Yeah, that's what I had to do; but then, I'm not a typical end user and that was not a typical situation. The point was about driver compatibilty, and that that such a thing is actually possible with Windows. The rest is all beside the point.
Windows backward compatibility is required because the average end user just wants to continue to be able to run their old programs when they buy a new computer with Windows 7 on it, and don't want to muck around with downloading "non-free" NVidia drivers, compiling kernel wrappers or running a script to do so, etc. Some distros make this pretty easy, but not all and it's an extra step that could potentially confuse or trip up the end user who doesn't care about the politics of Open Source.
Not only that, in a pinch I can use a friggin' Windows XP video driver in Windows 7, which I needed to do to get 3D to work on a Dell C610 - that's a Pentium III running Windows 7. As easy as it is to knock Windows for its faults, that's pretty damn good compatability.
Now, go on the Linux Kernel Mailing List and suggest that the Linux kernel maintain a consistent binary API and see what happens...
Please, PLEASE someone mod the parent's comment up. I've seen this sort of thing so many times in the open source community. Remember all the different platforms Linux USED to run on, for example, and how that was a pretty big deal? Sparc32 anyone?
A LOT of people still run 10.4. Quite a few even run 10.3 (though I admit that's pushing things a bit these days). If Mozilla can be ported to Windows, OSX (any version), Linux, Solaris, IRIX (at least it USED to exist), etc, then why the hell can't it continue to be ported to 10.4, even if (like a lot of other OSX software I've seen these days) it needs to be a separate version?
BTW, I also felt this way when I saw that the OSX port of Chrome was Intel-only - seriously, it would have killed Google to have build it as as Universal Binary?
I have a Macbook Pro, the very last revision (late 2008) of the previous version before the unibody models; it's the one that looks like the Powerbook G4.
One time I wasn't thinking and set it down on a concrete picnic table with a VERY rough surface and used it there for a couple of hours. Later I realized that I had probably scratched the hell out of the bottom of it but when I lifted it up it still looked as pristine as when it was new, not a scratch or scuff.
Another tine I dropped it and it hit a metal bedframe on the corner, HARD; again, not a scratch or dent. Sure, anecdotal evidence, but these things seem to be tougher than they look.
Well put. I think perhaps it's always been this way to some extent, but the level of emotional stifling has hit new heights with lurid, hysterical news coverage. Yellow journalism in the newspapers of long ago was one thing, but the shrill hysteria of modern TV news has hit record heights - I can barely ever watch it anymore - and it's what's driving this irrational sense of fear.
What I've personally noticed in day-to-day interaction with people is it's become more politically correct to be reactionary than reasonable. Too many people WAY overreact to the tiniest perceived offense, and it's impossible to have a reasoned argument with them over any issue. Guess it makes for better gossip.
Very good point. I wish universities had to treat their students as paying customers, which they actually are; then maybe she could at least get her tuition refunded. As much money as students put into these schools, there should be some legal protection for that massive financial investment so that someone like this girl doesn't get financially ruined by a dickhead administrator.
Couldn't agree more. I think that it's based on emacs, which I never really took to. It seems like a solution in search of a problem; there was nothing at all wrong with the man command.
For what it's worth, the best man pages I've ever seen were the ones that came with IRIX; very clear yet concise explanations with great examples, and just well-written in general. SGI must have hired a good tech writer to do those.
Agreed. I rescued an HP Laserjet 4M+ fro the trash at work; was thrown out because the output rollers were old and not longer grabbing the paper very well, so paper was jamming there. An easy, temporary fix was to sand the rollers a little, bit I eventually bought a replacement roller kit for around $20, later bought new pickup rollers and a "NetDirect" LPD card. For maybe a total of around $40 and some elbow grease it's pretty much a new printer.
The 4M's are EVERYWHERE - I see them at banks, medical offices, and lots of other businesses. They last forever and supplies are VERY easy to find and affordable. The toner cartridge lasts a long time.
There is one issue with older HP's (the LJ4 series at least) that comes up: the infamous "Paper Size Error"; it's actually an easy fix.
The actual cause is related to a solenoid which hits a lever that momentarily halts the pickup roller mechanism's rotation, preventing it from feeding another sheet of paper too soon; this enforces an appropriate "gap" between consecutive sheets of paper. The lever has some felt on it as a cushion, but over time the felt deteriorates and gets sticky, and the solenoid sticks to it just long enough for the mechanism to do another, premature rotation, which causes an overlapping sheet of paper to get picked up, thereby confusing the printer into thinking it got fed a really long sheet, hence the "Paper Size Error". This happened to me, and it took me a while to figure it out; I had to run the printer with the left side exposed and observe the paper feed cycle. HP 's solution was bogus (forgot what it was). I just cleaned remnants of the old felt and stacked some clear tape on the lever; been working perfectly fine ever since, and I did this several years ago.
As long as you aren't afraid of opening up the left side of the printer, it's easy to find and fix the problem - I'd hate to see a great printer thrown out because of a little piece of felt!
I remember reading a description of AMAX somewhere as "a hostile port of the Macintosh OS to the Amiga platform". The Atari ST also had a similar product (though I think it actually came first) called "Magic Sack" I think; got renamed to that due to a lawsuit, don't remember the (probably better) original name.
AMAX patched the Mac Plus ROM to work with the Amiga's hardware, so you just had effectively a Mac Plus. No Color QuickDraw. I remember the compatibility as being pretty good; programs that had trouble (for me anyway) were ones that assumed the Mac Plus' screen dimensions (512x342 pixels I think). AMAX ran the Amiga's display at 640X400.
The cool thing about running AMAX was that it initialized the Amiga's hardware upon "boot", but once System 6 (or System 7) was up and running, you could experiment with tweaking the Amiga's hardware registers without the Amiga's OS updating them. I had a copy of ThinkC for the Mac and wrote a few little programs to play around with the Amiga hardware that way, like setting different screen colors and whatnot, It was fun for hacking around. Ah, memories,
The Apple ads are a good example; they're certainly funny and I enjoy them, but I can easily see how they come across as smug and condescending, and how they could reinforce haters' negative opinion of Macs and Apple in general.
When I think about it, most other negative ads that I've seen also came across as smug and condescending, especially negative political ads; definitely a turn off for me even when it was a candidate or product I liked.
I think in this case it's more likely that potential fans were turned away from the show early on by those initial mediocre episodes, so that by the time the show got good, much of the audience was gone. Wouldn't be the first time that had happened.
How about a summary that describes the new Moblin release (what the post is ostensibly about), rather than focusing on the competition against Win7? How about being FOR something (Moblin in this case), rather than always being against Microsoft?
I'm no fan of Microsoft, but seriously, the one-note, constant Microsoft bashing on this site is getting old.
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Do you have some citations for this? Not being a smart-ass, I'm genuinely interested in reading more about this if it's true.
Yeah, that's what I had to do; but then, I'm not a typical end user and that was not a typical situation. The point was about driver compatibilty, and that that such a thing is actually possible with Windows. The rest is all beside the point.
Windows backward compatibility is required because the average end user just wants to continue to be able to run their old programs when they buy a new computer with Windows 7 on it, and don't want to muck around with downloading "non-free" NVidia drivers, compiling kernel wrappers or running a script to do so, etc. Some distros make this pretty easy, but not all and it's an extra step that could potentially confuse or trip up the end user who doesn't care about the politics of Open Source.
A little sluggish but not too bad if you max out the RAM to 1GB.
Not only that, in a pinch I can use a friggin' Windows XP video driver in Windows 7, which I needed to do to get 3D to work on a Dell C610 - that's a Pentium III running Windows 7. As easy as it is to knock Windows for its faults, that's pretty damn good compatability.
Now, go on the Linux Kernel Mailing List and suggest that the Linux kernel maintain a consistent binary API and see what happens...
Probably not directly but they make adapters; I've no doubt that you could put a Chevy engine into a Ford and vice/versa.
Check out the Monster Miata (http://www.monstermiata.com/) to see the kind of crazy things that are possible!
Please, PLEASE someone mod the parent's comment up. I've seen this sort of thing so many times in the open source community. Remember all the different platforms Linux USED to run on, for example, and how that was a pretty big deal? Sparc32 anyone?
A LOT of people still run 10.4. Quite a few even run 10.3 (though I admit that's pushing things a bit these days). If Mozilla can be ported to Windows, OSX (any version), Linux, Solaris, IRIX (at least it USED to exist), etc, then why the hell can't it continue to be ported to 10.4, even if (like a lot of other OSX software I've seen these days) it needs to be a separate version?
BTW, I also felt this way when I saw that the OSX port of Chrome was Intel-only - seriously, it would have killed Google to have build it as as Universal Binary?
He must be a lumberjack.
I have a Macbook Pro, the very last revision (late 2008) of the previous version before the unibody models; it's the one that looks like the Powerbook G4.
One time I wasn't thinking and set it down on a concrete picnic table with a VERY rough surface and used it there for a couple of hours. Later I realized that I had probably scratched the hell out of the bottom of it but when I lifted it up it still looked as pristine as when it was new, not a scratch or scuff.
Another tine I dropped it and it hit a metal bedframe on the corner, HARD; again, not a scratch or dent. Sure, anecdotal evidence, but these things seem to be tougher than they look.
Well put. I think perhaps it's always been this way to some extent, but the level of emotional stifling has hit new heights with lurid, hysterical news coverage. Yellow journalism in the newspapers of long ago was one thing, but the shrill hysteria of modern TV news has hit record heights - I can barely ever watch it anymore - and it's what's driving this irrational sense of fear.
What I've personally noticed in day-to-day interaction with people is it's become more politically correct to be reactionary than reasonable. Too many people WAY overreact to the tiniest perceived offense, and it's impossible to have a reasoned argument with them over any issue. Guess it makes for better gossip.
Very good point. I wish universities had to treat their students as paying customers, which they actually are; then maybe she could at least get her tuition refunded. As much money as students put into these schools, there should be some legal protection for that massive financial investment so that someone like this girl doesn't get financially ruined by a dickhead administrator.
Couldn't agree more. I think that it's based on emacs, which I never really took to. It seems like a solution in search of a problem; there was nothing at all wrong with the man command.
For what it's worth, the best man pages I've ever seen were the ones that came with IRIX; very clear yet concise explanations with great examples, and just well-written in general. SGI must have hired a good tech writer to do those.
The full link to the book is here:
http://www.amazon.com/Phantoms-Brain-Probing-Mysteries-Human/dp/0688172172/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259799787&sr=8-1
Agreed. I rescued an HP Laserjet 4M+ fro the trash at work; was thrown out because the output rollers were old and not longer grabbing the paper very well, so paper was jamming there. An easy, temporary fix was to sand the rollers a little, bit I eventually bought a replacement roller kit for around $20, later bought new pickup rollers and a "NetDirect" LPD card. For maybe a total of around $40 and some elbow grease it's pretty much a new printer.
The 4M's are EVERYWHERE - I see them at banks, medical offices, and lots of other businesses. They last forever and supplies are VERY easy to find and affordable. The toner cartridge lasts a long time.
There is one issue with older HP's (the LJ4 series at least) that comes up: the infamous "Paper Size Error"; it's actually an easy fix.
The actual cause is related to a solenoid which hits a lever that momentarily halts the pickup roller mechanism's rotation, preventing it from feeding another sheet of paper too soon; this enforces an appropriate "gap" between consecutive sheets of paper. The lever has some felt on it as a cushion, but over time the felt deteriorates and gets sticky, and the solenoid sticks to it just long enough for the mechanism to do another, premature rotation, which causes an overlapping sheet of paper to get picked up, thereby confusing the printer into thinking it got fed a really long sheet, hence the "Paper Size Error". This happened to me, and it took me a while to figure it out; I had to run the printer with the left side exposed and observe the paper feed cycle. HP 's solution was bogus (forgot what it was). I just cleaned remnants of the old felt and stacked some clear tape on the lever; been working perfectly fine ever since, and I did this several years ago.
As long as you aren't afraid of opening up the left side of the printer, it's easy to find and fix the problem - I'd hate to see a great printer thrown out because of a little piece of felt!
Naw, "Metaphasic" was just some bullshit technobabble to keep Rick Berman happy.
Well, two out of three anyway.
I got it to work with my hard drive; just created a partition and dedicated it to AMAX. Maybe it was a later version of AMAX that allowed this.
I remember reading a description of AMAX somewhere as "a hostile port of the Macintosh OS to the Amiga platform". The Atari ST also had a similar product (though I think it actually came first) called "Magic Sack" I think; got renamed to that due to a lawsuit, don't remember the (probably better) original name.
AMAX patched the Mac Plus ROM to work with the Amiga's hardware, so you just had effectively a Mac Plus. No Color QuickDraw. I remember the compatibility as being pretty good; programs that had trouble (for me anyway) were ones that assumed the Mac Plus' screen dimensions (512x342 pixels I think). AMAX ran the Amiga's display at 640X400.
The cool thing about running AMAX was that it initialized the Amiga's hardware upon "boot", but once System 6 (or System 7) was up and running, you could experiment with tweaking the Amiga's hardware registers without the Amiga's OS updating them. I had a copy of ThinkC for the Mac and wrote a few little programs to play around with the Amiga hardware that way, like setting different screen colors and whatnot, It was fun for hacking around. Ah, memories,
This somehow reminds me of a PETA campaign, and you know what most people seem to think of them.
The Apple ads are a good example; they're certainly funny and I enjoy them, but I can easily see how they come across as smug and condescending, and how they could reinforce haters' negative opinion of Macs and Apple in general.
When I think about it, most other negative ads that I've seen also came across as smug and condescending, especially negative political ads; definitely a turn off for me even when it was a candidate or product I liked.
This is one of the most insightful comments I've read here in a long time; wish I had mod points right now.
I think in this case it's more likely that potential fans were turned away from the show early on by those initial mediocre episodes, so that by the time the show got good, much of the audience was gone. Wouldn't be the first time that had happened.
What dumbass modded you Flamebait??? I wish I had mod points right now so that I could correct that.
I looked up that book on Amazon and it looks very interesting - think I'll pick up a copy. Thanks for the tip!
... I could actually see a Ghostbusters "reboot" working out with new guys like Paul Rudd, Seth Rogan, Jason Segal, and Sean William Scott.
How about a summary that describes the new Moblin release (what the post is ostensibly about), rather than focusing on the competition against Win7? How about being FOR something (Moblin in this case), rather than always being against Microsoft?
I'm no fan of Microsoft, but seriously, the one-note, constant Microsoft bashing on this site is getting old.