And remeber, it's a free system, so you'll always have the choice not to use it or only use what you want to use it for.
Sure you'll have a choice if you decide to compile your own kernel. But I don't see grandma or uncle bob downloading theirs from kernel.org and compiling it from source. I don't oppose it's inclusion in the tree but I think if money is involved (RIAA and MPAA have deep pockets), it won't be too difficult to persuade some of the more user-friendly distros to compile a stock kernel with trusted computing compiled in.
I guess I just believe that computer scientists have a responsibility to protect users from malicious and sneaky actions that violate their rights as computer users. Or maybe I just have a pessimistic view of society.
I'm going to agree with the parent. The entire article pretty much says that it's proprietary and that's a bad thing. One can argue that this is true, but should that really be a total knock against the operating system?
I'm not exactly in favor of this new version of Solaris, but let's see if their review of Longhorn, whenever that may be, stresses that the OS is proprietary and therefore, not the best option.
Personally, I think the technical merits that an OS offers far outweighs its licensing model. The article does stress hardware and software problems, but I was put off by the whole "Solaris isn't Open Source so wait until it is" argument.
Well, technically you didn't lose the data...it just won't come back on command. You installed the update, you broke the computer. I don't think you're going to get anything.
What the Open Source community has is what all communist countries thus far have lacked, which is the admission of only like-minded people.
Yes, for now only like-minded people will follow. But eventually, in order for the Free Software movement to succeed, everyone will have to adopt it whether they believe or not. To expect every grandma out there to suddenly embrace Free Software ideals is a little ridiculous when all they want to do is get their Health Newsletter and play bridge against Ethel in Sarasota.
Besides, it could be argued that all communist movements started with a band of loyal believers, only to be diluted once the revolution succeeded.
I'd like to point out that this already exists at other universities, include my personal favorite (because it's close to my heart), RensselaerPolytechnicInstitute.
I won't argue that Java feels a little bit slower than C++ on a native platform. However, there are a few instances that I can think of where a developer would choose Java over C++:
Portability - You can't run C and C++ in a web browser very easily. In an enterprise environment, or even on the internet, you need to be able to distribute your application quickly. No one likes having to download a program from the Internet, especially in the days of spyware and adware. Allowing people to just run your program with code they know won't break their computer is the best way to fly. No to mention, HTML allows you to embed a Java applet much easier than CGI allows you to execute a local program, in my opinion.
User Interface Design - Ever try to write a Windows interface? What about a GTK interface? If you need a program whose main focus is in computation and calculations, not User Interface or data entry, an IDE like NetBeans will help you easily design the interface in an hour or two rather than having to manually code it by hand and constantly test how it looks. Before.NET, you couldn't easily code the interfaces. At least with Java you can guarantee everything will look the same no matter where it runs.
Memory Protection - With Java, you have no worries about memory troubles. With C and C++, the developer has to handle his own memory allocation and garbage collection. Java does it automatically. What worries do you have when you dereference a pointer to 6 MB's of memory if Java is going to clean it up for you? There's almost no room for pointer miscalculations and for dealing with ugly Microsoft API's that handle six or seven different arguments, all either reading or writing and all being pointers. Unix API's are simpler but you still run into Segmentation Faults with Linked Lists and other Data Structures.
When you write an application, you want to focus mostly on the purpose of that app, not small CS details such as memory allocation and UI design. Obviously, some projects require this attention but for an enterprise project that isn't going to break into any new territory, eliminating as many problems as possible is the best choice. That's why languages like Perl and Java are great - very little chance to blow things up. I'd agree with someone that Perl might be a better choice in some instances over Java, but saying that C and C++ are better choices because you can compile them natively and run them a few milliseconds faster isn't a good reason for me.
I think half the fun for me of using Linux is that I installed it myself. When I first started, I had no idea what I was doing but now, I definitely know my way around and can really appreciate the amazing accomplishment of these developers.
For me, buying a laptop from Dell with Linux already installed takes away the entire point of me putting Linux on my machine in the first place.
Forget philosophies on OSS vs. Microsoft and all that junk...100% the people who use Linux are doing it not because it makes life easier, but because everything is completely controlled by us.
Of course, I can definitely see the day that I buy a PC from Dell or HP with RedHat on it and the first thing I do is format the hard drive and put Slackware or Gentoo (ducks to dodge the tomatoes) on the machine instead.
Look, the fact that the video games industry makes more money gross per year than Music and Movies is starting to turn a lot of heads. Even better, if you combine everyone's favorite concept of off-shoring and out-sourcing, it may be cheaper to eventually make a game than a movie or a CD. And the price is still almost 5 times that of either a movie ticket or a CD. Don't underestimate the money and influence these guys have at their disposal and don't be surprised when you see an advertisement for a Fox Interactive game on Fox News with a tie into a 20th Century Fox Picture.
The XBox did not necessarily kill PC Gaming. Instead, the Xbox pulled together two markets. First, it grabbed all of the normal console people who can't even spell PC let alone try and run a game on one. Second, it grabbed all those PC fanboys who thought it was cool that the XBox was basically a PC with a special BIOS/OS.
What I see Microsoft doing instead is combining the two platforms. I remember reading in PC Gamer not too long ago that Microsoft was attempting to develop a platform on the PC that operated just like consoles - instead of installing a game, it could just run off of the discs. This is a brilliant idea when you think about it. If they can write a wrapper and sell it (or even just let it be free), then people can buy Xbox games that run on PC and the Xbox. This way, if you don't have $2000 for a decent PC, you can still buy an XBox. On the other hand, you can use the PC's advanced Graphics chips and easily upgradeable hardware (how many people have installed an ATI X800 in their Xbox lately?) to play the newest games as they were meant to be. The term "console port" would quickly become obsolete.
Of course, if Microsoft were smart, they'd develop features that could only work on the Xbox so that people don't just buy a new PC and play all the XBox games on that alone.
Don't rule it out...Microsoft has already said they're attempting to allow PC gamers to play on XBox live.
If it gets to the point where most users use OSS on Windows instead of Microsoft's own products, then Microsoft will be unable to change whatever they want for fear of angering their clients. I'm not talking about only Mr. Home Consumer. If large corporations such as a GE or GM implement a Novell solution on Windows, and Microsoft starts to change things, losing a client like GE or GM could really hurt their income.
Of course, you have to convince people to switch first. I think that the change is coming slowly. First comes the Web Browsers. Then the Office Productivity Software. The hardest clients to switch will be those that use Microsoft features like VB Macros. They've taken the the time to write their own software and they probably won't drop it quickly.
I'm a first year graduate student at RPI working towards my Master's. I'll tell you right now that not many schools are looking for Master's students. I applied to 4 different schools and only one, my safe school, gave me any kind of money whatsoever.
I know that research experience is rated very highly. I would recommend giving them as much information about you as possible. Also, do a lot of background checking on the school and it's current research projects. The professors with a lot of money are more likely to accept you. If a professor has no money, he definitely won't want to take on a new student, especially a Master's student who won't be around very long.
RPI is trying to get me out in a year and a half. I should have my thesis done by this summer even though I just started working on it this fall. I highly recommend checking out what the degree requirements are to make sure they won't kill you. There was a guy in my Complexity class this semester who was going back to school for his PhD and the math absolutely killed him, especially since he was EE and this was a CS class.
If you have never lived in any of these countries before, you definitely should plan on coming early to get adjusted to the lifestyle here. I imagine it's not exactly the same as what you have at home. Plus, you'll have a chance to get your bearings around town so you won't have to worry about finding a grocery store once school starts. Grad school works at a much faster pace than undergrad, even though you take fewer classes.
I can attest to this, having run both nvidia and ATI cards under linux. The nvidia drivers tend to be much more stable and they have an excellent support forum for those issues that affect anyone.
ATI has no support whatsoever and rarely even documents their drivers at all. I had an issue about 2 months ago where the new ATI drivers and X.org stopped working together. I had to switch to XFree86 just to keep operational.
In hindsight, I'd say that you're probably better off sticking to nvidia if you really want to play games under Linux.
I'll second this - I sat through my Programming Languages class last semester - which involved programming only in Prolog and Scheme - and was one of the few to actually get an A. This is even weirder considering that my GPA in CS was something like a 2.8. I barely struggled through the class.
Maybe it was more of the fact that I decided to actually go to class and do my homework than the fact I was lefthanded though. I'll have to check on that correlation...
While I risk being slapped around for a pro-Gentoo post, I will point out that I started out on Slackware 9.0 and after a year I decided to install Gentoo on a small PC at work. It took me a couple tries, but I finally had a working Gentoo installation.
Gentoo isn't extremely difficult to install, once you give it a few tries, as I said above. The documentation is extremely explicit when it comes to the installation. However, maintaining your system tends to be a bit more complicated. If you like to be bleeding edge, as I sometimes do, you will end up with at least one broken thing per update. That's when the expertise really needs to kick in. However, if you don't mind being a month or two behind the curve, then using Gentoo stable probably won't cause you too many headaches.
Whether this helped you or not to decide, I don't know. But I highly recommend taking a test PC lying around and using it before switching to another distribution of any kind. This way, you can screw it up as much as possible and it won't matter because you really won't use it that much anyways!
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And remeber, it's a free system, so you'll always have the choice not to use it or only use what you want to use it for.
Sure you'll have a choice if you decide to compile your own kernel. But I don't see grandma or uncle bob downloading theirs from kernel.org and compiling it from source. I don't oppose it's inclusion in the tree but I think if money is involved (RIAA and MPAA have deep pockets), it won't be too difficult to persuade some of the more user-friendly distros to compile a stock kernel with trusted computing compiled in.
I guess I just believe that computer scientists have a responsibility to protect users from malicious and sneaky actions that violate their rights as computer users. Or maybe I just have a pessimistic view of society.
"If you pick a good technology and your developers are insane, then it's going to come to tears."
Contrapositive is:
"If you don't pick a good technology or your developers are not insane, then it won't come to tears?"
Just some food for thought.
I'm going to agree with the parent. The entire article pretty much says that it's proprietary and that's a bad thing. One can argue that this is true, but should that really be a total knock against the operating system?
I'm not exactly in favor of this new version of Solaris, but let's see if their review of Longhorn, whenever that may be, stresses that the OS is proprietary and therefore, not the best option.
Personally, I think the technical merits that an OS offers far outweighs its licensing model. The article does stress hardware and software problems, but I was put off by the whole "Solaris isn't Open Source so wait until it is" argument.
Well, technically you didn't lose the data...it just won't come back on command. You installed the update, you broke the computer. I don't think you're going to get anything.
What the Open Source community has is what all communist countries thus far have lacked, which is the admission of only like-minded people.
Yes, for now only like-minded people will follow. But eventually, in order for the Free Software movement to succeed, everyone will have to adopt it whether they believe or not. To expect every grandma out there to suddenly embrace Free Software ideals is a little ridiculous when all they want to do is get their Health Newsletter and play bridge against Ethel in Sarasota.
Besides, it could be argued that all communist movements started with a band of loyal believers, only to be diluted once the revolution succeeded.
I'd like to point out that this already exists at other universities, include my personal favorite (because it's close to my heart), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
I won't argue that Java feels a little bit slower than C++ on a native platform. However, there are a few instances that I can think of where a developer would choose Java over C++:
.NET, you couldn't easily code the interfaces. At least with Java you can guarantee everything will look the same no matter where it runs.
Portability - You can't run C and C++ in a web browser very easily. In an enterprise environment, or even on the internet, you need to be able to distribute your application quickly. No one likes having to download a program from the Internet, especially in the days of spyware and adware. Allowing people to just run your program with code they know won't break their computer is the best way to fly. No to mention, HTML allows you to embed a Java applet much easier than CGI allows you to execute a local program, in my opinion.
User Interface Design - Ever try to write a Windows interface? What about a GTK interface? If you need a program whose main focus is in computation and calculations, not User Interface or data entry, an IDE like NetBeans will help you easily design the interface in an hour or two rather than having to manually code it by hand and constantly test how it looks. Before
Memory Protection - With Java, you have no worries about memory troubles. With C and C++, the developer has to handle his own memory allocation and garbage collection. Java does it automatically. What worries do you have when you dereference a pointer to 6 MB's of memory if Java is going to clean it up for you? There's almost no room for pointer miscalculations and for dealing with ugly Microsoft API's that handle six or seven different arguments, all either reading or writing and all being pointers. Unix API's are simpler but you still run into Segmentation Faults with Linked Lists and other Data Structures.
When you write an application, you want to focus mostly on the purpose of that app, not small CS details such as memory allocation and UI design. Obviously, some projects require this attention but for an enterprise project that isn't going to break into any new territory, eliminating as many problems as possible is the best choice. That's why languages like Perl and Java are great - very little chance to blow things up. I'd agree with someone that Perl might be a better choice in some instances over Java, but saying that C and C++ are better choices because you can compile them natively and run them a few milliseconds faster isn't a good reason for me.
I think half the fun for me of using Linux is that I installed it myself. When I first started, I had no idea what I was doing but now, I definitely know my way around and can really appreciate the amazing accomplishment of these developers.
For me, buying a laptop from Dell with Linux already installed takes away the entire point of me putting Linux on my machine in the first place.
Forget philosophies on OSS vs. Microsoft and all that junk...100% the people who use Linux are doing it not because it makes life easier, but because everything is completely controlled by us.
Of course, I can definitely see the day that I buy a PC from Dell or HP with RedHat on it and the first thing I do is format the hard drive and put Slackware or Gentoo (ducks to dodge the tomatoes) on the machine instead.
X.Org announced version 7.0 of their popular implementation of MIT's X specification.
I'm referencing this CNN/Money article:
Rupert Murdoch's new game
Look, the fact that the video games industry makes more money gross per year than Music and Movies is starting to turn a lot of heads. Even better, if you combine everyone's favorite concept of off-shoring and out-sourcing, it may be cheaper to eventually make a game than a movie or a CD. And the price is still almost 5 times that of either a movie ticket or a CD. Don't underestimate the money and influence these guys have at their disposal and don't be surprised when you see an advertisement for a Fox Interactive game on Fox News with a tie into a 20th Century Fox Picture.
The XBox did not necessarily kill PC Gaming. Instead, the Xbox pulled together two markets. First, it grabbed all of the normal console people who can't even spell PC let alone try and run a game on one. Second, it grabbed all those PC fanboys who thought it was cool that the XBox was basically a PC with a special BIOS/OS.
What I see Microsoft doing instead is combining the two platforms. I remember reading in PC Gamer not too long ago that Microsoft was attempting to develop a platform on the PC that operated just like consoles - instead of installing a game, it could just run off of the discs. This is a brilliant idea when you think about it. If they can write a wrapper and sell it (or even just let it be free), then people can buy Xbox games that run on PC and the Xbox. This way, if you don't have $2000 for a decent PC, you can still buy an XBox. On the other hand, you can use the PC's advanced Graphics chips and easily upgradeable hardware (how many people have installed an ATI X800 in their Xbox lately?) to play the newest games as they were meant to be. The term "console port" would quickly become obsolete.
Of course, if Microsoft were smart, they'd develop features that could only work on the Xbox so that people don't just buy a new PC and play all the XBox games on that alone.
Don't rule it out...Microsoft has already said they're attempting to allow PC gamers to play on XBox live.
If it gets to the point where most users use OSS on Windows instead of Microsoft's own products, then Microsoft will be unable to change whatever they want for fear of angering their clients. I'm not talking about only Mr. Home Consumer. If large corporations such as a GE or GM implement a Novell solution on Windows, and Microsoft starts to change things, losing a client like GE or GM could really hurt their income.
Of course, you have to convince people to switch first. I think that the change is coming slowly. First comes the Web Browsers. Then the Office Productivity Software. The hardest clients to switch will be those that use Microsoft features like VB Macros. They've taken the the time to write their own software and they probably won't drop it quickly.
I'm a first year graduate student at RPI working towards my Master's. I'll tell you right now that not many schools are looking for Master's students. I applied to 4 different schools and only one, my safe school, gave me any kind of money whatsoever.
I know that research experience is rated very highly. I would recommend giving them as much information about you as possible. Also, do a lot of background checking on the school and it's current research projects. The professors with a lot of money are more likely to accept you. If a professor has no money, he definitely won't want to take on a new student, especially a Master's student who won't be around very long.
RPI is trying to get me out in a year and a half. I should have my thesis done by this summer even though I just started working on it this fall. I highly recommend checking out what the degree requirements are to make sure they won't kill you. There was a guy in my Complexity class this semester who was going back to school for his PhD and the math absolutely killed him, especially since he was EE and this was a CS class.
If you have never lived in any of these countries before, you definitely should plan on coming early to get adjusted to the lifestyle here. I imagine it's not exactly the same as what you have at home. Plus, you'll have a chance to get your bearings around town so you won't have to worry about finding a grocery store once school starts. Grad school works at a much faster pace than undergrad, even though you take fewer classes.
I can attest to this, having run both nvidia and ATI cards under linux. The nvidia drivers tend to be much more stable and they have an excellent support forum for those issues that affect anyone. ATI has no support whatsoever and rarely even documents their drivers at all. I had an issue about 2 months ago where the new ATI drivers and X.org stopped working together. I had to switch to XFree86 just to keep operational. In hindsight, I'd say that you're probably better off sticking to nvidia if you really want to play games under Linux.
I'll second this - I sat through my Programming Languages class last semester - which involved programming only in Prolog and Scheme - and was one of the few to actually get an A. This is even weirder considering that my GPA in CS was something like a 2.8. I barely struggled through the class.
Maybe it was more of the fact that I decided to actually go to class and do my homework than the fact I was lefthanded though. I'll have to check on that correlation...
While I risk being slapped around for a pro-Gentoo post, I will point out that I started out on Slackware 9.0 and after a year I decided to install Gentoo on a small PC at work. It took me a couple tries, but I finally had a working Gentoo installation.
Gentoo isn't extremely difficult to install, once you give it a few tries, as I said above. The documentation is extremely explicit when it comes to the installation. However, maintaining your system tends to be a bit more complicated. If you like to be bleeding edge, as I sometimes do, you will end up with at least one broken thing per update. That's when the expertise really needs to kick in. However, if you don't mind being a month or two behind the curve, then using Gentoo stable probably won't cause you too many headaches.
Whether this helped you or not to decide, I don't know. But I highly recommend taking a test PC lying around and using it before switching to another distribution of any kind. This way, you can screw it up as much as possible and it won't matter because you really won't use it that much anyways!