. There is no way I could run WinMCE on this thing to use those retail thin clients, and keeping a P4 on full time seems like a waste. I have two TVs and a stereo, all three of which have an Xbox on them. XBMC allows control via port 80, thus for the stereo I just hop on any PC (including the server) http over to the xbox and start a playlist.
-nB
AnyDVD (for disney CP) + DVD Decryptor + Auto GK.
I store all my kids movies on a home server and stream them to an Xbox running XBMC(which can read from a simple SMB share).
I made this decision when I had a damaged "Beauty and the Beast" disk. I wrote disney to ask what the replacement cost would be if I turned in the damaged copy and they said "buy a new copy". They are not in stores anymore and I dare you to get in a bidding war on fleabay. So I netflixed it and ripped it. Never looked back. Ripped my entire collection of DVDs and moved them offsite to my parents house. Next up is those few VHS tapes I still have. We'll round it out with a couple Betamax tapes laying around (old home movies).
-nB
You sir are awesome. Damn expensive though...
-nB
Find me a notebook with space inside for 2 hdds (without taking away the cd-rom drive) and with RAID ability...
-nB