Also, according to the article, it only appears to be relevant to OEM installs, so in a sense, it's about tracking Ubuntu "uninstallations" (from machines that were shipped with Ubuntu pre-installed).
It's a nuisance to developers that otherwise might use non-free software. It's supposed to make sure that free software developers' (that choose to use gNewSense) itches don't get scratched by Flash and binary-only drivers.
Heh... yeah, I did that a _long_ time ago (2002?) with Debian. I had an nvidia geforce 2 and a 3dfx addon card (one of those that lacked 2d support and required a cable to connect to your day-to-day graphics card). There was an X driver that supported the 3dfx card as a regular 2d X display. They could then be put together with Xinerama (or even x2x!).
Agreed. totem-gstreamer has a high degree of suckiness. totem-xine and its attendant plugins do a much better job of playing h264 and other high def videos.
Weird... I've got a Mac Mini running Ubuntu over in the corner, playing video just fine. It's got a Radeon 9200.
I've also got a few older Thinkpads that run Radeon 7500s. They all work out of the box with the opensource drivers that have supported these chips for many years.
I don't mean to invalidate your experience, but Ubuntu does indeed support ATI cards, both old and new, with the opensource driver where possible and the binary driver (installable via the Restricted Driver Manager) where not.
And I suppose the situation will only get better now that ATI opened the specs and newer chips will be supported by high quality open source drivers.
Not every network-connected computing device is a desktop PC. Citizens with handhelds, rich-interface cell phones, and internet tables all should be able to access the information at the library of congress. Indeed, even users without access to install specialized plugins should have access.
But I _do_ want online access to my health records. Does this mean my health provider must build and maintain a health record server onsite in order to provide me this? If I see multiple providers, do I have to carry around a list of URLs so they can share this data?
It only makes sense for a trusted third party (with technical expertise) to hold onto this data. Personally, I trust a government (state or federal) or non-profit program with community oversight to a for-profit corporation for this. Others may simply not want any digital health records, just like some folks don't want to have online access to their bank account.
I have several nvidia dual head displays hooked up to Ubuntu machines. It's real easy to set up.
1) Install Ubuntu (7.04, if you've got a Geforce 7 or older, gutsy beta if you've got a Geforce 8) 2) Run the "System/Administration/Restricted Drivers Manager" and tick on the "nvidia binary driver" or somesuch 3) Reboot when it asks you to. 4) Press Alt-F2 and type in "gksudo nvidia-settings" 5) activate whichever monitors you like in the GUI app that appears. TwinView can be enabled without having to log out and log in, but Xinerama gives a bit better experience IMHO
Once you have access to a user's account that has root access (via su or sudo), you have the machine. It's true that you may have to wait some period of time before the user puts in the root password for your keylogger to snatch it, but the other added benefits of sudo (fine grained access, no need to share a single password between multiple users) is why OS/X and Ubuntu have chosen this route.
"In reality they're just forcing their Johny-come-lately garbage down everyone's throat as usual"
It's worse than that.
Consider a manager making a decision of which implementation of a standard to use. Is that person going to select the implementation by the originator of the spec or an implementation by a third party? It's about using the standard to ensure market dominance and put any competition on uneven footing.
FTP is going to have problems because it actually uses two ports. One for control, one for data transfer. The control channel should tunnel just fine, but you'll run into problems on the data channel.
You think photoshop doesn't require support? Taking the large view of "support," look at all the communities that form around photoshop plugins, look how much money is made training people to become photoshop experts, how many books you find in the store documenting how to use this "perfect tool."
So no, there is no software that requires "no support." You, as an individual user may not need support yourself, but there will be a large number of people that will, especially those that want to rely on your software for their own business.
I do agree that it's a lot easier to make more money and support a large team of developers when you have an artificial monopoly based on copyright licensing. And surely if you have built a useful piece of software and can limit competition by preventing others from modifying and redistributing your code, you will be in the fabled "catbird" seat.
Now, don't get me wrong, I think it's perfectly ethical for an author to be able to decide to whom their work will be distributed. As a consumer, though, I prefer not to give up the rights that I've come to expect from software I use -- however, I will under some circumstances choose to use software under a restrictive license.
In order to better support USB and general hotpluggable hardware, the kernel now moves fairly closely with the related userspace tools (udev, for example), so it may not be as simple as just booting the older kernel with a more recent set of userspace applications. This was particularly true in the 2.6.12 timeframe. It would be an unsupported configuration and, worse, largely untested.
Now, whether or not this _should_ be the case is another matter, but it is a reason why this isn't necessarily a great idea.
Don't forget, the old kernel may have vulnerabilities, too, and it won't be getting and updates. Certainly, it's not as bad as having the entire OS be unsupported with security updates, but it is problematic.
The best thing would be to get the new kernel working by filing bugs and uncovering workarounds.
I'm still waiting to hear what the exact problem was that prevented the upgrade to 6.06LTS. If they could have gotten there, they'd have security support for 5 years on the server...
Slashdot Mirror
Yep. There goes the neighborhood...
Resistance is futile.
MOD PARENT UP
Also, according to the article, it only appears to be relevant to OEM installs, so in a sense, it's about tracking Ubuntu "uninstallations" (from machines that were shipped with Ubuntu pre-installed).
I'm thinking Jurassic Pork. Bring back some extinct hog species and grill 'em up!
It's a little too early to fault the USPTO, since Microsoft as only applied for the patent, it hasn't been granted yet.
That's why it's a recommendation.
Since '98 here -- me either.
Though I haven't always visited religiously the entire time. (I admit that I may fit into the "have forgotten" category)
It's a nuisance to developers that otherwise might use non-free software. It's supposed to make sure that free software developers' (that choose to use gNewSense) itches don't get scratched by Flash and binary-only drivers.
Try out the gksu extension for nautilus for (1).
Probably /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop.
Heh... yeah, I did that a _long_ time ago (2002?) with Debian. I had an nvidia geforce 2 and a 3dfx addon card (one of those that lacked 2d support and required a cable to connect to your day-to-day graphics card). There was an X driver that supported the 3dfx card as a regular 2d X display. They could then be put together with Xinerama (or even x2x!).
If you've got an nvidia chip (and are using the binary drivers), install nvidia-settings and run that program with your second monitor attached.
If not, you can use grandr or wait for hardy, which has a multi-screen configuration tool built into System/Preferences/Screen Resolution.
Agreed. totem-gstreamer has a high degree of suckiness. totem-xine and its attendant plugins do a much better job of playing h264 and other high def videos.
Weird... I've got a Mac Mini running Ubuntu over in the corner, playing video just fine. It's got a Radeon 9200.
I've also got a few older Thinkpads that run Radeon 7500s. They all work out of the box with the opensource drivers that have supported these chips for many years.
I don't mean to invalidate your experience, but Ubuntu does indeed support ATI cards, both old and new, with the opensource driver where possible and the binary driver (installable via the Restricted Driver Manager) where not.
And I suppose the situation will only get better now that ATI opened the specs and newer chips will be supported by high quality open source drivers.
Maybe the joke is that it's last week's news... I heard this one on the radio and the article is dated 3/26.
Not every network-connected computing device is a desktop PC. Citizens with handhelds, rich-interface cell phones, and internet tables all should be able to access the information at the library of congress. Indeed, even users without access to install specialized plugins should have access.
There's really no need for silverlight here.
But I _do_ want online access to my health records. Does this mean my health provider must build and maintain a health record server onsite in order to provide me this? If I see multiple providers, do I have to carry around a list of URLs so they can share this data?
It only makes sense for a trusted third party (with technical expertise) to hold onto this data. Personally, I trust a government (state or federal) or non-profit program with community oversight to a for-profit corporation for this. Others may simply not want any digital health records, just like some folks don't want to have online access to their bank account.
Nobody's bragging, I was just trying to help a guy out.
I have several nvidia dual head displays hooked up to Ubuntu machines. It's real easy to set up.
1) Install Ubuntu (7.04, if you've got a Geforce 7 or older, gutsy beta if you've got a Geforce 8)
2) Run the "System/Administration/Restricted Drivers Manager" and tick on the "nvidia binary driver" or somesuch
3) Reboot when it asks you to.
4) Press Alt-F2 and type in "gksudo nvidia-settings"
5) activate whichever monitors you like in the GUI app that appears. TwinView can be enabled without having to log out and log in, but Xinerama gives a bit better experience IMHO
Once you have access to a user's account that has root access (via su or sudo), you have the machine. It's true that you may have to wait some period of time before the user puts in the root password for your keylogger to snatch it, but the other added benefits of sudo (fine grained access, no need to share a single password between multiple users) is why OS/X and Ubuntu have chosen this route.
Weird... I just received a Thinkpad T61P that has a 1920x1200 resolution display.
"In reality they're just forcing their Johny-come-lately garbage down everyone's throat as usual"
It's worse than that.
Consider a manager making a decision of which implementation of a standard to use. Is that person going to select the implementation by the originator of the spec or an implementation by a third party? It's about using the standard to ensure market dominance and put any competition on uneven footing.
FTP is going to have problems because it actually uses two ports. One for control, one for data transfer. The control channel should tunnel just fine, but you'll run into problems on the data channel.
You think photoshop doesn't require support? Taking the large view of "support," look at all the communities that form around photoshop plugins, look how much money is made training people to become photoshop experts, how many books you find in the store documenting how to use this "perfect tool."
So no, there is no software that requires "no support." You, as an individual user may not need support yourself, but there will be a large number of people that will, especially those that want to rely on your software for their own business.
I do agree that it's a lot easier to make more money and support a large team of developers when you have an artificial monopoly based on copyright licensing. And surely if you have built a useful piece of software and can limit competition by preventing others from modifying and redistributing your code, you will be in the fabled "catbird" seat.
Now, don't get me wrong, I think it's perfectly ethical for an author to be able to decide to whom their work will be distributed. As a consumer, though, I prefer not to give up the rights that I've come to expect from software I use -- however, I will under some circumstances choose to use software under a restrictive license.
In order to better support USB and general hotpluggable hardware, the kernel now moves fairly closely with the related userspace tools (udev, for example), so it may not be as simple as just booting the older kernel with a more recent set of userspace applications. This was particularly true in the 2.6.12 timeframe. It would be an unsupported configuration and, worse, largely untested.
Now, whether or not this _should_ be the case is another matter, but it is a reason why this isn't necessarily a great idea.
Don't forget, the old kernel may have vulnerabilities, too, and it won't be getting and updates. Certainly, it's not as bad as having the entire OS be unsupported with security updates, but it is problematic.
The best thing would be to get the new kernel working by filing bugs and uncovering workarounds.
I'm still waiting to hear what the exact problem was that prevented the upgrade to 6.06LTS. If they could have gotten there, they'd have security support for 5 years on the server...