In the meantime though I would like to suggest a system where most common large "packages" of software were compiled and posted some place on the net that Gentoo users could download them.
This is my problem with yum - it is god awful slow.
That's a complaint about yum, not about RPM. There are other dependency-resolving tools for RPM, including urpmi, yast and (surprise) apt. Yast and apt don't exhibit the annoying behavior of which you write.
Similarly other posts say that the advantage of apt is the Debian repositories. That's an advantage of Debian, not of apt. Ubuntu uses apt and dpkg, yet Ubuntu's package repository != Debian's package repository.
Every distribution I know of uses one program and format to keep track of installed packages and to figure out the dependencies needed (e.g. dpkg, rpm, ebuild) and another program to query repositories and automate the process of fetching needed packages (e.g. apt, urpmi, yum, emerge). A lot of grief directed at RPM has nothing to do with RPM and is instead better directed at the tools that query repositories and fetch packages. Similarly, credit for Debian's repositories belongs to Debian's maintainers, not to the wonders of apt.
Almost everyone who has a cell phone has free domestic long distance. This sounds like an amazing offer, but it's giving people nothing they didn't have before. It might get a few more people to actually try Skype, but the practical uses of this offer are almost nonexistent.
I have a cell phone and planned to use only it when I moved into this apartment, but the service is very unreliable here. Calls drop all the time. Then I got Vonage, which was good for several months, but then went downhill. Now I have an old fashioned phone. Cell phones don't solve all problems yet.
Besides, the Linux desktop revolution is pretty much over anyway, isn't it?
Over in the U.S., yes. Actually that's being charitable--it never got started in the U.S. And I say that as a daily Linux user who could easily wipe Windows off his machine. Windows is entrenched and inertia will keep it going. OS X will have more impact on US desktops than Linux ever could, and even OS X will not deliver some knockout blow.
I'm not so sure about other countries though. There are political reasons why other governments wouldn't want too much riding on the fortunes of a big U.S. software company. We Americans got hooked on expensive proprietary software, but I'm not sure other countries will make the same mistake as they develop. And if initiatives like One Laptop Per Child take off, they probably won't use Windows either.
Furthermore, computing tends to take unforseen turns, even in developed markets like the U.S. People are using new devices to do computing tasks, like cell phones and digital cameras. These gizmos don't use Windows. Neither will the new Play Station.
So no, I don't think we'll ever see a "Linux Desktop Revolution" in the US. The "this will be the year of the Linux desktop" people really just need to give up on that fantasy and focus on something more productive: There are vast new markets out there for computers, and I don't see why MS will necessarily dominate those markets.
Either it's spam, or it's a scam
on
Vonage going IPO
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· Score: 1
So, there are two possibilities here. First, maybe this is a phishing scam. Second, maybe the voicemail is "legitimate," in which case Vonage is using its voicemail system to spam its customers.
Either way the answer is obvious: don't touch the stock.
There are many characters like ctrl, alt, home, and such that don't travel well over telnet.
And on laptops. My laptop sticks these buttons in strange locations that I can't hit by touch. It also shrinks the buttons. With Vim the only non-alphanumeric button I need to hit is escape. I never thought a computer as technologically advanced as a laptop would benefit from an editor with roots as old as Vim, but it does.
I know I don't "get my money's worth" from Netflix compared to renting in a Blockbuster store. Lately I watch about three discs a month. The Netflix is something like $17 a month, so renting them in store probably would be cheaper.
But then I would have to go to the store, find out that they don't have what I originally wanted, pick something else from the paltry selection, wait in the ridiculously long line, and then return the thing a few days later.
$17 a month for convenience is worth it. I always have something new in my house that I can watch whenever I want.
Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition, part of the solution? No way, it's part of the problem!
Every minute a student spends with Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition is one less minute spent learning how to program, and one more minute spent learning how to use Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition. Microsoft IDEs are enormously complex tools. They're quite useful in the hands of professionals who know how to use them, but they're an impediment to actually learning how to program. Students need to learn how the nuts and bolts of programming work before they start using a Microsoft IDE, which attempts to write code for them.
The Kids Programming Language might be nice, but I can't see how it would be better than Python. Python is free and available for Mac, Linux, and Windows. There are great beginner books available for it, like Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner. Best of all, Python eliminates layer upon layer of abstraction that's in any IDE so that the student learns the logic that is programming.
Kids should learn how to program. Understandably though MS would rather have kids learn how to use Microsoft interfaces, the same way kids learn MS Word. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition is not about teaching kids to program; it's about giving them crippleware to hook them on the MS way.
As the article points out, Intel open sources the xorg drivers for its integrated graphics, like the GMA 950. No, it's not 3D, but for web browsing and probably even for watching DVDs, it'll do fine. There are alternatives to nvidia and ATI.
Big difference: with every Linux distro, every user gets the very best that the particular distro has to offer. There is no crippled version. At worst, a distro might have one version that doesn't have some proprietary packages, like OpenSUSE versus regular SUSE.
With Windows on the other hand, Microsoft intentionally cripples the lesser versions of Windows. Look at XP Home versus XP Pro, and how Microsoft intentionally crippled out of Home features that were in Pro. For example, XP Pro has advanced control over user permissions--the capability is on Home too, but MS crippled it out.
With Linux distros, the maintainers are adding as much functionality as they can. With Windows versions, MS figures out what functions it can remove, in order to goad users into spending more $$.
And since D-Link is not a brand with a great reputation in the segment of the population who knows HOW to do that,
What brand does have that reputation for consumer routers? Almost every consumer grade router I see out there gets bad reviews. Netgear, Dlink, Linksys, Belkin--all bad.
I have a Dlink DGL-4300, and it works perfectly--as far as I know. It's probably the most expensive Dlink out there.
But if there is a brand with a good reputation, I'd like to know about it. I hate crappy network equipment, but what's the good stuff?
Plenty of places sell notebooks without an OS. Try powernotebooks.com, which gets rave reviews. Or just search around for notebooks by ODMs like Asus. You can often buy these without an OS.
Dell now has real reason to be worried as they can't survive on that razor-thin margin without huge volume, and I'm betting sales of Apple hardware are going to spike very soon.
Naa, Dell's got nothing to worry about. Their bread and butter is enterprise accounts; home sales make up a very small percentage of their business. Enterprises won't start using Apple hardware just because it looks cool or runs Mac OS X. They'll take the boring black box every time, because it's cheaper. Apple's home sales might spike, but that hurts Dell very little.
Alienware is a more interesting question; maybe gamers would go for a slick Mac that also runs Windows, just because the Mac looks good.
You have a copy of Windows you can install? I ask because many POS Dells these days don't come with install disks at all. My older Dell does come with an install disk. But it will only work on a Dell--I've tried to use it to install Windows on non-Dells, and it refuses to work and gives some message about being for use with Dells only.
Of course you can just buy a retail version of Windows, but that knocks off some of your cost savings.
The MS license terms for copies sold with new PCs say something about how you can only use the Windows with that particular PC. Completely ridiculous, and a good way for MS to force buyers to buy a new Windows XP with a new PC even though the old PC (which is going into the junk bin) already has a Windows XP. I can cannibalize drives and monitors, but not the OS.
Strikes me as a safety feature. That way Windows viruses and spyware can't touch the Mac partition. For the same reason I'm glad Windows can't read or write to ReiserFS or ext3 (at least, not without installing things that I haven't installed.)
They already have commercials before the podcasts. "Support for NPR podcasts comes from Acura." Adding a short plug for money isn't much of a stretch.
The beg-a-thons are so irritating that I don't listen to public radio while they're going on. I once emailed my local station and suggested that they have a separate Internet feed for people who have given money. That would be the reward for donating: a beg-a-thon free version.
So IBM, Red Hat, Novell, etc. don't give to Open BSD, even though they use OpenSSH. I say, SO WHAT? Are they supposed to give pro rata to every software project they use? We could go down a list asking if they gave money to a whole bunch of projects: Gnome, KDE, GNU, X.org are some big ones. There are tons of other ones too: Vorbis, PHP, and who knows what else.
IBM, Red Hat, Novell, etc. already contribute to open source. Red Hat pays kernel devs! Novell has worked on XGL. If OpenSSH developers all suddenly decided to quit because of IBM, Red Hat, Novell, etc's lack of generosity, gratitude, and groveling, then someone would pick up the development and maintenance of this critical project. But I don't care if these giants don't give one dime to OpenSSH. They can only be expected to do what is in their best interest, and apparently they've decided that doesn't include giving to OpenSSH. I don't see why they should be expected to make pro rata contributions to every one of the THOUSANDS of open source projects that comprise any Linux distribution.
And, unless I'm missing something again, I think Microsoft still qualifies as a legally defined "monopoly", and this looks like leveraging their monopoly to unfairly skew market forces and competition.
Yes, MS has a monopoly in the desktop market, but not in the server market. Don't give MS too much credit.
Yeah, the story was rather disappointing in that it didn't realize the potential that Internet distribution has to remake the music landscape. Most artists already don't make money on recording deals, but record labels supply necessary distribution and promotion. That allows artists to make money by going on tour and drawing audiences. Now with the Internet, it's possible to cut out the middlemen altogether. The Net might destroy record labels in the same way it ruined Computer Shopper and the way it's hurting dead-tree newspapers now. But the article just talks about P2P from the same tired RIAA "piracy" perspective while failing to realize its potential.
The article can be summarized thus: 1) Apple releases iPod software that locks down the volume, therefore 2) Apple is so wonderful because they focus on customer service, which is why Apple beats everyone else, which is why people love Apple. 2) might be true, but 1) by itself does not prove it.
I know the scratches must be irritating...but do they impair the functionality of the device? Do they get so bad that you can't see the screen? Maybe they get so bad you can't see photos...but does it mean you can't see the song titles on the screen?
I'm not giving Apple a pass, but I'm just wondering if it's purely an aesthetic issue, even though appearance is one reason people buy Apple...
Slashdot Mirror
You're right, that's a great idea. It's called the Gentoo Linux Installer LiveCD.
That's a complaint about yum, not about RPM. There are other dependency-resolving tools for RPM, including urpmi, yast and (surprise) apt. Yast and apt don't exhibit the annoying behavior of which you write.
Similarly other posts say that the advantage of apt is the Debian repositories. That's an advantage of Debian, not of apt. Ubuntu uses apt and dpkg, yet Ubuntu's package repository != Debian's package repository.
Every distribution I know of uses one program and format to keep track of installed packages and to figure out the dependencies needed (e.g. dpkg, rpm, ebuild) and another program to query repositories and automate the process of fetching needed packages (e.g. apt, urpmi, yum, emerge). A lot of grief directed at RPM has nothing to do with RPM and is instead better directed at the tools that query repositories and fetch packages. Similarly, credit for Debian's repositories belongs to Debian's maintainers, not to the wonders of apt.
I have a cell phone and planned to use only it when I moved into this apartment, but the service is very unreliable here. Calls drop all the time. Then I got Vonage, which was good for several months, but then went downhill. Now I have an old fashioned phone. Cell phones don't solve all problems yet.
Does Opera have Adblock? If so I'll consider it...
Over in the U.S., yes. Actually that's being charitable--it never got started in the U.S. And I say that as a daily Linux user who could easily wipe Windows off his machine. Windows is entrenched and inertia will keep it going. OS X will have more impact on US desktops than Linux ever could, and even OS X will not deliver some knockout blow.
I'm not so sure about other countries though. There are political reasons why other governments wouldn't want too much riding on the fortunes of a big U.S. software company. We Americans got hooked on expensive proprietary software, but I'm not sure other countries will make the same mistake as they develop. And if initiatives like One Laptop Per Child take off, they probably won't use Windows either.
Furthermore, computing tends to take unforseen turns, even in developed markets like the U.S. People are using new devices to do computing tasks, like cell phones and digital cameras. These gizmos don't use Windows. Neither will the new Play Station.
So no, I don't think we'll ever see a "Linux Desktop Revolution" in the US. The "this will be the year of the Linux desktop" people really just need to give up on that fantasy and focus on something more productive: There are vast new markets out there for computers, and I don't see why MS will necessarily dominate those markets.
Either way the answer is obvious: don't touch the stock.
And on laptops. My laptop sticks these buttons in strange locations that I can't hit by touch. It also shrinks the buttons. With Vim the only non-alphanumeric button I need to hit is escape. I never thought a computer as technologically advanced as a laptop would benefit from an editor with roots as old as Vim, but it does.
But then I would have to go to the store, find out that they don't have what I originally wanted, pick something else from the paltry selection, wait in the ridiculously long line, and then return the thing a few days later.
$17 a month for convenience is worth it. I always have something new in my house that I can watch whenever I want.
It's important and interesting to point out that Red Hat is eliminating the Fedora Foundation.
Every minute a student spends with Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition is one less minute spent learning how to program, and one more minute spent learning how to use Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition. Microsoft IDEs are enormously complex tools. They're quite useful in the hands of professionals who know how to use them, but they're an impediment to actually learning how to program. Students need to learn how the nuts and bolts of programming work before they start using a Microsoft IDE, which attempts to write code for them.
The Kids Programming Language might be nice, but I can't see how it would be better than Python. Python is free and available for Mac, Linux, and Windows. There are great beginner books available for it, like Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner. Best of all, Python eliminates layer upon layer of abstraction that's in any IDE so that the student learns the logic that is programming.
Kids should learn how to program. Understandably though MS would rather have kids learn how to use Microsoft interfaces, the same way kids learn MS Word. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition is not about teaching kids to program; it's about giving them crippleware to hook them on the MS way.
As the article points out, Intel open sources the xorg drivers for its integrated graphics, like the GMA 950. No, it's not 3D, but for web browsing and probably even for watching DVDs, it'll do fine. There are alternatives to nvidia and ATI.
If MS can detect that your Vista is pirated, why not just shut down the Vista altogether? Instead they're just turning off eye candy.
MS wants money, but on the other hand it must realize that a user on a pirated Vista is better than a user on Linux.
With Windows on the other hand, Microsoft intentionally cripples the lesser versions of Windows. Look at XP Home versus XP Pro, and how Microsoft intentionally crippled out of Home features that were in Pro. For example, XP Pro has advanced control over user permissions--the capability is on Home too, but MS crippled it out.
With Linux distros, the maintainers are adding as much functionality as they can. With Windows versions, MS figures out what functions it can remove, in order to goad users into spending more $$.
I have a Dlink DGL-4300, and it works perfectly--as far as I know. It's probably the most expensive Dlink out there.
But if there is a brand with a good reputation, I'd like to know about it. I hate crappy network equipment, but what's the good stuff?
Plenty of places sell notebooks without an OS. Try powernotebooks.com, which gets rave reviews. Or just search around for notebooks by ODMs like Asus. You can often buy these without an OS.
Naa, Dell's got nothing to worry about. Their bread and butter is enterprise accounts; home sales make up a very small percentage of their business. Enterprises won't start using Apple hardware just because it looks cool or runs Mac OS X. They'll take the boring black box every time, because it's cheaper. Apple's home sales might spike, but that hurts Dell very little.
Alienware is a more interesting question; maybe gamers would go for a slick Mac that also runs Windows, just because the Mac looks good.
Of course you can just buy a retail version of Windows, but that knocks off some of your cost savings.
The MS license terms for copies sold with new PCs say something about how you can only use the Windows with that particular PC. Completely ridiculous, and a good way for MS to force buyers to buy a new Windows XP with a new PC even though the old PC (which is going into the junk bin) already has a Windows XP. I can cannibalize drives and monitors, but not the OS.
Strikes me as a safety feature. That way Windows viruses and spyware can't touch the Mac partition. For the same reason I'm glad Windows can't read or write to ReiserFS or ext3 (at least, not without installing things that I haven't installed.)
The beg-a-thons are so irritating that I don't listen to public radio while they're going on. I once emailed my local station and suggested that they have a separate Internet feed for people who have given money. That would be the reward for donating: a beg-a-thon free version.
IBM, Red Hat, Novell, etc. already contribute to open source. Red Hat pays kernel devs! Novell has worked on XGL. If OpenSSH developers all suddenly decided to quit because of IBM, Red Hat, Novell, etc's lack of generosity, gratitude, and groveling, then someone would pick up the development and maintenance of this critical project. But I don't care if these giants don't give one dime to OpenSSH. They can only be expected to do what is in their best interest, and apparently they've decided that doesn't include giving to OpenSSH. I don't see why they should be expected to make pro rata contributions to every one of the THOUSANDS of open source projects that comprise any Linux distribution.
Yes, MS has a monopoly in the desktop market, but not in the server market. Don't give MS too much credit.
Then by that measure Britannica is not authoritative either. No scholar would cite it. I couldn't even cite encyclopedias in high school.
Yeah, the story was rather disappointing in that it didn't realize the potential that Internet distribution has to remake the music landscape. Most artists already don't make money on recording deals, but record labels supply necessary distribution and promotion. That allows artists to make money by going on tour and drawing audiences. Now with the Internet, it's possible to cut out the middlemen altogether. The Net might destroy record labels in the same way it ruined Computer Shopper and the way it's hurting dead-tree newspapers now. But the article just talks about P2P from the same tired RIAA "piracy" perspective while failing to realize its potential.
The article can be summarized thus: 1) Apple releases iPod software that locks down the volume, therefore 2) Apple is so wonderful because they focus on customer service, which is why Apple beats everyone else, which is why people love Apple. 2) might be true, but 1) by itself does not prove it.
I'm not giving Apple a pass, but I'm just wondering if it's purely an aesthetic issue, even though appearance is one reason people buy Apple...