As I mentioned on the linked page: "Also, the FSF makes all contributors attribute copyrights to the FSF. They do this for legal reasons. Mozilla did not, and when they decided to re-license, they had to contact every contributor. Because of this, we too require that any contributors attribute the copyrights to the jasabe project. Of course, you are still free to fork the project and keep your changes under your copyright, but we cannot accept your changes into the main jasabe tree."
Actually, they got the whole Corel Linux team. Corel more or less spun them off.
Also, the free version doesn't have the integrated WINE (which was just a bundled CodeWeaver's CX Office/plugin.) The free version seems to just be the standard version with the CD burning crippled.
Another key feature of Xandros is the integrated file manager that has the hands down best samba integration that I've seen in a file manager. Sharing a directory is as easy as right-clicking and selecting Share.
Finally, their Xandros Networks app is a brilliantly executed front-end to apt. Everyone always says that Xandros is best suited to new users. Sure, new users will like it, but I think this pigeonhole's Xandros more than it ought to be.
The people at NeoOffice.org are working on two parallel OOo ports. The first, NeoOffice, attempts to port OOo to Aqua. It seems to have stagnated, but the very promising NeoOffice/J is rapidly approaching 1.0!
NeoOffice/J replaces the dependency on X with a dependency on Java, which is treated as a native toolkit in OSX. NeoOffice/J may not look like an Aqua app yet, but it does integrate nicely with the AA fonts and can use OSX's copy and paste. It takes a good 30 seconds to launch on my G3 iBook 700/640MB RAM but once it's up and running it is quite fast. I recently removed the OOo X11 port from my machine, as NeoOffice/J works more consistently for me.
NeoOffice/J is based on OOo 1.0 but it's still much better than nothing, not to mention much better than the X11 port. It's very easily installed with a DMG file and the standard Apple installer, once installed it behaves like any other OSX app, setting up the MIME types properly, etc.
I've installed 0.82 in the Mac lab here at work, as we didn't purchase MSO with the machines and students were trying to open PPT lectures. Anyway, I'd take NeoOffice/J over AppleWorks any day of the week. I even prefer it to MS Office on OSX. (Sorry, it may look Aqua-ish, but it's an odd duck too.)
----------------------
From the NeoOffice/J site:
No X11 software required
NeoOffice/J uses the JavaTM technology that is built into Mac OS X. By using Java, there is no need to download and install the X11 software that OpenOffice.org requires.
Integrated with Finder and Mail
The Mac OS X Finder will automatically launch NeoOffice/J and open OpenOffice.org and MicrosoftTM Office documents that you double-click on. Also the Mac OS X Mail application will open OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office attachments in NeoOffice/J.
Uses Mac OS X fonts
Unlike OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice/J uses the same fonts that all of your other Mac OS X applications use. This means that NeoOffice/J will handle reading and writing of Western European characters (e.g. characters with accents, umlauts, circumflexes, cedillas, etc.) and some fonts will even handle Japanese, Chinese, and Korean ideographs. Also, NeoOffice/J is able to use any fonts that you install in your Library/Fonts subfolder or the/Library/Fonts folder.
Handles international keyboards
Unlike OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice/J will use an keyboard layout that you use. I routinely switch to a Spanish keyboard without a problem. Also, if you switch your keyboard layout while NeoOffice/J is running, NeoOffice/J will automatically switch as well.
Native printing support
NeoOffice/J supports printing using Mac OS X's native printing functionality. Like other Mac OS X applications, you can use NeoOffice/J to print, preview, or save a document to a PDF file.
Native copy and paste support
NeoOffice/J supports copying and pasting using Mac OS X's native clipboard so you can copy and paste text and images between NeoOffice/J and other Mac OS X applications.
I work for a University. We've been contemplating moving some of our servers to Linux, but RH's recent decision to drop RHL and SuSE's acquisition by Novell coupled with my employer's unease with moving to a platform without commercial backing, (Debian) I've been left wondering how best to proceed. This sounds like a very fair, much welcomed move.
We use Symantec Ghost at work for handling labs of systems. For doing quick, one-off images we use G4u. I have been finding that we are using G4u more often than ghost these days because it is far less invasive, though possibly not as easy to use.
If you're just imaging one machine to maybe five systems, g4u is great. If you want to have the systems automatically rename themselves, or be able to remotely initiate the procedure, Ghost is a far better bet. It certainly has its share of quirks, but it is by far the best tool that I have seen for imaging (and managing) a lot of Windows machines.
Here's a few Ghost tips for you:
1) DO NOT USE BROADCOM CARDS!! The NDIS driver they (Broadcom) supply is garbage. For a year we had random dropouts when imaging, we replaced the NICs with el-cheapo $10 RTL-8139s and all is well. We thought it was the switches, we tried the network cales, in the end it was the on-board NICs.. . If you go poking around on Symantec's site you'll eventually find that they suggest people not use Broadcom cards. Believe it.
2) Be very careful using Ghost to back up important systems (especially Domain Controllers.) Ghost by default will try to remove a system from a domain before it images it. This can have very nasty consequences.;-)
And a few tips about G4u:
1) Don't expect whiz-bang features. G4u is exceedingly good at what it does, and is very poor at doing anything else. It takes perfect images of drives. That is all.
2) Zero-fill your HD before you image it. They explain how to do this on the website. Be sure to not skip this step, 2GB of data can be 20GB f you don't make sure the drive is easily compressible beforehand. G4u doesn't know or care about filesystems or partitions, it doesn't care about empty space.
I think that it's remarkable that Zeta managed to get Centrino working for BeOS. I mean, I can't buy a new PC laptop because Linux doesn't like the chipset. I wonder how it is that some little, tiny company has drivers for the Intel wireless adaptor, when they simply DO NOT EXIST for Linux. Very strange.
Anyway, the systems are only for sale in Europe. Too bad for us Canadians. Well, maybe I'll have to give the new BeOS a spin. It's been ages.
BTW, I have an old NEC Versa LX that I've tried to run BeOS on. I can't find drivers for my DWL-650 wireless NIC, and the keyboard won't work unless I upgrade to Dano. Any reasons for this? I'd rather run straight 5.0 Pro (which I purchases) but find it rather challenging to use an OS with no keyboard.
"Install Gentoo. Seriously, you'll get to be 'at one' with the machine and you'll only get what you ask for, I don't know many people who switch FROM gentoo to anything else."
I did. It worked great, I got a new machine and didn't feel like spending another week setting it up. With Knoppix I was up and running with a usable desktop, newest KDE, Gnome, Apache, X in under an hour.
And I've never felt the speed dif. between Gentoo and Debian. Gentoo and RH, yes. Gentoo and SuSE, ABSOLUTELY, but Debian is as light as you want it to be too.
- P4 2.8c - Asus MB - 1GB RAM - 120GB IDE HD - Burner (you'll want a CD to install, spring for the extra $15.) - Floppy - Any video - Decent case with a good PSU. - 3 year warranty
This will run you under $1500CDN.
For backup I'd get a USB2.0/Firewire external 5.25" enclosure and a HD rack to go in it, then I'd get another 120GB HD for the backup. USB2.0/FW isn't as "cool" as hot-swappable SCSI, but it gets you 90% there for 10% (likely less) of the cost.
Anyway, grand total for all of this is still under $2kCDN. You get a great, cheap, easily upgraded backup method, a very powerful machine and thousands to spare.
As for an OS, I like Debian or FreeBSD, RH9 if you want something that looks flashy.
Speakins of flashy, if you're new to Unix, an Apple XServe is another option. It's relatively cheap and is supposed to be a joy to administer. (It'll likely eat most of your money, though.)
While 250 users sounds like a lot, my last employer is still using an ancient Sun SparcServer 5 for its several hundred employees and departmental web server. That system runs about as fast as a low-end pentium and it has handled the load without complaining for years.
As I was reading the intro blurb discussing the various versions of RH, it made me think of Debian. Really, all along Debian has been doing the same thing that RH and SuSE are just getting around to: Offering a solid distro for long-term server use, and flavours for enthusiasts.
Perhaps Debian could adopt a slightly different naming scheme for its three versions. Maybe instead of Stable, Testing and Unstable, they could call it Debian Server, Debian Workstation and Debian Development (or somesuch.)
In my workplace we are looking to deploy a lab of Linux machines and are trying to decide what version of Linux to use. If all goes well, I hope to replace some aging Sun's with more Linux boxes in the future. While many current users prefer Mandrake, RH or SuSE, given Debian's stability and ease of management, I'm leaning toward picking Stable (and bolting on a GNOME/KDE backport) or Testing.
I have spoken with my manager about RH's position on supporting their standard distros for a year. He obviously didn't like that, but I'm afraid that I will scare him off when I tell him the price of the RH Advanced line. Debian seems like a good answer to me, but it's tricky when I explain the difference between Stable, Testing and Unstable. In fact, as soon as I mention anything other than Stable people start to lose interest.
I know that naming is a stupid thing to get hung up on, but it _does_ matter. Think of it: People's general perception of Debian (if they've heard of it at all) is that it's too old. All Debian users know that this may be true of Stable, but is not so for Testing/Unstable. Perhaps simply changing the naming convention will help people realize that this is a viable, vibrant distro, well suited to large-scale use.
I love Debian, to me it captures the essence of Linux and OSS. I certainly don't want it to become just another distro for suits, but the current naming convention makes larger deployments difficult.
So, Debian developers, what do you say? Could Debian change it's ways ever so slightly to help a larger body of users realize the potential of this outstanding OS?
Re:Exclusiveness & Prosperity
on
The Last Comdex?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Sorry, I didn't mean this as elitism in any way, but by keeping it to people in the industry they kept the questions technical and sound, and the companies presenting could assume a certain level of understanding from the people walking around. It went from a place to setup contacts for vendors to a place where Joe Blow could ask why Corel Draw wouldn't work with XYZ printer. I'm sure that the latter is an important question to ask, but it's not the right forum.
This doesn't surprise me...
on
The Last Comdex?
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· Score: 5, Informative
I attended Comdex in Toronto for four of the last five years. Every year I noticed it was getting worse, and wondered if it was worth going to. This last summer I didn't bother going, and I didn't miss it.
During the time I attended it changed from being a show for people in the industry, to a show for anyone off the street. The first year I went there the small company I was with signed up with TechData and nearly did the same with AOpen. The next year, neither were there. The last year I went was positively lame. No one but the big guys, and not even all of them. Heck, Corel wasn't even there.
Good riddance. It was a waste of time that was eventually replaced with product info found on the Internet.
Me, I _am_ a fan of Sun. I think they have a disproportionately bad rap for a company that has offered real innovation in the computing industry. Sure, they haven't done anything really revolutionary in the last year or two, but being the "dot in.com" I understand that they're just trying to keep afloat. I'm sure they'll make it through.
However, it's pretty hard to justify buying even their low-end hardware. I wonder how much this laptop is? (Yes, I realize it's not from Sun...) There was no mention of price on the site.
I know, probably one of those "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" laptops. Seriously, though, any idea of an estimated cost? (Even unofficial...)
Well, it sucks a bit because it's MS, but to be fair, I've had three courses that used Java exclusively during my studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
The two first year intro to programming courses as well as a second year data structures course all used Java. As much as it is a cheap rip-off, MS seems to be paying more attention (or lip-service) to the standards bodies than Sun did.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like that MS has basically ripped of Java, but I honestly don't see how this is any worse than the many schools using Java in the curriculum.
Even worse, the integrated S3 ProSavage 4 chip that's built into my laptop has _no HW-accel 3D whatsoever_ My only option is an $80USD driver from xi.com. $80USD!! That's a tenth of the cost of the laptop for a driver! What's worse: The 2D driver from Via that ships with XFree86 is buggier than you can imagine. Launching OpenOffice locks the laptop up hard. Luckily someone has fixed this, but I'd guess that there will never be HW 3D support for this chip under Linux. And this is a rather prolific chipset! Unlike you, I can't replace it with an nVidia card...:(
"
The main reason for the fork was because WineX includes reverse-engineered copy-protection support code to support games running. If Transgaming released the source code to that, it would be entirely possible to modify/hack the code so that you could play pirated games, a likely violation of the DMCA and exposing Transgaming to all sorts of legal issues.
"
While this is true, it doesn't explain why they threatended Debian to change their license when someone proposed packaging the CVS version into a.DEB file. Turns out that packaging the source is permitted under the license at the moment, but as soon as someone does they'll close that door.
Sorry, these guys aren't great OSS citizens, no way around it. Hey, whatever happened to releasing the code after 10,000 people signed up? Does that still hold? Have they posted numbers on how close they are?
And none of this "shut up and pay your $15" garbage. I've bought plenty of OSS and non-OSS software (including VMWare and CodeWeaver's stuff) Transgaming is trying to look nice and open, but they're not. If they want to keep things closed, that's fine. What's not fine is saying one thing and doing another. As it is, the sources are mostly free but only as long as they're a pain to install. What good is that for people who don't know what CVS is?
Re:When will we get a proper packaging system?
on
RPM Dependency Graph
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· Score: 2
" love debian - in theory - but in practice, it can be a bitch to get working. Even experienced Debian users who repeatedly try to persuade me to abandon RedHat are forced to admit that they never did get USB working, and after a while you realize that they are more in-love with the theory of debian than the reality. "
Well, I can't speak for any of your friends, but my Debian install works absolutely perfectly with USB. I use a USB SanDisk SmartMedia reader, a wireless USB mouse, a Logiteck QuickCam, a USB hub, an Epson 880, a serial->USB converter for my Palm, and a crappy Canon USB scanner that I can use through VMWare. (Canon will not support Linux in any capacity, their scanners are junk. Barely works for my in Windows.)
Oh, and the handy acpid package that is part of Debian really helps my ACPI-only laptop have decent battery life.
Do I like the theory of Debian? Yes, and for me, the reality is just as good. Oh, in addition to installing flawlessly on my tricky laptop, Debian worked equally well for me on an old Alpha and a NetWinder. RH/MDK/FBSD all refused to install on that particular Alpha, and no other distro that I know of supports the NetWinder.
Apt-get is great, but it is only one part of what makes Debian the respected quality distribution that it is. I've had no more issues setting up USB (or anything else really) with Debian than I have with any other OS I've used recently.
"It is time for a new approach, hopefully one that is backward compatable with previous packaging systems, but which provides a unified distribution mechanism for binaries, while allowing different distributions to do things in their own way."
Hmm... isn't that what the LSB is all about? Giving a known base that you can build on?
Hmmm.. I agree with this line of reasoning. However, so far the track record is poor at best. This strategy has been followed by several companies already:
- Storm Linux - Progeny Linux - Corel Linux - Xandros - Libranet
Of those, only Libranet is moderately successful. This is mostly because they are very niche and have very low costs. I thought Progeny would make it, but they didn't. Xandros has had Corel's code base for years now and have yet to release anything. HP is selling Blade servers with Debian pre-installed, but other than that, commercial Debian is almost non-existant.
It's too bad, I really think there ought to be a decent market for someone who can pull of a commercial Debian-based install every six months. Really, I guess Potato + Ximian Gnome approaches this.
Oh-well, maybe one day a solid commercial Debian will become a reality.
I just got a laptop using the Athlon 4 processor. It's been on most of the day, and the keyboard and glidepoint are actually warm.
This is an interesting way for AMD to help keep people working reasonable hours.. Here's hoping Compaq knows best. If this thing melts I'll be fairly dissapointed.
My girlfriend and I own approximately 400 CDs between the two of us. We have ripped them all, and we only ever listen to our MP3 collection. Subscribing to the excellent EMusic service has also greatly expanded our collection.
I listen occasionally listen to real audio CDs on the following devices:
One of our PCs (all running Linux..)
My Rio Volt
Our Apex DVD player
This means that pretty soon I won't be able to listen to audio CDs on my own players even if I want to.
I have never used Napster (or similar services) as I think it's morally wrong and illegal. However, if I can't go out, buy an audio CD, rip it and listen to it then I consider myself forced into using one of these means to acquire the music I want.
I have absolutely no qualms with paying $20 for a CD. I always get my money out of it, provided the disc doesn't suck. Frankly, at the rate we buy CDs I don't even mind occasionally paying for a dud. I will, however, refuse to buy something I can't use.
End of story.
As has been reported ad nauseum, this does absolutely nothing to curb illegal copying of these songs. All it does is anger good customers. If I, a paying, legal customer, am going to be treated like a criminal, I may as well act the part.
So, here's my ultimatum to the recording industry: Stop this ridiculous behaviour or I will cease to be a customer. As soon as I buy a CD that I actually want (sorry Celine) and can no longer rip and listen to in MP3 form I will cease buying CDs at all and will start making use of one of these napster/kazaa/limewire type services. I don't want to do this. I still think it's illegal, I still think it's wrong, but I think that punishing all customers for the sake of a few, who will pirate anyway, is worse, not to mention a dangerous precedent. I won't stand for it.
If the record industry won't play fair neither will I. I know I'm only one person, I realize that the recording industry probably doesn't care about me, but I buy about 30 CDs a year. That's $600 they lose from me. Pretty insignificant in the big scheme, but it's all I can do. I will continue to listen to the music I want in the form I want.
Well, it was not my intent to announce this quite this soon, but given the recent conversation on the list, I feel that it's best not to wait any longer.
I forked Atheos about 6 months ago and have been continuously developing it since that time. I've taken it in some very new directions. I should warn you that some of you will absolutely love the changes, and some of you will perhaps feel that the "dream" of Atheos has been sold out.
The new project has had a name since the beginning, but I'm going to hold off on releasing that until I can verify that the domain names and trademark are secure. So I'll call it "New Atheos" for the purposes of this e-mail.
New Atheos has the following major new features: o Runs on top of the Linux kernel, not the Atheos kernel o Atheos API has been merged with the BeOS API o PowerPC support o gcc 3.0.X compatiblity o OpenTracker/Deskbar desktop manager
These features give the following benefits: o Most BeOS programs compile and run with little or no changes o Linux kernel means that CD-ROM, CD booting and installing, DHCP, etc. work o Linux kernel means that driver support is excellent o Mac users get a piece of the action
Things I haven't even started on: o Printing o Media Kit o Replicants
Existing Atheos programs will need changes to compile. I haven't found one that took me longer than a few minutes to "convert". Where Atheos and BeOS use different semantics, I chose the BeOS method.
I am going to hold off on a release until I can successfully compile and run OpenTracker and Deskbar. They use just about every obsolete and goofy BeOS construct that exists. I'm most of the way there, though, especially for Deskbar. Kurt wasn't lying when he said it would be a nightmare to port them. Of course, I'm doing an "anti-port". When some BeOS program won't compile, I change the API to match it instead of changing the program itself.
The first BeOS program that successfully came up was Pulse, and there was no small amoung of satisfaction to see good ole' Pulse running on my new system. Nostalgic BeOS users can perhaps understand.
I'm writing in a hurry, so hopefully I haven't forgotten something important. And no, I can't give a release date yet. I hope to have a CVS server up at the time of release.
Want to see speed in changeing directories? Try Rox or XFTree.
I mean, come on. We're talking about _changing directories_. This is what a file manager does! I can understand it being slow in generating HTML pages of image galleries or something, but changing subdirectories slowly is like a text editor that can't keep up with what a user types.
I played with Garnome a bit, and Nautilus does seem to be better now. I still get odd errors all over the place. Warnings about the "History" and "News" panels. It's a file manager!! Why do I need history or news? And why is it giving me errors about the above?
Maybe if someone stripped out all that extra "stuff" that only seems to weigh Nautilus down it wouldn't be too painful to use.. I do like their script support and music views, though.
I know there will be lots of people posting about window manager XYZ or the like, but I have finally settled on a very usable and very fast configuration that I think should not be overlooked.
I run the following:
DE/WM: XFce File Manager/Desktop icons: Rox filer/XFtree Web Browser: Galeon, Opera or Dillo Mail Client: Sylpheed or Evolution Word Processor: AbiWord, Applix or WP8 Other Desktop apps: Gnumeric, JPilot
I have two machines: An Athlon 900 with 768MB of RAM and an old Laptop. A P233 with 64MB RAM. I find that the above works perfectly on either. Initially I set XFce/Rox/Sylpheed/Dillo up just for the laptop. At the time I was using KDE on the big machine. Then I realized how much all of the fancy integration costs. KDE was unusable on the laptop, Gnome without Nautilus or GMC was okay, but XFce etc. put them all to shame.
Rox is a great file manager. It's blindingly fast, has lots of features normally only associated with Natilus or Knoqueror, and is very tiny. Same goes for XFce.
Also, XFce has very good keyboard bindings that just make sense.
If I was going to create a distribution tomorrow I would use the above setup as the default rather than KDE or Gnome. The apps are great, but the overall weight of the system is just too much. I find XFce on my Debian Potato laptop is finally about as fast as Win95 was on the same machine. Oh, and PCMCIA actually works better on that machine in Linux than it did in Windows.
Honestly, XFce and Rox are such nice programs, I'm really shocked that more people don't use them. They're fast, the developers are responsive, and the programs are small and stable. I used to cringe when people would tell me that they were installing Linux onto a machine with lower specs than my laptop. It doesn't have to be that way.
As for the apps, most Gtk apps that I use seem to be as fast as you could expect. Xmms, Gnumeric, abiword, jpilot, even gimp are all quite fast considering what they do. Personally, I'm impressed that the author got StarOffice to work as well as he did. I tried OpenOffice on my laptop. I started it up, a few minutes later the HD was still thrashing. I gave up and logged out. Works great on the Athlon, though, and build 642 seems a bit faster. Applix and WordPerfect 8 are _much_ faster. In fact, I'd argue that recent builds of AbiWord aren't actually much speedier than WordPerfect 8 for Linux.
Actually, are there any concrete examples of a company ensuring that their app works under WINE and _then_ porting it to Linux natively? I am not aware of any. Certainly this was never Corel's long-term goal with WPOffice..
If you were AOL and Mozilla was a Win32-only app that ran fine under Linux using WINE why would you bother with all of the (arguably excellent) underlying architecture that they have provided?
I've heard this argument before, but I just don't think it's true. I could see a company porting to Qt (or Gtk) as a stepping-stone to full Linux support, but what is the incentive for a company to have two code-bases once their app works in both Windows and Linux?
Slashdot Mirror
So does my project.
;-)
As I mentioned on the linked page: "Also, the FSF makes all contributors attribute copyrights to the FSF. They do this for legal reasons. Mozilla did not, and when they decided to re-license, they had to contact every contributor. Because of this, we too require that any contributors attribute the copyrights to the jasabe project. Of course, you are still free to fork the project and keep your changes under your copyright, but we cannot accept your changes into the main jasabe tree."
Don't believe me? More info can be found on the FSF page as well as on their FAQ.
Not that it matters much for our project. It's only important if you have contributors.
Actually, they got the whole Corel Linux team. Corel more or less spun them off.
Also, the free version doesn't have the integrated WINE (which was just a bundled CodeWeaver's CX Office/plugin.) The free version seems to just be the standard version with the CD burning crippled.
Another key feature of Xandros is the integrated file manager that has the hands down best samba integration that I've seen in a file manager. Sharing a directory is as easy as right-clicking and selecting Share.
Finally, their Xandros Networks app is a brilliantly executed front-end to apt. Everyone always says that Xandros is best suited to new users. Sure, new users will like it, but I think this pigeonhole's Xandros more than it ought to be.
The people at NeoOffice.org are working on two parallel OOo ports. The first, NeoOffice, attempts to port OOo to Aqua. It seems to have stagnated, but the very promising NeoOffice/J is rapidly approaching 1.0!
/Library/Fonts folder.
NeoOffice/J replaces the dependency on X with a dependency on Java, which is treated as a native toolkit in OSX. NeoOffice/J may not look like an Aqua app yet, but it does integrate nicely with the AA fonts and can use OSX's copy and paste. It takes a good 30 seconds to launch on my G3 iBook 700/640MB RAM but once it's up and running it is quite fast. I recently removed the OOo X11 port from my machine, as NeoOffice/J works more consistently for me.
NeoOffice/J is based on OOo 1.0 but it's still much better than nothing, not to mention much better than the X11 port. It's very easily installed with a DMG file and the standard Apple installer, once installed it behaves like any other OSX app, setting up the MIME types properly, etc.
I've installed 0.82 in the Mac lab here at work, as we didn't purchase MSO with the machines and students were trying to open PPT lectures. Anyway, I'd take NeoOffice/J over AppleWorks any day of the week. I even prefer it to MS Office on OSX. (Sorry, it may look Aqua-ish, but it's an odd duck too.)
----------------------
From the NeoOffice/J site:
No X11 software required
NeoOffice/J uses the JavaTM technology that is built into Mac OS X. By using Java, there is no need to download and install the X11 software that OpenOffice.org requires.
Integrated with Finder and Mail
The Mac OS X Finder will automatically launch NeoOffice/J and open OpenOffice.org and MicrosoftTM Office documents that you double-click on. Also the Mac OS X Mail application will open OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office attachments in NeoOffice/J.
Uses Mac OS X fonts
Unlike OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice/J uses the same fonts that all of your other Mac OS X applications use. This means that NeoOffice/J will handle reading and writing of Western European characters (e.g. characters with accents, umlauts, circumflexes, cedillas, etc.) and some fonts will even handle Japanese, Chinese, and Korean ideographs. Also, NeoOffice/J is able to use any fonts that you install in your Library/Fonts subfolder or the
Handles international keyboards
Unlike OpenOffice.org, NeoOffice/J will use an keyboard layout that you use. I routinely switch to a Spanish keyboard without a problem. Also, if you switch your keyboard layout while NeoOffice/J is running, NeoOffice/J will automatically switch as well.
Native printing support
NeoOffice/J supports printing using Mac OS X's native printing functionality. Like other Mac OS X applications, you can use NeoOffice/J to print, preview, or save a document to a PDF file.
Native copy and paste support
NeoOffice/J supports copying and pasting using Mac OS X's native clipboard so you can copy and paste text and images between NeoOffice/J and other Mac OS X applications.
Perhaps, but try doing that with Safari in OS 10.3. Now, how are you going to set your default browser?
Sorry, Apple is just as bad as MS. The only difference is marketshare.
I work for a University. We've been contemplating moving some of our servers to Linux, but RH's recent decision to drop RHL and SuSE's acquisition by Novell coupled with my employer's unease with moving to a platform without commercial backing, (Debian) I've been left wondering how best to proceed. This sounds like a very fair, much welcomed move.
We use Symantec Ghost at work for handling labs of systems. For doing quick, one-off images we use G4u. I have been finding that we are using G4u more often than ghost these days because it is far less invasive, though possibly not as easy to use.
;-)
If you're just imaging one machine to maybe five systems, g4u is great. If you want to have the systems automatically rename themselves, or be able to remotely initiate the procedure, Ghost is a far better bet. It certainly has its share of quirks, but it is by far the best tool that I have seen for imaging (and managing) a lot of Windows machines.
Here's a few Ghost tips for you:
1) DO NOT USE BROADCOM CARDS!! The NDIS driver they (Broadcom) supply is garbage. For a year we had random dropouts when imaging, we replaced the NICs with el-cheapo $10 RTL-8139s and all is well. We thought it was the switches, we tried the network cales, in the end it was the on-board NICs.. . If you go poking around on Symantec's site you'll eventually find that they suggest people not use Broadcom cards. Believe it.
2) Be very careful using Ghost to back up important systems (especially Domain Controllers.) Ghost by default will try to remove a system from a domain before it images it. This can have very nasty consequences.
And a few tips about G4u:
1) Don't expect whiz-bang features. G4u is exceedingly good at what it does, and is very poor at doing anything else. It takes perfect images of drives. That is all.
2) Zero-fill your HD before you image it. They explain how to do this on the website. Be sure to not skip this step, 2GB of data can be 20GB f you don't make sure the drive is easily compressible beforehand. G4u doesn't know or care about filesystems or partitions, it doesn't care about empty space.
I think that it's remarkable that Zeta managed to get Centrino working for BeOS. I mean, I can't buy a new PC laptop because Linux doesn't like the chipset. I wonder how it is that some little, tiny company has drivers for the Intel wireless adaptor, when they simply DO NOT EXIST for Linux. Very strange.
Anyway, the systems are only for sale in Europe. Too bad for us Canadians. Well, maybe I'll have to give the new BeOS a spin. It's been ages.
BTW, I have an old NEC Versa LX that I've tried to run BeOS on. I can't find drivers for my DWL-650 wireless NIC, and the keyboard won't work unless I upgrade to Dano. Any reasons for this? I'd rather run straight 5.0 Pro (which I purchases) but find it rather challenging to use an OS with no keyboard.
"Install Gentoo. Seriously, you'll get to be 'at one' with the machine and you'll only get what you ask for, I don't know many people who switch FROM gentoo to anything else."
I did. It worked great, I got a new machine and didn't feel like spending another week setting it up. With Knoppix I was up and running with a usable desktop, newest KDE, Gnome, Apache, X in under an hour.
And I've never felt the speed dif. between Gentoo and Debian. Gentoo and RH, yes. Gentoo and SuSE, ABSOLUTELY, but Debian is as light as you want it to be too.
Here's what I'd buy:
- P4 2.8c
- Asus MB
- 1GB RAM
- 120GB IDE HD
- Burner (you'll want a CD to install, spring for the extra $15.)
- Floppy
- Any video
- Decent case with a good PSU.
- 3 year warranty
This will run you under $1500CDN.
For backup I'd get a USB2.0/Firewire external 5.25" enclosure and a HD rack to go in it, then I'd get another 120GB HD for the backup. USB2.0/FW isn't as "cool" as hot-swappable SCSI, but it gets you 90% there for 10% (likely less) of the cost.
Anyway, grand total for all of this is still under $2kCDN. You get a great, cheap, easily upgraded backup method, a very powerful machine and thousands to spare.
As for an OS, I like Debian or FreeBSD, RH9 if you want something that looks flashy.
Speakins of flashy, if you're new to Unix, an Apple XServe is another option. It's relatively cheap and is supposed to be a joy to administer. (It'll likely eat most of your money, though.)
While 250 users sounds like a lot, my last employer is still using an ancient Sun SparcServer 5 for its several hundred employees and departmental web server. That system runs about as fast as a low-end pentium and it has handled the load without complaining for years.
As I was reading the intro blurb discussing the various versions of RH, it made me think of Debian. Really, all along Debian has been doing the same thing that RH and SuSE are just getting around to: Offering a solid distro for long-term server use, and flavours for enthusiasts.
Perhaps Debian could adopt a slightly different naming scheme for its three versions. Maybe instead of Stable, Testing and Unstable, they could call it Debian Server, Debian Workstation and Debian Development (or somesuch.)
In my workplace we are looking to deploy a lab of Linux machines and are trying to decide what version of Linux to use. If all goes well, I hope to replace some aging Sun's with more Linux boxes in the future. While many current users prefer Mandrake, RH or SuSE, given Debian's stability and ease of management, I'm leaning toward picking Stable (and bolting on a GNOME/KDE backport) or Testing.
I have spoken with my manager about RH's position on supporting their standard distros for a year. He obviously didn't like that, but I'm afraid that I will scare him off when I tell him the price of the RH Advanced line. Debian seems like a good answer to me, but it's tricky when I explain the difference between Stable, Testing and Unstable. In fact, as soon as I mention anything other than Stable people start to lose interest.
I know that naming is a stupid thing to get hung up on, but it _does_ matter. Think of it: People's general perception of Debian (if they've heard of it at all) is that it's too old. All Debian users know that this may be true of Stable, but is not so for Testing/Unstable. Perhaps simply changing the naming convention will help people realize that this is a viable, vibrant distro, well suited to large-scale use.
I love Debian, to me it captures the essence of Linux and OSS. I certainly don't want it to become just another distro for suits, but the current naming convention makes larger deployments difficult.
So, Debian developers, what do you say? Could Debian change it's ways ever so slightly to help a larger body of users realize the potential of this outstanding OS?
Sorry, I didn't mean this as elitism in any way, but by keeping it to people in the industry they kept the questions technical and sound, and the companies presenting could assume a certain level of understanding from the people walking around. It went from a place to setup contacts for vendors to a place where Joe Blow could ask why Corel Draw wouldn't work with XYZ printer. I'm sure that the latter is an important question to ask, but it's not the right forum.
I attended Comdex in Toronto for four of the last five years. Every year I noticed it was getting worse, and wondered if it was worth going to. This last summer I didn't bother going, and I didn't miss it.
During the time I attended it changed from being a show for people in the industry, to a show for anyone off the street. The first year I went there the small company I was with signed up with TechData and nearly did the same with AOpen. The next year, neither were there. The last year I went was positively lame. No one but the big guys, and not even all of them. Heck, Corel wasn't even there.
Good riddance. It was a waste of time that was eventually replaced with product info found on the Internet.
Me, I _am_ a fan of Sun. I think they have a disproportionately bad rap for a company that has offered real innovation in the computing industry. Sure, they haven't done anything really revolutionary in the last year or two, but being the "dot in .com" I understand that they're just trying to keep afloat. I'm sure they'll make it through.
However, it's pretty hard to justify buying even their low-end hardware. I wonder how much this laptop is? (Yes, I realize it's not from Sun...) There was no mention of price on the site.
I know, probably one of those "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" laptops. Seriously, though, any idea of an estimated cost? (Even unofficial...)
Well, it sucks a bit because it's MS, but to be fair, I've had three courses that used Java exclusively during my studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
The two first year intro to programming courses as well as a second year data structures course all used Java. As much as it is a cheap rip-off, MS seems to be paying more attention (or lip-service) to the standards bodies than Sun did.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like that MS has basically ripped of Java, but I honestly don't see how this is any worse than the many schools using Java in the curriculum.
Even worse, the integrated S3 ProSavage 4 chip that's built into my laptop has _no HW-accel 3D whatsoever_ My only option is an $80USD driver from xi.com. $80USD!! That's a tenth of the cost of the laptop for a driver! What's worse: The 2D driver from Via that ships with XFree86 is buggier than you can imagine. Launching OpenOffice locks the laptop up hard. Luckily someone has fixed this, but I'd guess that there will never be HW 3D support for this chip under Linux. And this is a rather prolific chipset! Unlike you, I can't replace it with an nVidia card... :(
While this is true, it doesn't explain why they threatended Debian to change their license when someone proposed packaging the CVS version into a .DEB file. Turns out that packaging the source is permitted under the license at the moment, but as soon as someone does they'll close that door.
More info:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2002/debian-d evel-200205/msg02823.html
Sorry, these guys aren't great OSS citizens, no way around it. Hey, whatever happened to releasing the code after 10,000 people signed up? Does that still hold? Have they posted numbers on how close they are?
And none of this "shut up and pay your $15" garbage. I've bought plenty of OSS and non-OSS software (including VMWare and CodeWeaver's stuff) Transgaming is trying to look nice and open, but they're not. If they want to keep things closed, that's fine. What's not fine is saying one thing and doing another. As it is, the sources are mostly free but only as long as they're a pain to install. What good is that for people who don't know what CVS is?
Ben
Didn't CNet buy ZD in 2000?
1 25 3&mode=thread&tid=149
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/07/19/113
Does this mean CNet is going belly-up?
Well, I can't speak for any of your friends, but my Debian install works absolutely perfectly with USB. I use a USB SanDisk SmartMedia reader, a wireless USB mouse, a Logiteck QuickCam, a USB hub, an Epson 880, a serial->USB converter for my Palm, and a crappy Canon USB scanner that I can use through VMWare. (Canon will not support Linux in any capacity, their scanners are junk. Barely works for my in Windows.)
Oh, and the handy acpid package that is part of Debian really helps my ACPI-only laptop have decent battery life.
Do I like the theory of Debian? Yes, and for me, the reality is just as good. Oh, in addition to installing flawlessly on my tricky laptop, Debian worked equally well for me on an old Alpha and a NetWinder. RH/MDK/FBSD all refused to install on that particular Alpha, and no other distro that I know of supports the NetWinder.
Apt-get is great, but it is only one part of what makes Debian the respected quality distribution that it is. I've had no more issues setting up USB (or anything else really) with Debian than I have with any other OS I've used recently.
"It is time for a new approach, hopefully one that is backward compatable with previous packaging systems, but which provides a unified distribution mechanism for binaries, while allowing different distributions to do things in their own way."
Hmm... isn't that what the LSB is all about? Giving a known base that you can build on?
Hmmm.. I agree with this line of reasoning. However, so far the track record is poor at best. This strategy has been followed by several companies already:
- Storm Linux
- Progeny Linux
- Corel Linux
- Xandros
- Libranet
Of those, only Libranet is moderately successful. This is mostly because they are very niche and have very low costs. I thought Progeny would make it, but they didn't. Xandros has had Corel's code base for years now and have yet to release anything. HP is selling Blade servers with Debian pre-installed, but other than that, commercial Debian is almost non-existant.
It's too bad, I really think there ought to be a decent market for someone who can pull of a commercial Debian-based install every six months. Really, I guess Potato + Ximian Gnome approaches this.
Oh-well, maybe one day a solid commercial Debian will become a reality.
Ben
I just got a laptop using the Athlon 4 processor. It's been on most of the day, and the keyboard and glidepoint are actually warm.
This is an interesting way for AMD to help keep people working reasonable hours.. Here's hoping Compaq knows best. If this thing melts I'll be fairly dissapointed.
I listen occasionally listen to real audio CDs on the following devices:
- One of our PCs (all running Linux..)
- My Rio Volt
- Our Apex DVD player
This means that pretty soon I won't be able to listen to audio CDs on my own players even if I want to.I have never used Napster (or similar services) as I think it's morally wrong and illegal. However, if I can't go out, buy an audio CD, rip it and listen to it then I consider myself forced into using one of these means to acquire the music I want.
I have absolutely no qualms with paying $20 for a CD. I always get my money out of it, provided the disc doesn't suck. Frankly, at the rate we buy CDs I don't even mind occasionally paying for a dud. I will, however, refuse to buy something I can't use.
End of story.
As has been reported ad nauseum, this does absolutely nothing to curb illegal copying of these songs. All it does is anger good customers. If I, a paying, legal customer, am going to be treated like a criminal, I may as well act the part.
So, here's my ultimatum to the recording industry: Stop this ridiculous behaviour or I will cease to be a customer. As soon as I buy a CD that I actually want (sorry Celine) and can no longer rip and listen to in MP3 form I will cease buying CDs at all and will start making use of one of these napster/kazaa/limewire type services. I don't want to do this. I still think it's illegal, I still think it's wrong, but I think that punishing all customers for the sake of a few, who will pirate anyway, is worse, not to mention a dangerous precedent. I won't stand for it.
If the record industry won't play fair neither will I. I know I'm only one person, I realize that the recording industry probably doesn't care about me, but I buy about 30 CDs a year. That's $600 they lose from me. Pretty insignificant in the big scheme, but it's all I can do. I will continue to listen to the music I want in the form I want.
Originally found on:
8 21 5112&list=2311
http://www.geocrawler.com/mail/msg.php3?msg_id=
FROM: Bill Hayden
DATE: 03/26/2002 06:59:50
SUBJECT: [Atheos-developer] Atheos Fork Announcement
Well, it was not my intent to announce this quite this soon, but given
the recent conversation on the list, I feel that it's best not to wait
any longer.
I forked Atheos about 6 months ago and have been continuously developing
it since that time. I've taken it in some very new directions. I
should warn you that some of you will absolutely love the changes, and
some of you will perhaps feel that the "dream" of Atheos has been sold out.
The new project has had a name since the beginning, but I'm going to
hold off on releasing that until I can verify that the domain names and
trademark are secure. So I'll call it "New Atheos" for the purposes of
this e-mail.
New Atheos has the following major new features:
o Runs on top of the Linux kernel, not the Atheos kernel
o Atheos API has been merged with the BeOS API
o PowerPC support
o gcc 3.0.X compatiblity
o OpenTracker/Deskbar desktop manager
These features give the following benefits:
o Most BeOS programs compile and run with little or no changes
o Linux kernel means that CD-ROM, CD booting and installing, DHCP, etc.
work
o Linux kernel means that driver support is excellent
o Mac users get a piece of the action
Things I haven't even started on:
o Printing
o Media Kit
o Replicants
Existing Atheos programs will need changes to compile. I haven't found
one that took me longer than a few minutes to "convert". Where Atheos
and BeOS use different semantics, I chose the BeOS method.
I am going to hold off on a release until I can successfully compile and
run OpenTracker and Deskbar. They use just about every obsolete and
goofy BeOS construct that exists. I'm most of the way there, though,
especially for Deskbar. Kurt wasn't lying when he said it would be a
nightmare to port them. Of course, I'm doing an "anti-port". When some
BeOS program won't compile, I change the API to match it instead of
changing the program itself.
The first BeOS program that successfully came up was Pulse, and there
was no small amoung of satisfaction to see good ole' Pulse running on my
new system. Nostalgic BeOS users can perhaps understand.
I'm writing in a hurry, so hopefully I haven't forgotten something
important. And no, I can't give a release date yet. I hope to have a
CVS server up at the time of release.
Thanks,
Bill Hayden
Want to see speed in changeing directories? Try Rox or XFTree.
I mean, come on. We're talking about _changing directories_. This is what a file manager does! I can understand it being slow in generating HTML pages of image galleries or something, but changing subdirectories slowly is like a text editor that can't keep up with what a user types.
I played with Garnome a bit, and Nautilus does seem to be better now. I still get odd errors all over the place. Warnings about the "History" and "News" panels. It's a file manager!! Why do I need history or news? And why is it giving me errors about the above?
Maybe if someone stripped out all that extra "stuff" that only seems to weigh Nautilus down it wouldn't be too painful to use.. I do like their script support and music views, though.
I know there will be lots of people posting about window manager XYZ or the like, but I have finally settled on a very usable and very fast configuration that I think should not be overlooked.
I run the following:
DE/WM: XFce
File Manager/Desktop icons: Rox filer/XFtree
Web Browser: Galeon, Opera or Dillo
Mail Client: Sylpheed or Evolution
Word Processor: AbiWord, Applix or WP8
Other Desktop apps: Gnumeric, JPilot
I have two machines: An Athlon 900 with 768MB of RAM and an old Laptop. A P233 with 64MB RAM. I find that the above works perfectly on either. Initially I set XFce/Rox/Sylpheed/Dillo up just for the laptop. At the time I was using KDE on the big machine. Then I realized how much all of the fancy integration costs. KDE was unusable on the laptop, Gnome without Nautilus or GMC was okay, but XFce etc. put them all to shame.
Rox is a great file manager. It's blindingly fast, has lots of features normally only associated with Natilus or Knoqueror, and is very tiny. Same goes for XFce.
Also, XFce has very good keyboard bindings that just make sense.
If I was going to create a distribution tomorrow I would use the above setup as the default rather than KDE or Gnome. The apps are great, but the overall weight of the system is just too much. I find XFce on my Debian Potato laptop is finally about as fast as Win95 was on the same machine. Oh, and PCMCIA actually works better on that machine in Linux than it did in Windows.
Honestly, XFce and Rox are such nice programs, I'm really shocked that more people don't use them. They're fast, the developers are responsive, and the programs are small and stable. I used to cringe when people would tell me that they were installing Linux onto a machine with lower specs than my laptop. It doesn't have to be that way.
As for the apps, most Gtk apps that I use seem to be as fast as you could expect. Xmms, Gnumeric, abiword, jpilot, even gimp are all quite fast considering what they do. Personally, I'm impressed that the author got StarOffice to work as well as he did. I tried OpenOffice on my laptop. I started it up, a few minutes later the HD was still thrashing. I gave up and logged out. Works great on the Athlon, though, and build 642 seems a bit faster. Applix and WordPerfect 8 are _much_ faster. In fact, I'd argue that recent builds of AbiWord aren't actually much speedier than WordPerfect 8 for Linux.
Anyway, there's my 2 cents.
Actually, are there any concrete examples of a company ensuring that their app works under WINE and _then_ porting it to Linux natively? I am not aware of any. Certainly this was never Corel's long-term goal with WPOffice..
If you were AOL and Mozilla was a Win32-only app that ran fine under Linux using WINE why would you bother with all of the (arguably excellent) underlying architecture that they have provided?
I've heard this argument before, but I just don't think it's true. I could see a company porting to Qt (or Gtk) as a stepping-stone to full Linux support, but what is the incentive for a company to have two code-bases once their app works in both Windows and Linux?
Ben