Linux: Click add/remove programs. Tick the app you want. Click apply. Enter password. Done.
vs
Windows: Load web browser. Google for program. Hunt around website for download link. Download program. Open file browser. Navigate to download directory. Double click install file. Click next. Click next. Click next. Click next. Click next. Done.
That's best case for both. If the Linux app isn't in the repositories then you end up with a similar process to the Windows one. If the Windows one isn't free, you get to add going to the shop and paying for it to the above steps.
Of course, if you're happy to use the command line, the Linux one gets even simpler...
I know exactly what you mean. I got an email a few months ago from Be (my ISP) with the subject "Changes to your bill", or words to that effect. My first thought was "Oh. How much are they putting it up by?", but when I opened it, I found they were knocking £8/month off it, and giving me a free static IP.
I can't imagine getting something like that from BT or O2...
The big problem with that is that whilst something can be technically optional, the penalties for not having it can be severe enough that it's only really optional in name.
For example, Some Company releases their car kill-switch. It is, of course, completely optional. However, insurance companies start to offer a discount for people with it fitted, since it means their car is less likely to be damaged or lost. Then premiums rise, especially for people without the kill-switch. At some point, it essentially stops being optional to have a kill-switch in your car, because the insurance won't be affordable.
It's not that dissimilar to the concern over Trusted Computing... If a Trusted Computer can access any normal website, but also Trusted websites, there's a huge risk of a gradual drift towards more and more sites being Trusted Computers only. Probably starting with MS, music companies etc, but eventually drifting into government sites. Eventually, most of the useful internet will be Trusted only.
This is what needs to be stopped, rather than just saying "well, it's all optional, if they want to, then let them".
"FWIW, I lived in an English city for 7 years. It's only in Canada you'd not lock your doors (if you believe Michael Moore)."
There's a big difference between locking your door when you're in and when you're out. We'll regularly leave the back door open if we're home, and it's a hot day, but if we go out, we do close and lock all the doors and windows. If the front door didn't lock itself automatically when it closed, we'd probably leave that unlocked at least some of the time as well.
Michael Moore found people who'd left their doors unlocked whilst they were home, and the doors he opened had people coming to see what was happening pretty quickly.
Heh. This is my 4th helping of humble pie since I posted that - forgot until afterwards about the difference in mpg ratings.
I assume that the engines are just as good - there'd be no point in using inferior technology in the American cars, so it must be down to something else. The cars are simply bigger (as I had pointed out to me!) so there's more weight... Most of the gearboxes are automatic, so that gives you a big performance drop. Suspension tends to be a lot softer, from what I've seen, which could affect it a little...
As another comparison, I'm used to driving a one litre Corsa... I got stuck with a 1.2l Renault Modus as a hire car recently, and it was terrible! Felt under powered (less go than the Corsa) and really soft and unconvincing ride... I didn't feel I could throw it round corners the way I can with the Corsa!
I picked the Astra having glanced at a couple of pics of the Accord on Google Images. It looked about right, and I suspected was a reasonable comparison. I guess I was wrong! I am aware that American car sizes are rather... different, but I guess I should really be comparing the uses of the car. My experience, and I think I can fairly say that of my friends is that the Corsa is good for 2 people, and their stuff, and can be used to move 4 (or even 5) people, if you're only going a short distance. The Astra would move 4 people with stuff comfortably. Bigger cars are then just a status symbol, or a waste, depending on how you look at it, unless you go up to an MPV for moving 5 or 6 people, or 7 people a relatively short distance. I honestly don't see much point in a bigger car than the Astra if you're only going to stick 5 seats in it.
4x4s (Land Rovers, Jeeps etc) are what you use if you work on a farm, or have a similar need to run off road.
As to your other point, I've realised since I posted that a the US gallon is slightly smaller than the Imperial gallon (1:1.2), which I changes my mpg figures to just under 35 for the Corsa, and a hair under 30 for the MX-5. For careful driving, I was thinking doing a steady 70mph down a motorway, and of course using a manual gearbox (I'm a Brit - that's the default over here, though I suspect you're already aware of that!)
My mistake on the mpg figures though - I'd forgotten when I posted about the difference.
Just after I posted, someone pointed out to me that there are actually 1.2 US gallons in an Imperial gallon, so that probably explains some of the difference! For US gallons, my numbers would be more like 35 and 30.
The MX-5 speed was more or less an ideal - city driving is never ideal, doing about 70mph down a flat motorway without changing speed much would be more like it. I've not done that myself - I'm quoting what seems to be the general result from others - as I don't have an MX-5 myself. Yet.
The thing is, 25mpg isn't actually that good. I regularly drive a Vauxhall Corsa which gets over 40 mpg (about 10 miles per litre, which is what I think in, as it's what I buy petrol in). OK, that's a small car, granted, but the Astra, which is similar class to the Accord, isn't much worse.
Hell, the MX-5, which is a sports car, ffs, gets about 35mpg with fairly careful driving. 25 mpg is not a lot.
To echo the sibling poster, I'm another one of Be's satisfied customers. I've been downloading plenty with BitTorrent and running an http server (and ssh and so forth) from my home connection with no issues at all. It's also only £18/month, which is pretty good! I'm getting about 15Mb/s down because of the distance from the exchange (most of a mile, I think) and 1Mb/s up. My only criticism of the service is that the Be Box wireless router they send has a habit of losing its DNS server every so often, but I've just made a copy of resolv.conf set up to use Be's DNS servers directly in my home dir, and I copy that to/etc/ when it fails (I'm using a laptop, so I want to use DHCP most of the time for when I'm elsewhere - the desktops do permanently use Be's servers).
Again, no connection other than being a satisfied customer.
Out of all the people I know who use computers... The majority use Windows, as you'd expect, because it's what they're used to, it's what came on their computers when they bought them. Quite a lot of my friends use Linux though, as being a geek, I have geeky friends.
The point I'm making though is that I only know one person who has used Linux enough to count as someone who "knows Linux", and yet still uses Windows. So, out of the people who know both operating systems well enough to make an informed choice, only 5% have picked Windows.
Mmmm, seconded. I've got a HP nx7300 for work, which according to Google, weighs 2.5kg or 5.6lbs. It's not heavy - I can happily carry it one handed and lift it over any obstacles I'm walking past, but when I'm travelling a long distance, especially by train, I do notice the weight.
I've got a proper laptop rucksack for it which helps an enormous amount, but I still notice the difference every time I cycle somewhere without it.
In modern cars, it's not true anyway - the Vauxhall Corsa, for example, states in the manual that if the momentum of the car is enough to pull the engine round (such as when engine braking, or going downhill) the engine management system cuts the fuel supply completely, so the car actually uses no fuel. However, if it's left in neutral, or with the clutch down, it will still use a small amount of fuel to keep the engine spinning.
I'm probably replying to the wrong person here - you probably already know this - but I didn't want to start another subthread!
I've actually found that in the time I've been using Linux, I've reinstalled a lot more often than I did with Windows. The differences are that I don't reinstall because it's broken, I reinstall because I want to try something, and more importantly when I reinstall, it takes a couple of hours to get to a fully functional desktop, all settings intact, but with Windows, I'll still be missing things a week later, having spent a day or so getting the obvious things working again.
Just to add another anecdote to the thread (enough of these, and we/can/ call it data!)
My laptop (HP nx7300) gets me about an hour and a half in Ubuntu (Feisty) with Beryl on. XP is about the same.
However, if I turn Beryl off, battery life goes up to 2 hours. Wireless off, and screen brightness down (like, when I've left the charger at work) can get me up to about 2 1/2.
I also accidentally left my Windows VM open in Ubuntu (with Beryl) a few days ago, and that took battery life down to half an hour, but that's not especially surprising!
THere are a few crappy cameras around that will only behave with the right driver, and won't let you use them as a mass storage device. Notice that teh parent said he had a Sony camera - Sony are notorious for not following standards!
I got a (I think it was Kodak) new camera for Christmas. Plugged it in, Ubuntu recognised it as a camera (didn't need drivers), but could only copy photos off, it refused to act as a mass storage device. Also, if you took the SD card out, and put it in a reader, it was... weird (I forget exactly how).
So I returned it and replaced it with one that worked properly. Didn't want to piss about with dodgy setups!
Mine does that too, especially when my network's playing up a bit. The worst part about it is that whichever neighbour it is has a really crap connection, so I'll sit on it all evening getting annoyed with it, until I finall twig what's happened and connect back to my own one.
Well, either that or I try to connect to my fileserver and it tells me it's not there...
That's exactly the wrong way round, with regard to LEDs and incandescents. LEDs turn off practically instantly when the power is cut, an incandescent bulb won't stop emitting light until the filament cools down far enough - hence if you hit the light switch it can take a second for the bulb to go out (although it will get dimmer during that second) wheras LEDs are used for fibre optics, where the light flicks on and off millions (billions!) of times a second.
Flourescent lights are something entirely different. They/do/ flicker with the supply frequency - I can see that myself, and compact flourescents (engery saving bulbs) suffer from the same sort of thing.
I was under the impression that 480p was SDTV, which means 480 lines, and I approximated 640x from it being 4:3 aspect ratio. Also, PAL and NTSC are different, so I wasn't going for a precise number, just a ballpark figure.
There are plenty of PCs that play games for the price of a console. Granted, they might not be the same games, but the odds are they'll be better (this is a matter of opinion of course) but even if they're different, that doesn't make them any less fun.
You/can/ plug a console into an old (SD)TV, but you won't get anything like the same level of graphical quality. In fact, since you're stuck at 640x480, you'll get significantly better quality graphics from whatever PC it is you've got lying around that you use to post on Slashdot. Hell, even a brand new PC that'll play games at that level will be cheaper than an XBox360 or a PS3. Possibly even cheaper than a Wii.
The problem with all these comparisons on price is that none of them take the cost of the HDTV into account. Without an HDTV, console gaming looks fairly poor 'cos you're stuck at about 640x480, wheras even on a relatively low end computer, games will run at at least 1024x768.
So, you've got your £400 PS3 and your £500 TV... About 4 years ago, I built a gaming rig for about £600. It was pretty high end for the time, and still plays fairly modern games (Portal, HL2 ep 2 and so on) with no problems at all. I'm sure prices have come down since, so let's pick £500 as a small deduction.
Or, you can buy your PCs for £300-£400. OK, they won't play the latest games, but at any time other than in the year or so just after a console comes out, they'll be more powerful than whatever the current generation of consoles can do. That's the plus side of the upgrade path.
Slashdot Mirror
Ridiculous?
Linux: Click add/remove programs. Tick the app you want. Click apply. Enter password. Done.
vs
Windows: Load web browser. Google for program. Hunt around website for download link. Download program. Open file browser. Navigate to download directory. Double click install file. Click next. Click next. Click next. Click next. Click next. Done.
That's best case for both. If the Linux app isn't in the repositories then you end up with a similar process to the Windows one. If the Windows one isn't free, you get to add going to the shop and paying for it to the above steps.
Of course, if you're happy to use the command line, the Linux one gets even simpler...
Open terminal. apt-get install . Done.
Does that mean that 2009 will be the year of XP on the desktop? (blah blah, take more than 14 seconds to write your pithy one line reply)
Looks like there aren't enough Girl Genius fans on here to mod you up. And here's me without mod points...
I know exactly what you mean. I got an email a few months ago from Be (my ISP) with the subject "Changes to your bill", or words to that effect. My first thought was "Oh. How much are they putting it up by?", but when I opened it, I found they were knocking £8/month off it, and giving me a free static IP.
I can't imagine getting something like that from BT or O2...
The big problem with that is that whilst something can be technically optional, the penalties for not having it can be severe enough that it's only really optional in name.
For example, Some Company releases their car kill-switch. It is, of course, completely optional. However, insurance companies start to offer a discount for people with it fitted, since it means their car is less likely to be damaged or lost. Then premiums rise, especially for people without the kill-switch. At some point, it essentially stops being optional to have a kill-switch in your car, because the insurance won't be affordable.
It's not that dissimilar to the concern over Trusted Computing... If a Trusted Computer can access any normal website, but also Trusted websites, there's a huge risk of a gradual drift towards more and more sites being Trusted Computers only. Probably starting with MS, music companies etc, but eventually drifting into government sites. Eventually, most of the useful internet will be Trusted only.
This is what needs to be stopped, rather than just saying "well, it's all optional, if they want to, then let them".
Is this advert online? Whether Youtube or elsewhere. I have to admit, you've sparked my curiosity!
"FWIW, I lived in an English city for 7 years. It's only in Canada you'd not lock your doors (if you believe Michael Moore)."
There's a big difference between locking your door when you're in and when you're out. We'll regularly leave the back door open if we're home, and it's a hot day, but if we go out, we do close and lock all the doors and windows. If the front door didn't lock itself automatically when it closed, we'd probably leave that unlocked at least some of the time as well.
Michael Moore found people who'd left their doors unlocked whilst they were home, and the doors he opened had people coming to see what was happening pretty quickly.
Heh. This is my 4th helping of humble pie since I posted that - forgot until afterwards about the difference in mpg ratings.
I assume that the engines are just as good - there'd be no point in using inferior technology in the American cars, so it must be down to something else. The cars are simply bigger (as I had pointed out to me!) so there's more weight... Most of the gearboxes are automatic, so that gives you a big performance drop. Suspension tends to be a lot softer, from what I've seen, which could affect it a little...
As another comparison, I'm used to driving a one litre Corsa... I got stuck with a 1.2l Renault Modus as a hire car recently, and it was terrible! Felt under powered (less go than the Corsa) and really soft and unconvincing ride... I didn't feel I could throw it round corners the way I can with the Corsa!
I picked the Astra having glanced at a couple of pics of the Accord on Google Images. It looked about right, and I suspected was a reasonable comparison. I guess I was wrong! I am aware that American car sizes are rather ... different, but I guess I should really be comparing the uses of the car. My experience, and I think I can fairly say that of my friends is that the Corsa is good for 2 people, and their stuff, and can be used to move 4 (or even 5) people, if you're only going a short distance. The Astra would move 4 people with stuff comfortably. Bigger cars are then just a status symbol, or a waste, depending on how you look at it, unless you go up to an MPV for moving 5 or 6 people, or 7 people a relatively short distance. I honestly don't see much point in a bigger car than the Astra if you're only going to stick 5 seats in it.
4x4s (Land Rovers, Jeeps etc) are what you use if you work on a farm, or have a similar need to run off road.
As to your other point, I've realised since I posted that a the US gallon is slightly smaller than the Imperial gallon (1:1.2), which I changes my mpg figures to just under 35 for the Corsa, and a hair under 30 for the MX-5. For careful driving, I was thinking doing a steady 70mph down a motorway, and of course using a manual gearbox (I'm a Brit - that's the default over here, though I suspect you're already aware of that!)
My mistake on the mpg figures though - I'd forgotten when I posted about the difference.
Just after I posted, someone pointed out to me that there are actually 1.2 US gallons in an Imperial gallon, so that probably explains some of the difference! For US gallons, my numbers would be more like 35 and 30. The MX-5 speed was more or less an ideal - city driving is never ideal, doing about 70mph down a flat motorway without changing speed much would be more like it. I've not done that myself - I'm quoting what seems to be the general result from others - as I don't have an MX-5 myself. Yet.
The thing is, 25mpg isn't actually that good. I regularly drive a Vauxhall Corsa which gets over 40 mpg (about 10 miles per litre, which is what I think in, as it's what I buy petrol in). OK, that's a small car, granted, but the Astra, which is similar class to the Accord, isn't much worse.
Hell, the MX-5, which is a sports car, ffs, gets about 35mpg with fairly careful driving. 25 mpg is not a lot.
Again, no connection other than being a satisfied customer.
Omnomnomnomnom...
The point I'm making though is that I only know one person who has used Linux enough to count as someone who "knows Linux", and yet still uses Windows. So, out of the people who know both operating systems well enough to make an informed choice, only 5% have picked Windows.
Mmmm, seconded. I've got a HP nx7300 for work, which according to Google, weighs 2.5kg or 5.6lbs. It's not heavy - I can happily carry it one handed and lift it over any obstacles I'm walking past, but when I'm travelling a long distance, especially by train, I do notice the weight. I've got a proper laptop rucksack for it which helps an enormous amount, but I still notice the difference every time I cycle somewhere without it.
In modern cars, it's not true anyway - the Vauxhall Corsa, for example, states in the manual that if the momentum of the car is enough to pull the engine round (such as when engine braking, or going downhill) the engine management system cuts the fuel supply completely, so the car actually uses no fuel. However, if it's left in neutral, or with the clutch down, it will still use a small amount of fuel to keep the engine spinning. I'm probably replying to the wrong person here - you probably already know this - but I didn't want to start another subthread!
I've actually found that in the time I've been using Linux, I've reinstalled a lot more often than I did with Windows. The differences are that I don't reinstall because it's broken, I reinstall because I want to try something, and more importantly when I reinstall, it takes a couple of hours to get to a fully functional desktop, all settings intact, but with Windows, I'll still be missing things a week later, having spent a day or so getting the obvious things working again.
My laptop (HP nx7300) gets me about an hour and a half in Ubuntu (Feisty) with Beryl on. XP is about the same.
However, if I turn Beryl off, battery life goes up to 2 hours. Wireless off, and screen brightness down (like, when I've left the charger at work) can get me up to about 2 1/2.
I also accidentally left my Windows VM open in Ubuntu (with Beryl) a few days ago, and that took battery life down to half an hour, but that's not especially surprising!
I got a (I think it was Kodak) new camera for Christmas. Plugged it in, Ubuntu recognised it as a camera (didn't need drivers), but could only copy photos off, it refused to act as a mass storage device. Also, if you took the SD card out, and put it in a reader, it was ... weird (I forget exactly how).
So I returned it and replaced it with one that worked properly. Didn't want to piss about with dodgy setups!
Mine does that too, especially when my network's playing up a bit. The worst part about it is that whichever neighbour it is has a really crap connection, so I'll sit on it all evening getting annoyed with it, until I finall twig what's happened and connect back to my own one. Well, either that or I try to connect to my fileserver and it tells me it's not there...
That's exactly the wrong way round, with regard to LEDs and incandescents. LEDs turn off practically instantly when the power is cut, an incandescent bulb won't stop emitting light until the filament cools down far enough - hence if you hit the light switch it can take a second for the bulb to go out (although it will get dimmer during that second) wheras LEDs are used for fibre optics, where the light flicks on and off millions (billions!) of times a second.
/do/ flicker with the supply frequency - I can see that myself, and compact flourescents (engery saving bulbs) suffer from the same sort of thing.
Flourescent lights are something entirely different. They
I was under the impression that 480p was SDTV, which means 480 lines, and I approximated 640x from it being 4:3 aspect ratio. Also, PAL and NTSC are different, so I wasn't going for a precise number, just a ballpark figure. There are plenty of PCs that play games for the price of a console. Granted, they might not be the same games, but the odds are they'll be better (this is a matter of opinion of course) but even if they're different, that doesn't make them any less fun.
You /can/ plug a console into an old (SD)TV, but you won't get anything like the same level of graphical quality. In fact, since you're stuck at 640x480, you'll get significantly better quality graphics from whatever PC it is you've got lying around that you use to post on Slashdot. Hell, even a brand new PC that'll play games at that level will be cheaper than an XBox360 or a PS3. Possibly even cheaper than a Wii.
The problem with all these comparisons on price is that none of them take the cost of the HDTV into account. Without an HDTV, console gaming looks fairly poor 'cos you're stuck at about 640x480, wheras even on a relatively low end computer, games will run at at least 1024x768. So, you've got your £400 PS3 and your £500 TV... About 4 years ago, I built a gaming rig for about £600. It was pretty high end for the time, and still plays fairly modern games (Portal, HL2 ep 2 and so on) with no problems at all. I'm sure prices have come down since, so let's pick £500 as a small deduction. Or, you can buy your PCs for £300-£400. OK, they won't play the latest games, but at any time other than in the year or so just after a console comes out, they'll be more powerful than whatever the current generation of consoles can do. That's the plus side of the upgrade path.