Even though this system is five years newer, many analysts estimate the processing power of Nintendo's Wii U to be just ahead of what you have in the Xbox 360 today.
That may be so, but the style of play and the games themselves are still much more appealing to certain people, generally those who are considered casual gamers. The Wii hardware was a joke compared to that of the PS3 or XBOX 360, but the games were interesting and involving for folks who didn't want to spend hours upon hours leveling-up and shooting people, and Nintendo had Mario, Zelda, etc. It isn't all about processing power, which is why the Wii was able to sell so well despite lacking in capabilities. Expect the Wii U to be hard to find in the USA by Christmas time, since it is reasonably priced, adds significant functionality (1080p, innovative controllers), has no new competitors, and is launching with a number of pretty decent looking games.
I see two potential options that MIGHT allow a DVD rental company to stay above water. For the first, you could change the focus to porn and market more to the folks who like that sort of thing. For the second option, you're going to need a time machine, since nobody wants to go to a store to rent DVDs anymore and there is too much competition from RedBox and everything on the internet. Other than that, trying to keep that sort of business alive seems like an exercise in futility and being poor.
Don't overreact to this news, folks. While it is slightly disappointing to see a government dump OpenOffice, there are a few more things to consider. For one, they are not using LibreOffice, the best open office suite, in my opinion. And we are also only talking about Freiburg, a city with a population of less than 250,000. If this had said Akron, OH, Chula Vista, CA or Hialeah, FL were ready to go back to MS, I doubt anyone would blink.
They should be sticking to LibreOffice. I use it without trouble, mainly on Linux Mint, and occasionally on Windows when I am forced. Maybe Apache will fix the Oracle debacle and bring the project around yet, but I strongly prefer what the Document Foundation have done with LibreOffice. When projects are forked, sometimes ya gotta make a choice, and I think Freiburg made the wrong one.
...whereby it dies on closing the lid on a toshiba NB550d, I shall sacrifice many fatted oxen on the appropriate altar.
Please ask about this in the Linux Mint community forums, at forums.linuxmint.com. I had the same problem with my Toshiba Satellite L775D, and someone there helped me to configure my Mint properly, and now it works fine. I don't remember what config file I edited (and I'm using LM Debian Edition on this laptop), but it worked like a charm. Please file a bug report and ask for a fix in the forums, as there is probably a way to fix that. There is so much hardware fragmentation to deal with that issues like this will crop up (and everything is made for freaking Windows), and if we all pitch in just a tiny bit we can continue to make progress. Linux Mint is usually so easy to use, and worth the effort when it isn't.
I'm not big on oxen. Got any lambs? mmmm... gyros....
Can you read? I didn't ask why we should care about Linux, I asked why, out of all the gazillion Linux distros, we should care about this one?
Can you Google? Linux Mint is currently one of the most innovative distros around, perhaps the best desktop distro, and easily one of the most popular. It has enough of a history and has grown enough for anyone to take it seriously, and is highly functional and well-polished compared to most distros. Reviews are generally stellar, it is compatible with Ubuntu but better, a variety of desktop environments are well-supported, hardware compatibility is top-notch, the installer and update tools are excellent, it looks good, there is great community support, etc. etc...
Really, I'm not trying to be an ass, but I feel Linux Mint is about as good as it gets right now as far as desktop Linux distros, and I am far from alone. Mint puts Ubuntu and that Unity debacle to shame, and it also bests Fedora/RHEL/CentOS/Scientific, SUSE/OpenSUSE, Debian, Arch, Slackware, Mageia, and whatever else you want to label a "major" distro. I've looked at numerous distros since before Mint existed, and I honestly feel that Mint keeps getting better and has truly begun to pull away from the pack.
I am biased and have used Linux Mint every day for five years now, I have always been happy with it, and I am happier than ever with it now. But all bias aside, it is a damned good distro, and popular for a reason.
Maybe everybody but me keeps up with all the strange little Linux distros. But I don't. So just for stupid people like me, could all these breathless distro update announcements take just a little time to explain why I should give a shit about their distro? What does it have to offer that better-known distros do not?
Should I give a shit about Windows 8, which is getting tons of mentions everywhere but is a huge step backwards? I don't care about it, but guess what, lots of people do. Same deal with you and Mint, which is the top desktop Linux distro today. It is not strange or little in any way. Linux Mint has become what Ubuntu intended to be - an easy to use distro that is complete, has plenty of community support, and makes for a great desktop OS, though it is now even better than Ubuntu and is gaining market share faster. Mint is big, and not some niche distro or a johnny-come-lately that just repackages Ubuntu with new wallpaper and a few apps and codecs, it is a driving force in the Linux community. Check it out for yourself.
Wait, you WANT Unity, and are hesitant to try Mint because it DOESN'T have it? If you actually like Unity and can get by with it, good for you, and stick to Ubuntu. One of Mint's main selling points is that it does NOT rely on Unity, which many of us find absolutely abhorrent. MATE is included or available, and is essentially GNOME 2, which was fine. Cinnamon is something new, and is very agreeable to folks who liked GNOME 2, while being a newer project that is showing a lot of potential. KDE just doesn't jibe with some of us, but Mint supports it, and I know I speak for a LOT of people when I say GNOME 3 can suck it. Or if your needs are simple you can use XFCE, and now there's MDM, which I am not yet familiar with. So Mint comes with a lot of choices, just not Unity, thank God.
You must be new here. Mint has been mentioned plenty of times on/., has been in the top few most popular on Distrowatch and received a lot of attention from several other top Linux and OS sites for a few years now, and has gained a ton more popularity since the GNOME project went nuts and Ubuntu accepted GNOME 3 and went with that Unity BS. Mint is a "major" distro in the opinion of many, and is becoming THE distro for home/desktop use.
Yes, Ubuntu's goofy naming scheme is a little odd, especially now that they are supposed to be a legitimate leader in the field. In contrast, Linux Mint was, and still largely is, the pet project of one man who likes to give his releases women's names, which seems less strange. I'm not saying I like the names, and in fact I use Mint and always go by version numbers rather than the names, but to each his own.
I don't care about the name and just hope LM14 works and Cinnamon progresses, though I still prefer Mint's Debian Edition to the Ubuntu-based versions.
Whomever started this naming version releases by nick name should be shot. Is this named Nadia because that is the wife of the main developer and he had to show some love otherwise he's never get some love again?
Me, If i developed anything and name it nice names, like "Fuckoff" "sloppyshit", "kludge", and "ididyourmom"
I guess we all need to feel cool.
Well, Clement Lefebvre has been naming his Mint releases since he started the project, something like six years ago, so I doubt he is going to stop now just because a few people think the whole concept is dumb. And you are free to create something and name it "fuckoff" or "sloppyshit" if you so desire. In fact, I recommend you go spend some time on that and less time whining here.
Ripping on other people's projects for no reason is childish.
I agree that VMware is a good choice, since it is relatively polished, capable, and stable. However, the cost of Virtualbox is rather attractive, and I have used it with success, as well. For a true beginner, VMware might be the easiest, but you might as well give Virtualbox a shot if you just want to learn and mess around. The fact that Virtualbox is free should not be taken to indicate that it is not a viable alternative. I have no experience with Xen.
Hillary Clinton took full responsibility for the lack of security, and of course the media let it die out right there and not have any negative repercussions on Obama or his administration in general.
No, "the media" did not stop once Queen Hillary claimed responsibility. I heard an awful lot about it after that, and I still do. It isn't the number one most important issue we have, but it did not go away because of some massive conspiracy designed to keep Obama in office, nor has it gone away yet. I think you phrased it wrong and what you meant to say is, "I'm a right-wing extremist and a sore loser who blames everything I don't like on vast, unprovable, vague conspiracies." Sorry if our guy isn't perfect and doesn't micromanage every aspect of every department, though I think that is for the best.
Interesting analogy. To be safe, I will continue to refrain from having sex with whores, other dudes (especially the gays), and IV drugs users, and I will continue to avoid MS products as much as possible. Here's to Linux and safe, heterosexual sex!*
* I do not believe or assert that using Linux is anything like having sex, nor do I live in my mom's basement
Many old apps won't run, not because they are detected as malware or are inherently inferior, but so you'll have to pay more money for new one. Typical MS.
Really? I've seen some pretty nasty looking, mold-infested bananas before. Hell, I can't even finish a bunch before at least one or two get soft and gross. I've been running Linux nearly exclusively for five years and it has never had the same problem, nor even one virus.
Wait, a paper ballot in Ohio, Cuyahoga County? In Portage, I was told a paper ballot was not available for me. I wonder if this varied by county or whether my local poll workers (nice ladies) or local board dropped the ball here. Great, now I've got a little digging to do...
Don't be ridiculous. You're right about the variety of people who depend on a wide range of industries for their income, but you've missed something: we seem to have plenty of hillbillies in the North, too!
More seriously, it is about urban/rural more than North/South, as no one in Ohio would say Columbus is part of Northern Ohio, and there are rural counties even in Cleveland's region - Ashtabula, Trumbull, Wayne, Ashland, etc.
I'm curious...why is OH pretty much always a swing state?!?!
In general terms, Ohio is sort of a microcosm of the country as a whole. It has sizable urban and rural populations, people depend both on agriculture and manufacturing, it has significant ethnic and racial minorities, and it is historically a hotly-contested state. Couple that with the fact that the polls have been very close and the expectation that voting results for Ohio will come in very late, and you've naturally got a lot of eyes on the Buckeye state.
I'm fine with it. The hard copy matched what I entered. We all (in Ohio) know we're in for recounts regardless of whether the equipment is ok.
I'm less worried about a "normal" recount than I am about the apparent margin of victory being well less than the number of provisional ballots cast. We're expecting a ridiculously large number of provisional ballots, which could ultimately prevent the election from being decided by tomorrow or even next week. I suppose if Florida somehow ends up being decided first and goes to Obama this will all be of little consequence.
Not quite, according to salon.com, "uncertified, 'experimental' software patches have been installed on machines in 39 counties of the key swing state."
Not quite? There are 88 counties in Ohio, so you have no idea whether this person used the same machine/software as two years ago. What I used today in Ohio sure looked to be the same as two years ago, right down to the crappy review page at the end. In truth, I have no idea, but you also can't say without more information.
I voted around 5:00 PM in my town, which is about 45 minutes from Cleveland. No line whatsoever, even at what is traditionally a peak time. Friends elsewhere in Portage County and Lake County said there were no lines for them in the morning.
The Diebold touchscreen machine I used appeared to accept my choices properly, and printed correctly. However, when I reviewed my selections before finalizing and printing, it probably took me a tense 30 seconds or so to find the scroll bar on the LEFT side of the review page, and the whole thing was a dense, jumbled mess to read. The glare on the screen also made things unnecessarily difficult. In 2008 I requested and was given a paper ballot, though these were not available this time around. At least these machines print a paper record as a backup (which was VERY hard to read through a little magnifier window and didn't scroll up as far as it looked like it should have), and I hope these are not simply thrown away this time, as they were in some Ohio precincts in 2000. The Diebold machine = piece of over priced crap, but probably worked.
Slashdot Mirror
Even though this system is five years newer, many analysts estimate the processing power of Nintendo's Wii U to be just ahead of what you have in the Xbox 360 today.
That may be so, but the style of play and the games themselves are still much more appealing to certain people, generally those who are considered casual gamers. The Wii hardware was a joke compared to that of the PS3 or XBOX 360, but the games were interesting and involving for folks who didn't want to spend hours upon hours leveling-up and shooting people, and Nintendo had Mario, Zelda, etc. It isn't all about processing power, which is why the Wii was able to sell so well despite lacking in capabilities. Expect the Wii U to be hard to find in the USA by Christmas time, since it is reasonably priced, adds significant functionality (1080p, innovative controllers), has no new competitors, and is launching with a number of pretty decent looking games.
I see two potential options that MIGHT allow a DVD rental company to stay above water. For the first, you could change the focus to porn and market more to the folks who like that sort of thing. For the second option, you're going to need a time machine, since nobody wants to go to a store to rent DVDs anymore and there is too much competition from RedBox and everything on the internet. Other than that, trying to keep that sort of business alive seems like an exercise in futility and being poor.
Don't overreact to this news, folks. While it is slightly disappointing to see a government dump OpenOffice, there are a few more things to consider. For one, they are not using LibreOffice, the best open office suite, in my opinion. And we are also only talking about Freiburg, a city with a population of less than 250,000. If this had said Akron, OH, Chula Vista, CA or Hialeah, FL were ready to go back to MS, I doubt anyone would blink.
They should be sticking to LibreOffice. I use it without trouble, mainly on Linux Mint, and occasionally on Windows when I am forced. Maybe Apache will fix the Oracle debacle and bring the project around yet, but I strongly prefer what the Document Foundation have done with LibreOffice. When projects are forked, sometimes ya gotta make a choice, and I think Freiburg made the wrong one.
Your problem is in the title - most things are slow and unwieldly on a Mac.
...whereby it dies on closing the lid on a toshiba NB550d, I shall sacrifice many fatted oxen on the appropriate altar.
Please ask about this in the Linux Mint community forums, at forums.linuxmint.com. I had the same problem with my Toshiba Satellite L775D, and someone there helped me to configure my Mint properly, and now it works fine. I don't remember what config file I edited (and I'm using LM Debian Edition on this laptop), but it worked like a charm. Please file a bug report and ask for a fix in the forums, as there is probably a way to fix that. There is so much hardware fragmentation to deal with that issues like this will crop up (and everything is made for freaking Windows), and if we all pitch in just a tiny bit we can continue to make progress. Linux Mint is usually so easy to use, and worth the effort when it isn't.
I'm not big on oxen. Got any lambs? mmmm... gyros....
Can you read? I didn't ask why we should care about Linux, I asked why, out of all the gazillion Linux distros, we should care about this one?
Can you Google? Linux Mint is currently one of the most innovative distros around, perhaps the best desktop distro, and easily one of the most popular. It has enough of a history and has grown enough for anyone to take it seriously, and is highly functional and well-polished compared to most distros. Reviews are generally stellar, it is compatible with Ubuntu but better, a variety of desktop environments are well-supported, hardware compatibility is top-notch, the installer and update tools are excellent, it looks good, there is great community support, etc. etc...
Really, I'm not trying to be an ass, but I feel Linux Mint is about as good as it gets right now as far as desktop Linux distros, and I am far from alone. Mint puts Ubuntu and that Unity debacle to shame, and it also bests Fedora/RHEL/CentOS/Scientific, SUSE/OpenSUSE, Debian, Arch, Slackware, Mageia, and whatever else you want to label a "major" distro. I've looked at numerous distros since before Mint existed, and I honestly feel that Mint keeps getting better and has truly begun to pull away from the pack.
I am biased and have used Linux Mint every day for five years now, I have always been happy with it, and I am happier than ever with it now. But all bias aside, it is a damned good distro, and popular for a reason.
Maybe everybody but me keeps up with all the strange little Linux distros. But I don't. So just for stupid people like me, could all these breathless distro update announcements take just a little time to explain why I should give a shit about their distro? What does it have to offer that better-known distros do not?
Should I give a shit about Windows 8, which is getting tons of mentions everywhere but is a huge step backwards? I don't care about it, but guess what, lots of people do. Same deal with you and Mint, which is the top desktop Linux distro today. It is not strange or little in any way. Linux Mint has become what Ubuntu intended to be - an easy to use distro that is complete, has plenty of community support, and makes for a great desktop OS, though it is now even better than Ubuntu and is gaining market share faster. Mint is big, and not some niche distro or a johnny-come-lately that just repackages Ubuntu with new wallpaper and a few apps and codecs, it is a driving force in the Linux community. Check it out for yourself.
Wait, you WANT Unity, and are hesitant to try Mint because it DOESN'T have it? If you actually like Unity and can get by with it, good for you, and stick to Ubuntu. One of Mint's main selling points is that it does NOT rely on Unity, which many of us find absolutely abhorrent. MATE is included or available, and is essentially GNOME 2, which was fine. Cinnamon is something new, and is very agreeable to folks who liked GNOME 2, while being a newer project that is showing a lot of potential. KDE just doesn't jibe with some of us, but Mint supports it, and I know I speak for a LOT of people when I say GNOME 3 can suck it. Or if your needs are simple you can use XFCE, and now there's MDM, which I am not yet familiar with. So Mint comes with a lot of choices, just not Unity, thank God.
You must be new here. Mint has been mentioned plenty of times on /., has been in the top few most popular on Distrowatch and received a lot of attention from several other top Linux and OS sites for a few years now, and has gained a ton more popularity since the GNOME project went nuts and Ubuntu accepted GNOME 3 and went with that Unity BS. Mint is a "major" distro in the opinion of many, and is becoming THE distro for home/desktop use.
Yes, Ubuntu's goofy naming scheme is a little odd, especially now that they are supposed to be a legitimate leader in the field. In contrast, Linux Mint was, and still largely is, the pet project of one man who likes to give his releases women's names, which seems less strange. I'm not saying I like the names, and in fact I use Mint and always go by version numbers rather than the names, but to each his own.
I don't care about the name and just hope LM14 works and Cinnamon progresses, though I still prefer Mint's Debian Edition to the Ubuntu-based versions.
Whomever started this naming version releases by nick name should be shot. Is this named Nadia because that is the wife of the main developer and he had to show some love otherwise he's never get some love again?
Me, If i developed anything and name it nice names, like "Fuckoff" "sloppyshit", "kludge", and "ididyourmom"
I guess we all need to feel cool.
Well, Clement Lefebvre has been naming his Mint releases since he started the project, something like six years ago, so I doubt he is going to stop now just because a few people think the whole concept is dumb. And you are free to create something and name it "fuckoff" or "sloppyshit" if you so desire. In fact, I recommend you go spend some time on that and less time whining here.
Ripping on other people's projects for no reason is childish.
I guess we all need to feel cool.
I agree that VMware is a good choice, since it is relatively polished, capable, and stable. However, the cost of Virtualbox is rather attractive, and I have used it with success, as well. For a true beginner, VMware might be the easiest, but you might as well give Virtualbox a shot if you just want to learn and mess around. The fact that Virtualbox is free should not be taken to indicate that it is not a viable alternative. I have no experience with Xen.
Hillary Clinton took full responsibility for the lack of security, and of course the media let it die out right there and not have any negative repercussions on Obama or his administration in general.
No, "the media" did not stop once Queen Hillary claimed responsibility. I heard an awful lot about it after that, and I still do. It isn't the number one most important issue we have, but it did not go away because of some massive conspiracy designed to keep Obama in office, nor has it gone away yet. I think you phrased it wrong and what you meant to say is, "I'm a right-wing extremist and a sore loser who blames everything I don't like on vast, unprovable, vague conspiracies." Sorry if our guy isn't perfect and doesn't micromanage every aspect of every department, though I think that is for the best.
Interesting analogy. To be safe, I will continue to refrain from having sex with whores, other dudes (especially the gays), and IV drugs users, and I will continue to avoid MS products as much as possible. Here's to Linux and safe, heterosexual sex!*
* I do not believe or assert that using Linux is anything like having sex, nor do I live in my mom's basement
Many old apps won't run, not because they are detected as malware or are inherently inferior, but so you'll have to pay more money for new one. Typical MS.
Windows 8 allows 15% of previously-known malware to infect systems.
That's exactly what I got out of all this! 15% built-in fail, right off the shelf.
Really? I've seen some pretty nasty looking, mold-infested bananas before. Hell, I can't even finish a bunch before at least one or two get soft and gross. I've been running Linux nearly exclusively for five years and it has never had the same problem, nor even one virus.
Wait, a paper ballot in Ohio, Cuyahoga County? In Portage, I was told a paper ballot was not available for me. I wonder if this varied by county or whether my local poll workers (nice ladies) or local board dropped the ball here. Great, now I've got a little digging to do...
Don't be ridiculous. You're right about the variety of people who depend on a wide range of industries for their income, but you've missed something: we seem to have plenty of hillbillies in the North, too!
More seriously, it is about urban/rural more than North/South, as no one in Ohio would say Columbus is part of Northern Ohio, and there are rural counties even in Cleveland's region - Ashtabula, Trumbull, Wayne, Ashland, etc.
I'm curious...why is OH pretty much always a swing state?!?!
In general terms, Ohio is sort of a microcosm of the country as a whole. It has sizable urban and rural populations, people depend both on agriculture and manufacturing, it has significant ethnic and racial minorities, and it is historically a hotly-contested state. Couple that with the fact that the polls have been very close and the expectation that voting results for Ohio will come in very late, and you've naturally got a lot of eyes on the Buckeye state.
I'm fine with it. The hard copy matched what I entered. We all (in Ohio) know we're in for recounts regardless of whether the equipment is ok.
I'm less worried about a "normal" recount than I am about the apparent margin of victory being well less than the number of provisional ballots cast. We're expecting a ridiculously large number of provisional ballots, which could ultimately prevent the election from being decided by tomorrow or even next week. I suppose if Florida somehow ends up being decided first and goes to Obama this will all be of little consequence.
Not quite, according to salon.com, "uncertified, 'experimental' software patches have been installed on machines in 39 counties of the key swing state."
Not quite? There are 88 counties in Ohio, so you have no idea whether this person used the same machine/software as two years ago. What I used today in Ohio sure looked to be the same as two years ago, right down to the crappy review page at the end. In truth, I have no idea, but you also can't say without more information.
I voted around 5:00 PM in my town, which is about 45 minutes from Cleveland. No line whatsoever, even at what is traditionally a peak time. Friends elsewhere in Portage County and Lake County said there were no lines for them in the morning.
The Diebold touchscreen machine I used appeared to accept my choices properly, and printed correctly. However, when I reviewed my selections before finalizing and printing, it probably took me a tense 30 seconds or so to find the scroll bar on the LEFT side of the review page, and the whole thing was a dense, jumbled mess to read. The glare on the screen also made things unnecessarily difficult. In 2008 I requested and was given a paper ballot, though these were not available this time around. At least these machines print a paper record as a backup (which was VERY hard to read through a little magnifier window and didn't scroll up as far as it looked like it should have), and I hope these are not simply thrown away this time, as they were in some Ohio precincts in 2000. The Diebold machine = piece of over priced crap, but probably worked.
Gonna be a long night, I'm afraid...
Good lord, what is my life coming to? I read the title as something about a "digital penis on Linux."