So don't be a sole developer. Stop worrying about code, and focus on packaging your idea to 'sell' to others. Find a partner, a team, an investor, or just a friend who will be pleased to see you succeed in making your vision a reality.
The first thing I do on most projects is find the one stakeholder who I would be most pleased to make happy. I then share all of my ideas, sketches, prototypes, etc. to this person. Usually they are just a non-techie user who gets anxious to see the final result... which in turn makes me excited to finish so I can finally show it to them.
I guess what I am saying, is make the project bigger than you... don't be a sole developer, be a hero, be a teammate, be a friend, make someone proud... then the project isn't a chore!
You have this many questions and then ask if it's a "late April Fools'" joke?... You realize you look like an ass now right. Lose the snarky comments, get your questions answered, then spew away about how bad of an implementation it is... until then you look stupid.
I bet people said similar things about all kinds of revolutionary technologies that they knew nothing about... and they have all since eaten their words. You just set yourself up to be one of those people if this is indeed everything they suggest it could be.
The best metric in most organizations, where IT is in a operations support role, is Quality of service. The easiest way to measure quality is via polling.
A previous position worked had a policy, which was well supported by upper management, that REQUIRED the completion of a satisfaction survey at the end of every trouble call, as well as monthly satisfaction surveys. - A typical help desk call was followed by a 30 second phone survey - A desk side visit was followed by a ~1min web based survey - A project was followed with an ~5 minute web survey - A large project that involved a project manager was followed by a 15 minute interview with those people who helped define the scope of the project.
All surveys were issued and managed by a team outside of the IT structure (though they were IT management types).
The great thing about this system was that it was easy to determine who deserved accolades and who didn't do their jobs... at the help desk level, they fired about 70% of new hires within a month or so because the customer simply didn't like their personalities or they didn't communicate well, but if you stayed on you were paid well and treated exceptionally. At the desktop support level, similar story, and finally the monthly surveys allowed overall satisfaction to be gaged.
We IT folk were also surveyed about each other, and our customers... which I felt was the most important thing. A customer who we regularly rated as polite, patient, and somehow exceptional would often be rewarded by our management (appreciation lunches, software for their personal use, USB drives for personal use, etc.)... so the customers were rarely unfair. My boss even gave a weekend at a local trendy hotel to one customer for simply giving valuable feedback in the form of a monthly survey comment; he wrote a page detailing how our support saved the company tens of thousands of dollars because IT showed him how to link data from an SQL database into Excel where he was able to better analyze it... this was done by a desktop guy who happened to work late at someones desk and was walking through the building turning off lights. Needless to say, the desktop guy was handsomely rewarded for simply giving a damn.
I realize that it sounds idealistic, and in many ways it was. Sure time was still an issue, as users would deduct for a slow response, but it was only part of the story. Most importantly was that everyone was motivated to be respectful because we all knew that any negative trends would be caught and questioned.
As I understand it, it was hardest to determine if we were too large as a department... sure the customer will be happy if they have their own dedicated IT person... but it's just not cost effective. I was not privy to how this was measured, but I imagine they had their ways.
The statistic should be that 1/5th of the world's population lives in population dense cities that produce too much light pollution to observe the milky way at night.
MOST places in the US and Europe offer spectacular views of the night sky, including the Milky Way. Fortunately the population is not very dense except in the big cities.
When 1/5 of the world has too much light pollution to observe the Milky Way, then I will worry. 1/5 of the worlds population, no big deal. Hell, I'd guess that most of the other 4/5's of the population wish they had that problem, cause then it might mean that they have the power to run their wells, clean their water, refrigerate their food, compete for the next big call center, and maybe stop burying 1/4, or 1/3, or even 1/2 of their children before they see 18.
While I agree that it would be nice if we industrialized nations could dim it a little in our big cities so our spoiled kids can see a few stars, I don't consider it a cause for concern.
I also want to see Laptop DPI's on Desktop displays. Screw large monitors, give me high resolutions.
I remember how much I loved playing quake on a high end 14" CRT at 1600x1200... I had all the resolution without needing to lug a huge monitor to lan parties. Also, you can sit much closer to the small monitor and keep the entire screen in the center of your vision.
The question is, when they say he is working for the Feds does it mean that he is working for "the people" by helping the Feds improve security, or is he working for the Feds to push their own agenda.
I, would like to believe that DT's contributions will be in the interest of the users of technology, balancing security and openness, and showing the government how being more open about technology can actually improve security.
Only time will tell if DT can maintain the respect of the pro-hacker community and the government that hired him. It's a very thin line to walk.
I can't attest to the accuracy here... but mod this parent up for putting really large numbers into perspective quite well.
People throw large numbers, or very small numbers, around so often these days with no understanding how large or how small they really are. Like that recent discussion of the laser based technique used to improve incandescent bulb efficiency using the equivalent of the entire countries power production for a crazy small amount of time. The numbers seem pretty impressive until you realize that the actual power used is almost nothing compared to the energy saved by the treatment.
Very good explanation of how one way hash passwords work... I always emphasize that the passwords are NOT STORED ANYWHERE!
What I find much more distressing is how many systems use more complex systems to store passwords. I could implement a reasonably good one-way hash password system in nearly any programming language in very few lines of code and have a very low risk of the user's passwords being compromised. But many systems still insist on keeping that password stored in a reversible format, even though it's much more complex to implement securely.
I HATE those web systems that send you your password in an email... that's always nice of them to broadcast my password to the world like that. A properly implemented system shouldn't even let them know my password!
I have spent hours of my life trying to explain to users why their password gets changed if I ever need to authenticate as them in one of our systems. They hate it, but when I explain that it's actually a good thing (they know when someone has accessed their account), they usually love the idea of the one-way hash.
For the most stable system, allways go for the LTS releases of Ubuntu.
The Long Term Support releases are usually proceeded with 6 months of intense bug fixing, testing, and overall stability improvements. The releases immediately following an LTS release are usually full of new stuff and the bugs that come with it all. Other releases are usually less revolutionary and more evolutionary in nature.
I would wager that LTS to LTS upgrades will be almost flawless as the customers that actually pay Canonical for support will typically stick to LTS releases (Regular releases are only supported for 18 months which is less than many organisations take just to plan an OS upgrade).
8.04 was the last LTS release, 10.04 is planned to be the next LTS. (thats April 2010 if you didn't know the release number was the year.month or release)
It is entirely possible that they could announce an earlier LTS or push it back later if there are too many upstream bugs (bugs that need to be fixed by other development teams, like the Gnome Devs.)
Thats what did it for me. 80+ hrs per week on EQ, while in the USAF...
Since getting clean, I can't get into any games anymore... I'd imagine it's like getting clean from crack, nothing will ever be good enough to replace it. You try to give it a chance but you can't really commit enough to get really into it.
My wife bought me Fallout 3 for Christmas and I haven't even taken the cellophane off yet... though I fully expect to love the game like I loved the other two, I know how it will play out. I will not see my family for a weekend, go back to work on Monday and never play it again because I realize that it's just a game and can't commit to it.
think the situation is just so unique, there is no procedure for the police to reach the right person to override problems like this. If this were a landline, there are certainly contact people who can be reached to assist with a police investigation.
Exactly the problem, they were dealing with someone who isn't empowered to help.
What all major carriers need to do is create an "emergency services" department that is empowered by executive management to make decisions that run contrary to company policy when it makes sense to do so. Then they give that number to all call center staff who will forward calls like this immediately when they realize that they cannot help.
I don't want my food, or potential food, turned in to fuel.
I don't use the term lightly... Biofuel is EVIL.
sense when did biofuel = food?
If someone can use cellulose to make fuel, then your precious food might become cheaper as now farmers have a market for both corn and it's cellulose rich stalk.
Food crop based biofuels are indeed a very poor choice. The ONLY reason corn was pushed was because the corn growers lobbied heavily as a way to make more profit. And they have certainly profited.
Good for you, you have a huge box that costs more to operate for a month than you spend buying it.
These "wall wart" computers are handy for putting a computer in an inconspicous location... perhaps in an enclosure at the top of a light pole with a webcam for traffic monitoring. Or maybe they could be used in a production or shipping environment while connected to a barcode scanner and some servo control hardware.
A $20 pc with full AT/ATX powersupply, mechanical hard drive, and an assortment of outdated IO is usually not as useful for the types of things that these are intended for.
Imagine for a moment, that every application included it's own OS. Of course that OS would be a very dumbed down sort of thing, but it would be entirely independent of the host OS except for some standard inter-vm communication requirements for clipboards, file management, etc.
Your host OS would be responsible for managing the file system, display, and networking, all of which it would provide access to via some standard protocols. The applications would support those protocols and contain their own OS and drivers tailored to those standards. The applications could be built in a NTVM, LinuxVM, BSDVM, SolarisVM, etc as long as it was just complete enough to support the application.
Imagine it like a typical virtual machine, but even less dependent upon the host OS. Sure the applications would be larger, but that's rarely a problem anymore.
There are better ways to go about finding a place to live!
Of course if you need a roommate who is cool with the same activities that made you homeless in the first place, then maybe this is the best place.
Anyone here want a future "example" as a roommate? Make sure you get the last months rent up front, if the awards in the US are any indication, he won't be able to make his rent at some point.
Essentially, what you want is a false sense of security. There is nothing stopping any application from calling an approved application to do it's communicating for it. For example, I could write my installer to open IE and send me your personal info via HTTP.
Additionally, the Windows policy of allowing an application to insert itself into the IP stack has actually made for a LESS secure system as a lot of attacks use this "feature" themselves. I have removed several pieces of spyware that monitored all traffic by inserting themselves in the IP stack in exactly the same way.
In Linux, the closest you will come would be to use iptables to route all outbound traffic to a proxy (which is, essentially, an application layer firewall) like Zorp, or to Configure AppArmor or seLinux. None of these things are simple, but they are providing a real sense of security not a false one.
Windows itself supports very little hardware, and what it does support it does very minimally, requiring that the vendor provide drivers for the Windows OS being used. As vendors create new hardware they have no incentive to continue to release drivers for old hardware on newer versions of Windows, so the hardware becomes unusable. For example, a lot of older devices supported on Win2k/XP are no longer supported on Vista because the manufacturer won't write the driver.
Linux, on the other hand, typically uses community developed drivers (especially for older hardware that has had sufficient time for reverse engineering). Because most of these drivers are kernel modules, they are automatically built to be compatible with the latest Linux versions. When the kernel team chooses to stop including a module, it is because there is almost zero demand for that driver, though people will sometimes just take the old code compile their own module for a current kernel.
To ensure optimal compatibility I recommend hardware that has been on the market for at least a year and is/was in very wide distribution.
I have seen few if any real problems with Dell Optiplex or Latitude models that are more than 1 year old. I personally run a Sony VAIO laptop, my wife runs a latitude, my daughter has a Gateway (very popular model from 2003-4).
My mythtv frontends are a variety of mostly Dell small form factor optiplex's. My server is a custom build on an MSI mobo with 6 sata ports... I researched the chipset before buying to ensure that there were few, if any, complaints about support.
Again, none of my equipment is cutting edge. I'm not a gamer and instead am far more interested in stable, productive computers. If cutting edge performance is key to you, then you need to research each major component a little more thoroughly, regardless of the OS. Start with selecting a chipset and build the rest of the system around that. The 790FX, even though it's a year old, seems to be a safe bet for a performance machine. Nvidia nForce chipsets have historically been strong too. And I've never had problems with Intel's chipsets, they just lack some of the features.
Exactly... the printer comes with a windows driver. Windows has ZERO support for that printer.
If manufacturers decided tomorrow that they would no longer supply Windows drivers for their hardware and instead would only supply Linux drivers... you would see a huge shift.
So again it's not that Linux isn't ready for the desktop, but that it's not profitable enough for hardware manufacturers to create drivers for Linux.
I buy Linux supported hardware and run Linux on my desktop. It's as good if not better than Windows on the desktop, if your hardware is supported.
No shiny new graphics card "just works" under Windows.
The manufacturer of that video card decided that they wanted Windows computers to work well with that card and committed substantial resources to writing a driver that allowed Windows to function with that video card.
It's not Linux's fault that they didn't think that Linux users were worth a comparable effort.
I agree that hardware compatibility is a barrier to entry for many people, but it certainly doesn't make Linux "not ready for the desktop"
Again... it's a driver issue, it does not reflect on the operating system.
There have been plenty of crappy drivers released for Windows. Sometimes even causing major issues for some users. I have even heard of cases where bad windows drivers caused hardware to fail.
I realize that because the specs are open, there is little reason for a good, free, driver to be written... and at some point it will be complete and stable in a great majority of systems. But again, if Intel devoted more than 12 people to writing and testing their driver and instead gave it the same priority as the Windows drivers, it would probably be every bit as stable as the Windows driver.
If a piece of hardware is unsupported or flaky, it's not the OS's fault!
When someone buys a computer that claims to be Windows Vista compatible and they find out that their old printer doesn't work with Windows Vista, do they blame Microsoft or beg their printer manufacturer to release a driver for Vista?
If I buy a computer that was certified to run Windows 95, do I blame Microsoft if Vista doesn't run on it?
If I buy a Mac keyboard and it doesn't function as expected on my PC do I blame Microsoft for that?
So is it fair to blame Linux when the PC I bought to run Windows doesn't work? Strange, it didn't work with the Mac OSX disks I had either, stupid Apple can't make a desktop ready OS.
Now if you go buy a computer preinstalled with Linux, using hardware that is well supported, and sticking with a LTS level release of Ubuntu. I believe that you would think that Linux was plenty ready for the desktop.
Even if you don't use Linux or OSX, you can help improve the situation for everyone by simply combating any FUD you hear with reason and logic. Remember, everyone benefits as Mac OS and Linux increase market share, they drive Microsoft to innovate to create more open and inter-operable products.
Again, you had an issue caused by a lack of support from a hardware vendor. That does not mean that Linux isn't suitable for the desktop.
If I sold you a computer where all of the hardware was supported by the manufacturer to run Linux, your experience on would likely be as good if not better than on Windows (assuming your application needs could be equally met on either OS).
To say that Linux isn't ready for the desktop would suggest that the operating system was lacking something essential to desktop users. It is not, it just hasn't yet attracted the hardware manufacturers support that Windows currently has.
My mother, my children, and my wife all run Linux exclusively. Other than needing to tell my kids that the game they want work on their computer and we have to see if we can get it for one of our consoles, I haven't heard a single complaint. My mother, who lives an hour away, tells me all the time that she wishes her "computer would break down more often because I don't visit like I used to.". And my wife hates how I need to frequently stop the in-laws house to fix their windows computers all the time.
I realize that Windows is improving, and some of the old complaints are dated... but my mother runs an early P4 with 512MB of ram on dial-up... Vista or Windows 7 are not options for her. And my children have comparably old laptops.
To say it's not ready for the Desktop is flat out wrong. It is ready, and my family proves it every day. So say you don't like it, say you had a bad experience, even say that you will wait until your cheap MOBO/sata controller manufacturer releases Linux drivers before you will consider it as a viable option to you. But it is ready for the Desktop.
It's FUD like that that makes the problem worse. When hardware manufacturers hear/read comments like yours, they assume that you would rather use windows. When in actuality, you probably don't care, you just want your computer to work... if you can use a free OS, Great!
Next time, say what you really mean... "If only my mobo's lame SATA controller were better supported, Ubuntu may have been an option for me."
And by the way, you couldn't fathom the number of computer novices have lost all of their data and/or endless hours of time to Windows driver issues; and you claim that it's ready.
Exactly, it's a driver issue. If Intel created a good Linux driver, or provided the specifications to those who would happily write it for them, it would perform equally as well(if not better) than it does with Windows.
What I am saying is that NO operating system will support every piece of hardware natively out of the box. Hardware requires drivers that facilitate communication between the hardware and the OS. Considering how limited the support is by hardware developers (often none) it's amazing how good most hardware works in Linux. As hardware manufacturers grow to support Linux, it will eventually match or exceed Windows hardware support.
Actually, for older hardware,like my old Matrox Marvel G200-TV PCI video card with hardware encoding, Linux already far surpasses Windows. Matrox hasn't released a Windows driver since July of 01 (Windows 2K), while its fully supported on a 64Bit Ubuntu install.
So, again, don't blame the OS when it doesn't support your hardware... blame the hardware manufacturer for not supporting the OS. Or better yet, blame the hardware manufacturers for not releasing detailed interface specifications to allow anyone to develop their own drivers. That's the way hardware should be done.
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Sole developer is hard.
So don't be a sole developer. Stop worrying about code, and focus on packaging your idea to 'sell' to others. Find a partner, a team, an investor, or just a friend who will be pleased to see you succeed in making your vision a reality.
The first thing I do on most projects is find the one stakeholder who I would be most pleased to make happy. I then share all of my ideas, sketches, prototypes, etc. to this person. Usually they are just a non-techie user who gets anxious to see the final result... which in turn makes me excited to finish so I can finally show it to them.
I guess what I am saying, is make the project bigger than you... don't be a sole developer, be a hero, be a teammate, be a friend, make someone proud... then the project isn't a chore!
You have this many questions and then ask if it's a "late April Fools'" joke?... You realize you look like an ass now right. Lose the snarky comments, get your questions answered, then spew away about how bad of an implementation it is... until then you look stupid.
I bet people said similar things about all kinds of revolutionary technologies that they knew nothing about... and they have all since eaten their words. You just set yourself up to be one of those people if this is indeed everything they suggest it could be.
The best metric in most organizations, where IT is in a operations support role, is Quality of service. The easiest way to measure quality is via polling.
A previous position worked had a policy, which was well supported by upper management, that REQUIRED the completion of a satisfaction survey at the end of every trouble call, as well as monthly satisfaction surveys.
- A typical help desk call was followed by a 30 second phone survey
- A desk side visit was followed by a ~1min web based survey
- A project was followed with an ~5 minute web survey
- A large project that involved a project manager was followed by a 15 minute interview with those people who helped define the scope of the project.
All surveys were issued and managed by a team outside of the IT structure (though they were IT management types).
The great thing about this system was that it was easy to determine who deserved accolades and who didn't do their jobs... at the help desk level, they fired about 70% of new hires within a month or so because the customer simply didn't like their personalities or they didn't communicate well, but if you stayed on you were paid well and treated exceptionally. At the desktop support level, similar story, and finally the monthly surveys allowed overall satisfaction to be gaged.
We IT folk were also surveyed about each other, and our customers... which I felt was the most important thing. A customer who we regularly rated as polite, patient, and somehow exceptional would often be rewarded by our management (appreciation lunches, software for their personal use, USB drives for personal use, etc.) ... so the customers were rarely unfair. My boss even gave a weekend at a local trendy hotel to one customer for simply giving valuable feedback in the form of a monthly survey comment; he wrote a page detailing how our support saved the company tens of thousands of dollars because IT showed him how to link data from an SQL database into Excel where he was able to better analyze it... this was done by a desktop guy who happened to work late at someones desk and was walking through the building turning off lights. Needless to say, the desktop guy was handsomely rewarded for simply giving a damn.
I realize that it sounds idealistic, and in many ways it was. Sure time was still an issue, as users would deduct for a slow response, but it was only part of the story. Most importantly was that everyone was motivated to be respectful because we all knew that any negative trends would be caught and questioned.
As I understand it, it was hardest to determine if we were too large as a department... sure the customer will be happy if they have their own dedicated IT person... but it's just not cost effective. I was not privy to how this was measured, but I imagine they had their ways.
The statistic should be that 1/5th of the world's population lives in population dense cities that produce too much light pollution to observe the milky way at night.
MOST places in the US and Europe offer spectacular views of the night sky, including the Milky Way. Fortunately the population is not very dense except in the big cities.
When 1/5 of the world has too much light pollution to observe the Milky Way, then I will worry. 1/5 of the worlds population, no big deal. Hell, I'd guess that most of the other 4/5's of the population wish they had that problem, cause then it might mean that they have the power to run their wells, clean their water, refrigerate their food, compete for the next big call center, and maybe stop burying 1/4, or 1/3, or even 1/2 of their children before they see 18.
While I agree that it would be nice if we industrialized nations could dim it a little in our big cities so our spoiled kids can see a few stars, I don't consider it a cause for concern.
Agreed.
I also want to see Laptop DPI's on Desktop displays. Screw large monitors, give me high resolutions.
I remember how much I loved playing quake on a high end 14" CRT at 1600x1200... I had all the resolution without needing to lug a huge monitor to lan parties. Also, you can sit much closer to the small monitor and keep the entire screen in the center of your vision.
The question is, when they say he is working for the Feds does it mean that he is working for "the people" by helping the Feds improve security, or is he working for the Feds to push their own agenda.
I, would like to believe that DT's contributions will be in the interest of the users of technology, balancing security and openness, and showing the government how being more open about technology can actually improve security.
Only time will tell if DT can maintain the respect of the pro-hacker community and the government that hired him. It's a very thin line to walk.
I can't attest to the accuracy here... but mod this parent up for putting really large numbers into perspective quite well.
People throw large numbers, or very small numbers, around so often these days with no understanding how large or how small they really are. Like that recent discussion of the laser based technique used to improve incandescent bulb efficiency using the equivalent of the entire countries power production for a crazy small amount of time. The numbers seem pretty impressive until you realize that the actual power used is almost nothing compared to the energy saved by the treatment.
Very good explanation of how one way hash passwords work... I always emphasize that the passwords are NOT STORED ANYWHERE!
What I find much more distressing is how many systems use more complex systems to store passwords. I could implement a reasonably good one-way hash password system in nearly any programming language in very few lines of code and have a very low risk of the user's passwords being compromised. But many systems still insist on keeping that password stored in a reversible format, even though it's much more complex to implement securely.
I HATE those web systems that send you your password in an email... that's always nice of them to broadcast my password to the world like that. A properly implemented system shouldn't even let them know my password!
I have spent hours of my life trying to explain to users why their password gets changed if I ever need to authenticate as them in one of our systems. They hate it, but when I explain that it's actually a good thing (they know when someone has accessed their account), they usually love the idea of the one-way hash.
For the most stable system, allways go for the LTS releases of Ubuntu.
The Long Term Support releases are usually proceeded with 6 months of intense bug fixing, testing, and overall stability improvements. The releases immediately following an LTS release are usually full of new stuff and the bugs that come with it all. Other releases are usually less revolutionary and more evolutionary in nature.
I would wager that LTS to LTS upgrades will be almost flawless as the customers that actually pay Canonical for support will typically stick to LTS releases (Regular releases are only supported for 18 months which is less than many organisations take just to plan an OS upgrade).
8.04 was the last LTS release, 10.04 is planned to be the next LTS. (thats April 2010 if you didn't know the release number was the year.month or release)
It is entirely possible that they could announce an earlier LTS or push it back later if there are too many upstream bugs (bugs that need to be fixed by other development teams, like the Gnome Devs.)
Thats what did it for me. 80+ hrs per week on EQ, while in the USAF...
Since getting clean, I can't get into any games anymore... I'd imagine it's like getting clean from crack, nothing will ever be good enough to replace it. You try to give it a chance but you can't really commit enough to get really into it.
My wife bought me Fallout 3 for Christmas and I haven't even taken the cellophane off yet... though I fully expect to love the game like I loved the other two, I know how it will play out. I will not see my family for a weekend, go back to work on Monday and never play it again because I realize that it's just a game and can't commit to it.
think the situation is just so unique, there is no procedure for the police to reach the right person to override problems like this. If this were a landline, there are certainly contact people who can be reached to assist with a police investigation.
Exactly the problem, they were dealing with someone who isn't empowered to help.
What all major carriers need to do is create an "emergency services" department that is empowered by executive management to make decisions that run contrary to company policy when it makes sense to do so. Then they give that number to all call center staff who will forward calls like this immediately when they realize that they cannot help.
Fuck you.
I don't want my food, or potential food, turned in to fuel.
I don't use the term lightly ... Biofuel is EVIL.
sense when did biofuel = food?
If someone can use cellulose to make fuel, then your precious food might become cheaper as now farmers have a market for both corn and it's cellulose rich stalk.
Food crop based biofuels are indeed a very poor choice. The ONLY reason corn was pushed was because the corn growers lobbied heavily as a way to make more profit. And they have certainly profited.
Good for you, you have a huge box that costs more to operate for a month than you spend buying it.
These "wall wart" computers are handy for putting a computer in an inconspicous location... perhaps in an enclosure at the top of a light pole with a webcam for traffic monitoring. Or maybe they could be used in a production or shipping environment while connected to a barcode scanner and some servo control hardware.
A $20 pc with full AT/ATX powersupply, mechanical hard drive, and an assortment of outdated IO is usually not as useful for the types of things that these are intended for.
=profit!!
The future is the Virtual Machine.
Imagine for a moment, that every application included it's own OS. Of course that OS would be a very dumbed down sort of thing, but it would be entirely independent of the host OS except for some standard inter-vm communication requirements for clipboards, file management, etc.
Your host OS would be responsible for managing the file system, display, and networking, all of which it would provide access to via some standard protocols. The applications would support those protocols and contain their own OS and drivers tailored to those standards. The applications could be built in a NTVM, LinuxVM, BSDVM, SolarisVM, etc as long as it was just complete enough to support the application.
Imagine it like a typical virtual machine, but even less dependent upon the host OS. Sure the applications would be larger, but that's rarely a problem anymore.
There are better ways to go about finding a place to live!
Of course if you need a roommate who is cool with the same activities that made you homeless in the first place, then maybe this is the best place.
Anyone here want a future "example" as a roommate? Make sure you get the last months rent up front, if the awards in the US are any indication, he won't be able to make his rent at some point.
While what your asking for does exist, i will admit that it does not exist in a form similar to ZoneAlarm or other Application Layer Firewalls.
There is some discussion about this here: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/4137/
Essentially, what you want is a false sense of security. There is nothing stopping any application from calling an approved application to do it's communicating for it. For example, I could write my installer to open IE and send me your personal info via HTTP.
Additionally, the Windows policy of allowing an application to insert itself into the IP stack has actually made for a LESS secure system as a lot of attacks use this "feature" themselves. I have removed several pieces of spyware that monitored all traffic by inserting themselves in the IP stack in exactly the same way.
In Linux, the closest you will come would be to use iptables to route all outbound traffic to a proxy (which is, essentially, an application layer firewall) like Zorp, or to Configure AppArmor or seLinux. None of these things are simple, but they are providing a real sense of security not a false one.
Sure.
Windows itself supports very little hardware, and what it does support it does very minimally, requiring that the vendor provide drivers for the Windows OS being used. As vendors create new hardware they have no incentive to continue to release drivers for old hardware on newer versions of Windows, so the hardware becomes unusable. For example, a lot of older devices supported on Win2k/XP are no longer supported on Vista because the manufacturer won't write the driver.
Linux, on the other hand, typically uses community developed drivers (especially for older hardware that has had sufficient time for reverse engineering). Because most of these drivers are kernel modules, they are automatically built to be compatible with the latest Linux versions. When the kernel team chooses to stop including a module, it is because there is almost zero demand for that driver, though people will sometimes just take the old code compile their own module for a current kernel.
To ensure optimal compatibility I recommend hardware that has been on the market for at least a year and is/was in very wide distribution.
I have seen few if any real problems with Dell Optiplex or Latitude models that are more than 1 year old. I personally run a Sony VAIO laptop, my wife runs a latitude, my daughter has a Gateway (very popular model from 2003-4).
My mythtv frontends are a variety of mostly Dell small form factor optiplex's. My server is a custom build on an MSI mobo with 6 sata ports... I researched the chipset before buying to ensure that there were few, if any, complaints about support.
Again, none of my equipment is cutting edge. I'm not a gamer and instead am far more interested in stable, productive computers. If cutting edge performance is key to you, then you need to research each major component a little more thoroughly, regardless of the OS. Start with selecting a chipset and build the rest of the system around that. The 790FX, even though it's a year old, seems to be a safe bet for a performance machine. Nvidia nForce chipsets have historically been strong too. And I've never had problems with Intel's chipsets, they just lack some of the features.
Exactly... the printer comes with a windows driver. Windows has ZERO support for that printer.
If manufacturers decided tomorrow that they would no longer supply Windows drivers for their hardware and instead would only supply Linux drivers... you would see a huge shift.
So again it's not that Linux isn't ready for the desktop, but that it's not profitable enough for hardware manufacturers to create drivers for Linux.
I buy Linux supported hardware and run Linux on my desktop. It's as good if not better than Windows on the desktop, if your hardware is supported.
No shiny new graphics card "just works" under Windows.
The manufacturer of that video card decided that they wanted Windows computers to work well with that card and committed substantial resources to writing a driver that allowed Windows to function with that video card.
It's not Linux's fault that they didn't think that Linux users were worth a comparable effort.
I agree that hardware compatibility is a barrier to entry for many people, but it certainly doesn't make Linux "not ready for the desktop"
Again... it's a driver issue, it does not reflect on the operating system.
There have been plenty of crappy drivers released for Windows. Sometimes even causing major issues for some users. I have even heard of cases where bad windows drivers caused hardware to fail.
I realize that because the specs are open, there is little reason for a good, free, driver to be written... and at some point it will be complete and stable in a great majority of systems. But again, if Intel devoted more than 12 people to writing and testing their driver and instead gave it the same priority as the Windows drivers, it would probably be every bit as stable as the Windows driver.
If a piece of hardware is unsupported or flaky, it's not the OS's fault!
When someone buys a computer that claims to be Windows Vista compatible and they find out that their old printer doesn't work with Windows Vista, do they blame Microsoft or beg their printer manufacturer to release a driver for Vista?
If I buy a computer that was certified to run Windows 95, do I blame Microsoft if Vista doesn't run on it?
If I buy a Mac keyboard and it doesn't function as expected on my PC do I blame Microsoft for that?
So is it fair to blame Linux when the PC I bought to run Windows doesn't work? Strange, it didn't work with the Mac OSX disks I had either, stupid Apple can't make a desktop ready OS.
Now if you go buy a computer preinstalled with Linux, using hardware that is well supported, and sticking with a LTS level release of Ubuntu. I believe that you would think that Linux was plenty ready for the desktop.
Even if you don't use Linux or OSX, you can help improve the situation for everyone by simply combating any FUD you hear with reason and logic. Remember, everyone benefits as Mac OS and Linux increase market share, they drive Microsoft to innovate to create more open and inter-operable products.
Again, you had an issue caused by a lack of support from a hardware vendor. That does not mean that Linux isn't suitable for the desktop.
If I sold you a computer where all of the hardware was supported by the manufacturer to run Linux, your experience on would likely be as good if not better than on Windows (assuming your application needs could be equally met on either OS).
To say that Linux isn't ready for the desktop would suggest that the operating system was lacking something essential to desktop users. It is not, it just hasn't yet attracted the hardware manufacturers support that Windows currently has.
My mother, my children, and my wife all run Linux exclusively. Other than needing to tell my kids that the game they want work on their computer and we have to see if we can get it for one of our consoles, I haven't heard a single complaint. My mother, who lives an hour away, tells me all the time that she wishes her "computer would break down more often because I don't visit like I used to.". And my wife hates how I need to frequently stop the in-laws house to fix their windows computers all the time.
I realize that Windows is improving, and some of the old complaints are dated... but my mother runs an early P4 with 512MB of ram on dial-up... Vista or Windows 7 are not options for her. And my children have comparably old laptops.
To say it's not ready for the Desktop is flat out wrong. It is ready, and my family proves it every day. So say you don't like it, say you had a bad experience, even say that you will wait until your cheap MOBO/sata controller manufacturer releases Linux drivers before you will consider it as a viable option to you. But it is ready for the Desktop.
It's FUD like that that makes the problem worse. When hardware manufacturers hear/read comments like yours, they assume that you would rather use windows. When in actuality, you probably don't care, you just want your computer to work... if you can use a free OS, Great!
Next time, say what you really mean... "If only my mobo's lame SATA controller were better supported, Ubuntu may have been an option for me."
And by the way, you couldn't fathom the number of computer novices have lost all of their data and/or endless hours of time to Windows driver issues; and you claim that it's ready.
Exactly, it's a driver issue. If Intel created a good Linux driver, or provided the specifications to those who would happily write it for them, it would perform equally as well(if not better) than it does with Windows.
What I am saying is that NO operating system will support every piece of hardware natively out of the box. Hardware requires drivers that facilitate communication between the hardware and the OS. Considering how limited the support is by hardware developers (often none) it's amazing how good most hardware works in Linux. As hardware manufacturers grow to support Linux, it will eventually match or exceed Windows hardware support.
Actually, for older hardware,like my old Matrox Marvel G200-TV PCI video card with hardware encoding, Linux already far surpasses Windows. Matrox hasn't released a Windows driver since July of 01 (Windows 2K), while its fully supported on a 64Bit Ubuntu install.
So, again, don't blame the OS when it doesn't support your hardware... blame the hardware manufacturer for not supporting the OS. Or better yet, blame the hardware manufacturers for not releasing detailed interface specifications to allow anyone to develop their own drivers. That's the way hardware should be done.