There are controls in place to assure that that sort of thing doesn't happen. This network (SlashNET) has hosted several highly publicized IRC forums in the past and the operators have pretty much got the whole thing down pat. The main #forum channel is moderated, people can talk in #forum.d or whichever other channel they prefer, and questions are submitted to a bot for approval.
I heard through the grapevine (actually, from a slashdot editor) that once he started writing up infrequent movie reviews instead of actual regular articles, he was basically told to go away quietly.
I was the one who posted the text you quoted from livejournal. That last bit was because Nugget's a friend of mine from IRC. Yeah, Nugget misunderstood the situation, but I'm not sure what michael has against him that made him want to publicly humiliate him based on a stupid blog entry.
Or maybe michael is trying to position himself up there with Emmett? Geez, that'd really be what the world needs. Another Emmett.
Disclaimer: I like FreeBSD. It's a fine system, I plan on learning more about it some day. But I think you're selling Linux a bit too short. While FreeBSD is a stable, friendly Unix suitable for mission-critical systems and getting things done in general, I think the greatest strength of Linux is that it can do so much. From wristwatches to multimedia desktop systems to supercomputers, Linux has been hammered into a many more shapes and touched by many more people (each with a different agenda) than FreeBSD. So it might not be quite as consistent as FreeBSD, but it is more flexible.
Er, virtual terminals? Alt-F#, just like Linux AFAIK? From XFree86 it's the same Ctrl-Alt-F# as Linux as well.
On most (all?) Linux distros, you can also use Alt+LeftCursor and Alt+RightCursor to switch terminals. I think that's what the OP was talking about. To me, that causes a lot less finger strain than the LeftAlt+Fn contortion. Even better, many distros are also set up to use the Windows keys to quickly scroll through terminals. I think this should be possible to do in FreeBSD, but it definitely isn't the default. All said, this is really a minor gripe, however.
but honestly one of my major Linux complaints is that I can't ever find a "basic" Unix config where it's "expected"
What exactly is a "basic Unix config"? Do you mean the general configuration of a system after a fresh (default) install? If so, then every OS is guilty of this, even between different versions. BSD included. But like I said, the strength of Linux has been its flexibility and the way each distro does its own thing in regards to configuration is not an accident. You pick which distro you want from a multitude of options and everybody's happy except those who want to complain about having too many options.
The FreeBSD world historically hasn't wasted too many brain cycles on making Joe's Fly By Night $5 eModem play nice, as it's mostly targeted at "power users" (server and workstation) that don't buy hardware based on what's available this week from Fry's for FREE (w/mail in rebate).
You're missing the point by a long shot here. Different people use Linux for different things. I myself use Linux as a desktop workstation. I like being able to use Linux for everyday tasks like web browsing, email, printing, scanning, 3D video gaming, video editing, word processing, burning CDs, you name it. Lack of support for common desktop and laptop hardware (things like video chipsets, sound cards, and PCMCIA bridges and cards) has always been the biggest thing keeping me away from trying FreeBSD for desktop use. However, FreeBSD has more than proven itself in the server market and I'll always recommend it in addition to Linux in that specific situation.
For a Windows desktop conversion/political statement system, stick to Linux.
I don't see what Windows and Linux have in common other than the fact that many novice Linux users have a Windows-only background. The desktop environments that try to reproduce a Windows look and feel are available for FreeBSD as well. And I also don't see why Linux is a "political statement system." I have the feeling that you're referring to the GNU license of the Linux kernel. Without getting into yet another GNU vs. BSD debate, Linus chose the GNU license because it allowed his work (the source code) to be distributed freely no matter who might get their hands on it.
Linux: Anti-Microsoft FreeBSD: Pro-Unix
Funny you say that. In my online social circle, there is a group of FreeBSD users who are not just advocates but plain zealots. They gave me the same two lines as you wrote above. In trying to defend my choice of operating system (which I had no obligation to, I was just feeling punchy), I asked them why one had to be Anti-Linux in order to be Pro-Unix. They had no answer for that.
In the Linux community however, it often seems like if the lastest game or whatever doesn't have Linux support (at the Windows
I realized this after I saw the trailer for Matrix Revolutions. (Which was about 10 minutes after I posted the comment.) Thanks for explaining it anyway. I really need to go watch Reloaded again but I don't want to fight the crowd.
I'll agree with this. Throughout the softcore pron scene I was seeing red. I wanted to reach out and smack the Wachowskis. But, as I was there with my fiancee and two of our closest friends I stuck it out and I'm glad that I did. This movie does not have the sharp "what is reality" impact that the first one did and I kind of expected it. However, it more than makes up for it in the main plot and multitude of complicated side-plots. Very much looking forward to the next one. (If only to see what the hell Agent Smith has up his sleeve this time.)
Er, the movie doesn't specifically state that the sentinels are not attacking zion itself when they fly through the "ruins" of another zion. But it also doesn't explicitly state that zion is under attack, something I'm sure they would have mentioned.
If you recall, near the end of the movie, the machines eventually drilled their way through to Zion. Of the ships that had been positioned to counter-attack the machines, one EMP'd prematurely and disabled 5 other ships leaving Zion practically defenseless. I may have missed something, but I do believe they mentioned that after this skirmish, the machines gave Zion a pass and kept digging further down. Where are they headed, then? To the earth's core? I think this may be an important point in the third movie that got unintentionally glossed over in this one. (There was a LOT going on at this point in the movie.)
At the risk of sounding like a plug, I have solved this problem, and others related to email in general, by buying an annual subsciption to a third-party email provider. This last year is the first time I've ever been 100% satisfied with my email service. The service offers secure POP, IMAP, and webmail for $5 a month and $3 for each additional account. That's a deal that's hard to beat in my book. Spam filtering is not part of the package, but I'm sure some providers must have it. The biggest boon for me is that I can send and receive email from anywhere in the world and don't have to change email accounts as I change ISPs. (Which is becoming more and more frequent lately.)
Re:Isn't this the problem with Linux?
on
Duke3d in Linux
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· Score: 1
Excellent rebuttal, but you didn't mention one of my favorite points: That bright Linux open-source developers give sweet fuck all about impressing Windoze n00bs.
With slack, there's no overwhelming reason to have an ISO. IIRC, you just grab the disksets you want and the floppy images you need and you're ready to go. If you're minus a floppy drive, well, then you probably need an ISO. But otherwise, no. I think this is another one of slackware's greatest strengths--flexibility of installation.
Don't know if it would hold up in court, but the original design specification of freenet called for each node to automatically encrypt all of the data stored on the node's hard disk such that even the node operator couldn't peer at what was in there.
Question to anybody who uses freenet: is this in the current implementation? Compared to the original spec, are there any major features of freenet that are still vaporware?
What's a few dozen/hundred/thousand child molesters when you could have a hundred or so people (and terrorists of course) publishing complaints about this or that government?
Personally, just SAYING it is a boon for those under the thumb of nasty regimes are just words until you can back that up with FACTS. DATA.
Okay, but you show me a few thousand child molesters using freenet first.
Personally, just SAYING it is a boon for child molesters are just words until you can back that up with FACTS. DATA.
I'm not sure I like the idea of keeping the most popular items on the harddrives of multiple people and letting unpopular things just dissappear...
This is one of the biggest complaints of freenet and it is a valid one, but this aspect of freenet is completely necessary. What would happen if files on freenet were simply allowed to accumulate? Trolls (and evil music executives, which are indistinguishable to the naked eye) would fill up freenet with crap until the whole system collapses. The designers of freenet had two options: a) allow old, unused data to expire and make room for new data or b) allow a gaping hole in overall network integrity.
Freenet's mission being what it is, can you blame them for their choice? Would you rather have freenet be easily compromised or see a few uninteresting files drop off here and there? (Remember that if they *were* interesting, they would be accessed more often and this would prevent from expiring.)
This is one reason I stay away from building custom PC's for relatives.
I take the tactful approach: I will build a computer (for free) for people in my family who I know can handle computers. (Such as my mother, she bought a Tandy 1000TX in 1998 and hasn't managed to tear herself away from solitaire since. But she does know enough to cringe at the sight of the words "Control Panel".) But plain idiots, like my father, I politely refer to Dell or Gateway.
I really don't mind being tech support for my family. The more I help them, I reason the better position I am to ask them for help in some way should I need it.
I did make a deal once with my fiancee's sister that I would build a computer for her for free (except hardware costs) under the condition that she would refer any of her friends who are thinking of buying computers to me. Then I charge them. Then I look like the generous inlaw and still make a few dollars on the side.:)
You make some reasonable points and quite a few of them are the same that I see even advanced Tcl hackers complain about. But there are a couple I wish to counter:
It is slow. Granted it's faster than a shell script, but even ruby runs circles around it.
I argue that if you're doing anything computationally expensive then you shouldn't be using a scripting language at all. That said, Tcl can byte-compile portions of the script for a fairly sizable speedup. You're not ever going to get C or C++ speeds, but performance should fall in line with Perl or Python. If you *must* use Tcl and high performance is required, you can always write an extension in C and call it from Tcl.
It has oodles of "gotchas" on when things are evaled, on pass-by-name, and so forth
It's been my experience that these "gotchas" aren't all that difficult to learn and work around. I've found that most of the time, these are indicitive of the fact that I'm trying to do something the wrong way. This is one of the tradeoffs of Tcl... you don't have to memorize dozens and dozens of symbol operators but you do have to bear in mind that some things aren't always as they appear.;)
Making actual complex apps with GUIs is impossible with any modern design pattern because all events execute at the topmost scope, so you need to keep everything important in globals.
That is a valid complaint, but this is a problem with any language that isn't OO. Luckily, there are several Tcl extensions that add OOP to Tcl. The most popular is [incr Tcl] and is pretty fab if I do say so myself. I've just started aquainting myself with it the past few weeks and I'm amazed how much easier it makes things (and Tcl makes things pretty easy by itself, in my opinion).
Ousterhout flogged it constantly with buzzwords as a b2b-leveraging, cross-synergy-enabling, pick-the-buzzword-of-the-week solution.
I'm not up on the "politics" of Tcl, but I'm pretty sure Ousterhout doesn't really have much to do with Tcl anymore. The Tcl core team (headed by Jeffrey Hobbs and co) do not publicize Tcl very much but they are all very active on the c.l.tcl newsgroup and make an substantial effort to help even the most clueless.
I just keep finding it lacking where I really needed something from it
There have been many times where I once thought the same thing. In my case, it usually turned out that I wasn't looking hard enough or wasn't thinking from a Tcl point of view. YMMV of course, but I strongly believe that there isn't much that Tcl can't do.
I've racked my brain trying to figure out why Tcl is hated by so many in the "pop" geek community. The only answer that I've been able to come up with is the fact that those making the complaints are those who: a) do not actually know Tcl and haven't taken the time to understand it and b) are zealots of some other scripting language. A third possible reason that comes to mind is perhaps that some people just can't stand the idea of something that doesn't even closely resemble C-style syntax.
I started using Tcl/Tk at the suggestion of a fellow LUG member after explaining that I needed something a bit more complicated than xmessage to drive a script that I was working on. I dug in, found it strange, then found it cool, then found it fun, and finally knew enough to start doing some real work. I now use Tck/Tk on a daily basis on a wide variety of projects and have no intention of giving it up. A 5-year-old can understand the syntax, the commands are very well documented, and the community is stellar... none of the condescending holier-than-thou's that always seem to surround the hip scripting language of the month.
It does not need X, it is a PII-400, and it does not do anything that is so intensive it needs 2.4
Err, I hope you aren't implying that 2.4 is either bloaty or slow or both on older hardware.
I used 2.4.18 just fine for over a year on a Pentium 166 (no MMX) and had absolutely zero problems. This box was my broadband firewall and also served 60 GB of NFS, as well as SMB, ssh, mail, and apache 2.x web pages, both static and generated. (I know you're not supposed to combine your firewall and other stuff, but I had no choice at the time.) Anyway, this box did its job(s) flawlessly without a single complaint and though building a kernel took on the order of 50 minutes, most things happened instantaneously.
I decided to upgrade it to a Celeron 366 only after I started using a python-based wiki on a daily basis for note-taking. If I really wanted to, I could have hacked up my own program in C that would have been 10x faster but I had the spare hardware and figured I might as well retire the 166. Given all of the improvements of the 2.4 kernel series, I highly doubt that 2.2 is significantly faster than 2.4 (for the same tasks) on all but the very oldest hardware.
The only places that I think would want 2.2 over 2.4 are organizations that have mission-critical stuff running on 2.2 and aren't keen to fix that which isn't broken (if you'll pardon the cliche). Other than that, using 2.4 for most tasks is simply NOT going to cause armageddon. And also remember too that just because some piece of software is OLD doesn't automatically mean it's more STABLE.
Interesting... I have a Uniden 900Mhz phone that I bought 4 years ago for that's in absolute top condition. I had to change the battery once, but the thing goes quite a long way and I've never had interference problems, even in a dorm with 400+ people.
This phone was about middle of the road cost-vs-quality wise. I learned a long time ago never to buy the bottom end (the V-Tech phones and whatnot).
Slashdot Mirror
There are controls in place to assure that that sort of thing doesn't happen. This network (SlashNET) has hosted several highly publicized IRC forums in the past and the operators have pretty much got the whole thing down pat. The main #forum channel is moderated, people can talk in #forum.d or whichever other channel they prefer, and questions are submitted to a bot for approval.
A log will be posted on the IRC networks's website, SlashNET.org.
I heard through the grapevine (actually, from a slashdot editor) that once he started writing up infrequent movie reviews instead of actual regular articles, he was basically told to go away quietly.
All SlashNET forums are logged. The log of this forum will be posted on SlashNET's website after the forum.
I was the one who posted the text you quoted from livejournal. That last bit was because Nugget's a friend of mine from IRC. Yeah, Nugget misunderstood the situation, but I'm not sure what michael has against him that made him want to publicly humiliate him based on a stupid blog entry.
Or maybe michael is trying to position himself up there with Emmett? Geez, that'd really be what the world needs. Another Emmett.
Disclaimer: I like FreeBSD. It's a fine system, I plan on learning more about it some day. But I think you're selling Linux a bit too short. While FreeBSD is a stable, friendly Unix suitable for mission-critical systems and getting things done in general, I think the greatest strength of Linux is that it can do so much. From wristwatches to multimedia desktop systems to supercomputers, Linux has been hammered into a many more shapes and touched by many more people (each with a different agenda) than FreeBSD. So it might not be quite as consistent as FreeBSD, but it is more flexible.
Er, virtual terminals? Alt-F#, just like Linux AFAIK? From XFree86 it's the same Ctrl-Alt-F# as Linux as well.
On most (all?) Linux distros, you can also use Alt+LeftCursor and Alt+RightCursor to switch terminals. I think that's what the OP was talking about. To me, that causes a lot less finger strain than the LeftAlt+Fn contortion. Even better, many distros are also set up to use the Windows keys to quickly scroll through terminals. I think this should be possible to do in FreeBSD, but it definitely isn't the default. All said, this is really a minor gripe, however.
but honestly one of my major Linux complaints is that I can't ever find a "basic" Unix config where it's "expected"
What exactly is a "basic Unix config"? Do you mean the general configuration of a system after a fresh (default) install? If so, then every OS is guilty of this, even between different versions. BSD included. But like I said, the strength of Linux has been its flexibility and the way each distro does its own thing in regards to configuration is not an accident. You pick which distro you want from a multitude of options and everybody's happy except those who want to complain about having too many options.
The FreeBSD world historically hasn't wasted too many brain cycles on making Joe's Fly By Night $5 eModem play nice, as it's mostly targeted at "power users" (server and workstation) that don't buy hardware based on what's available this week from Fry's for FREE (w/mail in rebate).
You're missing the point by a long shot here. Different people use Linux for different things. I myself use Linux as a desktop workstation. I like being able to use Linux for everyday tasks like web browsing, email, printing, scanning, 3D video gaming, video editing, word processing, burning CDs, you name it. Lack of support for common desktop and laptop hardware (things like video chipsets, sound cards, and PCMCIA bridges and cards) has always been the biggest thing keeping me away from trying FreeBSD for desktop use. However, FreeBSD has more than proven itself in the server market and I'll always recommend it in addition to Linux in that specific situation.
For a Windows desktop conversion/political statement system, stick to Linux.
I don't see what Windows and Linux have in common other than the fact that many novice Linux users have a Windows-only background. The desktop environments that try to reproduce a Windows look and feel are available for FreeBSD as well. And I also don't see why Linux is a "political statement system." I have the feeling that you're referring to the GNU license of the Linux kernel. Without getting into yet another GNU vs. BSD debate, Linus chose the GNU license because it allowed his work (the source code) to be distributed freely no matter who might get their hands on it.
Linux: Anti-Microsoft
FreeBSD: Pro-Unix
Funny you say that. In my online social circle, there is a group of FreeBSD users who are not just advocates but plain zealots. They gave me the same two lines as you wrote above. In trying to defend my choice of operating system (which I had no obligation to, I was just feeling punchy), I asked them why one had to be Anti-Linux in order to be Pro-Unix. They had no answer for that.
In the Linux community however, it often seems like if the lastest game or whatever doesn't have Linux support (at the Windows
Now I'll go back to my FreeBSD box (which is arguably more UNIX than Linux) and hasn't come under fire at all for this...
Funny you say that, many believe that legal issues were the main reason Linux became the open-source OS flagship rather than BSD.
I realized this after I saw the trailer for Matrix Revolutions. (Which was about 10 minutes after I posted the comment.) Thanks for explaining it anyway. I really need to go watch Reloaded again but I don't want to fight the crowd.
I'll agree with this. Throughout the softcore pron scene I was seeing red. I wanted to reach out and smack the Wachowskis. But, as I was there with my fiancee and two of our closest friends I stuck it out and I'm glad that I did. This movie does not have the sharp "what is reality" impact that the first one did and I kind of expected it. However, it more than makes up for it in the main plot and multitude of complicated side-plots. Very much looking forward to the next one. (If only to see what the hell Agent Smith has up his sleeve this time.)
Er, the movie doesn't specifically state that the sentinels are not attacking zion itself when they fly through the "ruins" of another zion. But it also doesn't explicitly state that zion is under attack, something I'm sure they would have mentioned.
If you recall, near the end of the movie, the machines eventually drilled their way through to Zion. Of the ships that had been positioned to counter-attack the machines, one EMP'd prematurely and disabled 5 other ships leaving Zion practically defenseless. I may have missed something, but I do believe they mentioned that after this skirmish, the machines gave Zion a pass and kept digging further down. Where are they headed, then? To the earth's core? I think this may be an important point in the third movie that got unintentionally glossed over in this one. (There was a LOT going on at this point in the movie.)
Wowza. Yeah, I just checked it out, serious stuff at a pretty good price. I'd definitely spring for it if I didn't already have my current service.
At the risk of sounding like a plug, I have solved this problem, and others related to email in general, by buying an annual subsciption to a third-party email provider. This last year is the first time I've ever been 100% satisfied with my email service. The service offers secure POP, IMAP, and webmail for $5 a month and $3 for each additional account. That's a deal that's hard to beat in my book. Spam filtering is not part of the package, but I'm sure some providers must have it. The biggest boon for me is that I can send and receive email from anywhere in the world and don't have to change email accounts as I change ISPs. (Which is becoming more and more frequent lately.)
Excellent rebuttal, but you didn't mention one of my favorite points: That bright Linux open-source developers give sweet fuck all about impressing Windoze n00bs.
what?
With slack, there's no overwhelming reason to have an ISO. IIRC, you just grab the disksets you want and the floppy images you need and you're ready to go. If you're minus a floppy drive, well, then you probably need an ISO. But otherwise, no. I think this is another one of slackware's greatest strengths--flexibility of installation.
Don't know if it would hold up in court, but the original design specification of freenet called for each node to automatically encrypt all of the data stored on the node's hard disk such that even the node operator couldn't peer at what was in there.
Question to anybody who uses freenet: is this in the current implementation? Compared to the original spec, are there any major features of freenet that are still vaporware?
What's a few dozen/hundred/thousand child molesters when you could have a hundred or so people (and terrorists of course) publishing complaints about this or that government?
Personally, just SAYING it is a boon for those under the thumb of nasty regimes are just words until you can back that up with FACTS. DATA.
Okay, but you show me a few thousand child molesters using freenet first.
Personally, just SAYING it is a boon for child molesters are just words until you can back that up with FACTS. DATA.
I'm not sure I like the idea of keeping the most popular items on the harddrives of multiple people and letting unpopular things just dissappear...
This is one of the biggest complaints of freenet and it is a valid one, but this aspect of freenet is completely necessary. What would happen if files on freenet were simply allowed to accumulate? Trolls (and evil music executives, which are indistinguishable to the naked eye) would fill up freenet with crap until the whole system collapses. The designers of freenet had two options: a) allow old, unused data to expire and make room for new data or b) allow a gaping hole in overall network integrity.
Freenet's mission being what it is, can you blame them for their choice? Would you rather have freenet be easily compromised or see a few uninteresting files drop off here and there? (Remember that if they *were* interesting, they would be accessed more often and this would prevent from expiring.)
This is one reason I stay away from building custom PC's for relatives.
I take the tactful approach: I will build a computer (for free) for people in my family who I know can handle computers. (Such as my mother, she bought a Tandy 1000TX in 1998 and hasn't managed to tear herself away from solitaire since. But she does know enough to cringe at the sight of the words "Control Panel".) But plain idiots, like my father, I politely refer to Dell or Gateway.
I really don't mind being tech support for my family. The more I help them, I reason the better position I am to ask them for help in some way should I need it.
I did make a deal once with my fiancee's sister that I would build a computer for her for free (except hardware costs) under the condition that she would refer any of her friends who are thinking of buying computers to me. Then I charge them. Then I look like the generous inlaw and still make a few dollars on the side.
You make some reasonable points and quite a few of them are the same that I see even advanced Tcl hackers complain about. But there are a couple I wish to counter:
It is slow. Granted it's faster than a shell script, but even ruby runs circles around it.
I argue that if you're doing anything computationally expensive then you shouldn't be using a scripting language at all. That said, Tcl can byte-compile portions of the script for a fairly sizable speedup. You're not ever going to get C or C++ speeds, but performance should fall in line with Perl or Python. If you *must* use Tcl and high performance is required, you can always write an extension in C and call it from Tcl.
It has oodles of "gotchas" on when things are evaled, on pass-by-name, and so forth
It's been my experience that these "gotchas" aren't all that difficult to learn and work around. I've found that most of the time, these are indicitive of the fact that I'm trying to do something the wrong way. This is one of the tradeoffs of Tcl... you don't have to memorize dozens and dozens of symbol operators but you do have to bear in mind that some things aren't always as they appear.
Making actual complex apps with GUIs is impossible with any modern design pattern because all events execute at the topmost scope, so you need to keep everything important in globals.
That is a valid complaint, but this is a problem with any language that isn't OO. Luckily, there are several Tcl extensions that add OOP to Tcl. The most popular is [incr Tcl] and is pretty fab if I do say so myself. I've just started aquainting myself with it the past few weeks and I'm amazed how much easier it makes things (and Tcl makes things pretty easy by itself, in my opinion).
Ousterhout flogged it constantly with buzzwords as a b2b-leveraging, cross-synergy-enabling, pick-the-buzzword-of-the-week solution.
I'm not up on the "politics" of Tcl, but I'm pretty sure Ousterhout doesn't really have much to do with Tcl anymore. The Tcl core team (headed by Jeffrey Hobbs and co) do not publicize Tcl very much but they are all very active on the c.l.tcl newsgroup and make an substantial effort to help even the most clueless.
I just keep finding it lacking where I really needed something from it
There have been many times where I once thought the same thing. In my case, it usually turned out that I wasn't looking hard enough or wasn't thinking from a Tcl point of view. YMMV of course, but I strongly believe that there isn't much that Tcl can't do.
Your point about anonymous functions is valid.
I've racked my brain trying to figure out why Tcl is hated by so many in the "pop" geek community. The only answer that I've been able to come up with is the fact that those making the complaints are those who: a) do not actually know Tcl and haven't taken the time to understand it and b) are zealots of some other scripting language. A third possible reason that comes to mind is perhaps that some people just can't stand the idea of something that doesn't even closely resemble C-style syntax.
I started using Tcl/Tk at the suggestion of a fellow LUG member after explaining that I needed something a bit more complicated than xmessage to drive a script that I was working on. I dug in, found it strange, then found it cool, then found it fun, and finally knew enough to start doing some real work. I now use Tck/Tk on a daily basis on a wide variety of projects and have no intention of giving it up. A 5-year-old can understand the syntax, the commands are very well documented, and the community is stellar... none of the condescending holier-than-thou's that always seem to surround the hip scripting language of the month.
The Tcl'ers Wiki has quite a few pages examining why some people like Tcl and they're even keeping tabs on who says Tcl sucks and why.
It does not need X, it is a PII-400, and it does not do anything that is so intensive it needs 2.4
Err, I hope you aren't implying that 2.4 is either bloaty or slow or both on older hardware.
I used 2.4.18 just fine for over a year on a Pentium 166 (no MMX) and had absolutely zero problems. This box was my broadband firewall and also served 60 GB of NFS, as well as SMB, ssh, mail, and apache 2.x web pages, both static and generated. (I know you're not supposed to combine your firewall and other stuff, but I had no choice at the time.) Anyway, this box did its job(s) flawlessly without a single complaint and though building a kernel took on the order of 50 minutes, most things happened instantaneously.
I decided to upgrade it to a Celeron 366 only after I started using a python-based wiki on a daily basis for note-taking. If I really wanted to, I could have hacked up my own program in C that would have been 10x faster but I had the spare hardware and figured I might as well retire the 166. Given all of the improvements of the 2.4 kernel series, I highly doubt that 2.2 is significantly faster than 2.4 (for the same tasks) on all but the very oldest hardware.
The only places that I think would want 2.2 over 2.4 are organizations that have mission-critical stuff running on 2.2 and aren't keen to fix that which isn't broken (if you'll pardon the cliche). Other than that, using 2.4 for most tasks is simply NOT going to cause armageddon. And also remember too that just because some piece of software is OLD doesn't automatically mean it's more STABLE.
Interesting... I have a Uniden 900Mhz phone that I bought 4 years ago for that's in absolute top condition. I had to change the battery once, but the thing goes quite a long way and I've never had interference problems, even in a dorm with 400+ people.
This phone was about middle of the road cost-vs-quality wise. I learned a long time ago never to buy the bottom end (the V-Tech phones and whatnot).
I fail to see how your post relates to its parent. You must have accidently hit the wrong Reply link. I'll forgive you this time.
My take:
If you want good games, buy a GBA.
If you want free games, buy a PDA.