I can't stand this "compatibiliy" argument any longer...
MSDOC isn't like HTML or PDF, it was NOT ment to be a portable format, quite the opposite, it was created to tie you to the MSOffice platform.
If you want to retain some formatting, while preserving compatibility, just save as RTF or HTML! Or use PLAIN TEXT if all you want is the content.
If you use OO.o native format you won't have any issues regarding "compatibility".
OpenOffice is free, and there's nothing stopping your friends from installing it. It won't hurt their Windows box, won't add any bloat, and can be used as a "safe way" to open attachments from emails.
Keep an installation CD with you, and help to spread it!! This way, soon this "compatibility" issue will be gone.
To adopt an Open Standart, one that doesn't have anything to do with Microsoft.
I must admit that SMB make it easy to share files, but it is flawed, it belongs to Microsoft and they make it a moving target. And it's the only widely used and avaliable solution out there, NFS doens't count since it don't work with Windows.
There are already some efforts to bring something new to the file-sharing arena, like Novell's iFolder that uses WebDAV to share files... and have Linux, Windows and MacOSX clients.
The first CD has almost everything you need to setup a basic desktop, including Gnome, KDE and OpenOffice.
The packages on the CDs are organizated by their popularity, meaning that on the first CDs are the most installed packages. They gather this information from actual real-world systems, and you can contribute too, just install the "popularity-contest" package, and the information about the packages you install will be sent automaticaly to the Debian guys.
The CDs are only needed if you don't have a fast internet connection, in case you have broad-band you may just download every package from the archive servers and have always up-to-date software installed. It's even possible to do a full instalation from the internet using the net-install procedure!
Hope I had cleared out things for you, enjoy your Sarge install!!
I don't want to concentrate all my life on a single device. Too many bad things can happen...
- Forget it at home - Get robbed - Batteries go dead - Break
Things like credit and debit cards, keys and passwords, must be placed on reliable, fail-safe, places. Magnetic cards and Smart cards are good choices... a cellphone is not!
I can understand the lack of a Linux version, because of the reduced user base...
And I can understand the lack of a OSX, due the competition with similar software from Apple, like iPhoto X Picasa, and Google Destop Search x Spotlight.
To all of you shouting "apt-get dist-upgrade won't work!",
I clearly stated that "For those few installations that are customised, or that had some kind of problem, they're giving a 12 month period to adjust and migrate."
So, yes... I'm aware that dist-upgrade can break things. But I'm also aware that I can put packages on HOLD, just in case there's some problem on upgrade.
If you put your key packages on HOLD, and do a "dist-upgrade" chances are that your base-sistem will be upgraded with no problems at all. I do it a lot, because packages like slapd are problematic to upgrade (specially when using custom schemas), but I'm still able to upgrade the rest of the system.
Of course there will be issues, here and there things will break, but apt and dpkg can handle this quite well...
Re:Only 12 months security support of old releases
on
Debian Sarge Coming Soon
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
It's just a matter of issuing "apt-get dist-upgrade" on the console, and your Woody box will became a Sarge box.
Sarge is the new stable, the migration should be transparent on most installations. For those few installations that are so customised, or that had some kind of problem, they're giving a 12 month period to adjust and migrate.
Debian is not like Windows, you don't have to do a full installation to upgrade you system. The upgrades are a natural path if you keep your systems up-to-date with the repositories. That is one reason I love to use Debian.
Part of the MiniMac fun is that you can try MacOSX without having to buy an expensive machine! And this is a major selling point.
If Intel ships this MiniPC, they should put some new desktop Linux distro (Ubuntu?) on it, and make sure it works perfectly on their hardware. Then it would have some charm like the MacMini, people would look and say: "Look, a nice, cheap, little computer that comes with an easy Linux thing installed! I want one!". Hell, add a Tunner Card and MithTV and it would sell like hot cakes!
Web devellopment using Tomcat is a breeze, it's fully OOP, and you can choose from lots of MVC frameworks.
You can say PHP is better because is trully free, but Java is a much better language to code on, has a more consistant syntax, and is quite mantainable thanks to javadoc.
I don't know what to say about ASP.NET, because I don't really know it.
If they won't mantain Internet Explorer on Win2K, we should be granted an easy and clean way to remove it from the system!
I'm pretty sure that there are places that must keep IE for compatibility reasons, but where I work it's not the case. So, I'd like to remove all of it's components, not only disable it from appearing on the desktop.
But I think they'll never allow something like this, because without IE Win2K might become the more secure version of Windows ever!
I for one can see legit use for these technologies, as for example to sign every binary package of a given Linux distribuition, so my servers and workstations will only run "legit" code from a trusted repository. This can really increase security.
And while Microsoft might use it to cripple users rights, the open source community can turn this technology into something really usefull.
Ok, this is a major flaw by the end-user point of view.
But one must point out that if ATI, and nVidia by the way, agreed to release a full open-source version of their driver it would be on the kernel tree, and 3D acceleration would be there from the start.
It would be simple to deploy a Linux distribuition with these drivers pre-installed. But that's not the point, the point is to show what both ATI and nVidia are doing. The point is to show that they're not fully supporting open-source and Linux, and if they where you should be able to get those drivers pre-installed.
I really think that Linus should push some sort of "Linux Ready" hardware endorsement campaing. A website listing the best hardware to use with linux, with ratings on compatibility.
Maybe it's a marketing strategy?
Laptops are known to have issues with Linux, and lots of people still have the impression that is hard to get it working with strange hardware.
So, when people see a Laptop from HP running Linux it's going to be a shock! And many will associate this with "Linux is Ready for the Desktop"(TM).
Then the Linux Desktops will start to appear.
Putting that aside, am I the only one who thinks they should include a copy of CEDEGA(http://www.transgaming.com/) with those machines?
A cheap, notebook thing, with simple word processing capabilities and long battery life would be perfect for my wife.
She's studing History, and right now preparing her graduate thesis. She have accumulated amazing quantities of hand-written text... and now she is stating to compile all this text into the thesis, if she used a notebook to do her annotations it would be a matter of "copy-and-paste".
I cant afford a notebook for her, not even an used one, and even if I could those things are so heavy and cumbersome that she wouldnt carry it around.
Something with the power of a Palm, with a decent monocromatic screen, and a keyboard would be perfect for her. Better, if it could run a light word processor like AbiWord it would be the perfect solution.
An ARM or PPC processor @100Hz, with 512MB of Flash RAM, a SD Card expansion slot, 1 USB host port and a monocromatic 800x600 passive LCD. I guess that this would become a very decent Linux platform, expecially if you use the FrameBuffer directly, instead of a XServer. And it would give you insanely long battery life!
But, as I said, companies are selling features, not solutions. They need to do this, so you actually have a reason to upgrade your machine... The same happens with cellphones.
Yeah... there is some things that I can't really explain with these arguments.
But, I really like them... And I just they might fit well on a SciFi novel, something along the lines of Matrix or something.
I'll elaborate them a little bit more, and maybe write a fanfic novel, or comic book argument, or both!
Anyways... It's fun to discuss this, but I really think that's a bit of a waste of time. See, we cannot prove anything right now. And, in the end, when we die, everything will be revealed to us (one way or another).
With operational systems and software, you can make people don't upgrade to your rival by making lots of empty promisses. Or, at least you can make them wait until you release your product, so they can compare with the other options avaliable... you can use marketing to slow down your competition.
But, with FREE services it's another story. No one will stop using Google because Microsoft is hyping some sort of new, magical, totaly integrated, superb solution.People will continue to use Google until this new service is released, and once it is released nothing stop them to use both services.
I dont think that Microsoft really understands the web. Not their marketing dept. at least...
- why do our thoughts produce detectable changes in the brain?
Because it has a memory cache. And also, we have all sort of instincts that are hardwired to the cerebral cortex, and the toughts and memories triggers all sorts of reflexes to all parts of our body.
- why do changes in the brain change our personalities and thougts?
Well, I think the brain act as a translator and a filter to the sensations. So if there's something wrong with it the information is not correctly parsed. Also, I think that the instincts are hardwired to our cortex, if something damages the wiring to the soul our instincts tend to assume control.
Look at the XBox, that migrated from x86 to PowerPC. Because it's powerfull, cheap and consumes little power. Look at the Playstation 3 and the Nintendo GameCube, and Revolution. All using PowerPC!!
Why should Apple drop PPC now, when it's proving to be a solid, coerent, well engineered platform?
I like to think that our brain is an interface to our soul, we use it to control our bodies and to receive input from our senses. We can even guess that our memories are some sort of a cache, for quick access.
This way, to be immortal, one would have to create a computer mechanism capable of interfacing with our soul, and them a way to transfer the control from a organic brain to this artificial interface!
More, with some tweaking one should be able to grow a entirely new body from steam cells, or something like it, and "tune" it to your soul... then, you just to "disconnect" your old body and enjoy the brand new one!
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Sorry my rant, it was not directed at you really...
You're right, I missed the point. What I really meant is that OpenOffice needs a campaing like "Spread Firefox".
I can't stand this "compatibiliy" argument any longer...
MSDOC isn't like HTML or PDF, it was NOT ment to be a portable format, quite the opposite, it was created to tie you to the MSOffice platform.
If you want to retain some formatting, while preserving compatibility, just save as RTF or HTML! Or use PLAIN TEXT if all you want is the content.
If you use OO.o native format you won't have any issues regarding "compatibility".
OpenOffice is free, and there's nothing stopping your friends from installing it. It won't hurt their Windows box, won't add any bloat, and can be used as a "safe way" to open attachments from emails.
Keep an installation CD with you, and help to spread it!! This way, soon this "compatibility" issue will be gone.
To adopt an Open Standart, one that doesn't have anything to do with Microsoft.
I must admit that SMB make it easy to share files, but it is flawed, it belongs to Microsoft and they make it a moving target. And it's the only widely used and avaliable solution out there, NFS doens't count since it don't work with Windows.
There are already some efforts to bring something new to the file-sharing arena, like Novell's iFolder that uses WebDAV to share files... and have Linux, Windows and MacOSX clients.
We need more options.
Actualy, AMD was the pupil... and Intel was the master back them.
Well, in a way the Debian Base-system is by far the most popular component of the distribuition! You can find it on every installation!! :^)
Yes, it's just you.
The first CD has almost everything you need to setup a basic desktop, including Gnome, KDE and OpenOffice.
The packages on the CDs are organizated by their popularity, meaning that on the first CDs are the most installed packages. They gather this information from actual real-world systems, and you can contribute too, just install the "popularity-contest" package, and the information about the packages you install will be sent automaticaly to the Debian guys.
The CDs are only needed if you don't have a fast internet connection, in case you have broad-band you may just download every package from the archive servers and have always up-to-date software installed. It's even possible to do a full instalation from the internet using the net-install procedure!
Hope I had cleared out things for you, enjoy your Sarge install!!
I don't want to concentrate all my life on a single device. Too many bad things can happen...
- Forget it at home
- Get robbed
- Batteries go dead
- Break
Things like credit and debit cards, keys and passwords, must be placed on reliable, fail-safe, places. Magnetic cards and Smart cards are good choices... a cellphone is not!
I can understand the lack of a Linux version, because of the reduced user base...
And I can understand the lack of a OSX, due the competition with similar software from Apple, like iPhoto X Picasa, and Google Destop Search x Spotlight.
Still, I must ask: why? Why!?
To all of you shouting "apt-get dist-upgrade won't work!",
I clearly stated that "For those few installations that are customised, or that had some kind of problem, they're giving a 12 month period to adjust and migrate."
So, yes... I'm aware that dist-upgrade can break things. But I'm also aware that I can put packages on HOLD, just in case there's some problem on upgrade.
If you put your key packages on HOLD, and do a "dist-upgrade" chances are that your base-sistem will be upgraded with no problems at all. I do it a lot, because packages like slapd are problematic to upgrade (specially when using custom schemas), but I'm still able to upgrade the rest of the system.
Of course there will be issues, here and there things will break, but apt and dpkg can handle this quite well...
It's just a matter of issuing "apt-get dist-upgrade" on the console, and your Woody box will became a Sarge box.
Sarge is the new stable, the migration should be transparent on most installations. For those few installations that are so customised, or that had some kind of problem, they're giving a 12 month period to adjust and migrate.
Debian is not like Windows, you don't have to do a full installation to upgrade you system. The upgrades are a natural path if you keep your systems up-to-date with the repositories. That is one reason I love to use Debian.
Just to correct myself...
When you read Sketch, I mean Etch... You know, from etch-a-sketch...
It's morning, and I barely had my fist cup of coffee. Sorry.
Now, if they could backport all the nice features from Ubuntu to Sketch... That would be awesome!
As much as I like Ubuntu, I'd love an consolidated repository under Debian control.
I totally agree with you.
Part of the MiniMac fun is that you can try MacOSX without having to buy an expensive machine! And this is a major selling point.
If Intel ships this MiniPC, they should put some new desktop Linux distro (Ubuntu?) on it, and make sure it works perfectly on their hardware. Then it would have some charm like the MacMini, people would look and say: "Look, a nice, cheap, little computer that comes with an easy Linux thing installed! I want one!". Hell, add a Tunner Card and MithTV and it would sell like hot cakes!
Apache beats both PHP and ASP.
Web devellopment using Tomcat is a breeze, it's fully OOP, and you can choose from lots of MVC frameworks.
You can say PHP is better because is trully free, but Java is a much better language to code on, has a more consistant syntax, and is quite mantainable thanks to javadoc.
I don't know what to say about ASP.NET, because I don't really know it.
Seriously,
If they won't mantain Internet Explorer on Win2K, we should be granted an easy and clean way to remove it from the system!
I'm pretty sure that there are places that must keep IE for compatibility reasons, but where I work it's not the case. So, I'd like to remove all of it's components, not only disable it from appearing on the desktop.
But I think they'll never allow something like this, because without IE Win2K might become the more secure version of Windows ever!
Well,
I for one can see legit use for these technologies, as for example to sign every binary package of a given Linux distribuition, so my servers and workstations will only run "legit" code from a trusted repository. This can really increase security.
And while Microsoft might use it to cripple users rights, the open source community can turn this technology into something really usefull.
Ok, this is a major flaw by the end-user point of view.
But one must point out that if ATI, and nVidia by the way, agreed to release a full open-source version of their driver it would be on the kernel tree, and 3D acceleration would be there from the start.
It would be simple to deploy a Linux distribuition with these drivers pre-installed. But that's not the point, the point is to show what both ATI and nVidia are doing. The point is to show that they're not fully supporting open-source and Linux, and if they where you should be able to get those drivers pre-installed.
I really think that Linus should push some sort of "Linux Ready" hardware endorsement campaing. A website listing the best hardware to use with linux, with ratings on compatibility.
Maybe it's a marketing strategy? Laptops are known to have issues with Linux, and lots of people still have the impression that is hard to get it working with strange hardware. So, when people see a Laptop from HP running Linux it's going to be a shock! And many will associate this with "Linux is Ready for the Desktop"(TM). Then the Linux Desktops will start to appear. Putting that aside, am I the only one who thinks they should include a copy of CEDEGA(http://www.transgaming.com/) with those machines?
They won't.
Actually, Apples don't care much about the DRM, they just want to sell iPods, and tunes.
The ones who really cares are in the Phonographic industry, so what you really asking is:
When de RIAA will demand this to be fixed?
More importand, they'll demand Apple to fix it, or demand WinAmp to stop providing the plugin? Or both!?
That's what I think...
A cheap, notebook thing, with simple word processing capabilities and long battery life would be perfect for my wife.
She's studing History, and right now preparing her graduate thesis. She have accumulated amazing quantities of hand-written text... and now she is stating to compile all this text into the thesis, if she used a notebook to do her annotations it would be a matter of "copy-and-paste".
I cant afford a notebook for her, not even an used one, and even if I could those things are so heavy and cumbersome that she wouldnt carry it around.
Something with the power of a Palm, with a decent monocromatic screen, and a keyboard would be perfect for her. Better, if it could run a light word processor like AbiWord it would be the perfect solution.
An ARM or PPC processor @100Hz, with 512MB of Flash RAM, a SD Card expansion slot, 1 USB host port and a monocromatic 800x600 passive LCD. I guess that this would become a very decent Linux platform, expecially if you use the FrameBuffer directly, instead of a XServer. And it would give you insanely long battery life!
But, as I said, companies are selling features, not solutions. They need to do this, so you actually have a reason to upgrade your machine... The same happens with cellphones.
Yeah... there is some things that I can't really explain with these arguments.
But, I really like them... And I just they might fit well on a SciFi novel, something along the lines of Matrix or something.
I'll elaborate them a little bit more, and maybe write a fanfic novel, or comic book argument, or both!
Anyways... It's fun to discuss this, but I really think that's a bit of a waste of time. See, we cannot prove anything right now. And, in the end, when we die, everything will be revealed to us (one way or another).
So, why worry?
Exactly,
With operational systems and software, you can make people don't upgrade to your rival by making lots of empty promisses. Or, at least you can make them wait until you release your product, so they can compare with the other options avaliable... you can use marketing to slow down your competition.
But, with FREE services it's another story. No one will stop using Google because Microsoft is hyping some sort of new, magical, totaly integrated, superb solution.People will continue to use Google until this new service is released, and once it is released nothing stop them to use both services.
I dont think that Microsoft really understands the web. Not their marketing dept. at least...
- why do our thoughts produce detectable changes in the brain?
Because it has a memory cache. And also, we have all sort of instincts that are hardwired to the cerebral cortex, and the toughts and memories triggers all sorts of reflexes to all parts of our body.
- why do changes in the brain change our personalities and thougts?
Well, I think the brain act as a translator and a filter to the sensations. So if there's something wrong with it the information is not correctly parsed. Also, I think that the instincts are hardwired to our cortex, if something damages the wiring to the soul our instincts tend to assume control.
Even Microsoft agrees...
Look at the XBox, that migrated from x86 to PowerPC. Because it's powerfull, cheap and consumes little power. Look at the Playstation 3 and the Nintendo GameCube, and Revolution. All using PowerPC!!
Why should Apple drop PPC now, when it's proving to be a solid, coerent, well engineered platform?
I like to think that our brain is an interface to our soul, we use it to control our bodies and to receive input from our senses. We can even guess that our memories are some sort of a cache, for quick access.
This way, to be immortal, one would have to create a computer mechanism capable of interfacing with our soul, and them a way to transfer the control from a organic brain to this artificial interface!
More, with some tweaking one should be able to grow a entirely new body from steam cells, or something like it, and "tune" it to your soul... then, you just to "disconnect" your old body and enjoy the brand new one!