The histery of gui webpage showd all the MicorSoft windows but wen i downloded it there is no Space Cadet!!!! the gui histery webpage is run by a linus long hair or a appple hippie. Apples and linus doesnt rule like Micorsoft so there is no Space Cadet for apples and linus. okay, so the webpage gui histery is riten by a apple hippie or a linus long hair.
That guy is going to be in reel big trouble when i tell bill the he is voilatin his EULA of Micorsoft by giving windows away for FREE without Space Cadet. yeah scared huh. Micorsoft has smart lawyers and are going to rugh you up you stupidhead long hair. how do you like that? Bill will make me a rich man for gettin you in trouble he might even come over and place Space Cadet with me so there!!!!!!!!
Space Cadet rules what is your high score!!!!!
dont for get to go to my other page unless your a linus long hair or a apple hippie.
Sorry, guys... couldn't resist...
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You realize; however, that by doing this, you defeat shadowed passwords. Shadowed passwords are a Good Thing TM. In answer to the poster's original question (as I've done this repeatedly with a userbase with over 1600 entries):
(1) The file formats between Slackware and Solaris are identical, as is the encryption method used by crypt(3c).
(2) By default, Slackware keeps its home directories in/home, whereas Solaris keeps them in/export/home. Solaris also keeps its mailspool in/var/mail, while Slackware keeps it in/var/spool/mail.
(3) Slackware uses a BSD-like init-script system (rc.inet1, rc.serial, etc.) whereas Solaris uses a System V-style init-script system (/etc/rc2.d/S10foobar,/etc/rc3.d/S30httpd, etc.)
(4) If you've got any custom C code (that runs setuid) that you're planning on using after the transition beware that, while SunOS 5 does not inherit effective UIDs after a fork(2), Linux does, so you have room for potential exploits and "can't happen"-style of mistakes.
(5)As someone posted previously, SunOS and Linux both allow usernames with more than eight characters, but neither distribution (IE: Solaris or Slackware) makes very effective use of them. The user-management scripts with Slackware do tend to snag on larger usernames, but you can either modify the scripts or get new ones (look at http://www.unifiedportal.com/pub/ for the tools I wrote for my company. It's the first public beta and enuser is broken, so don't use enuser until beta 2 (due out sometime before Tuesday)). Other utils such as ps(1) and ls(1) show only the first eight characters. However, I do think that usernames under Linux are significant to their length (not just eight characters). Someone please correct me, if I'm wrong here.
(6) By default Slackware ships a rather lax system, in terms of security (it's still my favourite Linux distribution, BTW). Be prepared to tighten things up a bit, kill off unnecessary daemons, and make sure that TCP wrappers (which are installed per default... Cool!) and/etc/securetty is set to your liking before putting the box online. But, really, you have to do this with any normal Unix setup, so it's not really anything unusual.
(7) Slackware uses/etc/printcap instead of/etc/printers.conf, so your you'll have to redo any printing tweaks you did under Solaris in the older (but more standardized) printcap format (the man page is a great help).
That's all I can think of for the moment. I hope this helped.
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QT is a "GUI Toolkit" produced by a company called Troll Tech. A GUI Toolkit is a library that contains a framework for developing graphical applications. This prevents programmers from having to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, whenever a programmer needs to create a scrollbar in his/her application. QT is written in C++ and has the benefits that it's free for Open SourceTM use, has the source available, and is fairly handsome.
For all of us who'd love to read the story @ NYT, but think it's silly to have to sign up for the NYT online stuff, I've created an account. The agreement says we can share usernames and passwords, so as long as you don't do anything illegal with the account, I don't see what's wrong with this.
I'm trusting all of you not to mess with the password. After all, I'm personally starting a movement to oppose this sort of silliness. So, let's use our collective Slashdot Voice and roar.
USERNAME: slashdotnews PASSWORD: nerdnews
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Let's extend this argument a little further, shall we?.....
It only makes good business sense to support something that's widely known, whether or not it's technically superiour. Multiplatform support is a support nightmare, so let's only support one, or a small subset of what's out there. Now, MIS managers want people to all be running the same libs/kernel/software/etc so that support is easy.
Why don't we all just write software exclusively for Windows NT / Windows 98?
Yeah, I can see the business end of the decision, but that doesn't make it any more correct. I'm sorry, but I will never be a RedHat user after experiencing the sheer garbage they shrinkwrapped for the SPARC platform (I'm currently porting Slackware to SPARC, if anyone'd like to help me).
While RPM is nice, it's yet another magic black box. No other Unix-OS out there (Except for perhaps IRIX) has such black boxes for install packages. Also, how hard is it to write your own install script (look at Netscape's) that detects the presence of certain libraries, detects what libc you're runnning (sound like a certain configure-ation program out there?), and installs the things you don't have? Seems to me that most Windows apps out there do that already. New versions of Microsoft's C Runtime Library (essentially libc for Windows) and DirectX are constantly being installed on my Win98/WinNT box (yeah, it's evil, but I've gotta have one for work, in addition to my SPARCs) by apps that I install. I don't honestly know what version of MSVCRT I'm running right now because the last program I installed (I can't remember what it was, but it's not an MS app) upgraded it for me.
Now, I know that having programs automagically upgrade libc is is way beyond being a "Bad Thing", but you get the idea. If I don't have libcurses for glibc2.1 installed, and the program requires it, why can't it install it for me? This is already done on most other operating systems (Windows, MacOS, etc.), so why is that too much to expect from a program designed for Linux? I mean, seriously, don't the writers of the app know what libraries they use? And, since it was (most-likely) developed on Red Hat, the libs are Open-Source, meaning, failing all-else, the installer can use an auto-compile script (This is a development package, so this isn't totally out in left field) to custom-build (IE:./configure ; make ; make install) the libs I need and then install the main app.
All I'm saying is that while what they're doing may seem to make good business sense, assembling an intelligent installation program (instead of relying on RPM to check dependencies) will let them run on more distributions, which means that they sell more product. They also don't lose money in the royalties that they might lose on other platforms, since the code base they've built their app on is free. So... more sales, no royalties, more users, instant support of more platforms, all for not-that-much more R&D. Isn't that much better business sense?
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I'm afraid that I don't see what about a device driver is distribution-specific. How many times do we have to say it? Linux is Linux. Aside from the various versions of libc (Red Hat has used all of them during its lifetime), what, really is the difference, from a device-driver's point of view?
Where do people get the idea that distributions are platforms of their own, anyway? Seriously, get over the paranoia. If your libs are there, then you're okay. If your kernel is there, and you can detect certain other binaries you need, the world really isn't that strange.
Gads, you people make it sound like we're back in the PDP days.....
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Anyone here remember when Slashdot readers used to have a sense of humor? Does anyone here remember when the absolute in technical accuracy (and spelling correctness) weren't required by posters? How many people here have viewed Slashdot for more than a year?
Okay, I expect this post to be moderated down to a (-1, Offtopic), and, you know what, I don't really care! If I have to, to get my point across, I'll post this damned reply to every submitted article here. I want people to remember.
I remember when the whole moderation thing was up for debate. Remember that? The loudest of us were so ticked off because of MEEPT (probably one of the greatest joys here at Slashdot) and "First!" posters.
What have we now? Someone makes a humorous post, and it gets a negative mark. Someone makes an obscure mark (The Seymour Cray remark above), and it gets moderated down and up because some clueless newbies can't make the connection or don't deem it "news-worthy".
I, for one, think that this "cure" is worse than the "disease". Moderation has gotten out of control. Feelings are getting hurt, and Slashdot is turning into MSNBC.com or ZDnet, or some other place where only "good" feedback is reported (by default). Look what we've lost! Those of you who think we have won a "real" news source, you probably think that when Macromedia releases a new 42.7megabyte version of Flash so that you can download a rotating daisy animation, the web has "won", too.
Okay, so maybe I'm not ESR, maybe I'm not RMS, maybe I'm not anyone other than someone who really happens to believe in Open Source as more than a buzzword or a way of getting people to contribute free code. No one blesses my words, but if you truly understand, they won't have to. At least hear me out.
Offtopic, am I? Maybe I am, maybe you can't see the connection. This has gotten way out-of-hand, and Slashdot has sold its soul to the public, the masses, the same people that bitch when Open Source upgrades are "late", that bitch when Linus releases bug fixes immediately, "making" them have to upgrade their kernel every few weeks, the same people that whine when their ISPs won't install FrontPage extensions because they lack the mental endurance to learn HTML.
In short, SlashDot has sold out. Maybe we should start moderating articles and banner ads and links while we're at it? I realize this is Rob's site, but he led us to believe him a visionary, one who was one of Us, one who wouldn't sell out. If he were, moderation would either be unheard of or would be across-the-board for posters as well as readers.
For those of you who remember, let's all have a moment of silence as Slashdot passes from a mature forum in which humour and knowledge resounded side-by-side, to a kindergarten where only people with Gold Stars get their posts shown to new viewers and those of us who don't have cookie-enabled browsers (I'm a Lynx user, 70% of the time).
I'm very saddened by this, and I'll miss Slashdot a lot. It's a sad thing when Slashdot turns away the very target market that caused it to grow to its large size in the first place. Slashdot is now chic and trendy just like Slate or Wired.
We all worried that Slashdot would turn into Usenet. It seems that it's drifting towards the very opposite extreme. While, yes, the posts are still viewable, they get branded as "unsuitable". Now they get branded "why" they are "unsuitable".
So, call me a (-1, Offtopic), and just see if I give a flying fsck. Slashdot is dead. It has sold its soul. Perhaps we'll start seeing Kiplinger "Hacker" backpack ads or Microsoft Ergo-mouse banner ads at the top of the pages now?
Those of you in power who remember, I urge you to turn back this trend before you lie in sick disgust at what you have been swayed into creating. Or, at least make the default setting to "Moderation Off".
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I have to agree with the sentiment of the above poster (why the hell was his/her message moderated down to a -1??). As an avid user of SPARC/Linux, I'm very close to going back to Solaris (as soon as I get a box that runs Slowaris as fast as my LX runs Linux). I'm sick of a Netscape that segfaults on load, a lack of precompiled binaries (my box is slow, I appreciate the convenience of binaries).
I've heard the "get a PC" argument before, albeit not on SlashDot. It's justified to some extent, as PCs are cheap-o, but if you've got an older workstation-class machine lying around, you might as well use it, eh?
However, what annoys me more are that Red Hat actually released RH Linux 5.1/SPARC as an actual product even though it sucked out-of-box (broken gcc in some cases, broken gtk+, broken lots-of-things). I guess we SPARC/Linux users are just such a minority that we don't have a voice yet.
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You've missed the point completely. I'm not saying that loading Linux apps requires a device driver. It requires loading a subsystem that sits atop the NT kernel.
OS/2 protected-mode applications that do not rely on the Workplace Shell can run on Windows NT through such a subsystem. Trapping INT requests is not that difficult a matter. You simply install INT handlers (not unlike any OS kernel does) that point to your subsystem which, in turn, calls the NT system calls. The subsystem has almost all the properties of an OS. I mean, Microsoft Word isn't an NT-native application. It's a Win32 application running on a Win32 subsystem on the Windows NT Kernel. Why should Linux apps be so much harder? The Linux API actually has more in-common (in terms of design goals) with the NT native API than the Win32 API does.
Page faults, etc. magically happen (for the most part), once you trap syscalls, since, by then, you're asking NT for the memory and passing it to the application. Opening files (in fact, IO in general) is handled by NT. That's why the kernel is there.
Why should I assume that anything is impossible from a computer? Only things that are not computable (refer to the many wonderful examples of things not computable in a Turing machine) are impossible. Speed, that's another issue, but whether things are possible or not isn't.
I mean, seriously, I can run Nintendo binaries on my NT box, but you think it's impossible to run binaries designed for the same type of hardware, but different OS? You have too little faith in the code, my friend.
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Actually, I have a fair amount of confidence that this can be done with the Windows NT DDK (Device-Driver Development Kit). Windows NT Device drivers aren't written atop the Win32 subsystem that most Win apps are written on. NT drivers are written in NT native mode. Writing atop the NT native librares is akin to writing atop system calls, instead of using the C library routines.
NT Subsystems (indeed, even the Win32 subsystem) are written on the NT native libraries, which are fairly-well documented (at least, fairly-well compared to the usual standard of cruft seeping out of Microsoft documentation) in the DDK. While NDA-covered stuff from Microsoft would, no doubt, make the job easier, the things that are covered in the DDK docs would, most-likely, be sufficient to write another subsystem.
If you'll remember back to the day of NT 3.1/3.5, one of Microsoft's biggest advertising bullets was that this sort of thing could be done under NT with (relative) ease. I think it'd be a step backwards (even from a marketroid point-of-view) to make this more difficult in later releases.
Of course, from there it's just a "small matter of programming".:)
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I don't see how it would hurt us to have NT have our whole application base. Isn't the whole purpose of OpenSource(TM) to let people use solutions without hassle or reinventing of multiple wheels? I don't think many of the authors of that application base would appreciate a Linux-only (or even Unix-only) mindset towards the application of those solutions.
While NT can be considered somewhat of a lesser operating system (I'm trying to be nice here), it does have a modicum of a POSIX subsystem, so portability is theoretically doable. Although, the real issue is most-likely that NT's POSIX is to POSIX as NT's OpenGL is to OpenGL (IE: not "pure").
Seriously, though. What would be wrong if I could run ncftp under NT (I know there's a native version, but I'm thinking examples here)? I run NT on one machine almost full-time (because I have to develop front-ends for lusers (IE: Win95 weenies) who use the Unix server software that my company pays me to write), and I'd love to be able to run Linux binaries.
To be honest, I think what hurts our application base the most is the elitism that seems to surround GNU/Linux. Were it not for the fact that some people believe see software as solutions that benefit the human race without regard to money or system, we wouldn't even have the GNU system, or many of the works created with it.
Seriously, how many people do you know that wouldn't even know Unix because they wouldn't have gotten there start in Linux, if everyone still saw software as property rather than a solution? I know I'm one of them.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Richard, Linus, Alan, and everyone else who has not thought along the same lines that the previous poster has. Were it not for you guys, I'd probably be flipping burgers and still running OS/2. *shudder*
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I've used nothing other than gcc under Solaris 2.x, with no worse results than I would get with gcc under Linux. Gcc always performs nicely, doesn't seem to have an portability problems, and has that nice "standard-gcc-interface" thing going on, so I don't have to remember all the command-line switches for foo-cc.
Although a bit off-topic, I've also used gcc under SunOS 4.1.x (oops... I meant Solaris 1.x;) ) with much better results than Sun's (K&R-only) cc.
GNU tools just rock the party that rocks the party. I honestly don't know why people buy C/C++ compilers anymore, except to maybe get the snazzy IDEs that come with them.
However, I can say that I've never used EGCS on Solaris. Isn't EGCS x86-specific, though? Anyway, I've had problems with inconsistent code generation on Intels, so I just use the tried-and-true gcc. It's never steered me wrong (unless I had an extra paren somewhere).
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This is actually how I admin my personal website now. I must say that it's one of the most friendly ways that I've ever seen, and you can make it pretty secure (allow/deny in smb.conf, for example). I use a text editor (PFE for Windows), and save my files in a share that's mapped to a local drive. It works quite well.
Again, like the other posters have said, it will break scripts unless you ask Samba to do CR/LF translation, which will break pix. But then, if users are wanting to use scripts, they're probably bright enough (or should at least understand how they should be) to use FTP. I mean, letting users install scripts without having them know even basic Unix is a little extreme in the "luser empowerment" movement.
If they're on Windows clients, using Samba will make their day a lot easier. Just edit the files "locally", and they "magically" appear on the website (provided that you set-up permanent shares on the Windows client).
I don't know about FrontPage working in this setup or not, but you really don't want FP extensions on your website. That would be a Bad Thing.
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2.2.x releases are stable releases. And, assuming that you don't need PCI audio support, framebuffer support, or any of the other nifty multimedia features, or things like OOB protection, or memory-leak fixes, or hosts of other fixes, 2.0.0 should be fine for you.
And, I don't know how you build kernels, but I, for one, always leave the previous version in/vmlinuz.old with a corresponding entry in lilo.conf, so there's never a need to wipe anything.
And, just out of curiosity.... When, except maybe when EXT2 was first being toyed with, did upgrading the kernel leave anything in a terrible mess?
Sir, you need to read the documentation, so that you know the proper procedures for upgrading the kernel,if you haven't learned to keep backups of a component before you upgrade it.
Let's face it - 640K is enough for anybody.;)
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It won't do them any good unless they get all the root nameservers to recognize the MLM top-level-domain. If all the roots don't see it, then anything under MLM won't resolve.
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.....*idle whistling*... So, it's just my imagination that the Ultra 5 on the desk next to me is kicking the crap out of the dual PII-450 across the room? Screw raw performance. Workstations still have PCs beat at price-to-performance, at least for workstation-type applications (IE: not word-processing or playing Doom).
And who really cares if your 3D video card can beat up a Creator 2D. The Unix workstation market is no more dead than it was five years ago, back when you were running Windows 3.11. Unix has it's place, massive parallel computing has it's place, and toy PCs have their place in the hands of PHBs and accountants.
I'd really like to see what you consider massive computing power. A Quad-processed Pentium III? A 64-way Enterprise 10K or a Cray JE9 is massive to me.
And if "fast 3D" to you means DirectX in a full-screen window, we're talking two totally different languages here. I'm talking about something actually useful in an engineering/research environment.... something that can generate actual information (not just pretty pictures) from the 3D modeling engine.
MIPS may be falling behind,but I doubt your MIPS vs Pentium benchmark. Alpha may be falling behind, but SPARCs are still way ahead of anything coming out of Intel's labs.
Comparing a seven-year-old SGI to a brand new top-of-the-line Intel box is hardly a worthy comparison. Let's compare what's out there now... Dual-processed Octane R12k to Dual-Pentium III Xeon. *shrug* Yeah, there's a price difference, but if you absolutely need that much power, the cost-curve doesn't matter so much if that's the only way you can get it.
Yeah, getting a Onyx2 (or other kick-butt Unix box) for office work & 3D games is definitely a Bad Idea, and so is buying a Ferrari to drive it through a school zone.
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... Just remembering PowerComputing, their cool logo, and the fact that Apple ATE them with Micro$oft money...
Cool logos, Apple's involvement, Microsoft dominance.. it's related, man. And, if it isn't, why the HELL did you waste your oh-so-precious time replying?
Hehe.... At least my post had to do with computers, not with topicality, buttmunch.
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I live near Round Rock, Texas (Where PowerComputing was located), and managed to purchase a PowerTrip 233 from one of their engineers just after Apple ate PowerComputing.
It's a PC laptop. Other than the minor bugs (which would have been worked out over an average product cycle), it's the best notebook I've ever used (Even runs GNU/Linux in 1024x768x24bit very well). They made good machines. It was a shame to see them fall... I got this notebook for about $1.7K (233 MHz P-MMX, 128MB RAM, Video Option, 13.4" Active-Matrix, everything), which wasn't too much less than for what PowerComputing was going to sell it to the public. Damned shame, that they never got a chance.
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OpenGL "going away"? Please, if you think that OpenGL is all about Quake and flight simulators then you need to get a clue. OpenGL is very precise and exact graphics rendering model that has its roots in scientific simulation. Microsoft doesn't comprehend this idea of "precision" or "industry-standard". Why do you think that Microsoft's implementation of OpenGL is such a bitch to port OpenGL apps to?
I'd like to know when SGI started to manufacture PCs, or why they would ever care to. Their hardware is vastly superior. PC 3D gaming hardware outstrips their best? Come on, Indy 8-bit graphics running on an R4000 isn't "their best". Neither is an Onyx Reality Engine, but it's still fast enough for me to enter a lightsabre duel with a computerized opponent (with a real prop for a lightsabre & 3d-goggles... it's a toy project of Rice University's CS department).
The day that Microsoft's dual-headed support does stereographic imaging, DirectImput allows me to pick up a roll of paper towels and use it as a lightsabre becuase DirectImput supports motion-sensors, and Intel Pentiums are fast enough to render this at dual 1280x1024x32bit at more than 45 frames per second, then you can say that SGI has been caught up to by Intel.
Computing power is not a commodity, at least not the sort of power you'd find in a MIPS R10k or MIPS R12k or a grid of 16 MIPS R8k. The day you can buy something like that, slap Micros~1 Windows 2056 (It'll probably take that long) on it and get it to do realtime OpenGL rendering like an SGI....
...SGI will have just released something better, assuming they don't start to suffer from "Microsoft Innovation Syndrome".
#endif/* __FLAME__ */
No, SGI isn't perfect, nor are their machines perfect. In fact, I use Suns almost all the time (price/performance thing... plus the replacement parts are marginally cheaper). But, to compare even a (relatively) lowly Indigo2 to a PC? You need to quit smoking so much of that Microsoft(R) Crack(TM) v2.0.
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Anyone who's done a significant amount of Win32 programming knows about Windows' "4GB limitation". It seems that our dear researchers have, yet again, listened to marketroids as opposed to doing Gasp! "actual research".
The Win32 memory architecture has a 4 gigabyte "Address Space". Which, would seem to hint that an application can use 4 gigabytes of memory. Well, if could, except for the upper 2 gigabytes are "reserved for system use" and the lower (I think) 4 megabytes are typically not used, as applications are typically loaded at the 4 megabyte mark in their own personal "address space". The entry address is passed to WinMain() (The Windows application entry point (as opposed to main() on Unix)) as the "Application Instance". It's normally 0x04000000, or four megabytes.
But no, as an application, you can't access more than two gigabytes. That's all that's available in user space. Windows memory management does some significant voodoo in the background, but if the system has a true four gigabyte virtual playground, why can't an arbitrary application see it?
Funny how they never said why Linux can only access 1GB "under certain conditions". Maybe when you only have one gig installed with no swap?:) Seriously, though. What about Linux on an Alpha or UltraSPARC or MIPS R4000 or higher? Still a 2 gig limit? I don't think so.
I'm really beginning to hate the media and the web in general. Too many clueless bastards out there know how to type.
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I must say... that is the single most depressing thing I've seen all week. They've traded their cool 3D Cube for some near-Courier text. Sigh Marketroids.... grumble, grumble, grumble
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Runs around hi-fiving all the Slackware users about.
Slackware kicks ass. I wish Patrick would have let me port it to SPARC. Instead, I'm forming my own distribution as I get time. But, would you like to take a guess which distribution it's gonig to favor most?
Slackware... as much fun as SunOS 4.1.3, and it runs on a PC... what more could you want?
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Well said! Does anyone remember when the Linux System Administrator's Guide (or was it the NAG) explicitly stated that upgrading often was a bad idea? That it is only a good idea to upgrade if you need some feature or bugfix? That was back in the day when people actually used their source and hacked around on Linux like the wonderful tool it is, instead of merely screaming at unpaid developers to release code more quickly. If you needed a security hole patched or a new device supported, you wrote the driver (Okay I'll admit that it was a lot easier to get device specs back then) instead of harrassing an underpaid and overworked developer who released software publically in his/her spare time. If you didn't like the way your window-manager looked or worked, you edited the code.
When did the mentality change? I came to Linux from a Windows world, and I came to Windows from a Macintosh world. I think you're right that Windows has ruined a lot of people... not just Windows generally, but definitely Windows 95 and Windows NT.
Some of you must've used Windows 3.1 before. Granted that it's really of limited utility when put on the same table as Linux/Unix... but, did you ever feel the need to upgrade drivers every two weeks? Or call Microsoft (before the widespread explosiong of the 'Net) to ask if there was a new patch to KRNL386.EXE? If you're like me, no. It worked, it wasn't going to run any better, and it didn't crash too often, so you left it alone and read PC/Computing or PC Magazine for nifty tips to work around the rough edges.
It seems like that with the dawn of Win95, Microsoft just releases code whenever the upper-management say so, not when it's ready. Look at NT 4.0 (and NT 3.51). It took three service pack releases to make it stable... even by Microsoft's standards.
Maybe if people would remember the days when software was released when it was ready, we wouldn't have these days... the whole Windows 95 mentality seems to be infecting Windows->Linux immigrants. How often do you hear an ex-Mac user say "Three more months until Fooware 1.0???? Heh... MacOS has service releases every x months!"?
Linux is losing speed, mainly due to developer burn-out (Linus, anyone?). Look at all the negative media coverage of the 2.1->2.2 kernel development cycle, the number of people that demand new features in Enlightenment, and all the FUD that gets spread around, and you can see why. Anyone remember when Persistence of Vision had free technical support? The POV team quit the support stuff when people started demanding support and bugfixes and even ports. Expect to see open-source developers dropping projects because of impatient people like this. Personal projects that help a lot of people simply cease to be worth the effort when the vast majority of people bitch and moan instead of present ideas and constructive (and patient) criticism.
With all the people screaming for updates, more recent CVS snapshots, and more features, you begin to wonder if only the people who snicker "What would I want with source code?" are the ones who just don't get the idea of open source. Whether we have some philosophy behind us or not, we still don't get paid... the only benefits we receive are the gratification of a job well done, and, occasionally, a loyal and appreciative following of users.
I think you're right, those of us who actually write Open SourceTM software are seen as nerds.... nerds doing the electronic homework for the business elite. This has to be the greatest weakness of the Open Source model--the ease with which people can abuse it. Our users can gripe all they want, and we can't write them out of the license. They may use all the free software they want without contributing a thing, and perhaps while injuring the Open Source image with their demands and complaints. We mean nothing to the majority of people who use OSS "because it's free" and because they want to be an 3L33T Unix "hacker". We're simply a means to an end.... a convenience.
To put it anonther way... if Open Source disappeared tomorrow... if all the developers finally had enough and ceased development and destroyed all copies of their work.... who other than us developers our loyal users would really care? They simply don't get it. OSS is not about software. It's about people sharing solutions and methods, instead of hording them for personal gain. It's as applicable to a word processor as it is to the cure for cancer. It runs completely counter to the over-commercialized, guerilla-capitalist marketing that is so common here in the US and that Microsft epitomizes.
I mean, come on. How can you honstly expect most PHBs, who have spent their entire lives screwing the little guy over to make a buck, to understand, at the most fundamental level, the idea of giving solutions away for free, with the freedom to improve it? Sure, they understand getting things for free, but sharing things with a larger community? Don't count on it.
Yeah, I agree with you. And to all of you users who give nothing back to the OSS community (not even positive word-of-mouth), go back to Windows and bitch at Bill Gates. I'm sure he'll be willing to listen as well as we are... at $1.45 a minute or $90 an incident.
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Slashdot Mirror
The histery of gui webpage showd all the MicorSoft windows but wen i downloded it there is no Space Cadet!!!! the gui histery webpage is run by a linus long hair or a appple hippie. Apples and linus doesnt rule like Micorsoft so there is no Space Cadet for apples and linus. okay, so the webpage gui histery is riten by a apple hippie or a linus long hair.
That guy is going to be in reel big trouble when i tell bill the he is voilatin his EULA of Micorsoft by giving windows away for FREE without Space Cadet. yeah scared huh. Micorsoft has smart lawyers and are going to rugh you up you stupidhead long hair. how do you like that? Bill will make me a rich man for gettin you in trouble he might even come over and place Space Cadet with me so there!!!!!!!!
Space Cadet rules what is your high score!!!!!
dont for get to go to my other page unless your a linus long hair or a apple hippie.
Sorry, guys... couldn't resist...
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You realize; however, that by doing this, you defeat shadowed passwords. Shadowed passwords are a Good Thing TM. In answer to the poster's original question (as I've done this repeatedly with a userbase with over 1600 entries):
(1) The file formats between Slackware and Solaris are identical, as is the encryption method used by crypt(3c).
(2) By default, Slackware keeps its home directories in /home, whereas Solaris keeps them in /export/home. Solaris also keeps its mailspool in /var/mail, while Slackware keeps it in /var/spool/mail.
(3) Slackware uses a BSD-like init-script system (rc.inet1, rc.serial, etc.) whereas Solaris uses a System V-style init-script system (/etc/rc2.d/S10foobar, /etc/rc3.d/S30httpd, etc.)
(4) If you've got any custom C code (that runs setuid) that you're planning on using after the transition beware that, while SunOS 5 does not inherit effective UIDs after a fork(2), Linux does, so you have room for potential exploits and "can't happen"-style of mistakes.
(5)As someone posted previously, SunOS and Linux both allow usernames with more than eight characters, but neither distribution (IE: Solaris or Slackware) makes very effective use of them. The user-management scripts with Slackware do tend to snag on larger usernames, but you can either modify the scripts or get new ones (look at http://www.unifiedportal.com/pub/ for the tools I wrote for my company. It's the first public beta and enuser is broken, so don't use enuser until beta 2 (due out sometime before Tuesday)). Other utils such as ps(1) and ls(1) show only the first eight characters. However, I do think that usernames under Linux are significant to their length (not just eight characters). Someone please correct me, if I'm wrong here.
(6) By default Slackware ships a rather lax system, in terms of security (it's still my favourite Linux distribution, BTW). Be prepared to tighten things up a bit, kill off unnecessary daemons, and make sure that TCP wrappers (which are installed per default... Cool!) and /etc/securetty is set to your liking before putting the box online. But, really, you have to do this with any normal Unix setup, so it's not really anything unusual.
(7) Slackware uses /etc/printcap instead of /etc/printers.conf, so your you'll have to redo any printing tweaks you did under Solaris in the older (but more standardized) printcap format (the man page is a great help).
That's all I can think of for the moment. I hope this helped.
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So January 1st, y2k, we won't need to worry about computer failures - they're putting this thing in full swing.
I believe that would be January 1, 2001.
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QT is a "GUI Toolkit" produced by a company called Troll Tech. A GUI Toolkit is a library that contains a framework for developing graphical applications. This prevents programmers from having to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, whenever a programmer needs to create a scrollbar in his/her application. QT is written in C++ and has the benefits that it's free for Open SourceTM use, has the source available, and is fairly handsome.
QT is the foundation upon which The K Desktop Environment and QT NetHack (of arguably greater importance) are built.
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For all of us who'd love to read the story @ NYT, but think it's silly to have to sign up for the NYT online stuff, I've created an account. The agreement says we can share usernames and passwords, so as long as you don't do anything illegal with the account, I don't see what's wrong with this.
I'm trusting all of you not to mess with the password. After all, I'm personally starting a movement to oppose this sort of silliness. So, let's use our collective Slashdot Voice and roar.
USERNAME: slashdotnews
PASSWORD: nerdnews
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Let's extend this argument a little further, shall we?.....
It only makes good business sense to support something that's widely known, whether or not it's technically superiour. Multiplatform support is a support nightmare, so let's only support one, or a small subset of what's out there. Now, MIS managers want people to all be running the same libs/kernel/software/etc so that support is easy.
Why don't we all just write software exclusively for Windows NT / Windows 98?
Yeah, I can see the business end of the decision, but that doesn't make it any more correct. I'm sorry, but I will never be a RedHat user after experiencing the sheer garbage they shrinkwrapped for the SPARC platform (I'm currently porting Slackware to SPARC, if anyone'd like to help me).
While RPM is nice, it's yet another magic black box. No other Unix-OS out there (Except for perhaps IRIX) has such black boxes for install packages. Also, how hard is it to write your own install script (look at Netscape's) that detects the presence of certain libraries, detects what libc you're runnning (sound like a certain configure-ation program out there?), and installs the things you don't have? Seems to me that most Windows apps out there do that already. New versions of Microsoft's C Runtime Library (essentially libc for Windows) and DirectX are constantly being installed on my Win98/WinNT box (yeah, it's evil, but I've gotta have one for work, in addition to my SPARCs) by apps that I install. I don't honestly know what version of MSVCRT I'm running right now because the last program I installed (I can't remember what it was, but it's not an MS app) upgraded it for me.
Now, I know that having programs automagically upgrade libc is is way beyond being a "Bad Thing", but you get the idea. If I don't have libcurses for glibc2.1 installed, and the program requires it, why can't it install it for me? This is already done on most other operating systems (Windows, MacOS, etc.), so why is that too much to expect from a program designed for Linux? I mean, seriously, don't the writers of the app know what libraries they use? And, since it was (most-likely) developed on Red Hat, the libs are Open-Source, meaning, failing all-else, the installer can use an auto-compile script (This is a development package, so this isn't totally out in left field) to custom-build (IE: ./configure ; make ; make install) the libs I need and then install the main app.
All I'm saying is that while what they're doing may seem to make good business sense, assembling an intelligent installation program (instead of relying on RPM to check dependencies) will let them run on more distributions, which means that they sell more product. They also don't lose money in the royalties that they might lose on other platforms, since the code base they've built their app on is free. So... more sales, no royalties, more users, instant support of more platforms, all for not-that-much more R&D. Isn't that much better business sense?
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I'm afraid that I don't see what about a device driver is distribution-specific. How many times do we have to say it? Linux is Linux. Aside from the various versions of libc (Red Hat has used all of them during its lifetime), what, really is the difference, from a device-driver's point of view?
Where do people get the idea that distributions are platforms of their own, anyway? Seriously, get over the paranoia. If your libs are there, then you're okay. If your kernel is there, and you can detect certain other binaries you need, the world really isn't that strange.
Gads, you people make it sound like we're back in the PDP days.....
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Anyone here remember when Slashdot readers used to have a sense of humor? Does anyone here remember when the absolute in technical accuracy (and spelling correctness) weren't required by posters? How many people here have viewed Slashdot for more than a year?
Okay, I expect this post to be moderated down to a (-1, Offtopic), and, you know what, I don't really care! If I have to, to get my point across, I'll post this damned reply to every submitted article here. I want people to remember.
I remember when the whole moderation thing was up for debate. Remember that? The loudest of us were so ticked off because of MEEPT (probably one of the greatest joys here at Slashdot) and "First!" posters.
What have we now? Someone makes a humorous post, and it gets a negative mark. Someone makes an obscure mark (The Seymour Cray remark above), and it gets moderated down and up because some clueless newbies can't make the connection or don't deem it "news-worthy".
I, for one, think that this "cure" is worse than the "disease". Moderation has gotten out of control. Feelings are getting hurt, and Slashdot is turning into MSNBC.com or ZDnet, or some other place where only "good" feedback is reported (by default). Look what we've lost! Those of you who think we have won a "real" news source, you probably think that when Macromedia releases a new 42.7megabyte version of Flash so that you can download a rotating daisy animation, the web has "won", too.
Okay, so maybe I'm not ESR, maybe I'm not RMS, maybe I'm not anyone other than someone who really happens to believe in Open Source as more than a buzzword or a way of getting people to contribute free code. No one blesses my words, but if you truly understand, they won't have to. At least hear me out.
Offtopic, am I? Maybe I am, maybe you can't see the connection. This has gotten way out-of-hand, and Slashdot has sold its soul to the public, the masses, the same people that bitch when Open Source upgrades are "late", that bitch when Linus releases bug fixes immediately, "making" them have to upgrade their kernel every few weeks, the same people that whine when their ISPs won't install FrontPage extensions because they lack the mental endurance to learn HTML.
In short, SlashDot has sold out. Maybe we should start moderating articles and banner ads and links while we're at it? I realize this is Rob's site, but he led us to believe him a visionary, one who was one of Us, one who wouldn't sell out. If he were, moderation would either be unheard of or would be across-the-board for posters as well as readers.
For those of you who remember, let's all have a moment of silence as Slashdot passes from a mature forum in which humour and knowledge resounded side-by-side, to a kindergarten where only people with Gold Stars get their posts shown to new viewers and those of us who don't have cookie-enabled browsers (I'm a Lynx user, 70% of the time).
I'm very saddened by this, and I'll miss Slashdot a lot. It's a sad thing when Slashdot turns away the very target market that caused it to grow to its large size in the first place. Slashdot is now chic and trendy just like Slate or Wired.
We all worried that Slashdot would turn into Usenet. It seems that it's drifting towards the very opposite extreme. While, yes, the posts are still viewable, they get branded as "unsuitable". Now they get branded "why" they are "unsuitable".
So, call me a (-1, Offtopic), and just see if I give a flying fsck. Slashdot is dead. It has sold its soul. Perhaps we'll start seeing Kiplinger "Hacker" backpack ads or Microsoft Ergo-mouse banner ads at the top of the pages now?
Those of you in power who remember, I urge you to turn back this trend before you lie in sick disgust at what you have been swayed into creating. Or, at least make the default setting to "Moderation Off".
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I have to agree with the sentiment of the above poster (why the hell was his/her message moderated down to a -1??). As an avid user of SPARC/Linux, I'm very close to going back to Solaris (as soon as I get a box that runs Slowaris as fast as my LX runs Linux). I'm sick of a Netscape that segfaults on load, a lack of precompiled binaries (my box is slow, I appreciate the convenience of binaries).
I've heard the "get a PC" argument before, albeit not on SlashDot. It's justified to some extent, as PCs are cheap-o, but if you've got an older workstation-class machine lying around, you might as well use it, eh?
However, what annoys me more are that Red Hat actually released RH Linux 5.1/SPARC as an actual product even though it sucked out-of-box (broken gcc in some cases, broken gtk+, broken lots-of-things). I guess we SPARC/Linux users are just such a minority that we don't have a voice yet.
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You've missed the point completely. I'm not saying that loading Linux apps requires a device driver. It requires loading a subsystem that sits atop the NT kernel.
OS/2 protected-mode applications that do not rely on the Workplace Shell can run on Windows NT through such a subsystem. Trapping INT requests is not that difficult a matter. You simply install INT handlers (not unlike any OS kernel does) that point to your subsystem which, in turn, calls the NT system calls. The subsystem has almost all the properties of an OS. I mean, Microsoft Word isn't an NT-native application. It's a Win32 application running on a Win32 subsystem on the Windows NT Kernel. Why should Linux apps be so much harder? The Linux API actually has more in-common (in terms of design goals) with the NT native API than the Win32 API does.
Page faults, etc. magically happen (for the most part), once you trap syscalls, since, by then, you're asking NT for the memory and passing it to the application. Opening files (in fact, IO in general) is handled by NT. That's why the kernel is there.
Why should I assume that anything is impossible from a computer? Only things that are not computable (refer to the many wonderful examples of things not computable in a Turing machine) are impossible. Speed, that's another issue, but whether things are possible or not isn't.
I mean, seriously, I can run Nintendo binaries on my NT box, but you think it's impossible to run binaries designed for the same type of hardware, but different OS? You have too little faith in the code, my friend.
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Actually, I have a fair amount of confidence that this can be done with the Windows NT DDK (Device-Driver Development Kit). Windows NT Device drivers aren't written atop the Win32 subsystem that most Win apps are written on. NT drivers are written in NT native mode. Writing atop the NT native librares is akin to writing atop system calls, instead of using the C library routines.
NT Subsystems (indeed, even the Win32 subsystem) are written on the NT native libraries, which are fairly-well documented (at least, fairly-well compared to the usual standard of cruft seeping out of Microsoft documentation) in the DDK. While NDA-covered stuff from Microsoft would, no doubt, make the job easier, the things that are covered in the DDK docs would, most-likely, be sufficient to write another subsystem.
If you'll remember back to the day of NT 3.1/3.5, one of Microsoft's biggest advertising bullets was that this sort of thing could be done under NT with (relative) ease. I think it'd be a step backwards (even from a marketroid point-of-view) to make this more difficult in later releases.
Of course, from there it's just a "small matter of programming". :)
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I don't see how it would hurt us to have NT have our whole application base. Isn't the whole purpose of OpenSource(TM) to let people use solutions without hassle or reinventing of multiple wheels? I don't think many of the authors of that application base would appreciate a Linux-only (or even Unix-only) mindset towards the application of those solutions.
While NT can be considered somewhat of a lesser operating system (I'm trying to be nice here), it does have a modicum of a POSIX subsystem, so portability is theoretically doable. Although, the real issue is most-likely that NT's POSIX is to POSIX as NT's OpenGL is to OpenGL (IE: not "pure").
Seriously, though. What would be wrong if I could run ncftp under NT (I know there's a native version, but I'm thinking examples here)? I run NT on one machine almost full-time (because I have to develop front-ends for lusers (IE: Win95 weenies) who use the Unix server software that my company pays me to write), and I'd love to be able to run Linux binaries.
To be honest, I think what hurts our application base the most is the elitism that seems to surround GNU/Linux. Were it not for the fact that some people believe see software as solutions that benefit the human race without regard to money or system, we wouldn't even have the GNU system, or many of the works created with it.
Seriously, how many people do you know that wouldn't even know Unix because they wouldn't have gotten there start in Linux, if everyone still saw software as property rather than a solution? I know I'm one of them.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Richard, Linus, Alan, and everyone else who has not thought along the same lines that the previous poster has. Were it not for you guys, I'd probably be flipping burgers and still running OS/2. *shudder*
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I've used nothing other than gcc under Solaris 2.x, with no worse results than I would get with gcc under Linux. Gcc always performs nicely, doesn't seem to have an portability problems, and has that nice "standard-gcc-interface" thing going on, so I don't have to remember all the command-line switches for foo-cc.
Although a bit off-topic, I've also used gcc under SunOS 4.1.x (oops... I meant Solaris 1.x ;) ) with much better results than Sun's (K&R-only) cc.
GNU tools just rock the party that rocks the party. I honestly don't know why people buy C/C++ compilers anymore, except to maybe get the snazzy IDEs that come with them.
However, I can say that I've never used EGCS on Solaris. Isn't EGCS x86-specific, though? Anyway, I've had problems with inconsistent code generation on Intels, so I just use the tried-and-true gcc. It's never steered me wrong (unless I had an extra paren somewhere).
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True, true.... There's just no way to set it as default, so I tend to forget.... :)
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This is actually how I admin my personal website now. I must say that it's one of the most friendly ways that I've ever seen, and you can make it pretty secure (allow/deny in smb.conf, for example). I use a text editor (PFE for Windows), and save my files in a share that's mapped to a local drive. It works quite well.
Again, like the other posters have said, it will break scripts unless you ask Samba to do CR/LF translation, which will break pix. But then, if users are wanting to use scripts, they're probably bright enough (or should at least understand how they should be) to use FTP. I mean, letting users install scripts without having them know even basic Unix is a little extreme in the "luser empowerment" movement.
If they're on Windows clients, using Samba will make their day a lot easier. Just edit the files "locally", and they "magically" appear on the website (provided that you set-up permanent shares on the Windows client).
I don't know about FrontPage working in this setup or not, but you really don't want FP extensions on your website. That would be a Bad Thing.
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2.2.x releases are stable releases. And, assuming that you don't need PCI audio support, framebuffer support, or any of the other nifty multimedia features, or things like OOB protection, or memory-leak fixes, or hosts of other fixes, 2.0.0 should be fine for you.
And, I don't know how you build kernels, but I, for one, always leave the previous version in /vmlinuz.old with a corresponding entry in lilo.conf, so there's never a need to wipe anything.
And, just out of curiosity.... When, except maybe when EXT2 was first being toyed with, did upgrading the kernel leave anything in a terrible mess?
Sir, you need to read the documentation, so that you know the proper procedures for upgrading the kernel,if you haven't learned to keep backups of a component before you upgrade it.
Let's face it - 640K is enough for anybody. ;)
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It won't do them any good unless they get all the root nameservers to recognize the MLM top-level-domain. If all the roots don't see it, then anything under MLM won't resolve.
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.....*idle whistling*... So, it's just my imagination that the Ultra 5 on the desk next to me is kicking the crap out of the dual PII-450 across the room? Screw raw performance. Workstations still have PCs beat at price-to-performance, at least for workstation-type applications (IE: not word-processing or playing Doom).
And who really cares if your 3D video card can beat up a Creator 2D. The Unix workstation market is no more dead than it was five years ago, back when you were running Windows 3.11. Unix has it's place, massive parallel computing has it's place, and toy PCs have their place in the hands of PHBs and accountants.
I'd really like to see what you consider massive computing power. A Quad-processed Pentium III? A 64-way Enterprise 10K or a Cray JE9 is massive to me.
And if "fast 3D" to you means DirectX in a full-screen window, we're talking two totally different languages here. I'm talking about something actually useful in an engineering/research environment.... something that can generate actual information (not just pretty pictures) from the 3D modeling engine.
MIPS may be falling behind,but I doubt your MIPS vs Pentium benchmark. Alpha may be falling behind, but SPARCs are still way ahead of anything coming out of Intel's labs.
Comparing a seven-year-old SGI to a brand new top-of-the-line Intel box is hardly a worthy comparison. Let's compare what's out there now... Dual-processed Octane R12k to Dual-Pentium III Xeon. *shrug* Yeah, there's a price difference, but if you absolutely need that much power, the cost-curve doesn't matter so much if that's the only way you can get it.
Yeah, getting a Onyx2 (or other kick-butt Unix box) for office work & 3D games is definitely a Bad Idea, and so is buying a Ferrari to drive it through a school zone.
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... Just remembering PowerComputing, their cool logo, and the fact that Apple ATE them with Micro$oft money...
Cool logos, Apple's involvement, Microsoft dominance.. it's related, man. And, if it isn't, why the HELL did you waste your oh-so-precious time replying?
Hehe.... At least my post had to do with computers, not with topicality, buttmunch.
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I live near Round Rock, Texas (Where PowerComputing was located), and managed to purchase a PowerTrip 233 from one of their engineers just after Apple ate PowerComputing.
It's a PC laptop. Other than the minor bugs (which would have been worked out over an average product cycle), it's the best notebook I've ever used (Even runs GNU/Linux in 1024x768x24bit very well). They made good machines. It was a shame to see them fall... I got this notebook for about $1.7K (233 MHz P-MMX, 128MB RAM, Video Option, 13.4" Active-Matrix, everything), which wasn't too much less than for what PowerComputing was going to sell it to the public. Damned shame, that they never got a chance.
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OpenGL "going away"? Please, if you think that OpenGL is all about Quake and flight simulators then you need to get a clue. OpenGL is very precise and exact graphics rendering model that has its roots in scientific simulation. Microsoft doesn't comprehend this idea of "precision" or "industry-standard". Why do you think that Microsoft's implementation of OpenGL is such a bitch to port OpenGL apps to?
I'd like to know when SGI started to manufacture PCs, or why they would ever care to. Their hardware is vastly superior. PC 3D gaming hardware outstrips their best? Come on, Indy 8-bit graphics running on an R4000 isn't "their best". Neither is an Onyx Reality Engine, but it's still fast enough for me to enter a lightsabre duel with a computerized opponent (with a real prop for a lightsabre & 3d-goggles... it's a toy project of Rice University's CS department).
The day that Microsoft's dual-headed support does stereographic imaging, DirectImput allows me to pick up a roll of paper towels and use it as a lightsabre becuase DirectImput supports motion-sensors, and Intel Pentiums are fast enough to render this at dual 1280x1024x32bit at more than 45 frames per second, then you can say that SGI has been caught up to by Intel.
Computing power is not a commodity, at least not the sort of power you'd find in a MIPS R10k or MIPS R12k or a grid of 16 MIPS R8k. The day you can buy something like that, slap Micros~1 Windows 2056 (It'll probably take that long) on it and get it to do realtime OpenGL rendering like an SGI....
...SGI will have just released something better, assuming they don't start to suffer from "Microsoft Innovation Syndrome".
#endifNo, SGI isn't perfect, nor are their machines perfect. In fact, I use Suns almost all the time (price/performance thing... plus the replacement parts are marginally cheaper). But, to compare even a (relatively) lowly Indigo2 to a PC? You need to quit smoking so much of that Microsoft(R) Crack(TM) v2.0.
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Anyone who's done a significant amount of Win32 programming knows about Windows' "4GB limitation". It seems that our dear researchers have, yet again, listened to marketroids as opposed to doing Gasp! "actual research".
The Win32 memory architecture has a 4 gigabyte "Address Space". Which, would seem to hint that an application can use 4 gigabytes of memory. Well, if could, except for the upper 2 gigabytes are "reserved for system use" and the lower (I think) 4 megabytes are typically not used, as applications are typically loaded at the 4 megabyte mark in their own personal "address space". The entry address is passed to WinMain() (The Windows application entry point (as opposed to main() on Unix)) as the "Application Instance". It's normally 0x04000000, or four megabytes.
But no, as an application, you can't access more than two gigabytes. That's all that's available in user space. Windows memory management does some significant voodoo in the background, but if the system has a true four gigabyte virtual playground, why can't an arbitrary application see it?
Funny how they never said why Linux can only access 1GB "under certain conditions". Maybe when you only have one gig installed with no swap? :) Seriously, though. What about Linux on an Alpha or UltraSPARC or MIPS R4000 or higher? Still a 2 gig limit? I don't think so.
I'm really beginning to hate the media and the web in general. Too many clueless bastards out there know how to type.
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I must say... that is the single most depressing thing I've seen all week. They've traded their cool 3D Cube for some near-Courier text. Sigh Marketroids.... grumble, grumble, grumble
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Woohoo!
Runs around hi-fiving all the Slackware users about.
Slackware kicks ass. I wish Patrick would have let me port it to SPARC. Instead, I'm forming my own distribution as I get time. But, would you like to take a guess which distribution it's gonig to favor most?
Slackware... as much fun as SunOS 4.1.3, and it runs on a PC... what more could you want?
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Well said! Does anyone remember when the Linux System Administrator's Guide (or was it the NAG) explicitly stated that upgrading often was a bad idea? That it is only a good idea to upgrade if you need some feature or bugfix? That was back in the day when people actually used their source and hacked around on Linux like the wonderful tool it is, instead of merely screaming at unpaid developers to release code more quickly. If you needed a security hole patched or a new device supported, you wrote the driver (Okay I'll admit that it was a lot easier to get device specs back then) instead of harrassing an underpaid and overworked developer who released software publically in his/her spare time. If you didn't like the way your window-manager looked or worked, you edited the code.
When did the mentality change? I came to Linux from a Windows world, and I came to Windows from a Macintosh world. I think you're right that Windows has ruined a lot of people... not just Windows generally, but definitely Windows 95 and Windows NT.
Some of you must've used Windows 3.1 before. Granted that it's really of limited utility when put on the same table as Linux/Unix... but, did you ever feel the need to upgrade drivers every two weeks? Or call Microsoft (before the widespread explosiong of the 'Net) to ask if there was a new patch to KRNL386.EXE? If you're like me, no. It worked, it wasn't going to run any better, and it didn't crash too often, so you left it alone and read PC/Computing or PC Magazine for nifty tips to work around the rough edges.
It seems like that with the dawn of Win95, Microsoft just releases code whenever the upper-management say so, not when it's ready. Look at NT 4.0 (and NT 3.51). It took three service pack releases to make it stable... even by Microsoft's standards.
Maybe if people would remember the days when software was released when it was ready, we wouldn't have these days... the whole Windows 95 mentality seems to be infecting Windows->Linux immigrants. How often do you hear an ex-Mac user say "Three more months until Fooware 1.0???? Heh... MacOS has service releases every x months!"?
Linux is losing speed, mainly due to developer burn-out (Linus, anyone?). Look at all the negative media coverage of the 2.1->2.2 kernel development cycle, the number of people that demand new features in Enlightenment, and all the FUD that gets spread around, and you can see why. Anyone remember when Persistence of Vision had free technical support? The POV team quit the support stuff when people started demanding support and bugfixes and even ports. Expect to see open-source developers dropping projects because of impatient people like this. Personal projects that help a lot of people simply cease to be worth the effort when the vast majority of people bitch and moan instead of present ideas and constructive (and patient) criticism.
With all the people screaming for updates, more recent CVS snapshots, and more features, you begin to wonder if only the people who snicker "What would I want with source code?" are the ones who just don't get the idea of open source. Whether we have some philosophy behind us or not, we still don't get paid... the only benefits we receive are the gratification of a job well done, and, occasionally, a loyal and appreciative following of users.
I think you're right, those of us who actually write Open SourceTM software are seen as nerds.... nerds doing the electronic homework for the business elite. This has to be the greatest weakness of the Open Source model--the ease with which people can abuse it. Our users can gripe all they want, and we can't write them out of the license. They may use all the free software they want without contributing a thing, and perhaps while injuring the Open Source image with their demands and complaints. We mean nothing to the majority of people who use OSS "because it's free" and because they want to be an 3L33T Unix "hacker". We're simply a means to an end.... a convenience.
To put it anonther way... if Open Source disappeared tomorrow... if all the developers finally had enough and ceased development and destroyed all copies of their work.... who other than us developers our loyal users would really care? They simply don't get it. OSS is not about software. It's about people sharing solutions and methods, instead of hording them for personal gain. It's as applicable to a word processor as it is to the cure for cancer. It runs completely counter to the over-commercialized, guerilla-capitalist marketing that is so common here in the US and that Microsft epitomizes.
I mean, come on. How can you honstly expect most PHBs, who have spent their entire lives screwing the little guy over to make a buck, to understand, at the most fundamental level, the idea of giving solutions away for free, with the freedom to improve it? Sure, they understand getting things for free, but sharing things with a larger community? Don't count on it.
Yeah, I agree with you. And to all of you users who give nothing back to the OSS community (not even positive word-of-mouth), go back to Windows and bitch at Bill Gates. I'm sure he'll be willing to listen as well as we are... at $1.45 a minute or $90 an incident.
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