And a release schedule's supposed to be an "innovation"? Yeah, right. Whatever the case though, GP's got a good point. Doubt I'll ever see anything about Ultima Linux on here, but they could at least mention the likes of, say, Symphony OS – the ones that don't just recycle the same desktop concepts, but that come up with something new and innovative, something exciting... just because it's "yet another Linux distribution" doesn't mean it's not worth talking about, it doesn't just need to be announced on more "specialized" sites like DistroWatch. This is something that could eventually wind up changing the whole industry or whatever as we know it, whether it's because of them specifically or else someone taking it even further...
By the way, no, haven't gotten around to trying Symphony yet – and yes, I know it's Debian-based (it is Debian-based, right?) – just mentioned it because it's one of the more innovative systems and the first one to pop into my head...
Maybe I'm totally wrong here, but half the people at my school use IM-speak even in class assignments (as in minimum-6-page-paper-plus-bibliography type assignments)... and I somehow doubt that stuff like Wal-Mart's latest back-to-school "Foreign Language" ad thing – the one showing various cell phones, pagers, etc. with horrible IM-speak – is really helping much. Although maybe it's just me?
Yeah, I remember trying Ubuntu myself, after hearing all the hype – at the time my entire home network was wireless, so as a result it was completely useless on my system. Couldn't find any wireless packages for it anywhere, tried Debian's but – oh, that's right, it's not binary-compatible because Ubuntu uses a different version of the kernel and GCC! Not to mention, it was unusably slow...
Anyway, Ubuntu trolling aside, I think the reason there's no real wireless support is because they won't put in programs like NdisWrapper, which is often the fastest and easiest way to get wireless running on Linux. And why don't they include NdisWrapper? Their free software guidelines don't allow it; it doesn't matter how convenient it may be for the end-user, if it's patented, involves binary blobs, or anything else that would restrict its freedom, it can't go in. That's the same reason you can't get MP3, DVD, or Flash support out of the box; first is patented, second requires "illegal" decryption software, and third is proprietary software.
Just to put things into perspective – I've been maintaining my own distribution a while now, and personally I'm taking a more pragmatic approach to the whole thing... the way I see it, I'd much rather a system that's ready to go out of the box than one that's basically assembled by idealistic purists. I can understand why the whole freedom thing's important and all, but a lot of the reason I like Linux in the first place is because you get so much ready to go "out of the box," and when everyday things like Flash and MP3 aren't available, that's really defeating the whole purpose. So MP3 – yep. Flash – yep. And wireless – one of the first things I did was make sure NdisWrapper was included, because otherwise all my NETGEAR adapters would go to waste, and I'd much rather use what I have than go all out and replace them with more "free" ones just because my favorite distribution refused to include a perfectly good driver all because of "freedom". (And yes, I am working on the ATI and nVidia drivers...)
But anyway, to get back on topic: Long story short, as far as I know, the whole wireless thing has nothing to do with Q&A, it's entirely because of their free software guidelines. So either go with their rules, or make up your own – you have the freedom to choose. Use it wisely.
All my family's just using Ultima Linux (disclaimer, I'm the developer...) – took a while to convince them to switch, but after they saw what it was like they were all impressed – been working beautifully. Most of our machines still have Windows on them and are dual-booting, but it's been several months since anyone ever actually switched back, we just don't have any reason to... as far as games, etc. go, Cedega works beautifully for most of them... got all the printing handled through CUPS and our home network... plus, on the offchance that a problem does occur, all our machines have SSH enabled, so fixing stuff's almost trivially easy, at least as far as I'm concerned.
By the way, in case anyone's wondering, we have seven machines that are more or less always-on, two or three others that are sometimes in use, and then a single Windows laptop that my dad sometimes brings home from work – other than that, most everything's running Linux. As far as printing we have an EPSON all-in-one in my room, a Brother all-in-one in our family room, a Lexmark inkjet that my brother and sister share through the network... three machines hard-wired in, most of the others on wireless... all sorts of different hardware and configurations, and yet it runs just fine... so yeah, I'd say just switch to Linux, guaranteed to solve all your problems in no time:-)
That's only in the non-Earth edition of the game, which is currently only available from the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor, which has been in an electronic edition since before we even had digital watches...
My machine's right now using a 16MB Vanta AGP 4x card, and it works just fine – I will admit, I have no clue when it was released, but it works just fine (use their legacy drivers). This is with kernel 2.6.16.19, X.org 6.9.0 – (relatively) brand-new software environment. Will admit the hardware's a bit old – Duron 700MHz, 256MB RAM – but either way it works just fine. And I have around three or four systems here with Intel integrated graphics that work just fine, too.
Meanwhile, I've got another machine with an Athlon 64 and ATI Xpress 200 integrated graphics – works decently enough with the Radeon driver, but no 3D acceleration whatsoever... environment is 64-bit build of kernel 2.6.17.4, X.org 6.9.0, all the required 32-bit packages, shared memory enabled... tried at least ten times to get ATI's drivers to install, and it worked just fine, except that it didn't – X wouldn't show anything, the kernel module built but wouldn't load... the eerie thing is, I was actually working on that just yesterday, too. Kind of odd.
Totally off-topic by now, but just thought I should mention anyway...
From what I've heard, AMD tends to be pretty Linux-friendly, and very helpful to open-source developers who want to, say, implement AMD64 support and that kind of thing – so will this mean that ATI might start giving a damn about us too? I dunno, probably way too far-fetched, although I can't stand how my brand-new Athlon 64 box can't run 3D because ATI's stupid drivers pretty much don't work on my distribution... either way, though, so long as at least one of them keeps churning out good chips, more power to 'em!
I've got a Logitech Wireless Express keyboard/mouse with a few hardware "shortcut" keys (volume, e-mail, etc.) on my main machine – I've got a custom Xmodmap file to set up the keycodes, and then I've configured a couple KDE shortcuts for each of them... right now my e-mail button has been re-configured to play/pause in amaroK so I can, say, listen to the Rolling Stones while playing SuperTux; the "Home" button pulls up ~ in Konqueror; and "Back" is set up to lock the screen and pull up the screensaver, since I use that feature so often. One of these days I may also set up an Eterm button, since I spend so much time working on the command line... anyway, just took a bit of playing around with KMenuEdit after the Xmodmap file was done, very easy tweak.
Oh, and at least IMHO, KDE is even more kick-ass with Enlightenment as the window manager... just do a custom.xsession file that does export KDEWM=enlightenment before startkde, and you should be set. I don't know why, I just like Enlightenment better with KDE – it looks a lot nicer, is a lot less obtrusive, and it just works the way I expect it to – does what it's told, does it in style, and doesn't Creatively Misinterpret(TM) anything along the way... it may take a little getting used to but there is no better way to run a system.
I'm not sure about SCART, but I know that you can get PC-to-TV converters from sites like http://www.tigerdirect.com/ – or, if you know where to look, eBay has even better deals. I've got a little TView Micro adapter to connect one of my older machines to the TV to play stuff like SuperTux and TuxRacer on (and the occasional DVD) – not the best resolution, only 640x480, but for what I need it's just perfect. Although it's just a regular NTSC/video-in connector, so offhand I'm not entirely sure how useful it would be for you... anyway, probably horribly off-topic, but figured I may as well post what little I know anyway;-)
Well, I'll admit I had a few problems on some of my other machines – the first "real" machine I tried it on was a Pentium-133 laptop with 80MB RAM, which installed it just fine, but the bootloader wouldn't run, and I eventually gave up on the effort... (The machine had been running a Linux and OpenBSD dual-boot previously, but I wiped that out before installing.) And even my DeskPro didn't work entirely, it had to boot from a floppy disk, even after I ran Win95's FDISK/MBR and restored a backup MBR to erase LILO From the existing disk... either way, though, I still definitely like what I've seen so far.
Kind of a rhetorical question, but I'm kind of wondering if any reviewers have actually tested it on a real machine, rather than VMware, QEMU, etc. I've been watching it since 0.2.3 or so, and I've actually started toying around with 0.3.0-RC1 on a spare machine I have – Compaq DeskPro EP6000, PIII-650, 64MB – and have found that with, say, Notepad and Firefox running it's quite stable. Kept it up for around half an hour before I just got bored and shut it off. Doesn't yet support my video card or network, but it's still pretty nice.
My own review is on the ReactOS forums if anyone wants to know exactly what it's like – no pictures, because I haven't installed any screenshot or image manipulation software yet, but anyway... http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=20166
Anyway, just thought I might point out that it works on real machines just as well as, or in some cases even better than, on a virtual machine.
I'm an open-source developer (Ultima Linux, PyWord – just to name a few. And yet I'm living on the east coast of the U.S. In fact, so's Red Hat. Not to mention Slackware, now in Minnesota, or even MySQL, who's all the way over in Sweden. I've also noticed a lot of my users tend to be from European countries – Germany, France, Sweden, England, Ireland... and that's only counting a small handful. Oh, and Linus himself is in Portland, Oregon, which is a bit closer but still not in the valley. So unless I'm missing the point entirely, I'd have to say the article must be completely wrong...
DISCLAIMER: I will admit I haven't read the article yet, so I probably am missing the point, but may as well post anyway, since this is Slashdot;-)
User-mode Linux? I've never used Xen in my life – never had any reason for it, and honestly it looks like too much effort for what I'd need it for – but I use user-mode Linux literally every day. Not only is it hosting my Web site (which is actually the reason I've gotten addicted to it), but I've also been using it for software development right on my own machine – since the only machine I have that's suitable for intensive dev stuff is my AMD64, I've set the thing up to run the '64 version natively, and then most of the 32-bit work is done on user-mode. And the nice thing is, it doesn't require any changes to the host kernel, and except for a few special tools for networking, etc., everything you need is right in the kernel source itself.
While I'm on the topic, it's not exactly a virtualization program, but QEMU is also very handy; I tend to use it quite a bit for torture testing new releases, and it's also useful if a certain program won't compile on the user-mode installation because it needs low-level kernel stuff, full POSIX threads support, etc. Even without the KQEMU module it's still faster than the Duron-700/256MB I'd been using before, and considerably more convenient as well.
Anyway, just thought I'd point out that there are other technologies, and other applications as well – servers aren't the only things which benefit from this stuff!
Hmm, maybe one of these days I will have to steal that feature – although then again, I'm rather proud of my current "zero-click" installation/upgrade system (the fact that it's entirely keyboard-driven is beside the point, as is the fact that it's really just a fancier-looking version of Slackware's setup program). But definitely going to have to look into something like that, would definitely be useful...
Probably should have clarified, but I didn't mean to say that I personally like Bose products – they're kind of cool, but really totally overrated – what I meant was that they're generally considered to be pretty good, usually by people who don't know any better (and I couldn't think of any other "high-end" mainstream audio equipment).
“99% of users don't have the expertise or knowledge to make this determination. They just use whatever comes on their computer. Telling them "macs don't get viruses like Windows does" is understandable to them. Telling them to evaluate a nonspecific set of Linux distributions and pick the one for them, install it, and learn new ways of doing things, is a non-starter.”
Point fully taken – I will admit I was focusing more on the operating system itself than the person using it, but I'd definitely agree that the user needs to take quite a bit of responsibility as well. That's the problem with computers now – while they've become far easier for the masses to use since the 70's and 80's when they were by techies, for techies, they still don't take into account human nature. And even if they did, no doubt someone would protest against it – I have to admit, I wouldn't want a machine that could think, for or against me; I just want a machine that does what I tell it to. Period. Although I guess that's just me.
“99% of users don't have the expertise or knowledge to make this determination. They just use whatever comes on their computer. Telling them "macs don't get viruses like Windows does" is understandable to them. Telling them to evaluate a nonspecific set of Linux distributions and pick the one for them, install it, and learn new ways of doing things, is a non-starter.”
Agreed. Then it's settled then – everyone needs to standardize on my distro! Although seriously, that's definitely a very good point as well – what we really need is for large system vendors to start making pre-installed Linux systems available, marketing them based on stuff end-users would understand (no viruses, malware, etc.), although by then they probably will have genetically engineered a flying pig. Oh well, at least it's nice to dream.
“They were more than asking for it, they did most of the work for you. If you build a Web interface that gives anyone who asks an account on your Linux box and you don't restrict it in a VM or jail, and you disable several other security mechanisms, well the same thing will happen as did on OS X. Basically the test said, "yup just like every other workstation UNIX that is not designed for high security installations, OS X has some local privilege escalations."”
Well, I will admit I forgot about that part...
“For some of us, out time is worth enough to justify a small up front cost to save time daily (for those uses where OS X does save time over Linux). For others, Linux simply does not support applications we need to use, because there are no good alternatives on Linux.”
Understandable enough. But personally, I have to say I find Linux more convenient, because you get a complete, ready-to-go desktop with all your applications and settings nicely pre-configured, right out of the box (more or less, depending on which distribution) – I just recently upgraded my main system, a Celeron-700 with 256MB RAM – putting in a larger hard disk – and it only took about half an hour to get everything back up, and most of that was just waiting for it to copy all my files. Then again, since this was based on my own distribution...
“The truth of the matter is, different OS's are the best choice for different people with different tasks. Linux is the best choice for a lot of people who are using Windows. OS X is the best choice for a lot of people using Windows. Windows is probably the best choice for some Linux users. We need to help people find the best choice for them rather than make generic statements about what everyone should be using.”
But if I'm not mistaken, by your own argument that's too many choices – “Telling them to evaluate a nonspecific set... and pick the one for them, install it, and learn new ways of doing things, is a non-starter.” Who knows. Just like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop – the world may never know...
Actually, I have to admit that I rather like how Apple makes such powerful machines – even in a huge computer store, I almost never see regular PC's with dual, let alone quadruple, CPU's. If you ask me, it would be cool if Apple offered the machines with no pre-loaded operating system to those interested in building their own – that way, OS X would still be there for the total hard-core Apple people, but those who just wanted a cool-looking, (relatively) mass-marketable system with some real raw horsepower could get the thing for whatever system they wanted to run. I know they've got a couple deals going with various companies here and there to provide Macs pre-loaded with, say, certain Linux distributions, but what they really need to do is open it to the general public once and for all.
Probably not a perfect analogy, but there are literally hundreds of different brands of, say, audio equipment, all of which are based on the same standards – any one of them is capable of playing the same radio, the same tapes or CD's, etc. And while there are all sorts of inexpensively-priced home theater systems or whatever you can buy at Wal-Mart, there are still quite a few high-end brands which, while expensive as hell, are renowned for being "the best" available. Apple could be kind of like the Bose of the computer world – bringing well-designed, high-end products to the more "mainstream" market.
(I know, I'm probably missing the entire point altogether here...)
You can't hack an OS X system in 30 minutes? Granted, they were literally asking for it, but the point remains that it was hacked in a very short period of time, and you kind of have to question the security stuff there.
Personally, I'd say that it would make a lot more sense just to switch to Linux – not only does it work with your existing PC hardware, but it's also usually free or inexpensively-priced. And despite what a lot of people have claimed, it's really not very hard to install or use – as a distribution maintainer myself, I get a lot of e-mails, etc. from users, and most of the time if there are problems, they're usually either really small things after installation, almost never something that would render the whole system entirely unbootable. (A lot of my family and friends are using it now too, without any sort of problems, and considering that they were all Microsoft junkies for years it's not as insignificant as it may seem...) Obviously I may as well promote Ultima Linux here, but there are many others available – I'd stay away from Ubuntu, I've had some bad experiences with it myself*, but the hell with it, you have a choice, so you choose what's best for you.
Of course, if security's the number one priority and absolutely nothing else matters, the only way to go is OpenBSD... it's also pretty damn fast, too, even on a P-133/80MB laptop.
Having said all that, I do have to admit my iPod nano is the best thing since sliced bread...
*Tried it out in my spare time, mostly out of curiosity (I sometimes like playing around with other systems just for the hell of it)... among other things I've noticed: No wireless support, slow as hell, and it uses GNOME, which I can't stand. And don't even get me started on apt-get.
DISCLAIMER: Probably some bias in there, since I'm a distro maintainer myself. Take with a grain of salt...
The point isn't just having a switch though, it's having only a switch. As in, no power button whatsoever, working or otherwise. Or at least one of the manual power buttons, the kind that don't go through the motherboard but rather straight through the power supply. I don't know about you, but I'm a total control freak, so as far as computer stuff goes it's either my way or the highway...
Personally I wish there were more of those manual power supplies, if only because they do just what you tell them to, and no stupid automatic junk. I don't know about you, but if my computer locks up – or whichever one I'm on if it's not mine – I don't want to have to hold the stupid button down for something like ten minutes just for it to shut down. I want to have a nice, simple switch that knocks it off, and that I can visibly see knocks it off. No standby modes that secretly drain electricity, no operating system calls, just SHUT IT DOWN.
(Yes, I know there's a BIOS option, but not always an option if it's not my machine, plus it requires too much extra work to set up... and the power supplies with manual switches on the back are somewhat rare in most "mainstream" machines from big companies like Dell and HP, and either way they don't turn the machine back on again.)
Who knows, maybe I just spent too much of the 21st century working with DOS on an old 486/66...
But I know of osCommerce, which is a pretty popular storefront solution... and then if you do a custom solution, I have a PHP/MySQL database manager that can be used for the site's backend. Not sure how useful it would be for your site – I originally wrote it for MadTux, a Linux download site, and their needs are admittedly more than a little more specific than most sites would need – but may as well offer it if you have any use.
Personally I find that it's nice to have a stripped-down browser even on a really fast, modern system; my AMD64 tends to run Dillo and Lynx just as often as it runs Firefox, because even on the fastest machine I own it's just so much faster to load and use. Besides, the way I see it... if you can fit two browsers into 50MB (actually, I think it's three, because I remember it also having Links), WHY THE HELL NOT? The original idea was to see how much you could fit in; now you know.
As I said earlier, it's kind of both a good and a bad thing that ReactOS exists. It's definitely not going to help get very much Linux software available, which probably isn't a good thing for people like us. But the point I was trying to make is that creating an alternative operating system compatible with existing software would at least be a bit more practical in the long run, if not very ideal, because the existing software applications could continue to run (eventually) without problems, and there wouldn't be any licensing stuff to muck around with.
That said, I think that there's actually quite a bit of good ReactOS could do as well. Because it's an open-source effort, once it's finally at a stable release, it might be possible to, say, mix and match ReactOS code with Linux, possibly even adding "native" support for Windows software and drivers into Linux – something far lower-level, more integrated, and more capable than, say, Wine or NdisWrapper would be able to do.
And honestly, there are still a lot of things Linux/UNIX will always be able to do better than any Windows-ish system, and a lot of die-hards who would never use anything else. So for all we know, things may just continue the way they are today: The proprietary software companies will still be there, but for those who want a choice, a better system, or a cute penguin mascot, there are alternatives. Only time will tell.
Slashdot Mirror
And a release schedule's supposed to be an "innovation"? Yeah, right. Whatever the case though, GP's got a good point. Doubt I'll ever see anything about Ultima Linux on here, but they could at least mention the likes of, say, Symphony OS – the ones that don't just recycle the same desktop concepts, but that come up with something new and innovative, something exciting... just because it's "yet another Linux distribution" doesn't mean it's not worth talking about, it doesn't just need to be announced on more "specialized" sites like DistroWatch. This is something that could eventually wind up changing the whole industry or whatever as we know it, whether it's because of them specifically or else someone taking it even further...
By the way, no, haven't gotten around to trying Symphony yet – and yes, I know it's Debian-based (it is Debian-based, right?) – just mentioned it because it's one of the more innovative systems and the first one to pop into my head...
Maybe I'm totally wrong here, but half the people at my school use IM-speak even in class assignments (as in minimum-6-page-paper-plus-bibliography type assignments)... and I somehow doubt that stuff like Wal-Mart's latest back-to-school "Foreign Language" ad thing – the one showing various cell phones, pagers, etc. with horrible IM-speak – is really helping much. Although maybe it's just me?
Yeah, I remember trying Ubuntu myself, after hearing all the hype – at the time my entire home network was wireless, so as a result it was completely useless on my system. Couldn't find any wireless packages for it anywhere, tried Debian's but – oh, that's right, it's not binary-compatible because Ubuntu uses a different version of the kernel and GCC! Not to mention, it was unusably slow...
Anyway, Ubuntu trolling aside, I think the reason there's no real wireless support is because they won't put in programs like NdisWrapper, which is often the fastest and easiest way to get wireless running on Linux. And why don't they include NdisWrapper? Their free software guidelines don't allow it; it doesn't matter how convenient it may be for the end-user, if it's patented, involves binary blobs, or anything else that would restrict its freedom, it can't go in. That's the same reason you can't get MP3, DVD, or Flash support out of the box; first is patented, second requires "illegal" decryption software, and third is proprietary software.
Just to put things into perspective – I've been maintaining my own distribution a while now, and personally I'm taking a more pragmatic approach to the whole thing... the way I see it, I'd much rather a system that's ready to go out of the box than one that's basically assembled by idealistic purists. I can understand why the whole freedom thing's important and all, but a lot of the reason I like Linux in the first place is because you get so much ready to go "out of the box," and when everyday things like Flash and MP3 aren't available, that's really defeating the whole purpose. So MP3 – yep. Flash – yep. And wireless – one of the first things I did was make sure NdisWrapper was included, because otherwise all my NETGEAR adapters would go to waste, and I'd much rather use what I have than go all out and replace them with more "free" ones just because my favorite distribution refused to include a perfectly good driver all because of "freedom". (And yes, I am working on the ATI and nVidia drivers...)
But anyway, to get back on topic: Long story short, as far as I know, the whole wireless thing has nothing to do with Q&A, it's entirely because of their free software guidelines. So either go with their rules, or make up your own – you have the freedom to choose. Use it wisely.
All my family's just using Ultima Linux (disclaimer, I'm the developer...) – took a while to convince them to switch, but after they saw what it was like they were all impressed – been working beautifully. Most of our machines still have Windows on them and are dual-booting, but it's been several months since anyone ever actually switched back, we just don't have any reason to... as far as games, etc. go, Cedega works beautifully for most of them... got all the printing handled through CUPS and our home network... plus, on the offchance that a problem does occur, all our machines have SSH enabled, so fixing stuff's almost trivially easy, at least as far as I'm concerned.
:-)
By the way, in case anyone's wondering, we have seven machines that are more or less always-on, two or three others that are sometimes in use, and then a single Windows laptop that my dad sometimes brings home from work – other than that, most everything's running Linux. As far as printing we have an EPSON all-in-one in my room, a Brother all-in-one in our family room, a Lexmark inkjet that my brother and sister share through the network... three machines hard-wired in, most of the others on wireless... all sorts of different hardware and configurations, and yet it runs just fine... so yeah, I'd say just switch to Linux, guaranteed to solve all your problems in no time
That's only in the non-Earth edition of the game, which is currently only available from the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor, which has been in an electronic edition since before we even had digital watches...
My machine's right now using a 16MB Vanta AGP 4x card, and it works just fine – I will admit, I have no clue when it was released, but it works just fine (use their legacy drivers). This is with kernel 2.6.16.19, X.org 6.9.0 – (relatively) brand-new software environment. Will admit the hardware's a bit old – Duron 700MHz, 256MB RAM – but either way it works just fine. And I have around three or four systems here with Intel integrated graphics that work just fine, too.
Meanwhile, I've got another machine with an Athlon 64 and ATI Xpress 200 integrated graphics – works decently enough with the Radeon driver, but no 3D acceleration whatsoever... environment is 64-bit build of kernel 2.6.17.4, X.org 6.9.0, all the required 32-bit packages, shared memory enabled... tried at least ten times to get ATI's drivers to install, and it worked just fine, except that it didn't – X wouldn't show anything, the kernel module built but wouldn't load... the eerie thing is, I was actually working on that just yesterday, too. Kind of odd.
Totally off-topic by now, but just thought I should mention anyway...
From what I've heard, AMD tends to be pretty Linux-friendly, and very helpful to open-source developers who want to, say, implement AMD64 support and that kind of thing – so will this mean that ATI might start giving a damn about us too? I dunno, probably way too far-fetched, although I can't stand how my brand-new Athlon 64 box can't run 3D because ATI's stupid drivers pretty much don't work on my distribution... either way, though, so long as at least one of them keeps churning out good chips, more power to 'em!
I've got a Logitech Wireless Express keyboard/mouse with a few hardware "shortcut" keys (volume, e-mail, etc.) on my main machine – I've got a custom Xmodmap file to set up the keycodes, and then I've configured a couple KDE shortcuts for each of them... right now my e-mail button has been re-configured to play/pause in amaroK so I can, say, listen to the Rolling Stones while playing SuperTux; the "Home" button pulls up ~ in Konqueror; and "Back" is set up to lock the screen and pull up the screensaver, since I use that feature so often. One of these days I may also set up an Eterm button, since I spend so much time working on the command line... anyway, just took a bit of playing around with KMenuEdit after the Xmodmap file was done, very easy tweak.
.xsession file that does export KDEWM=enlightenment before startkde, and you should be set. I don't know why, I just like Enlightenment better with KDE – it looks a lot nicer, is a lot less obtrusive, and it just works the way I expect it to – does what it's told, does it in style, and doesn't Creatively Misinterpret(TM) anything along the way... it may take a little getting used to but there is no better way to run a system.
Oh, and at least IMHO, KDE is even more kick-ass with Enlightenment as the window manager... just do a custom
I'm not sure about SCART, but I know that you can get PC-to-TV converters from sites like http://www.tigerdirect.com/ – or, if you know where to look, eBay has even better deals. I've got a little TView Micro adapter to connect one of my older machines to the TV to play stuff like SuperTux and TuxRacer on (and the occasional DVD) – not the best resolution, only 640x480, but for what I need it's just perfect. Although it's just a regular NTSC/video-in connector, so offhand I'm not entirely sure how useful it would be for you... anyway, probably horribly off-topic, but figured I may as well post what little I know anyway ;-)
Well, I'll admit I had a few problems on some of my other machines – the first "real" machine I tried it on was a Pentium-133 laptop with 80MB RAM, which installed it just fine, but the bootloader wouldn't run, and I eventually gave up on the effort... (The machine had been running a Linux and OpenBSD dual-boot previously, but I wiped that out before installing.) And even my DeskPro didn't work entirely, it had to boot from a floppy disk, even after I ran Win95's FDISK /MBR and restored a backup MBR to erase LILO From the existing disk... either way, though, I still definitely like what I've seen so far.
Kind of a rhetorical question, but I'm kind of wondering if any reviewers have actually tested it on a real machine, rather than VMware, QEMU, etc. I've been watching it since 0.2.3 or so, and I've actually started toying around with 0.3.0-RC1 on a spare machine I have – Compaq DeskPro EP6000, PIII-650, 64MB – and have found that with, say, Notepad and Firefox running it's quite stable. Kept it up for around half an hour before I just got bored and shut it off. Doesn't yet support my video card or network, but it's still pretty nice.
6
My own review is on the ReactOS forums if anyone wants to know exactly what it's like – no pictures, because I haven't installed any screenshot or image manipulation software yet, but anyway... http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2016
Anyway, just thought I might point out that it works on real machines just as well as, or in some cases even better than, on a virtual machine.
1. Trade red paperclip until you get house.
2. ???
3. Profit!!
I'm an open-source developer (Ultima Linux, PyWord – just to name a few. And yet I'm living on the east coast of the U.S. In fact, so's Red Hat. Not to mention Slackware, now in Minnesota, or even MySQL, who's all the way over in Sweden. I've also noticed a lot of my users tend to be from European countries – Germany, France, Sweden, England, Ireland... and that's only counting a small handful. Oh, and Linus himself is in Portland, Oregon, which is a bit closer but still not in the valley. So unless I'm missing the point entirely, I'd have to say the article must be completely wrong...
;-)
DISCLAIMER: I will admit I haven't read the article yet, so I probably am missing the point, but may as well post anyway, since this is Slashdot
User-mode Linux? I've never used Xen in my life – never had any reason for it, and honestly it looks like too much effort for what I'd need it for – but I use user-mode Linux literally every day. Not only is it hosting my Web site (which is actually the reason I've gotten addicted to it), but I've also been using it for software development right on my own machine – since the only machine I have that's suitable for intensive dev stuff is my AMD64, I've set the thing up to run the '64 version natively, and then most of the 32-bit work is done on user-mode. And the nice thing is, it doesn't require any changes to the host kernel, and except for a few special tools for networking, etc., everything you need is right in the kernel source itself.
While I'm on the topic, it's not exactly a virtualization program, but QEMU is also very handy; I tend to use it quite a bit for torture testing new releases, and it's also useful if a certain program won't compile on the user-mode installation because it needs low-level kernel stuff, full POSIX threads support, etc. Even without the KQEMU module it's still faster than the Duron-700/256MB I'd been using before, and considerably more convenient as well.
Anyway, just thought I'd point out that there are other technologies, and other applications as well – servers aren't the only things which benefit from this stuff!
Hmm, maybe one of these days I will have to steal that feature – although then again, I'm rather proud of my current "zero-click" installation/upgrade system (the fact that it's entirely keyboard-driven is beside the point, as is the fact that it's really just a fancier-looking version of Slackware's setup program). But definitely going to have to look into something like that, would definitely be useful...
Probably should have clarified, but I didn't mean to say that I personally like Bose products – they're kind of cool, but really totally overrated – what I meant was that they're generally considered to be pretty good, usually by people who don't know any better (and I couldn't think of any other "high-end" mainstream audio equipment).
Point fully taken – I will admit I was focusing more on the operating system itself than the person using it, but I'd definitely agree that the user needs to take quite a bit of responsibility as well. That's the problem with computers now – while they've become far easier for the masses to use since the 70's and 80's when they were by techies, for techies, they still don't take into account human nature. And even if they did, no doubt someone would protest against it – I have to admit, I wouldn't want a machine that could think, for or against me; I just want a machine that does what I tell it to. Period. Although I guess that's just me.
Agreed. Then it's settled then – everyone needs to standardize on my distro! Although seriously, that's definitely a very good point as well – what we really need is for large system vendors to start making pre-installed Linux systems available, marketing them based on stuff end-users would understand (no viruses, malware, etc.), although by then they probably will have genetically engineered a flying pig. Oh well, at least it's nice to dream.
Well, I will admit I forgot about that part...
Understandable enough. But personally, I have to say I find Linux more convenient, because you get a complete, ready-to-go desktop with all your applications and settings nicely pre-configured, right out of the box (more or less, depending on which distribution) – I just recently upgraded my main system, a Celeron-700 with 256MB RAM – putting in a larger hard disk – and it only took about half an hour to get everything back up, and most of that was just waiting for it to copy all my files. Then again, since this was based on my own distribution...
But if I'm not mistaken, by your own argument that's too many choices – “Telling them to evaluate a nonspecific set
BALLMER: We're going to fucking kill Google!!
GOOGLE: We're going to fucking kill giant telcos!!
(both start throwing chairs; chaos ensues)
Actually, I have to admit that I rather like how Apple makes such powerful machines – even in a huge computer store, I almost never see regular PC's with dual, let alone quadruple, CPU's. If you ask me, it would be cool if Apple offered the machines with no pre-loaded operating system to those interested in building their own – that way, OS X would still be there for the total hard-core Apple people, but those who just wanted a cool-looking, (relatively) mass-marketable system with some real raw horsepower could get the thing for whatever system they wanted to run. I know they've got a couple deals going with various companies here and there to provide Macs pre-loaded with, say, certain Linux distributions, but what they really need to do is open it to the general public once and for all.
Probably not a perfect analogy, but there are literally hundreds of different brands of, say, audio equipment, all of which are based on the same standards – any one of them is capable of playing the same radio, the same tapes or CD's, etc. And while there are all sorts of inexpensively-priced home theater systems or whatever you can buy at Wal-Mart, there are still quite a few high-end brands which, while expensive as hell, are renowned for being "the best" available. Apple could be kind of like the Bose of the computer world – bringing well-designed, high-end products to the more "mainstream" market.
(I know, I'm probably missing the entire point altogether here...)
Anyway, just my 2 cents.
You can't hack an OS X system in 30 minutes? Granted, they were literally asking for it, but the point remains that it was hacked in a very short period of time, and you kind of have to question the security stuff there.
Personally, I'd say that it would make a lot more sense just to switch to Linux – not only does it work with your existing PC hardware, but it's also usually free or inexpensively-priced. And despite what a lot of people have claimed, it's really not very hard to install or use – as a distribution maintainer myself, I get a lot of e-mails, etc. from users, and most of the time if there are problems, they're usually either really small things after installation, almost never something that would render the whole system entirely unbootable. (A lot of my family and friends are using it now too, without any sort of problems, and considering that they were all Microsoft junkies for years it's not as insignificant as it may seem...) Obviously I may as well promote Ultima Linux here, but there are many others available – I'd stay away from Ubuntu, I've had some bad experiences with it myself*, but the hell with it, you have a choice, so you choose what's best for you.
Of course, if security's the number one priority and absolutely nothing else matters, the only way to go is OpenBSD... it's also pretty damn fast, too, even on a P-133/80MB laptop.
Having said all that, I do have to admit my iPod nano is the best thing since sliced bread...
*Tried it out in my spare time, mostly out of curiosity (I sometimes like playing around with other systems just for the hell of it)... among other things I've noticed: No wireless support, slow as hell, and it uses GNOME, which I can't stand. And don't even get me started on apt-get.
DISCLAIMER: Probably some bias in there, since I'm a distro maintainer myself. Take with a grain of salt...
The point isn't just having a switch though, it's having only a switch. As in, no power button whatsoever, working or otherwise. Or at least one of the manual power buttons, the kind that don't go through the motherboard but rather straight through the power supply. I don't know about you, but I'm a total control freak, so as far as computer stuff goes it's either my way or the highway...
Personally I wish there were more of those manual power supplies, if only because they do just what you tell them to, and no stupid automatic junk. I don't know about you, but if my computer locks up – or whichever one I'm on if it's not mine – I don't want to have to hold the stupid button down for something like ten minutes just for it to shut down. I want to have a nice, simple switch that knocks it off, and that I can visibly see knocks it off. No standby modes that secretly drain electricity, no operating system calls, just SHUT IT DOWN.
(Yes, I know there's a BIOS option, but not always an option if it's not my machine, plus it requires too much extra work to set up... and the power supplies with manual switches on the back are somewhat rare in most "mainstream" machines from big companies like Dell and HP, and either way they don't turn the machine back on again.)
Who knows, maybe I just spent too much of the 21st century working with DOS on an old 486/66...
But I know of osCommerce, which is a pretty popular storefront solution... and then if you do a custom solution, I have a PHP/MySQL database manager that can be used for the site's backend. Not sure how useful it would be for your site – I originally wrote it for MadTux, a Linux download site, and their needs are admittedly more than a little more specific than most sites would need – but may as well offer it if you have any use.
Personally I find that it's nice to have a stripped-down browser even on a really fast, modern system; my AMD64 tends to run Dillo and Lynx just as often as it runs Firefox, because even on the fastest machine I own it's just so much faster to load and use. Besides, the way I see it... if you can fit two browsers into 50MB (actually, I think it's three, because I remember it also having Links), WHY THE HELL NOT? The original idea was to see how much you could fit in; now you know.
As I said earlier, it's kind of both a good and a bad thing that ReactOS exists. It's definitely not going to help get very much Linux software available, which probably isn't a good thing for people like us. But the point I was trying to make is that creating an alternative operating system compatible with existing software would at least be a bit more practical in the long run, if not very ideal, because the existing software applications could continue to run (eventually) without problems, and there wouldn't be any licensing stuff to muck around with.
That said, I think that there's actually quite a bit of good ReactOS could do as well. Because it's an open-source effort, once it's finally at a stable release, it might be possible to, say, mix and match ReactOS code with Linux, possibly even adding "native" support for Windows software and drivers into Linux – something far lower-level, more integrated, and more capable than, say, Wine or NdisWrapper would be able to do.
And honestly, there are still a lot of things Linux/UNIX will always be able to do better than any Windows-ish system, and a lot of die-hards who would never use anything else. So for all we know, things may just continue the way they are today: The proprietary software companies will still be there, but for those who want a choice, a better system, or a cute penguin mascot, there are alternatives. Only time will tell.