Well, there's a pretty simple system to follow:/usr holds the distro-maintained software (or just the bare minimum software), and/usr/local contains locally installed software (i.e., compiled from source)./opt is there for historical reasons really...
The only proprietary/non-free blobs that are included in Ubuntu et al. are some hardware firmware. Ubuntu is committed to being a free distribution, but it does make it easy to install non-free (both proprietary and patent-encumbered) software if the user wishes to do so.
Now that you mention it, I believe KDE will be going with GPL3 when possible, so it pretty much looks like Novell will be screwed out of any existing and evolved desktop environment if it doesn't want to use the GPL3.
After we all complained to CmdrTaco about the shitty tags like that, it seems they are devalued quite a bit. Although, now all we get are the tags that correspond to the topics chosen by the editor for that story and rarely anything else.:/
Now that you mention this, how hard would it be to write a simple readline-based interface for pretty much any RDBMS? If you've got an API in which you can plug directly into, and if you've got a list of all the possible things that can be done with the database (or at least a general method to finding them from the database itself), it should be rather trivial to create something like this.
Why don't people just store the data as a Unix time_t timestamp? Just use the INTEGER data type and you're set. Works best on a 64-bit machine of course unless you want to suffer the 2038 bug...
What's your definition of a "real database" then? I wouldn't think you would say that anything not fully conforming to ANSI SQL isn't a real database because I don't believe any RDBMS fully conforms to the spec (it's huge).
The Republican party used to be like the current Libertarian party, but ever since the neocons took it over (around the time of the Reagan administration IIRC), we've had these corporatist fascists with a hard-on for absolute power and control.
Who gives a shit about Walmart or FM when we've got the internet? Seriously, leave the 20th century behind already and join us in the 21st century. Joe Sixpack who still shops at Walmart and listens to FM can go fuck himself as he passively consumes whatever the corporate teat lactates. We can't effectively make progress when we're still stuck with the idiots and feel like we must cater to them.
There's a reason I'm an Ubuntu dupe -- because I believed it. Hmm, I thought you were using/. terminology regarding "dupe" being short for "duplicate", or the state of many of the articles we get on/. are.
I don't know about your experiences, but in mine, some songs *coughCarryMeHomecough* are harder to play on expert in Guitar Hero than on an actual guitar! This is why I love this game; it's a rhythm game that resembles playing guitar, but is actually more challenging when compared to the same song on guitar.
You've got some great points, but I believe all those problems have been fixed. Give Ubuntu 7.04 a try! Just to let you know, if you install it along with Windows, it will automagically shrink the Windows partition, install Ubuntu in the free space it made, and offer Windows as an option in Grub when you boot. It works very well.:)
Movies and MP3s are still that 3 clicks or so method in Ubuntu: just try to open a movie or MP3 and it will prompt you to install the appropriate software for it. Games (and the previous two) are extremely easy when using Linspire's Click'n'Run software, and that will also be available to other distributions sometime soon. There is also CrossOver Linux which makes the installation of Windows programs (including games) extremely simple.
And the fact that it has a reputation as being something only computer geeks "can" use. Not anymore with distros like Ubuntu, Mandriva, and Linspire.
And the fact that if you want to use any programs on linux you usually have to compile the source yourself. Untrue. Debian, for instance, comes with over 20000 programs (yes, 20 kiloprograms), so it's very unlikely you'll every have to compile something from source unless you want to or you want to use some esoteric program that doesn't offer packages.
And the fact that there are no human interface designers working on the linux project. Untrue. Both GNOME and KDE have professional HID's, although GNOME seems to have just used the HIG from Mac OS 9 and haven't updated it in a while. KDE, on the other hand, has had professionals work on their HIG to develop a very good and consistent UI.
Microsoft may not do function very well, but their form is getting better, and they have a comparatively simple interface for users. By "simple", do you mean "treats the user like a dumbass"? Anyone who knows what they're doing ("power users" or sys admins) have to click through dozens of pretty widgets and warning dialogues just to get anything done. Then there's Vista's clingy-girlfriend UI that won't leave you alone unless you kill it (UAC). Then there's the millions of different installer programs instead of a single, unified method to installing programs and tracking dependencies. Then there's that same problem when it comes to hardware drivers (can't expect it to work from a clean install of Windows; this is a huge problem every time a new version of Windows is released that isn't compatible with old drivers). And who wants to bother with all this anti-spyware, anti-virus, anti-hax0r bullshit? Certainly not Grandma or Joe Sixpack.
Face it; computers suck, and they will continue to suck until we can make advancements in the technology that make it so that any random person who has never used a computer before can dive in and know what to do. This only seems to exist in SF stories, so perhaps we can just train everyone we can now to learn how to use computers in general so that people like you won't be able to spread FUD.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, there's a pretty simple system to follow: /usr holds the distro-maintained software (or just the bare minimum software), and /usr/local contains locally installed software (i.e., compiled from source). /opt is there for historical reasons really...
The only proprietary/non-free blobs that are included in Ubuntu et al. are some hardware firmware. Ubuntu is committed to being a free distribution, but it does make it easy to install non-free (both proprietary and patent-encumbered) software if the user wishes to do so.
Now that you mention it, I believe KDE will be going with GPL3 when possible, so it pretty much looks like Novell will be screwed out of any existing and evolved desktop environment if it doesn't want to use the GPL3.
The Green Party candidate got about 10% of the vote in the 2006 governor election. Just saying...
After we all complained to CmdrTaco about the shitty tags like that, it seems they are devalued quite a bit. Although, now all we get are the tags that correspond to the topics chosen by the editor for that story and rarely anything else. :/
Now that you mention this, how hard would it be to write a simple readline-based interface for pretty much any RDBMS? If you've got an API in which you can plug directly into, and if you've got a list of all the possible things that can be done with the database (or at least a general method to finding them from the database itself), it should be rather trivial to create something like this.
Why don't people just store the data as a Unix time_t timestamp? Just use the INTEGER data type and you're set. Works best on a 64-bit machine of course unless you want to suffer the 2038 bug...
What's your definition of a "real database" then? I wouldn't think you would say that anything not fully conforming to ANSI SQL isn't a real database because I don't believe any RDBMS fully conforms to the spec (it's huge).
The Republican party used to be like the current Libertarian party, but ever since the neocons took it over (around the time of the Reagan administration IIRC), we've had these corporatist fascists with a hard-on for absolute power and control.
Well, it was more like, "And the Free Market said, 'OK!', and it was Good."
Because, *gasp*, some nerds live in countries other than the US! OMG !
I thought carbon dioxide and water were both greenhouse gases? Maybe we need to just die if we're going to save the earth. :(
Maybe Dell should work on including OpenOffice.org with their Windows installations? That could help...
Better question: what does this article have to with Counter-Strike: Source? :)
Hey, the DMCA was a modification to Title 17 of the USC: copyright. The DMCA is a part of American copyright law.
Who gives a shit about Walmart or FM when we've got the internet? Seriously, leave the 20th century behind already and join us in the 21st century. Joe Sixpack who still shops at Walmart and listens to FM can go fuck himself as he passively consumes whatever the corporate teat lactates. We can't effectively make progress when we're still stuck with the idiots and feel like we must cater to them.
chmod a+x movie.iso ; cp movie.iso ~/Movies/
Hmm, not so hard...
Outside of Russia, sure, it was infringing copyright, but within Russia, they were perfectly within the law, "grey area" or not.
I don't know about your experiences, but in mine, some songs *coughCarryMeHomecough* are harder to play on expert in Guitar Hero than on an actual guitar! This is why I love this game; it's a rhythm game that resembles playing guitar, but is actually more challenging when compared to the same song on guitar.
If they could get in legal trouble for the spam and kiddie porn they're hosting, I'm sure they'd get worried real fast.
You've got some great points, but I believe all those problems have been fixed. Give Ubuntu 7.04 a try! Just to let you know, if you install it along with Windows, it will automagically shrink the Windows partition, install Ubuntu in the free space it made, and offer Windows as an option in Grub when you boot. It works very well. :)
Movies and MP3s are still that 3 clicks or so method in Ubuntu: just try to open a movie or MP3 and it will prompt you to install the appropriate software for it. Games (and the previous two) are extremely easy when using Linspire's Click'n'Run software, and that will also be available to other distributions sometime soon. There is also CrossOver Linux which makes the installation of Windows programs (including games) extremely simple.
Face it; computers suck, and they will continue to suck until we can make advancements in the technology that make it so that any random person who has never used a computer before can dive in and know what to do. This only seems to exist in SF stories, so perhaps we can just train everyone we can now to learn how to use computers in general so that people like you won't be able to spread FUD.
If you had said "I think" or "I thought", you wouldn't have sounded like a "knows-better-than-you" kind of person. Linguistics and all that.