Linux is linux, whether it's an Ububtu or Mandriva desktop, a Red Hat server, an Android phone, or a supercomputer. The point is Linux is fast, Windows is slow.
Also, you can easily set the updater in winxp/vista/7/8 to only download updates
I have it set like that, but I got burned with an auto update on XP that replaced a perfectly good network driver for one that just wouldn't work. I want to see what it's updating.
and allows you to choose when you want to install/reboot your system.
Yeah, you have up to four hours to be nagged again to close all your tabs, documents, and programs and reboot before you have to open them all back up again. In Linux, you don't have to reboot. You click "update" and keep on working. Ironically I wouldn't mind having to boot Linux because it boots into the state it was in when you shut it down. You don't have to lose your place.
I'd google that for you, but I'm too busy being productive on my computer.
By purchasing and installing Windows XP you are entering into a contract with Microsoft that they will support your product for a reasonable amount of time. That time is over.
It isn't reasonable that the hardware would outlast the software - it isn't a reasonable amount of time. When only 5% has XP, then maybe that would be a reasonable time. It's a year older than my car, and if the temperature control (a digital device) goes out I can replace it. There's no way to repair Windows' defects. As to safety, you can expect almost all XP computers to be bots next year. If one person got control of all those XP computers they could take the internet down.
Almost nobody bought Windows. They bought a computer, and Windows was part of the deal. It's a shoddy product that won't last past a decade, my 2002 TV works fine. Why won't XP? Because Microsoft makes shitty products.
What Microsoft is doing is past irresponsible. It's dangerous.
You make incorrect assumptions about both computers and humans. I was in a head-on car wreck in 1976 -- my left front tire blew and I was thrown into oncoming traffic. The guy I hit didn't even have time to take his foot off the gas, let alone swerve. Had his car been autonomous he might not have been involved at all (my car was completely out of control, nothing but God was going to save me).
It's a shame that guy's not logged in, and that I don't have mod points, it was a good comment, but this was incorrect:
We've have one of the most unjust economic systems in over a hundred years no thanks to enablers such as yourself. And you know what eventually happened? See the 1930s, bub.
Actually, after WWI it was much worse.The 1920s looked like now, only worse. Citation:
On the day before the coal strike was due to begin, the Attorney-General secured from a Federal judge in Indianapolis an order enjoining the leaders of the strike from doing anything whatever to further it. He did this under the provisions of a food-and-fuel-control Act which forbade restriction of coal production during the war. In actual fact the war was not only over, it had been over for nearly a year: but legally it was not over-the Peace Treaty still languished in the Senate. This food-and-fuel-control law, in further actual fact, had been passed by the Senate after Senator Husting had explicitly declared that he was "authorized by the Secretary of Labor, Mr. Wilson, to say that the Administration does not construe this bill as prohibiting strikes and peaceful picketing and will not so construe it." But Mr. Palmer either had never heard of this assurance or cared nothing about it or decided that unforeseen conditions had arisen. He got his injunction, and the coal strike was doomed, although the next day something like four hundred thousand coal miners, now leaderless by decree of the Federal Government, walked out of the mines.
The public knew nothing of the broken pledge, of course; it would have been a bold newspaper proprietor who would have published Senator Husting's statement, even had he known about it. It took genuine courage for a paper even to say, as did the New York World at that time, that there was "no Bolshevist menace in the United States and no I. W. W. menace that an ordinarily capable police force is not competent to deal with." The press applauded the injunction as it had applauded Calvin Coolidge. The Fighting Quaker took heart. His next move was to direct a series of raids in which Communist leaders were rounded up for deportation to Russia, via Finland, on the ship Buford, jocosely known as the "Soviet Ark." Again there was enthusiasm-and apparently there was little concern over the right of the Administration to tear from their families men who had as yet committed no crime. Mr. Palmer decided to give the American public more of the same; and thereupon he carried through a new series of raids which set a new record in American history for executive transgression of individual constitutional rights.
Under the drastic war-time Sedition Act, the Secretary of Labor had the power to deport aliens who were anarchists, or believed in or advocated the overthrow of the government by violence, or were affiliated with any organization that so believed or advocated. Mr. Palmer now decided to "cooperate" with the Secretary of Labor by rounding up the alien membership of the Communist party for wholesale deportation. His under-cover agents had already worked their way into the organization; one of them, indeed, was said to have become a leader in his district (which raised the philosophical question whether government agents in such positions would have imperiled their jobs by counseling moderation among the comrades).
In scores of cities all over the United States, when the Communists were simultaneously meeting at their various headquarters on New Year's Day of 1920, Mr. Palmer's agents and police and voluntary aides fell upon them-fell upon everybody, in fact, who was in the hall, regardless of whether he was a Communist or not (how could one tell?)-and bundled them off to jail, with or without warrant. Every conceivable bit of evidence-literature, membership lists, books, papers, pictures on the wall, everything-was seized. On this and succeeding nights other Communists and suspected Communists were seized in their homes. Over six thousand men were arrested in all,
My point is that the answer to government created problems is not more government.
Indeed, the answer to government-created problems is better government, not more government or less government. If your legislators are of the opinion that government is always the problem, it will be. Just don't vote for those candidates. Since you seem to be a guy who wants small government, I'm guessing you're part of why the politicians in office are governing badly.
I keep seeing this meme more and more, and it's pure bullshit. I asked for a link once, the guy sent me to a page of stuff people got in trouble for and none of them were anything that the average person is likely to do! Illegally importing foods for a restaraunt, illegally owning dangerous animals, posession of feathers from endangered birds, stuff like that. Not normal people problems, rich people problems and weird people problems.
My day starts off with coffee and TV, drive to work, walk around the block on break, back to work, drive home for lunch stopping for beer for the evening, home for lunch, back to work, walk around the block on afternoon break, work, drive home, turn on the TV and open a beer. Get on slashdot, write in the book I'm working on, maybe walk down the street to a bar later.
Now tell me, besides the joint I lit when I got home from work, what law have I broken? Sure, a dishonest cop can pull you over and pin any kind of bullshit he wants on you (Monte Python parodied this effectively 40 years ago: "whatever did I give the Missus??" after the planted "dope" turns out to be a sandwich).
There's no possible way a NORMAL person is committing three Federal felonies a day, and there's nowhere you can point to back up that really stupid paranoid meme.
You know those little plastic frames that auto dealers put around your license plate, with the dealer's name on it? Well, as it turns out, where I live it is illegal to obscure any part of your license plate, which means that I was breaking the law by having that plastic frame overlap my plate along the edges and corners. It gave the state trooper probable cause to stop me. At least he didn't give me a ticket.
It would have cost you $40 if he had, not a stint in a federal prison. If you count jaywalking maybe the average does break the law three times a day, but most laws are minor, like traffic tickets. Nothing to be paranoid about.
Well, congrats to him for being modded +4 insightful. If I were moderating he'd be at +5, tool.
When the well runs dry, the survivors move to where the water is.
Where might that be, and how are the downtrodden to get there? History is repeating itself, fool. Read this history of the 1920s (required reading in a general studies undergrad history class I took in 1978, it's a very good read). The same shit is happening now. Then, it was Bolsheviks. Now, it's terrorists. Now you right wingers say "liberal" like it's an insult, then it was "socialist" when a working man wanted a living wage.
It led to the KKK, and even worse things (including the Great Depression). Read the book. Learn history, or be doomed to repeat it -- the same shit is happening now.
Call me old fashioned but to me, cars are meant to be driven.
Call me old fashioned, son, but cars are meant to be transportation, not toys for fun (unless you're on a private race track). Pontiac's "We build excitement" is ad copy, are you really stupid enough to believe that??
Did you know that the single biggest cause of death in people under 40 (probably you) is automobile accidents? cars ain't for fun, dufus, they're for taking you from one place to another. PERIOD. A car is a very dangerous piece of machinery. It is NOT a toy and is not for fun or "excitement".
Hmm, looks like ''yes". Why isn't that option presented when you set up a new computer? I shouldn't have to google to find if a feature is missing or merely hidden.
They are not spending any more money on a 12-year-old product which generates 0 revenue.
If a design flaw is discovered in my 2002 automobile that affects safety, they're going to recall it at great expense. Microsoft's bugs are design defects and should be taken care of as long as the machines that were sold with that operating system are still serviceable. The "oh but MONEY" is just thieving bullshit; how much money did they make on that defective OS, anyway?
There is absolutely no reason why hardware should last longer than its software. If they paid attention writing it in the first place, rather than shoveling "good enough, we can patch it later" crap you wouldn't have this huge botnet that's going to bite us all in the ass.
Thanks, Microsoft, you evil, greedy fuckers. Are you one of their bean counters, by the way? You sound more like an accountant than a nerd.
Because desktop linux is a suitable replacement for a 10+ year old OS, nothing more.
Yes, it will run fine on a ten year old computer. It also, unlike Windows, runs on supercomputers.
While Linux fans and critics obsess about Linux's failure to sweep Windows off the desktop, they're ignoring that Linux is winning everywhere else, and that when it comes to the highest of high-end computing, Linux rules.
Driving the point home, the top 10 fastest supercomputers all run Linux of one sort or the other. You have to go the way to the 44th fastest computer, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts box, which runs IBM's AIX Unix variant, to find one that doesn't run Linux.
Except for running Windows-only software, there isn't a single thing Windows can do that Linux can't. It isn't just a fine replacement for XP, it's also a fine replacement for Windows 7; Windows has slowed my laptop down so much in 3 years (slower every patch Tuesday) I'm putting kubuntu on it this weekend. It has functionality Windows lacks and the only thing Windows has that Linux doesn't is the ease of which it pisses me off, especially on Patch Tuesday. The fucking computer is tied up for forty five minutes or more for the download (can't do anything while it's doing that because that damned "I'm doing something! Look at me!!" balloon keeps popping up until you have to close all your programs, reboot, wait for it to not tell you DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER!, restart Windows, again wait five minutes while it says DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER!, then log on, then you have to reopen all your apps and files.
Linux tells you you have updates, you click "install" and keep on working. Rather than slowing the computer down, Linux updates usually make it run FASTER.
Why do they make these cars so fugly? Geez, what happened to car design that wasn't simply utilitarian and looked fun and sexy?
What's wrong with the way the Volt looks? Or the Tesla? Or the Leaf, except for those stupid headlights. You want fugly? How about the Humvee, the Cooper (looks like a circus clown car), the completely retarded looking Honda Cube? Or anything made by Jeep?
Are you one of those dumb kids who thinks Humvees are cool?
I won't hesitate to guess that a majority of people are hanging on to XP only because they've got a cracked copy and don't want to buy a legitimate newer version.
That makes no sense at all. Why would they be running a cracked copy of XP when XP was preinstalled on the machine? And if they're using a cracked copy XP why wouldn't they just get a cracked copy of 7? I mean, besides the fact that Windows seven won't run on an old computer!
That's why Linux -- because Linux isn't full of cruft and bloat and bling. It gets faster rather than slower from updates. It's the same reason the top ten fastest supercomputers in the world run Linux -- it's FAST. Fast enough to run on old hardware.
Those numbers would be even higher if they stopped shunning their roots by delaying PC releases and turning PC into a shitty port from consoles.
I'll bet my daughter Patty is glad it only came out for consoles -- she's going to college full-time and is ordinarily assistant manager of a GameStop on the Kentucky side of Cincinnati, but her boss moved to Texas so they've made her full manager, right when GTA is coming out. She says she's not doing as good in school as last semester, when she managed to get straight As.
Poor kid, she's working her ass off. She says she's sick of the hillbillies coming in to get GTA for their five year old "so they'll know what the real world is like." I knew there were stupid people in the world but DAMN, we're doomed.
Just got back to Illinois Locked the front door, oh boy. Got to sit down and take a rest on the porch. Imagination sets in Pretty soon I'm singin' "N.S.A. knockin' on my backdoor."
Don't get too excited yet, so far it can only do infrared. What surprised me was that pixel density on LCDs was so good. We could have digital holograms right now using good old fashioned 1970s mirrored lasers in the displays.
An English major wrote it. It uses a computer-controlled LCD instead of a curved mirror. There are benefits, TFA isn't very good at explaining them because the guy who wrote the article either didn't understand the concepts or really sucks at communicating them. You really have to look hard through the overabundance of redundant marketspeak verbiage to grok it.
Researchers use the computer to specify the laser beam shape they require and to programme it into the LCD. By this means, one laser can swiftly produce many different beam shapes. Previously, changing the shape of a laser beam required physically replacing the curved mirror in the laser. As the mirror has to be carefully aligned, this is a time consuming process.
There was a comedian, I don't remember who, who joked about that. He said "when you're five it's 'BIRTHDAY... Halloween....... Thanksgiving............. Christmas...............' When you're my age it's BirthdayBirthdayBirthdayBirthdayBirthdayBirthday
Slashdot Mirror
Linux is linux, whether it's an Ububtu or Mandriva desktop, a Red Hat server, an Android phone, or a supercomputer. The point is Linux is fast, Windows is slow.
Also, you can easily set the updater in winxp/vista/7/8 to only download updates
I have it set like that, but I got burned with an auto update on XP that replaced a perfectly good network driver for one that just wouldn't work. I want to see what it's updating.
and allows you to choose when you want to install/reboot your system.
Yeah, you have up to four hours to be nagged again to close all your tabs, documents, and programs and reboot before you have to open them all back up again. In Linux, you don't have to reboot. You click "update" and keep on working. Ironically I wouldn't mind having to boot Linux because it boots into the state it was in when you shut it down. You don't have to lose your place.
I'd google that for you, but I'm too busy being productive on my computer.
Productive, my ass, you're posting on slashdot.
It's simple - send a human when a robot just won't do (like fixing the Hubble). Mars? Send robots.
But I breathe CH4! Send me to Titan!
By purchasing and installing Windows XP you are entering into a contract with Microsoft that they will support your product for a reasonable amount of time. That time is over.
It isn't reasonable that the hardware would outlast the software - it isn't a reasonable amount of time. When only 5% has XP, then maybe that would be a reasonable time. It's a year older than my car, and if the temperature control (a digital device) goes out I can replace it. There's no way to repair Windows' defects. As to safety, you can expect almost all XP computers to be bots next year. If one person got control of all those XP computers they could take the internet down.
Almost nobody bought Windows. They bought a computer, and Windows was part of the deal. It's a shoddy product that won't last past a decade, my 2002 TV works fine. Why won't XP? Because Microsoft makes shitty products.
What Microsoft is doing is past irresponsible. It's dangerous.
You make incorrect assumptions about both computers and humans. I was in a head-on car wreck in 1976 -- my left front tire blew and I was thrown into oncoming traffic. The guy I hit didn't even have time to take his foot off the gas, let alone swerve. Had his car been autonomous he might not have been involved at all (my car was completely out of control, nothing but God was going to save me).
It's a shame that guy's not logged in, and that I don't have mod points, it was a good comment, but this was incorrect:
We've have one of the most unjust economic systems in over a hundred years no thanks to enablers such as yourself. And you know what eventually happened? See the 1930s, bub.
Actually, after WWI it was much worse.The 1920s looked like now, only worse. Citation:
My point is that the answer to government created problems is not more government.
Indeed, the answer to government-created problems is better government, not more government or less government. If your legislators are of the opinion that government is always the problem, it will be. Just don't vote for those candidates. Since you seem to be a guy who wants small government, I'm guessing you're part of why the politicians in office are governing badly.
I keep seeing this meme more and more, and it's pure bullshit. I asked for a link once, the guy sent me to a page of stuff people got in trouble for and none of them were anything that the average person is likely to do! Illegally importing foods for a restaraunt, illegally owning dangerous animals, posession of feathers from endangered birds, stuff like that. Not normal people problems, rich people problems and weird people problems.
My day starts off with coffee and TV, drive to work, walk around the block on break, back to work, drive home for lunch stopping for beer for the evening, home for lunch, back to work, walk around the block on afternoon break, work, drive home, turn on the TV and open a beer. Get on slashdot, write in the book I'm working on, maybe walk down the street to a bar later.
Now tell me, besides the joint I lit when I got home from work, what law have I broken? Sure, a dishonest cop can pull you over and pin any kind of bullshit he wants on you (Monte Python parodied this effectively 40 years ago: "whatever did I give the Missus??" after the planted "dope" turns out to be a sandwich).
There's no possible way a NORMAL person is committing three Federal felonies a day, and there's nowhere you can point to back up that really stupid paranoid meme.
You know those little plastic frames that auto dealers put around your license plate, with the dealer's name on it? Well, as it turns out, where I live it is illegal to obscure any part of your license plate, which means that I was breaking the law by having that plastic frame overlap my plate along the edges and corners. It gave the state trooper probable cause to stop me. At least he didn't give me a ticket.
It would have cost you $40 if he had, not a stint in a federal prison. If you count jaywalking maybe the average does break the law three times a day, but most laws are minor, like traffic tickets. Nothing to be paranoid about.
That is a very well done AC troll.
Well, congrats to him for being modded +4 insightful. If I were moderating he'd be at +5, tool.
When the well runs dry, the survivors move to where the water is.
Where might that be, and how are the downtrodden to get there? History is repeating itself, fool. Read this history of the 1920s (required reading in a general studies undergrad history class I took in 1978, it's a very good read). The same shit is happening now. Then, it was Bolsheviks. Now, it's terrorists. Now you right wingers say "liberal" like it's an insult, then it was "socialist" when a working man wanted a living wage.
It led to the KKK, and even worse things (including the Great Depression). Read the book. Learn history, or be doomed to repeat it -- the same shit is happening now.
Call me old fashioned but to me, cars are meant to be driven.
Call me old fashioned, son, but cars are meant to be transportation, not toys for fun (unless you're on a private race track). Pontiac's "We build excitement" is ad copy, are you really stupid enough to believe that??
Did you know that the single biggest cause of death in people under 40 (probably you) is automobile accidents? cars ain't for fun, dufus, they're for taking you from one place to another. PERIOD. A car is a very dangerous piece of machinery. It is NOT a toy and is not for fun or "excitement".
Hmm, looks like ''yes". Why isn't that option presented when you set up a new computer? I shouldn't have to google to find if a feature is missing or merely hidden.
They are not spending any more money on a 12-year-old product which generates 0 revenue.
If a design flaw is discovered in my 2002 automobile that affects safety, they're going to recall it at great expense. Microsoft's bugs are design defects and should be taken care of as long as the machines that were sold with that operating system are still serviceable. The "oh but MONEY" is just thieving bullshit; how much money did they make on that defective OS, anyway?
There is absolutely no reason why hardware should last longer than its software. If they paid attention writing it in the first place, rather than shoveling "good enough, we can patch it later" crap you wouldn't have this huge botnet that's going to bite us all in the ass.
Thanks, Microsoft, you evil, greedy fuckers. Are you one of their bean counters, by the way? You sound more like an accountant than a nerd.
Because desktop linux is a suitable replacement for a 10+ year old OS, nothing more.
Yes, it will run fine on a ten year old computer. It also, unlike Windows, runs on supercomputers.
Except for running Windows-only software, there isn't a single thing Windows can do that Linux can't. It isn't just a fine replacement for XP, it's also a fine replacement for Windows 7; Windows has slowed my laptop down so much in 3 years (slower every patch Tuesday) I'm putting kubuntu on it this weekend. It has functionality Windows lacks and the only thing Windows has that Linux doesn't is the ease of which it pisses me off, especially on Patch Tuesday. The fucking computer is tied up for forty five minutes or more for the download (can't do anything while it's doing that because that damned "I'm doing something! Look at me!!" balloon keeps popping up until you have to close all your programs, reboot, wait for it to not tell you DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER!, restart Windows, again wait five minutes while it says DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER!, then log on, then you have to reopen all your apps and files.
Linux tells you you have updates, you click "install" and keep on working. Rather than slowing the computer down, Linux updates usually make it run FASTER.
Windows is a toy OS.
Why do they make these cars so fugly? Geez, what happened to car design that wasn't simply utilitarian and looked fun and sexy?
What's wrong with the way the Volt looks? Or the Tesla? Or the Leaf, except for those stupid headlights. You want fugly? How about the Humvee, the Cooper (looks like a circus clown car), the completely retarded looking Honda Cube? Or anything made by Jeep?
Are you one of those dumb kids who thinks Humvees are cool?
I won't hesitate to guess that a majority of people are hanging on to XP only because they've got a cracked copy and don't want to buy a legitimate newer version.
That makes no sense at all. Why would they be running a cracked copy of XP when XP was preinstalled on the machine? And if they're using a cracked copy XP why wouldn't they just get a cracked copy of 7? I mean, besides the fact that Windows seven won't run on an old computer!
That's why Linux -- because Linux isn't full of cruft and bloat and bling. It gets faster rather than slower from updates. It's the same reason the top ten fastest supercomputers in the world run Linux -- it's FAST. Fast enough to run on old hardware.
Those numbers would be even higher if they stopped shunning their roots by delaying PC releases and turning PC into a shitty port from consoles.
I'll bet my daughter Patty is glad it only came out for consoles -- she's going to college full-time and is ordinarily assistant manager of a GameStop on the Kentucky side of Cincinnati, but her boss moved to Texas so they've made her full manager, right when GTA is coming out. She says she's not doing as good in school as last semester, when she managed to get straight As.
Poor kid, she's working her ass off. She says she's sick of the hillbillies coming in to get GTA for their five year old "so they'll know what the real world is like." I knew there were stupid people in the world but DAMN, we're doomed.
Just got back to Illinois
Locked the front door, oh boy.
Got to sit down and take a rest on the porch.
Imagination sets in
Pretty soon I'm singin'
"N.S.A. knockin' on my backdoor."
(apologies to Creedence)
Don't get too excited yet, so far it can only do infrared. What surprised me was that pixel density on LCDs was so good. We could have digital holograms right now using good old fashioned 1970s mirrored lasers in the displays.
I don't know why nobody's done it.
Their lasers aren't that powerful yet and anyway, they only do infrared so far so good luck reading the messages.
I fail to see how that's digital
An English major wrote it. It uses a computer-controlled LCD instead of a curved mirror. There are benefits, TFA isn't very good at explaining them because the guy who wrote the article either didn't understand the concepts or really sucks at communicating them. You really have to look hard through the overabundance of redundant marketspeak verbiage to grok it.
Oops, I forgot the blockquotes. That was from TFA (not a good FA IMO)
Researchers use the computer to specify the laser beam shape they require and to programme it into the LCD. By this means, one laser can swiftly produce many different beam shapes. Previously, changing the shape of a laser beam required physically replacing the curved mirror in the laser. As the mirror has to be carefully aligned, this is a time consuming process.
The joke wasn't the only thing that was wooshing.
I was going to say the same thing. They'll be attached to their robots like they are to their weapons and other gear. They're devices, not animals.
There was a comedian, I don't remember who, who joked about that. He said "when you're five it's 'BIRTHDAY... Halloween....... Thanksgiving............. Christmas...............' When you're my age it's BirthdayBirthdayBirthdayBirthdayBirthdayBirthday