I REALLY doubt you can tell the difference between uncompressed CD audio and really high bit-rate OGG or MP3.
If you're truly that much of an audiophile, you should see a shrink, because you've got problems. You also might want to check your ears, they may be malfunctioning...
Scientology was started with bogus psychology, bogus science, and really, really bad science fiction.
The reason Scientology still exists today is because they prey on the poor, downtrodden, and the very weak minded(eg. John Travolta, listen to him talk sometime, he's a real dumbfuck).
The day of the Sept. 11 attacks they got a "help line" broadcasted on television on a couple stations by duping the stations into thinking they were a non-profit charity. When the stations found out it was Scientology they were pulled.
What the hell are you talking about? Everything you said is simply... false.
There is NO video card out today that can handle the latest games at 1024x768 with all the bells and whistles turned up all the way. Sure, it may look ok, but it will still slow down to under 30 fps in many cases. And there is also Doom 3 on the horizon, which will run at under 30 fps on a GF3 according to Carmack.
There is still PLENTY of room for more performance with video cards and it will continue until we have FPSes running at 1600x1200 with completely photo-realistic environments, full anti-aliasing, acheiving 120 fps. And even then, I'm sure someone will have a reason to have even more power in their video card.
What variety is it you are talking about. I have played through quite a few hours of Half-Life (just started playing it recently, runs in wine now...), and I have to say that "variety" is one of the things that is really lacking in the game. Every level has pretty much the exact same monsters.
My other complaint with Half-Life is, the sound effects are the cheesiest I have ever heard in a FPS, they're absolutely terrible!
Other than that, it's an excellent game. So far, my favorite part of the game was killing that giant tentacled monster. That was great, and truly original in an FPS.
For all you Linux gamers, I know you're out there, hopefully in a couple days or weeks or so a Linux binary will be released. When it's released, Tux Games will sell the game with an extra CD with the Linux binaries on it.
If you care about the future of Linux gaming, please, please wait and buy it from Tux Games. If you buy it from your local Best Buy or whatever, if just looks like another Windows sale, but if you buy from Tux Games they will see that it was sold from a Linux games retailer.
My/usr/bin has ~1,500 files in it. A whole bunch of it is gnome stuff, because Slack 7.1 didn't put gnome in a completely separate dir. But then there is also all kinds of crap that I have absolutely no clue what it does. Just looking at some of the filenames I think I know what they are for, but I have other utilities on my machine that do the same thing.
So, I'd say yes, it probably is partly because of lazy distro package management, but then again some people might still use some of this stuff and expect it to be there.
On most new distrubutions I've see this is actually getting better. The latest Slack at least completely separates gnome by putting it in/opt/gnome.
In any case though, I think there are more important things to worry about, such as all-purpose configuration tools, or at least lump them all together into a graphical management tool. You should be able to configure everything from sound/video to printers all in the same place.
Holy shit man, I am SO glad I do not work with YOU!
With that kind of attitude there must be a ton of backstabbing going on in your place of work. Of course you are all probably competing for raises and advancement, but if you can't trust each other then that is directly hindering your performance.
You have to be able to separate work from your social life, then you can compete for raises and still trust each other. Done correctly and maturely, you will acheive the best possible efficiency and you will also develop lasting friendships whether you like it or not.
Where I work, we're all pretty much friends, and it works out great. It's not always frictionless, but whenever there's a problem, that problem stays at work and is only dealt with at work. Our friendships may only help to quicken the resolution to the problem, not make it worse.
But whatever, enjoy living your life of backstabbing and distrust, it sounds like a load of fun...
Why upgrade the whole distro? I just upgrade one package at a time on a regular basis as newer packages come out, and over time there isn't a single thing left on the machine from the original install ; )
But for servers, I would never risk upgrading to a newer version of any OS. I always do a clean install on another machine and get everything operational and then swap drives, or copy it over, or whatever, depending on the server, how much downtime is acceptable and whatever.
For admins that are overworked, I'm sure Debian would be great.
Glad you got your boxes up and running. I wouldn't worry about your setup, FreeBSD is really great, clean, stable. But, FWIW, I have just as easy a time with Slackware(shameless plug!).
Slackware is clean, extremely simple, can be easily installed without all the unnecessary shit. It can also be installed with gnome, kde and enlightenment for the desktop. Makes it easier using the same system for servers and desktops... As for package management, I just build everything myself from source. Once you learn enough about the different packages you use all the time, there's no easier way to admin a server(depending on many factors of course, YMMV and all that).
Never even tried Debian... I'm sure apt-get is nice, but I have no use for it.
Well, I guess I'll be "pirating" System of Down's new CD since I won't be able to listen to it. My stereo at home is actually a Linux box connected to my TV and stereo receiver that I use for playing music, video and old arcade games.
Unfortuneately that makes it impossible for me to "legally" listen to their new CD and being a fan I'll have to download it from somewhere.
I'd even be perfectly happy to buy a "copy protected" CD and just through hoops to convert it to MP3, but sadly that's a federal offense because of the DMCA.
I don't understand why the music industry is so hostil towards their good customers...
I have a tiny box at my home that I use as a router. It's a couple years old now. The box itself is a P100 with all the guts inside loose and hanging all over the place. The HD is > 5 years old and is loud and very unstable, simply doesn't turn on sometimes.
This little machine stays up 24x7 and only goes down when the power goes out, which is at least once a week here. After a power failure, the drive usually doesn't turn back on until the machine is power cycled and sometimes the whole machine will not turn on... and sometimes requires a light smack ; )
Even though this little box is a piece of dying crud, after it powers up properly it fscks and boots linux in about 1 minute and works every time. It has NEVER failed to boot after powering up properly after years of constant use. This Linux install is years old, running an older 2.2 kernel and has required absolutely 0 maintenance, other than smacking the machine to get it to power on ; )
At work we have... haven't counted in a while... say 20 odd machines. About half of them are servers running Linux and 1 BSD box, which do not require any routine maintenance. The other half are running W2k and require constant maintenance. Even if Windows was free, for our small company the TCO would STILL probably be about 3 times that of Linux or BSD. It is simply unacceptable how much time and energy we've had to put into fixing NT and W2k boxes.
Of course, no matter what anyone here says, there will still be people who adamantly claim that NT/2k/XP require less maintenance and have a lower TCO than Linux/BSD and many will claim that the ease of use of windows is extremely important. That is simply false, as if one isn't skilled enough to setup a Linux/BSD box, they're going to be one of the people who's boxes get infected with all the "microsoft worms" that spread around...
What I really, really need is a fully featured MS Access replacement that is cross platform(windows and Linux). It doesn't need to be compatible with Access files, but it needs to be able to connect to MySQL databases.
Does such a beast exist? If it did we could totally ditch MS completely at my office.
While I do enjoy all the kernel updates on slashdot, I think slashdot should also write about some of the great userspace apps as well.
All those apps you listed are most definately news for nerds, and they really are stuff that matters, specifically for Linux.
Anyone who hasn't tried out those apps, give em a whirl! Specifically, for me, mplayer is absolutely great. It is hands down the best video player for linux.
So, while freshmeat lists everything, why not list the important things on slashdot? I just think that would be so useful.
I played throught the whole game in Linux, and it was great. Yes, it does suck down a lot of memory, but ram is too cheap these days to let that stop you. As for poor performance, if you have enough ram it's not a problem, in my experience anyway.
Just grab a 256MB ram chip for $21 at Bunta.com, it's cheaper than the game is!
I can think of plenty. Say you absolutely need to be looking at 2 or more windows simultaneously, but they are all slightly too big to fit on the screen. So, you overlap them slightly, and now you can see what you need to see.
Instead of using Direct*, which forever ties your application to Microsoft's completely non-open and non-standard operating system, use SDL, or OpenGL, or OpenGL and SDL, or any other portable API.
Notice how ID, the only gaming company around to actually follow this principle, can port their games to a zillion OSes very quickly and have it run extremely well on all OSes that they're ported to. The most expensive part of of doing Linux releases for ID is publishing...
Tying yourself to a proprietary API makes anything you say about portability completely invalid...
Here's a technical aspect for ya... Having that many people's information in one place under the control of one company that has a BAD track record when it comes to security, is... well, fundamentally a bad idea.
Sadly, consumers won't be aware of what is going on and will be the ones to get shafted by it.
Now, as for what should/could be done about this... I don't know. Maybe the guv'ment should put out some kind of warning if enough techincally minded people agree, or maybe other private organizations should, I dunno. Personally, I really don't care, it's not going to affect me.
Your sig
"Many innocent Germans died, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have destroyed the Nazis."
Damn right. If it can be done, I think it's time to wipe Al Queda out, and the Taliban as well. Help the people setup a new government, try to help them develop an economy that isn't based on drugs... I'm tired of hearing from Taliban/Al Queda sympathizers...
The article is only partly political. While it talks about the political effects passport could have, the article is also largely about privacy and security. Indeed, the political effects passport could have are largely related to privacy and security.
War? What, I thought this was a relatively free market? Aren't we allowed to continue competing even if Microsoft has over 90% marketshare?
</sarcasm>
This is utterly stupid, of course Microsoft has "won" any supposed war, they have a friggin monopoly. By this logic of there being a "war", Microsoft had already won before Linux was even written.
The point of Linux, however, isn't to break Microsoft's monopoly, it is to simply be a good operating system. IMO, it is that.
Unlike a war, there is no beginning and there is no end. We can all keep trying as long as we want... barring some serious draconian legislation that makes open source software illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
I REALLY doubt you can tell the difference between uncompressed CD audio and really high bit-rate OGG or MP3.
If you're truly that much of an audiophile, you should see a shrink, because you've got problems. You also might want to check your ears, they may be malfunctioning...
The reason Scientology still exists today is because they prey on the poor, downtrodden, and the very weak minded(eg. John Travolta, listen to him talk sometime, he's a real dumbfuck).
The day of the Sept. 11 attacks they got a "help line" broadcasted on television on a couple stations by duping the stations into thinking they were a non-profit charity. When the stations found out it was Scientology they were pulled.
There is NO video card out today that can handle the latest games at 1024x768 with all the bells and whistles turned up all the way. Sure, it may look ok, but it will still slow down to under 30 fps in many cases. And there is also Doom 3 on the horizon, which will run at under 30 fps on a GF3 according to Carmack.
There is still PLENTY of room for more performance with video cards and it will continue until we have FPSes running at 1600x1200 with completely photo-realistic environments, full anti-aliasing, acheiving 120 fps. And even then, I'm sure someone will have a reason to have even more power in their video card.
Current video cards are not even close to that.
My other complaint with Half-Life is, the sound effects are the cheesiest I have ever heard in a FPS, they're absolutely terrible!
Other than that, it's an excellent game. So far, my favorite part of the game was killing that giant tentacled monster. That was great, and truly original in an FPS.
I'm really looking forward to playing RTCW.
If you care about the future of Linux gaming, please, please wait and buy it from Tux Games. If you buy it from your local Best Buy or whatever, if just looks like another Windows sale, but if you buy from Tux Games they will see that it was sold from a Linux games retailer.
So, I'd say yes, it probably is partly because of lazy distro package management, but then again some people might still use some of this stuff and expect it to be there.
On most new distrubutions I've see this is actually getting better. The latest Slack at least completely separates gnome by putting it in /opt/gnome.
In any case though, I think there are more important things to worry about, such as all-purpose configuration tools, or at least lump them all together into a graphical management tool. You should be able to configure everything from sound/video to printers all in the same place.
I wouldn't even trust Bill Gates as far as I could throw him! But I do trust everyone I work with, and it is a good enviornment.
With that kind of attitude there must be a ton of backstabbing going on in your place of work. Of course you are all probably competing for raises and advancement, but if you can't trust each other then that is directly hindering your performance.
You have to be able to separate work from your social life, then you can compete for raises and still trust each other. Done correctly and maturely, you will acheive the best possible efficiency and you will also develop lasting friendships whether you like it or not.
Where I work, we're all pretty much friends, and it works out great. It's not always frictionless, but whenever there's a problem, that problem stays at work and is only dealt with at work. Our friendships may only help to quicken the resolution to the problem, not make it worse.
But whatever, enjoy living your life of backstabbing and distrust, it sounds like a load of fun...
But for servers, I would never risk upgrading to a newer version of any OS. I always do a clean install on another machine and get everything operational and then swap drives, or copy it over, or whatever, depending on the server, how much downtime is acceptable and whatever.
For admins that are overworked, I'm sure Debian would be great.
Slackware is clean, extremely simple, can be easily installed without all the unnecessary shit. It can also be installed with gnome, kde and enlightenment for the desktop. Makes it easier using the same system for servers and desktops... As for package management, I just build everything myself from source. Once you learn enough about the different packages you use all the time, there's no easier way to admin a server(depending on many factors of course, YMMV and all that).
Never even tried Debian... I'm sure apt-get is nice, but I have no use for it.
Unfortuneately that makes it impossible for me to "legally" listen to their new CD and being a fan I'll have to download it from somewhere.
I'd even be perfectly happy to buy a "copy protected" CD and just through hoops to convert it to MP3, but sadly that's a federal offense because of the DMCA.
I don't understand why the music industry is so hostil towards their good customers...
I have a tiny box at my home that I use as a router. It's a couple years old now. The box itself is a P100 with all the guts inside loose and hanging all over the place. The HD is > 5 years old and is loud and very unstable, simply doesn't turn on sometimes.
This little machine stays up 24x7 and only goes down when the power goes out, which is at least once a week here. After a power failure, the drive usually doesn't turn back on until the machine is power cycled and sometimes the whole machine will not turn on... and sometimes requires a light smack ; )
Even though this little box is a piece of dying crud, after it powers up properly it fscks and boots linux in about 1 minute and works every time. It has NEVER failed to boot after powering up properly after years of constant use. This Linux install is years old, running an older 2.2 kernel and has required absolutely 0 maintenance, other than smacking the machine to get it to power on ; )
At work we have... haven't counted in a while... say 20 odd machines. About half of them are servers running Linux and 1 BSD box, which do not require any routine maintenance. The other half are running W2k and require constant maintenance. Even if Windows was free, for our small company the TCO would STILL probably be about 3 times that of Linux or BSD. It is simply unacceptable how much time and energy we've had to put into fixing NT and W2k boxes.
Of course, no matter what anyone here says, there will still be people who adamantly claim that NT/2k/XP require less maintenance and have a lower TCO than Linux/BSD and many will claim that the ease of use of windows is extremely important. That is simply false, as if one isn't skilled enough to setup a Linux/BSD box, they're going to be one of the people who's boxes get infected with all the "microsoft worms" that spread around...
Does such a beast exist? If it did we could totally ditch MS completely at my office.
All those apps you listed are most definately news for nerds, and they really are stuff that matters, specifically for Linux.
Anyone who hasn't tried out those apps, give em a whirl! Specifically, for me, mplayer is absolutely great. It is hands down the best video player for linux.
So, while freshmeat lists everything, why not list the important things on slashdot? I just think that would be so useful.
Just grab a 256MB ram chip for $21 at Bunta.com, it's cheaper than the game is!
Notice how ID, the only gaming company around to actually follow this principle, can port their games to a zillion OSes very quickly and have it run extremely well on all OSes that they're ported to. The most expensive part of of doing Linux releases for ID is publishing...
Tying yourself to a proprietary API makes anything you say about portability completely invalid...
JMO
Sadly, consumers won't be aware of what is going on and will be the ones to get shafted by it.
Now, as for what should/could be done about this... I don't know. Maybe the guv'ment should put out some kind of warning if enough techincally minded people agree, or maybe other private organizations should, I dunno. Personally, I really don't care, it's not going to affect me.
Your sig
"Many innocent Germans died, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have destroyed the Nazis."
Damn right. If it can be done, I think it's time to wipe Al Queda out, and the Taliban as well. Help the people setup a new government, try to help them develop an economy that isn't based on drugs... I'm tired of hearing from Taliban/Al Queda sympathizers...
Mod me down, need to unload some of this karma...
Did you not read my post? I said I was lazy, which would kind of make it unlikely that I would do that...
It would be really helpful for lazy people like myself who actually use the links people post on here.
War? What, I thought this was a relatively free market? Aren't we allowed to continue competing even if Microsoft has over 90% marketshare?
</sarcasm>
This is utterly stupid, of course Microsoft has "won" any supposed war, they have a friggin monopoly. By this logic of there being a "war", Microsoft had already won before Linux was even written.
The point of Linux, however, isn't to break Microsoft's monopoly, it is to simply be a good operating system. IMO, it is that.
Unlike a war, there is no beginning and there is no end. We can all keep trying as long as we want... barring some serious draconian legislation that makes open source software illegal.