In some garbage-collected languages (e.g. Java or C#) the garbage collector is responsible for the eventual destruction of local objects and it is thus impossible to know when the destructor will be called; to use RAII in such languages the programmer must define and call a finalization routine.
In other garbage collected languages (such as D), class instances can be declared such that when they go out of scope, the destructor will get called, thereby supporting RAII.
On my machine this makes the splash.xpm image show until timeout or a key is pressed. YMMV. The xpm image is compressed with gzip, hence.xpm.gz (man gzip in a term). [BTW slashdot may put extra spaces in above code.] Basically, you need to read all the relevant manuals and documentation for your distro and tools. GRUB: http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/
If you want to add functionality like animation to a boot loader, good luck. You'd probably need to do a lot of research and read a lot of source code, either C or assembly.
it would do assembler, C, C++, and higher than C++ level
IMHO those four languages are better unified - that gives the programmer the most control.
Have you heard of the D language? It's not C or C++ precisely but is pretty close, has provision for using C APIs, has assembly, more function/object features and is easier to make more reliable code - see features kept and features dropped from C++:
D Programming overview
I'm sure the artists do care - I've been the guitar tech for a band recently signed to Sony in the UK and one of them never buys CDs, just downloads via P2P and another of them asked me if I knew how to circumvent iTunes/iPod limitations; they'd be against DRM and copy protection if they actually had any influence.
The sad fact is that for most new artists to have a decent chance of earning a living, they have to sell their soul and waive all their normal rights to one of the 5 major label conglomerates. Then you're stuck with at least a 6 album deal until you get the chance to leave the label.
(e.g. It says in the sleeve of Radiohead's OK Computer: "lyrics reprinted by kind permission, even though we wrote them". If they don't have the right to print their own lyrics, I'm sure the band have nothing to do with copy protection decisions).
Probably SYSTEMKit. But that wouldn't sound so menacing and upsetting, and the AV companies wouldn't do so well. Although it might deter Windows script kiddies and make them consider moving to a real OS, but then give up when they find nobody runs as root 24/7.
Assuming you might consider choosing a Linux system, you have several problems: 1. you don't know where to look for good Linux software 2. you expect all big companies to support and care about Linux, even though there might be a good/better alternative 3. you are ignorant of the state of Free Software in general
You make a fair point about WINE - it's not ready and will probably never support Windows apps entirely like Windows does; I wish people would shut up about WINE when discussing switching OSs, (even though it can be useful if you have the time to play with it and know about the extra configuration software available). These people should instead talk about Crossover Office and suchlike, even though that costs money.
Is there a GUI configuration option in Windows for numlock state after boot then? (I'd want it off by default).
Have you tried installing Windows from scratch using the disc(s) provided by MS (not your PC vendor)? Is it easier than installing and configuring a Linux system and applications (providing the hardware has software for it)?
In my experience there are tons of stuff that a Linux install does for you that would take ages hunting down drivers and downloads to make the latest MS OS do as well. In all fairness neither are perfect.
If your hardware isn't supported well enough on Ubuntu, at least try something like the latest Knoppix or look into buying some hardware that is supported - see what the FSF recommend; in shops ask to boot with Knoppix before you buy a laptop. It might be worth it - these days Free Software makes available pretty much anything that is reasonably needed (provided you don't need perfect interoperability with proprietary software). After all you wouldn't expect hardware that doesn't mention Windows to work in Windows would you?
Most good Linux distros provide a lot of GUI configuration tools so the command line can be avoided entirely, even for setting up a web server, for example (personally I find Fedora with Gnome to be good).
If you don't like Free Software compromises, don't use Linux. Personally I much prefer these than the compromises MS get people to make.
um, if Europeans want regular XP, what business is it of the EU to stop them from getting it?
It doesn't stop them getting XP with Windows Media Player, it just makes getting WMP as easy as getting a different media player. The EU just think that MS is using its OS near-monopoly to get another near-monopoly on media players, which is what the monopoly regulation laws are supposed to prevent.
What with bundled apps and DRM, the EU don't seem to be having much success stopping MS from abusing its monopoly on OSs.
I'm sick of companies stealing our code for their own ends - what say we invent some secret encrypted rights-assured IP verification obfuscation technology to use with the GPL3? Who's with me?!
Have you considered why he might recommend they use Outlook? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that it's already installed on many desktop PCs.
Popular Linux distros have Thunderbird installed by default so while obviously it's pretty rare to buy Linux preinstalled, it's an OS issue rather than an applications issue. The instructions for configuring Thunderbird would be the same cross-distro too.
A lot of people are dissatisfied with MS software; a good IT professional would at least provide some basic information about the available alternatives, mentioning that Thunderbird is cross-platform.
Repeat after me: Heavy Use Of A Linux Desktop Does Not Require The Command Prompt.
If you use a popular distribution and you know your hardware is supported you do not ever need to open a command shell window.
They already provide software for Linux - Distiller and Reader for example. Surely those 2 applications cover stuff like desktop integration, printing, filesystems etc. They've already gone to the trouble to implement these; why would Photoshop be any different? There are no OS barriers, it's just sensible to pool the design efforts together - freedesktop.org has been pretty successful already. I guess they can and will provide Photoshop when they're certain there's strong demand for it - though professional users of Photoshop doubtless will run the OS with the widest portfolio of well-marketed applications.
Hi,
One of the Google Summer of Code projects implemented uPnP traversal. According to the gaim news page it works and is in CVS. It'll be released in Gaim v2.0.
He's talking about fazing out Windows software. Which I think is fair terminology, given that each incantation emitted from Redmond is governed by marketing fads and not intended to last any significant period of time.
To be fair, if they were planning an overnight switch wouldn't that be more worthy of criticism?
To developers, an open source system will always gaurantee more power and control - proprietary code by definition will hide information - sometimes exactly that which is crucial to your project.
Proprietary software often chooses unnecessary obscurity - by design. On most open source *nix systems human-readable scripts do powerful tasks simply - and are easily understood and modified.
So whilst I agree with your point that you need expertise to do anything well, there may well come a point where the business model of the OS distributor makes things unnecessary difficult.
No codec should have to implement an equalizer - the same equalizer should be tacked on to the output of whichever decoder is being used, by the audio player.
As the other posts state, XMMS is not well maintained. The equalizer in beep-media-player works fine with Ogg Vorbis files on my Linux box.
As for hype, do some listening tests of your own, if you really want to know. To save time, you could try the Ogg Vorbis
dare to compare listening tests. At the end of the day, use what sounds best to you - anyone else will have at least some natural bias.
At last, tentative first steps to looking at alternatives to Windows. Anyone who has heard of Linux has almost certainly heard that it is free, so it should be obvious that the potential Linspire contract is about *support* - paying them to hold their hand through a potentially messy change over.
Sure, their software needs would be better solved if they could somehow elicit a large investment in development, testing and IT infrastructure for Linux based solutions - but that won't happen until some positive trials have proved that benefits can be made.
Once a company willing to say It Can Be Done (Red Hat actually recommend Windows to non-Techies IIRC) exists, they should try it out. Then Linux distributing companies can fight it out in the proper competitive way most other industries do, improving the choice and quality for the customers.
Once people see that Linspire demonstrates some advantages over Windows, the floodgates will open to a proper Linux solution - but without support that costs money, it's too much of a risk to switch to Linux.
Teething/Linspire specific problems won't scare off Linux interest, it's come too far.
WTF? They don't look at all similar considering they're both file managers.
Thumbnails definitely weren't in Windows 98. Windows 98 didn't have Places (common useful network/filesystem shortcuts that can be fully customised by the user). Windows 98 didn't have a directory extent toolbar which is simple but very useful.
You're complaining about the fact that there are two large panels similarly placed even though the usability is fundamentally different. Don't you think you should perhaps actually have tried using GNOME recently before criticising it?
I agree. I'd use Galeon in the meantime (Epiphany forked from it). It has more configurability and comes with really nice tab features. You can edit the toolbars (Edit->Toolbar) much the same as Firefox. It's basically Firefox with much better GNOME integration.
Slashdot Mirror
In some garbage-collected languages (e.g. Java or C#) the garbage collector is responsible for the eventual destruction of local objects and it is thus impossible to know when the destructor will be called; to use RAII in such languages the programmer must define and call a finalization routine.
_ Is_Initialization
In other garbage collected languages (such as D), class instances can be declared such that when they go out of scope, the destructor will get called, thereby supporting RAII.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Acquisition
Basically, you need to read all the relevant manuals and documentation for your distro and tools.
GRUB:
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/
If you want to add functionality like animation to a boot loader, good luck. You'd probably need to do a lot of research and read a lot of source code, either C or assembly.
1. If you have a recent grub, hide the menu:before any of the title lines in grub.conf or menu.lst (in
2. Remove the old kernel packages - good distros will remove the old options from grub.
it would do assembler, C, C++, and higher than C++ level
IMHO those four languages are better unified - that gives the programmer the most control.
Have you heard of the D language? It's not C or C++ precisely but is pretty close, has provision for using C APIs, has assembly, more function/object features and is easier to make more reliable code - see features kept and features dropped from C++:
D Programming overview
UK researchers - damn! Just when I thought us Brits might be making scientific progress again!
Still, great tagline for the UoK though.
I'm sure the artists do care - I've been the guitar tech for a band recently signed to Sony in the UK and one of them never buys CDs, just downloads via P2P and another of them asked me if I knew how to circumvent iTunes/iPod limitations; they'd be against DRM and copy protection if they actually had any influence.
The sad fact is that for most new artists to have a decent chance of earning a living, they have to sell their soul and waive all their normal rights to one of the 5 major label conglomerates. Then you're stuck with at least a 6 album deal until you get the chance to leave the label.
(e.g. It says in the sleeve of Radiohead's OK Computer: "lyrics reprinted by kind permission, even though we wrote them". If they don't have the right to print their own lyrics, I'm sure the band have nothing to do with copy protection decisions).
I don't think they went so far as to say that the replacement disc would be DRM-less or rippable, just that it didn't have a rootkit.
Probably SYSTEMKit. But that wouldn't sound so menacing and upsetting, and the AV companies wouldn't do so well. Although it might deter Windows script kiddies and make them consider moving to a real OS, but then give up when they find nobody runs as root 24/7.
Assuming you might consider choosing a Linux system, you have several problems:
1. you don't know where to look for good Linux software
2. you expect all big companies to support and care about Linux, even though there might be a good/better alternative
3. you are ignorant of the state of Free Software in general
You make a fair point about WINE - it's not ready and will probably never support Windows apps entirely like Windows does; I wish people would shut up about WINE when discussing switching OSs, (even though it can be useful if you have the time to play with it and know about the extra configuration software available). These people should instead talk about Crossover Office and suchlike, even though that costs money.
Is there a GUI configuration option in Windows for numlock state after boot then? (I'd want it off by default).
Have you tried installing Windows from scratch using the disc(s) provided by MS (not your PC vendor)? Is it easier than installing and configuring a Linux system and applications (providing the hardware has software for it)?
In my experience there are tons of stuff that a Linux install does for you that would take ages hunting down drivers and downloads to make the latest MS OS do as well. In all fairness neither are perfect.
If your hardware isn't supported well enough on Ubuntu, at least try something like the latest Knoppix or look into buying some hardware that is supported - see what the FSF recommend; in shops ask to boot with Knoppix before you buy a laptop. It might be worth it - these days Free Software makes available pretty much anything that is reasonably needed (provided you don't need perfect interoperability with proprietary software). After all you wouldn't expect hardware that doesn't mention Windows to work in Windows would you?
Most good Linux distros provide a lot of GUI configuration tools so the command line can be avoided entirely, even for setting up a web server, for example (personally I find Fedora with Gnome to be good).
If you don't like Free Software compromises, don't use Linux. Personally I much prefer these than the compromises MS get people to make.
What with bundled apps and DRM, the EU don't seem to be having much success stopping MS from abusing its monopoly on OSs.
I'm sick of companies stealing our code for their own ends - what say we invent some secret encrypted rights-assured IP verification obfuscation technology to use with the GPL3? Who's with me?!
why would you move your hand over to the 'numpad' just to type 2 digits?
Have you considered why he might recommend they use Outlook? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that it's already installed on many desktop PCs.
Popular Linux distros have Thunderbird installed by default so while obviously it's pretty rare to buy Linux preinstalled, it's an OS issue rather than an applications issue. The instructions for configuring Thunderbird would be the same cross-distro too.
A lot of people are dissatisfied with MS software; a good IT professional would at least provide some basic information about the available alternatives, mentioning that Thunderbird is cross-platform.
And you try and tell the young 'ackers o' today that - they won't believe you.
<shakes head>
Repeat after me: Heavy Use Of A Linux Desktop Does Not Require The Command Prompt.
If you use a popular distribution and you know your hardware is supported you do not ever need to open a command shell window.
They already provide software for Linux - Distiller and Reader for example. Surely those 2 applications cover stuff like desktop integration, printing, filesystems etc. They've already gone to the trouble to implement these; why would Photoshop be any different? There are no OS barriers, it's just sensible to pool the design efforts together - freedesktop.org has been pretty successful already.
I guess they can and will provide Photoshop when they're certain there's strong demand for it - though professional users of Photoshop doubtless will run the OS with the widest portfolio of well-marketed applications.
Hi,
One of the Google Summer of Code projects implemented uPnP traversal. According to the gaim news page it works and is in CVS. It'll be released in Gaim v2.0.
He's talking about fazing out Windows software. Which I think is fair terminology, given that each incantation emitted from Redmond is governed by marketing fads and not intended to last any significant period of time. To be fair, if they were planning an overnight switch wouldn't that be more worthy of criticism?
To developers, an open source system will always gaurantee more power and control - proprietary code by definition will hide information - sometimes exactly that which is crucial to your project.
Proprietary software often chooses unnecessary obscurity - by design. On most open source *nix systems human-readable scripts do powerful tasks simply - and are easily understood and modified.
So whilst I agree with your point that you need expertise to do anything well, there may well come a point where the business model of the OS distributor makes things unnecessary difficult.
No codec should have to implement an equalizer - the same equalizer should be tacked on to the output of whichever decoder is being used, by the audio player.
As the other posts state, XMMS is not well maintained. The equalizer in beep-media-player works fine with Ogg Vorbis files on my Linux box.
As for hype, do some listening tests of your own, if you really want to know. To save time, you could try the Ogg Vorbis dare to compare listening tests. At the end of the day, use what sounds best to you - anyone else will have at least some natural bias.
At last, tentative first steps to looking at alternatives to Windows. Anyone who has heard of Linux has almost certainly heard that it is free, so it should be obvious that the potential Linspire contract is about *support* - paying them to hold their hand through a potentially messy change over.
Sure, their software needs would be better solved if they could somehow elicit a large investment in development, testing and IT infrastructure for Linux based solutions - but that won't happen until some positive trials have proved that benefits can be made.
Once a company willing to say It Can Be Done (Red Hat actually recommend Windows to non-Techies IIRC) exists, they should try it out. Then Linux distributing companies can fight it out in the proper competitive way most other industries do, improving the choice and quality for the customers.
Once people see that Linspire demonstrates some advantages over Windows, the floodgates will open to a proper Linux solution - but without support that costs money, it's too much of a risk to switch to Linux.
Teething/Linspire specific problems won't scare off Linux interest, it's come too far.
WTF? They don't look at all similar considering they're both file managers.
Thumbnails definitely weren't in Windows 98.
Windows 98 didn't have Places (common useful network/filesystem shortcuts that can be fully customised by the user).
Windows 98 didn't have a directory extent toolbar which is simple but very useful.
You're complaining about the fact that there are two large panels similarly placed even though the usability is fundamentally different. Don't you think you should perhaps actually have tried using GNOME recently before criticising it?
I agree. I'd use Galeon in the meantime (Epiphany forked from it). It has more configurability and comes with really nice tab features. You can edit the toolbars (Edit->Toolbar) much the same as Firefox. It's basically Firefox with much better GNOME integration.
What if you run out of yellow ink?
Warning citizen, your Lexmark printer will soon become unpatriotic - please replace the *yellow* cartridge before further printing.