Installing and configuring Linux is difficult. Some slashdot readers will disagree with me, but as CS degree-holder and Linux user who has spent hundreds of hours troubleshooting fresh Linux installations on my own machines (and in several cases reverting back to windows because of some deal-breaker hardware incompatibility issue), I can confidently say that I would NEVER recommend to any of my family members that they attempt to install Linux on their own.
As someone who's used Linux almost exclusively, on a daily basis, for both work and personal computing for the last six years... I call bullshit.
Similarly, anybody who searches on my real name is going to find out an awful lot about a TV presenter who's from a different English-speaking country than I am.
Microsoft... also rely on the low-priced OEM versions.
I don't know what universe you live in, but in this one, the Windows 7 Pro OEM DVD that I bought about 3 weeks ago was not by any stretch of the imagination "cheap".
It is a lot more challenging to do than "just install" GNU/Linux. There is a very high chance most if not all the systems will have to be retrofitted in some way to accommodate another operating system. Microsoft has a monopoly and manufacturers refuse to release specifications so hardware can be properly supported on ANY platform. With GNU/Linux you get updates for free and much more frequently. The inability to use older hardware in Microsoft land is partly resource and partly proprietary drivers.
Long story short. I can guarantee you that you will run into problems. You may need to buy new video cards, audio adapters, wifi adapters, and similar. You may not need all of these of course. But chances are you will need at least one or two. It depends on the machine(s). The only systems I know (and this is my job) that don't have this issue are ThinkPenguin machines. That is because they only ship free software compatible hardware. This includes firmware and drivers (although not BIOS-although that isn't a big concern from a compatibility perspective usually).
What's this about "retrofitting"?
FYI, it is often *easier* to install Linux on older machines than newer ones, precisely because the hardware's been around for a while and thus more likely to be supported "out of the box" by OSS.
It could actually tell the truth about who is online with reasonable latency, for example. It could actually handle running on two machines with the same login id for example. But whatever. Not supporting Android properly means that Skype is doomed, and good riddance.
I'll agree with you about the "who's online" latency. Can be a bit annoying sometimes.
Otherwise, Skype works great for me on my Android phone. Often have it running there and on my (Linux) laptop simultaneously. using the same account.
What lack of "proper" Android support are you referring to?
Put that live cd on a USB key, it will boot faster.
*What* live CD? You honestly think it took *20 minutes* to boot from a live CD?
I'm pretty sure that amiga3d was talking about installing it to the HD.
BTW, I can confirm that the OS install that comes on a new Pavilion is indeed loaded with all manner of "monitoring"/"easy$verb" apps that are either simply useless or, worse yet, duplicate (and often interfere with) standard Windows components, and thus it's generally best suited for overwriting with $your_preferred_linux_distro as soon as you can get it home (or at least a fresh Windows installation, please--Windows 7 is not really that bad, until OEMs start overlaying it with their garbagewares).
After that, and with the addition of a cooling stand, you've got a pretty decent machine.
In asia, they have the same old rules that America had back in the 60's. Europe is fairly similar to Asia, but not by design. For example, you will find that in europe, most of the FAs are NOT married. The norm for many nations is that a woman works when single, but quits upon marriage and certainly quits while raising kids. That is why when you fly german Lufthansa, it is male FAs. Once the women are in their late 30s and wanting to return the european airlines will NOT hire them.
Have you actually flown on any European or Asian carriers lately? Because my recollections of the numerous flights I've taken on European and East Asian carriers in and between the two regions I've taken over the last 10 years or so don't seem to be anything like yours.
And the stuff about European women not working after they have kids--in the airlines or any other industry--is complete horseshit.
Lthough it looks to me like about 1/3 of the plane's parts are made in Japan (how nice for them), but your ANA marketing brochure doesn't say anything about ANA doing the engineering.
If you're referring to the sentence, "The Boeing 787 is packed fully with ANA's knowledge and [sic] the home-grown technologies from Japan," that does NOT say ANA did any of the engineering; it's marketspeak worded to lead you into associating their name with it. The page also features 4 interviews with people from 4 different Japanese companies--Kawasaki, Mitsubishi, Fuji, and Toray--none of which are ANA. Furthermore, the people being interviewed talk about Boeing's designers and engineers, but not about any such people working for ANA.
ANA is an airline. They fly the planes. They don't build them.
So your reading comprehension is not terribly good, you're a fanboi, or both. Now give it up already.
...except it was air burst which is a highly, highly ineffective was to take out a bunker.
Incorrect. I don't know where you get this notion, because the Wikipedia article clearly states (emphasis added),
It was intended as a bunker buster weapon, using a surface blast after laydown deployment to transmit a shock wave through the earth to collapse its target. Attacks against the Soviet deep underground leadership shelters in the Chekhov/Sharapovo area south of Moscow envisagedmultiple B53/W53 exploding at ground level.
Look at young people in other Western countries: when they finish their education, they have the option of travelling for a while, or they can start to do seasonal work, save up their money and spend the rest of the year at leisure.
And this would be... Let me make a wild guess here... Because most civilised countries regard higher education as an essential part of their infrastructure, therefore pay for it out of their treasuries just like they do for roads and bridges, and consider a Wanderjahr before or after university to be a normal and acceptable--perhaps even desireable--part of growing up and becoming a useful member of society?
Nah, that's just rubbish. No-one would do or think that.
Maybe it's time you checked out some other distros?
Could be that I'm just lucky, but I've installed Linux (most often OpenSUSE) on about a dozen $random $laptops over the last few years, and I honestly can't remember the last time that hardware recognition and driver installation wasn't handled by the installer. No, I take that back--I do remember: the last time I had to install a driver manually was in 2008, when I needed to hack/build/install atheros drivers (as well as wpa_supplicant) for a Broadcom wifi card with a really weird chipset (for an Acer laptop that I picked up on the cheap in Thailand, not normally available elsewhere).
The most recent example is a HP laptop I bought new last year. Core i7, Nvidia GeForce card, some wifi card and webcam I'd never heard of before, HDMI out, support for dual monitors, etc. Everything "just worked". Only "issue" I had with the drivers was having to choose between the OS and Nvidia-proprietary drivers for the video card. (I chose the latter; feel free to flame me for being tainted.) And Yast takes care of the the updates quite nicely.
...helium needed for kids' balloons and (eventually, perhaps) as thermonuclear fuel (at which time we'll kick ourselves for wasting it for decades in kids' balloons)...
Why would we want to use helium for fusion, when we've a comparatively limitless supply of hydrogen that is much more easily obtained and requires much less effort to fuse?
Slashdot Mirror
As Bing gets closer to capturing almost 33% of the market share in the US...
I'm sorry, was this actually intended to tell us anything? Other than that the submitter is apparently a marketroid / Bing fanboi?
Installing and configuring Linux is difficult. Some slashdot readers will disagree with me, but as CS degree-holder and Linux user who has spent hundreds of hours troubleshooting fresh Linux installations on my own machines (and in several cases reverting back to windows because of some deal-breaker hardware incompatibility issue), I can confidently say that I would NEVER recommend to any of my family members that they attempt to install Linux on their own.
As someone who's used Linux almost exclusively, on a daily basis, for both work and personal computing for the last six years... I call bullshit.
You are...
[ ] making stuff up
or
[ ] leaving out some important detail(s)
(Check all that apply.)
Poster was referring to dollars, not people.
People aren't going to drink RC when they can get Coca-Cola for the same price.
I would consider selling my own mother right now for an RC Cola and a Moon Pie. Do you have any idea how hard those are to find in Stockholm?
Similarly, anybody who searches on my real name is going to find out an awful lot about a TV presenter who's from a different English-speaking country than I am.
Love how math works in your world.
Microsoft ... also rely on the low-priced OEM versions.
I don't know what universe you live in, but in this one, the Windows 7 Pro OEM DVD that I bought about 3 weeks ago was not by any stretch of the imagination "cheap".
It is a lot more challenging to do than "just install" GNU/Linux. There is a very high chance most if not all the systems will have to be retrofitted in some way to accommodate another operating system. Microsoft has a monopoly and manufacturers refuse to release specifications so hardware can be properly supported on ANY platform. With GNU/Linux you get updates for free and much more frequently. The inability to use older hardware in Microsoft land is partly resource and partly proprietary drivers.
Long story short. I can guarantee you that you will run into problems. You may need to buy new video cards, audio adapters, wifi adapters, and similar. You may not need all of these of course. But chances are you will need at least one or two. It depends on the machine(s). The only systems I know (and this is my job) that don't have this issue are ThinkPenguin machines. That is because they only ship free software compatible hardware. This includes firmware and drivers (although not BIOS-although that isn't a big concern from a compatibility perspective usually).
What's this about "retrofitting"?
FYI, it is often *easier* to install Linux on older machines than newer ones, precisely because the hardware's been around for a while and thus more likely to be supported "out of the box" by OSS.
But who can the cartels retaliate against?
Anybody they like.
Doesn't necessarily have to be the responsible parties.
After all, who can say who's really a member of Anonymous?
Apparently you're allowed to choose any username you like on here. It doesn't even have to be your real name.
It doesn't? Aw, damn-- *now* they tell me...
It could actually tell the truth about who is online with reasonable latency, for example. It could actually handle running on two machines with the same login id for example. But whatever. Not supporting Android properly means that Skype is doomed, and good riddance.
I'll agree with you about the "who's online" latency. Can be a bit annoying sometimes.
Otherwise, Skype works great for me on my Android phone. Often have it running there and on my (Linux) laptop simultaneously. using the same account.
What lack of "proper" Android support are you referring to?
Suck shit America. The rest of the world is laughing their collective asses off.
...except when we have to fly to the US, of course.
Put that live cd on a USB key, it will boot faster.
*What* live CD? You honestly think it took *20 minutes* to boot from a live CD?
I'm pretty sure that amiga3d was talking about installing it to the HD.
BTW, I can confirm that the OS install that comes on a new Pavilion is indeed loaded with all manner of "monitoring"/"easy$verb" apps that are either simply useless or, worse yet, duplicate (and often interfere with) standard Windows components, and thus it's generally best suited for overwriting with $your_preferred_linux_distro as soon as you can get it home (or at least a fresh Windows installation, please--Windows 7 is not really that bad, until OEMs start overlaying it with their garbagewares).
After that, and with the addition of a cooling stand, you've got a pretty decent machine.
In asia, they have the same old rules that America had back in the 60's. Europe is fairly similar to Asia, but not by design. For example, you will find that in europe, most of the FAs are NOT married. The norm for many nations is that a woman works when single, but quits upon marriage and certainly quits while raising kids. That is why when you fly german Lufthansa, it is male FAs. Once the women are in their late 30s and wanting to return the european airlines will NOT hire them.
Have you actually flown on any European or Asian carriers lately? Because my recollections of the numerous flights I've taken on European and East Asian carriers in and between the two regions I've taken over the last 10 years or so don't seem to be anything like yours.
And the stuff about European women not working after they have kids--in the airlines or any other industry--is complete horseshit.
Lthough it looks to me like about 1/3 of the plane's parts are made in Japan (how nice for them), but your ANA marketing brochure doesn't say anything about ANA doing the engineering.
If you're referring to the sentence, "The Boeing 787 is packed fully with ANA's knowledge and [sic] the home-grown technologies from Japan," that does NOT say ANA did any of the engineering; it's marketspeak worded to lead you into associating their name with it. The page also features 4 interviews with people from 4 different Japanese companies--Kawasaki, Mitsubishi, Fuji, and Toray--none of which are ANA. Furthermore, the people being interviewed talk about Boeing's designers and engineers, but not about any such people working for ANA.
ANA is an airline. They fly the planes. They don't build them.
So your reading comprehension is not terribly good, you're a fanboi, or both. Now give it up already.
And why can't we pay authors to write, instead of paying them after they write for copies?
It's working out heaps better for me than freelancing ever did.
Or maybe I just like knowing this month that I'll be able to make next month's house payment.
...except it was air burst which is a highly, highly ineffective was to take out a bunker.
Incorrect. I don't know where you get this notion, because the Wikipedia article clearly states (emphasis added),
It was intended as a bunker buster weapon, using a surface blast after laydown deployment to transmit a shock wave through the earth to collapse its target. Attacks against the Soviet deep underground leadership shelters in the Chekhov/Sharapovo area south of Moscow envisagedmultiple B53/W53 exploding at ground level.
Look at young people in other Western countries: when they finish their education, they have the option of travelling for a while, or they can start to do seasonal work, save up their money and spend the rest of the year at leisure.
And this would be... Let me make a wild guess here... Because most civilised countries regard higher education as an essential part of their infrastructure, therefore pay for it out of their treasuries just like they do for roads and bridges, and consider a Wanderjahr before or after university to be a normal and acceptable--perhaps even desireable--part of growing up and becoming a useful member of society?
Nah, that's just rubbish. No-one would do or think that.
Maybe it's time you checked out some other distros?
Could be that I'm just lucky, but I've installed Linux (most often OpenSUSE) on about a dozen $random $laptops over the last few years, and I honestly can't remember the last time that hardware recognition and driver installation wasn't handled by the installer. No, I take that back--I do remember: the last time I had to install a driver manually was in 2008, when I needed to hack/build/install atheros drivers (as well as wpa_supplicant) for a Broadcom wifi card with a really weird chipset (for an Acer laptop that I picked up on the cheap in Thailand, not normally available elsewhere).
The most recent example is a HP laptop I bought new last year. Core i7, Nvidia GeForce card, some wifi card and webcam I'd never heard of before, HDMI out, support for dual monitors, etc. Everything "just worked". Only "issue" I had with the drivers was having to choose between the OS and Nvidia-proprietary drivers for the video card. (I chose the latter; feel free to flame me for being tainted.) And Yast takes care of the the updates quite nicely.
Can't wait for Linux 3.11 for Workgroups
followed by Linux NT, Linux XP, Linux Vista and reverting back to numbers w// Linux 7 & Linux 8
Slow down there, cowboys! You forgot Linux 95, 98, and 2000.
A lot of people see Ron Paul as a nutjob.
There, fixed your grammar for ya.
Can you provide me a link to the QuickTime plugin for Firefox on Linux? Couldn't seem to find it on Apple's website.
Yeah, a friggin' QuickTime movie. Brilliant.
...helium needed for kids' balloons and (eventually, perhaps) as thermonuclear fuel (at which time we'll kick ourselves for wasting it for decades in kids' balloons)...
Why would we want to use helium for fusion, when we've a comparatively limitless supply of hydrogen that is much more easily obtained and requires much less effort to fuse?
Some folks might not consider that a "low" user ID.