And the installer asks to enable volatile for you, so that should be most servers with cluefull admins. I'm sure i was never asked that when I installed etch, do you have a source for this claim?
it's not just about cheating, the original quake was client-server yet I don't belive it had any real anti cheat protections.
Client server has a number of big advantages unrelated to cheating in the online multiplayer world:
* client-server much better suits the typical internet model of clients on slow connections and servers on fast ones. * client-server allows for drop in play which is so much nicer for the casual gamer than having to wait in a chatroom until a game is availible. * client-server typically has one authoritive copy of game state so out of sync errors don't happen. This makes it both more resiliant and easier to code.
When backports and patches amass to the point where a smooth upgrade path to the next major release is no longer possible I don't see how pushing out a package from stable-proposed-updates that is just waiting for it's chance to make it into a new point release is going to have any affect on your eventual upgrade to the next major release.
in general I have found debian upgrades to be pretty smooth and even when things do go wrong they are usually recoverable. Use of backports is very common in the debian world and provided the backports are from a source that knows what they are doing it really shouldn't cause upgrade problems.
having to go looking for a backport occasionally because of some outside agency changing thier rules (whether it is the government of a small country changing DST rules or microsoft changing the msn messenger protocol) is IMO worth the dependability of a true stable release with well defined rules for updates.
There is no immediate concern about preserving the word 95 binaries, there are an insane number of copies around of word 95 and windows 95 and there are plenty of emulators arround capable of running them. Besides in most cases the really important data in a word file is the text and that usually converts ok anyway. The whole open document formats thing is really a storm in a teacup imo.
what is a bigger problem IMO is actually getting files off old media.
the sensationalist/. summary asside lets get some facts.
it is not a security update so it doesn't go in the security repositry it is already in the volatile repositry it is already in etch-pryoposed-updates which means it will probablly be in the next point release of etch
pushing a point release of stable is not something that has been taken lighly, lots of CDs to build and push out to mirrors, lots and lots of testing.
Sure the US changes got better treatment, how much of that was luck and how much of it was being one of the largest (in terms of computer using population) countries arround is hard to tell.
If you can't live with the way debian stable releases work choose another distro. If you can't manage your IT infrastructure such that deploying local patches is not unreasonably difficult fire your IT staff.
normally , packages move from testing to stable after a while every so often (the timespans between releases vary wildly, the longest was woody-sarge which was arround 3 years) there is a new stable release based on what was testing.
Other than that updates to stable only happen when they are really nessacery and even then only as part of numbered point releases. Security updates are handled through a seperate repositry (though it is enabled by default).
Someone please tell me what makes Windows worth the say 299 list price for the non-upgrade edition? First lets get one thing straight, most windows users don't pay anywhere near that for windows, whitebox OEM price is about £50 or so including VAT (our equivilent of your sales tax) here in the UK, big brands are rumoured to pay even less.
A computer is useless without an OS. OS-X (which I don't personally like but many seem to) is locked to apple hardware and doesn't support anywhere near the range of software windows does though to it's credit it has some very nice home user orientated software of it's own which apple is pushing heavilly. I like linux myself but if I pushed it to someone I would become practically thier sole source of support even if it supported the software they needed and it's unique features aren't really the sort of things to appeal to most non-geeks.
so a few people with spare money and a liking for both media and well designed hardware and who don't need the machine to run thier existing software get macs. People who fall into the previous category except they need thier existing software may get macs and add windows (though this is an expensive option unless you abuse an upgrade copy or whitebox OEM pack or you pirate). A few geeks get linux boxes, everyone else gets windows.
Whitebox OEM versions of the bottom editions of windows (XP home or vista home basic) can be had for arround £50, it is rumoured (the exact deals are secret) that the big brand OEMs pay far less.
MS don't give any real support to users of OEM windows unless they pay for it seperately, PC vendors give some but its mostly limited to telling them to use the supplied diagnostics software to find out if it is a hardware or a software problem. For the former it's dealt with under the hardware warranty for the latter they tell you to restore the box to factory default configuration. Afaict most windows support comes from friends, family, collegues, teachers etc.
The way the linux world works is completely alien to users who are used to windows. A couple of major differences visible to even the nontechnical user spring up.
* on windows you buy or download a peice of software and run it's installer (sometimes you don't even need to do that because of CD autorun). On linux you hope that what you want is in the distros repositries and if not get ready for some carefull checking of download lists at best and working out how to compile it from source or work with some buggy and arcane install script and search for older major versions of libraries at worst (older propietry software is particularlly painfull on linux). * Windows machines in home/small office use are typcially never upgraded to a new version of windows, linux machines pretty much have to be upgraded every couple of years to be able to install recent software and to keep getting security updates. (corps often buy upgrade/downgrade rights and migrate whole groups of machines to a new windows version at once but that is more to do with consistancy than pressure to upgrade). Dell is selling it's ubuntu machines with a release that will only remain security supported for just over a year from now!
For the mildly experianced computer user it is even worse. All those little things that someone told you how to do in windows are done totally differently in linux.
The fact is kids are trained in basic use of windows/office at school, most of the older workforce who have a requitement for computer use learnt basic use of windows and if nessacery office at work (either through formal training or from colleges). From there people build up a mental set of soloutions to different problems. All of that stuff has to be relearnt to use linux and that brings the problem of who is going to teach them? If they have to pay for that teaching then it will cost FAR more than sticking with windows.
my main point was that just because an elite unit gets the most bang per buck it doesn't follow that equiping units composed of regular soldiors with the same eqipment will improve thier bang per buck.
I generally take brick to mean that the firmware is fucked up to the point where recovery (if it is possible at all) requires dismantling the device and connecting programming hardware (often involving awkward soldering to do so).
And yes, symbian S60v3 makes loading new apps very easy Sure if the app only uses basic capabilities. Otherwise it either has to be signed by symbian-signed (read: $$$) or every user has to get themselves a devcert (which is IMEI locked) and install it themselves.
[quote]Certain tasks = gaming.[/quote] Gamers are one group who find it hard to move away from windows due to software compatibi, they are far from the only one.
Lower end less geeky gamers like most non-geeks will migrate to vista because the consumer arms of the big brand OEMs won't give them much option unless they want to pirate or pay retail.
[quote]The dedicated gamer is going to migrate to Vista just because of DirectX 10.[/quote] They probablly will eventually but I suspect many will drag thier feet until they are forced by games that are either directx 10 only or are considerablly better in directx 10 mode.
ram, especailly server ram is more that $30/gigabyte.
also even ignoring the issue of power using system ram for long term storage is a bad idea because it is so vulnerable to crashes and you can't have very much of it (32 gigabytes is the limit of most server boards you see and that is only achievable by using very expensive 4 gigabyte sticks). Ramdrive cards with built in battery backup do exist but that drives up the price even more as you have to buy the adaptor card as well as the sticks of ram.
my understanding is that the reason elite units are so effective is that they are made up from the cream of the grunts. That is those who can tollerate and possiblly even enjoy doing crazy painfull missions with far larger physical loads than your average grunt will tolerate.
it would probablly go over better than bricking them.
don't explicitly check for an unlock just run some checksums and if they fail either refuse to patch or go into a full replacement mode rather than a diff based mode.
The DOE has guaranteed to monitor and control the radiation output of Yucca mountain for a million years. That's right, 1 million years - it's the furthest out the government has planned anything. not that such a gaurantee is worth the paper it's printed on, the chances of the US governement existing in anything like it's present form that far out is pretty miniscule.
I think that before any new nuclear facility is licensed, its operators should be required to pay in advance for the disposal of its spent fuel. I don't think it's right that the cost should be borne by the taxpayer. Sure if you are equally going to force coal plants to pay in advance for the estimated climate change affect of thier emmissions or the indefinate storage of all the C02 they produce.
All of Americas power needs could be supplied by (for example) covering 100x100 km of the Nevada Desert with PV cells. Why not just bite the bullet and do it? Something to bear in mind, current solar cells are basically a byproduct of the semiconductor industry (they are fabbed on lines built for cruder processes that are no longer economical for IC production) , could we produce cells in that kind of volume at a reasonable cost?
There are other sources of loss too, capacitance and inductance don't directly lose power but it increases the current and hence the power loss in the resistances. There is also loss through corona discharge, losses in power factor correction (long transmission lines and large transformers are mainly inductive and need balancing my capacitances), losses in trasnformers, imperfections in insulators and so on.
For very long or undersea lines DC is often used to remove the capactance and inductance related issues but that brings losses of it's own.
Considering that the majority of all CO2, particulate, soot and trace elements like mercury are spewed into the atmosphere by coal fired plants, I don't understand why the environmentalists aren't clamoring for more nuke plants. I'm guessing that the antiwar/antinuclear weapon factions didn't make the distinction between bombs and power plants. Something not helped by the fact that many nuclear "power plants" are really plutonium factories that produce power as a byproduct.
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And the installer asks to enable volatile for you, so that should be most servers with cluefull admins.
I'm sure i was never asked that when I installed etch, do you have a source for this claim?
it's not just about cheating, the original quake was client-server yet I don't belive it had any real anti cheat protections.
Client server has a number of big advantages unrelated to cheating in the online multiplayer world:
* client-server much better suits the typical internet model of clients on slow connections and servers on fast ones.
* client-server allows for drop in play which is so much nicer for the casual gamer than having to wait in a chatroom until a game is availible.
* client-server typically has one authoritive copy of game state so out of sync errors don't happen. This makes it both more resiliant and easier to code.
When backports and patches amass to the point where a smooth upgrade path to the next major release is no longer possible
I don't see how pushing out a package from stable-proposed-updates that is just waiting for it's chance to make it into a new point release is going to have any affect on your eventual upgrade to the next major release.
in general I have found debian upgrades to be pretty smooth and even when things do go wrong they are usually recoverable. Use of backports is very common in the debian world and provided the backports are from a source that knows what they are doing it really shouldn't cause upgrade problems.
having to go looking for a backport occasionally because of some outside agency changing thier rules (whether it is the government of a small country changing DST rules or microsoft changing the msn messenger protocol) is IMO worth the dependability of a true stable release with well defined rules for updates.
There is no immediate concern about preserving the word 95 binaries, there are an insane number of copies around of word 95 and windows 95 and there are plenty of emulators arround capable of running them. Besides in most cases the really important data in a word file is the text and that usually converts ok anyway. The whole open document formats thing is really a storm in a teacup imo.
what is a bigger problem IMO is actually getting files off old media.
lol
;)
and lets not forget that google has a klingon translation but doesn't appear to have a navajo one
the sensationalist /. summary asside lets get some facts.
it is not a security update so it doesn't go in the security repositry
it is already in the volatile repositry
it is already in etch-pryoposed-updates which means it will probablly be in the next point release of etch
pushing a point release of stable is not something that has been taken lighly, lots of CDs to build and push out to mirrors, lots and lots of testing.
Sure the US changes got better treatment, how much of that was luck and how much of it was being one of the largest (in terms of computer using population) countries arround is hard to tell.
If you can't live with the way debian stable releases work choose another distro. If you can't manage your IT infrastructure such that deploying local patches is not unreasonably difficult fire your IT staff.
normally , packages move from testing to stable after a while
every so often (the timespans between releases vary wildly, the longest was woody-sarge which was arround 3 years) there is a new stable release based on what was testing.
Other than that updates to stable only happen when they are really nessacery and even then only as part of numbered point releases. Security updates are handled through a seperate repositry (though it is enabled by default).
Someone please tell me what makes Windows worth the say 299 list price for the non-upgrade edition?
First lets get one thing straight, most windows users don't pay anywhere near that for windows, whitebox OEM price is about £50 or so including VAT (our equivilent of your sales tax) here in the UK, big brands are rumoured to pay even less.
A computer is useless without an OS. OS-X (which I don't personally like but many seem to) is locked to apple hardware and doesn't support anywhere near the range of software windows does though to it's credit it has some very nice home user orientated software of it's own which apple is pushing heavilly. I like linux myself but if I pushed it to someone I would become practically thier sole source of support even if it supported the software they needed and it's unique features aren't really the sort of things to appeal to most non-geeks.
so a few people with spare money and a liking for both media and well designed hardware and who don't need the machine to run thier existing software get macs. People who fall into the previous category except they need thier existing software may get macs and add windows (though this is an expensive option unless you abuse an upgrade copy or whitebox OEM pack or you pirate). A few geeks get linux boxes, everyone else gets windows.
Whitebox OEM versions of the bottom editions of windows (XP home or vista home basic) can be had for arround £50, it is rumoured (the exact deals are secret) that the big brand OEMs pay far less.
MS don't give any real support to users of OEM windows unless they pay for it seperately, PC vendors give some but its mostly limited to telling them to use the supplied diagnostics software to find out if it is a hardware or a software problem. For the former it's dealt with under the hardware warranty for the latter they tell you to restore the box to factory default configuration. Afaict most windows support comes from friends, family, collegues, teachers etc.
The way the linux world works is completely alien to users who are used to windows. A couple of major differences visible to even the nontechnical user spring up.
* on windows you buy or download a peice of software and run it's installer (sometimes you don't even need to do that because of CD autorun). On linux you hope that what you want is in the distros repositries and if not get ready for some carefull checking of download lists at best and working out how to compile it from source or work with some buggy and arcane install script and search for older major versions of libraries at worst (older propietry software is particularlly painfull on linux).
* Windows machines in home/small office use are typcially never upgraded to a new version of windows, linux machines pretty much have to be upgraded every couple of years to be able to install recent software and to keep getting security updates. (corps often buy upgrade/downgrade rights and migrate whole groups of machines to a new windows version at once but that is more to do with consistancy than pressure to upgrade). Dell is selling it's ubuntu machines with a release that will only remain security supported for just over a year from now!
For the mildly experianced computer user it is even worse. All those little things that someone told you how to do in windows are done totally differently in linux.
The fact is kids are trained in basic use of windows/office at school, most of the older workforce who have a requitement for computer use learnt basic use of windows and if nessacery office at work (either through formal training or from colleges). From there people build up a mental set of soloutions to different problems. All of that stuff has to be relearnt to use linux and that brings the problem of who is going to teach them? If they have to pay for that teaching then it will cost FAR more than sticking with windows.
my main point was that just because an elite unit gets the most bang per buck it doesn't follow that equiping units composed of regular soldiors with the same eqipment will improve thier bang per buck.
I generally take brick to mean that the firmware is fucked up to the point where recovery (if it is possible at all) requires dismantling the device and connecting programming hardware (often involving awkward soldering to do so).
they gave a warning through the tech news media but did they actually put the warning in the updater itself?
lol
And yes, symbian S60v3 makes loading new apps very easy
Sure if the app only uses basic capabilities. Otherwise it either has to be signed by symbian-signed (read: $$$) or every user has to get themselves a devcert (which is IMEI locked) and install it themselves.
[quote]Certain tasks = gaming.[/quote]
Gamers are one group who find it hard to move away from windows due to software compatibi, they are far from the only one.
Lower end less geeky gamers like most non-geeks will migrate to vista because the consumer arms of the big brand OEMs won't give them much option unless they want to pirate or pay retail.
[quote]The dedicated gamer is going to migrate to Vista just because of DirectX 10.[/quote]
They probablly will eventually but I suspect many will drag thier feet until they are forced by games that are either directx 10 only or are considerablly better in directx 10 mode.
ram, especailly server ram is more that $30/gigabyte.
also even ignoring the issue of power using system ram for long term storage is a bad idea because it is so vulnerable to crashes and you can't have very much of it (32 gigabytes is the limit of most server boards you see and that is only achievable by using very expensive 4 gigabyte sticks). Ramdrive cards with built in battery backup do exist but that drives up the price even more as you have to buy the adaptor card as well as the sticks of ram.
my understanding is that the reason elite units are so effective is that they are made up from the cream of the grunts. That is those who can tollerate and possiblly even enjoy doing crazy painfull missions with far larger physical loads than your average grunt will tolerate.
am I wrong?
it would probablly go over better than bricking them.
don't explicitly check for an unlock just run some checksums and if they fail either refuse to patch or go into a full replacement mode rather than a diff based mode.
The DOE has guaranteed to monitor and control the radiation output of Yucca mountain for a million years. That's right, 1 million years - it's the furthest out the government has planned anything.
not that such a gaurantee is worth the paper it's printed on, the chances of the US governement existing in anything like it's present form that far out is pretty miniscule.
I think that before any new nuclear facility is licensed, its operators should be required to pay in advance for the disposal of its spent fuel. I don't think it's right that the cost should be borne by the taxpayer.
Sure if you are equally going to force coal plants to pay in advance for the estimated climate change affect of thier emmissions or the indefinate storage of all the C02 they produce.
All of Americas power needs could be supplied by (for example) covering 100x100 km of the Nevada Desert with PV cells. Why not just bite the bullet and do it?
Something to bear in mind, current solar cells are basically a byproduct of the semiconductor industry (they are fabbed on lines built for cruder processes that are no longer economical for IC production) , could we produce cells in that kind of volume at a reasonable cost?
The name chemical weapons is a bit misleading, it reffers to weapons where the intent is to kill by poisoning with deadly chemicals.
IIRC white phosphorus and napalm are incendery weapons. (that is the intent is to burn stuff)
There are other sources of loss too, capacitance and inductance don't directly lose power but it increases the current and hence the power loss in the resistances. There is also loss through corona discharge, losses in power factor correction (long transmission lines and large transformers are mainly inductive and need balancing my capacitances), losses in trasnformers, imperfections in insulators and so on.
For very long or undersea lines DC is often used to remove the capactance and inductance related issues but that brings losses of it's own.
Considering that the majority of all CO2, particulate, soot and trace elements like mercury are spewed into the atmosphere by coal fired plants, I don't understand why the environmentalists aren't clamoring for more nuke plants. I'm guessing that the antiwar/antinuclear weapon factions didn't make the distinction between bombs and power plants.
Something not helped by the fact that many nuclear "power plants" are really plutonium factories that produce power as a byproduct.