Offline mode is not as great as it sounds! Have you ever tried to play Left 4 Dead, for example, a game which doesn't require an internet connection to play and logically shouldn't, on LAN mode? This is a Steam-centric Valve game, and it's a big PITA to get it to work on LAN mode not because of technical limitations, but because of how Valve chooses to restrict it. You actually have to kill your internet connection to play that game on the LAN without getting disconnected!
Certain games, too, sometimes refuse to be started in offline mode. They want you to go into online mode and do some screwing around first. Sucks for you if you haven't got an internet connection wherever you are at the time.
You can feel things out intuitively with a CLI. You just have to learn what to sense with. Get a moderate level of familiarity with locate and grep and learn a few regexes. Most importantly, learn how to use apropos and especially man. If you have these CLI basics down (you can get the basics of what you need with like 30 minutes for two days), even your above example is easy.
Run apropos 'user.*add' to get a list of program descriptions containing both the word user and the word add in that order, with anything in between.
You get this:/etc/adduser.conf (5) [adduser.conf] - configuration file for adduser(8) and addgroup(8) . addgroup (8) - add a user or group to the system adduser (8) - add a user or group to the system adduser.conf (5) - configuration file for adduser(8) and addgroup(8) . avc_add_callback (3) - additional event notification for SELinux userspace object managers. pam_issue (8) - PAM module to add issue file to user prompt UI_add_user_data (3ssl) - New User Interface
Then you can just read the man page on adduser and/or addgroup. You might think reading command line switches is a pain, but IMO it's equivalent to reading button labels and configuration dialogs in a GUI.
While this might seem really Linux centric, the basic ideas are not: learn how to access documentations and other information on whatever system your using, for the command line interface as well as the GUI.
Remember that WebKit is FOSS, too. It's being remerged back into KDE4, giving it a significant presence on Linux desktops (and with Linux developers, as well).
Maybe. They could develop their proprietary additions to the Linux kernel over a period of years without distributing them to anyone, keeping them up-to-date and merging FOSS updates. Then they could purchase the Linux kernel, and release their heavily modified proprietary version.
Of course, buying the copyrights to the entire Linux kernel would be basically impossible, since it's got so many persons' work in it.
What if we don't actually need Obama to make change? What if the sudden belief that the system is capable of change, that it is changing, is enough to rouse citizens from their political apathy? Maybe the myth of Obama will be sufficient to help generate some real, grass-roots change.
As Bruce Perens has said a few times, Karl Marx did not invent helping your neighbor. The idea that you should cooperate with your community, especially at as minimal of a cost and effort as redistributing source, is hardly communistic. Perhaps it's not exploitive, or guardedly selfish like capitalism be, but it's not communistic.
As for cooperation vs freedom, free software is about freedom. It's not an inalienable right or an absolute sense of freedom, but software authors can grant their users freedom through free and open source licenses. There are things that free software allows you to choose to do that proprietary software does not. That sounds like the definition of freedom to me.
Whether or not free software will succeed does depend on how important people consider the freedom of the user to be (sometimes vs the freedom of the distributor), and also whether or not free software is worth sticking with over a proprietary product, simply for the fact that it is free.
And in the sentence you actually quoted, Stallman is not suggesting that anyone hates freedom, or that they're against it--merely that Richard Stallman's stance on [software] freedom is stronger than theirs. And since you apparently know a thing or two about his stance on the matter, I highly doubt you would seriously argue otherwise.
Thanks for a well-reasoned response to my somewhat insubstantial one example.
Sudo configurations are pretty flexible. You can limit sudo permissions to a specific (set of) executable(s), and you can also have it ask for the root password rather than the user password. In fact, this is the default behavior on some distributions (the one that I remember doing things this way is openSUSE).
I agree that the on-demand nature of UAC is a definite win over the sudo command's manual nature, but I disagree that there needs to be such a "middle ground" between the limited user and administrator. An administrator who knows what he is doing shouldn't need nagging to remind him that what he's doing could damage his computer. An administrator who doesn't know what he is doing absolutely shouldn't log in as root. The Ubuntu developers put their "money" where their mouth is on this philosophy, leaving root login disabled, for the advanced user to set up if they decide it is necessary.
Make that per hour per session and suddenly the numbers for sudo go way, way down. If it's the same console session, you don't have to re-enter your password for typing sudo for a few minutes, until it hasn't been used recently. If it's the same Gnome or KDE session, it won't even prompt you at all.
By default, I believe Ubuntu creates a separate/boot partition. You can free up the 20GB or whatever you're using for Ubuntu by deleting the Ubuntu partition (and the swap partition, if it creates one) and just leaving the/boot partition behind. That partition doesn't have to be very big to hold your kernels and your grub installation; you won't miss the 100MB space at the beginning of your partition table.
Amarok's dependencies aren't actually 180MB--that's just the way Ubuntu (or Debian) packages the KDE libraries. On Gentoo, for example, you can compile Amarok to total, with dependencies, less than iTunes' 60+MB.
Finally, if your program actually *is* going to need 180MB of code, you can bet it's better to have it separated into a reusable library.
What do you intend to do about the apparent econ^H^H^H^H Slashdot political troll crisis, and what specific amendments do you have in mind for the bailout p^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H moderation system?
I think that your points are valid, but also an overreaction to the GP. I think, or at least hope, that the GP's post was more intended to illustrate a difference in perspective than to suggest that fundamentalists are actually representative of Christians generally. The main point I interpreted from it remains true, I think:
Whether or not its fair, fundamentalists are seen as representative of Christians for a reason, and that reason is difficult to understand from within a Christian perspective.
Politicians pander to the popular type. If libertarianism were more popular, politicians would (at least pretend to) pander towards that type much more.
As a current student at a "good" public high school, I just want you to know that it is really heartening to find someone who really hated high school and succeeded in life despite it. I'm not a terrible student (ranked 27 in a class of over 500), but I've become very undermotivated in high school and the reactions of my family and others to this lack of motivation sometimes make me wonder about my prospects after high school.
I really need people to affirm for me, sometimes, that life after high school is different, and that some day I won't be summarized as a letter A-F.
Don't know if any individuals hold to both views, but it's interesting how these seem to be vocal opinions.
The two positions are the same (they are opinions of different thing), but the opinion/emotional response is the same: outrage. Outrage is generally a more vocally expressed opinion than complacence or acceptance.
Slashdot Mirror
Offline mode is not as great as it sounds! Have you ever tried to play Left 4 Dead, for example, a game which doesn't require an internet connection to play and logically shouldn't, on LAN mode? This is a Steam-centric Valve game, and it's a big PITA to get it to work on LAN mode not because of technical limitations, but because of how Valve chooses to restrict it. You actually have to kill your internet connection to play that game on the LAN without getting disconnected!
Certain games, too, sometimes refuse to be started in offline mode. They want you to go into online mode and do some screwing around first. Sucks for you if you haven't got an internet connection wherever you are at the time.
You can feel things out intuitively with a CLI. You just have to learn what to sense with. Get a moderate level of familiarity with locate and grep and learn a few regexes. Most importantly, learn how to use apropos and especially man. If you have these CLI basics down (you can get the basics of what you need with like 30 minutes for two days), even your above example is easy.
Run apropos 'user.*add' to get a list of program descriptions containing both the word user and the word add in that order, with anything in between.
You get this: /etc/adduser.conf (5) [adduser.conf] - configuration file for adduser(8) and addgroup(8) .
addgroup (8) - add a user or group to the system
adduser (8) - add a user or group to the system
adduser.conf (5) - configuration file for adduser(8) and addgroup(8) .
avc_add_callback (3) - additional event notification for SELinux userspace object managers.
pam_issue (8) - PAM module to add issue file to user prompt
UI_add_user_data (3ssl) - New User Interface
Then you can just read the man page on adduser and/or addgroup. You might think reading command line switches is a pain, but IMO it's equivalent to reading button labels and configuration dialogs in a GUI.
While this might seem really Linux centric, the basic ideas are not: learn how to access documentations and other information on whatever system your using, for the command line interface as well as the GUI.
Way to stay on topic, Mr. "Stop changing the discussions"!
First of all, you're grepping wrong.
But here you go.
pxc@cooldude:~$ glxinfo |egrep 'direct rendering|pbuffer'
direct rendering: Yes
GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGI_video_sync, GLX_SGI_swap_control,
GLX_NV_swap_group, GLX_NV_video_out, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer,
GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGI_video_sync, GLX_SGI_swap_control,
Satisfied?
Remember that WebKit is FOSS, too. It's being remerged back into KDE4, giving it a significant presence on Linux desktops (and with Linux developers, as well).
Maybe. They could develop their proprietary additions to the Linux kernel over a period of years without distributing them to anyone, keeping them up-to-date and merging FOSS updates. Then they could purchase the Linux kernel, and release their heavily modified proprietary version.
Of course, buying the copyrights to the entire Linux kernel would be basically impossible, since it's got so many persons' work in it.
Did you not read the last line mrbene wrote? He's on your team, buddy!
What if we don't actually need Obama to make change? What if the sudden belief that the system is capable of change, that it is changing, is enough to rouse citizens from their political apathy? Maybe the myth of Obama will be sufficient to help generate some real, grass-roots change.
http://usaservice.org/
Sign up. I just did. Let's get some shit done while we're waiting to see if Obama will.
Sorry for misreading your first post! It makes a bit more sense with the communism vs socialism distinction you described in mind.
However, I would still argue that when it comes to distributing source code along with your binaries, the actual cost is pretty minimal.
As Bruce Perens has said a few times, Karl Marx did not invent helping your neighbor. The idea that you should cooperate with your community, especially at as minimal of a cost and effort as redistributing source, is hardly communistic. Perhaps it's not exploitive, or guardedly selfish like capitalism be, but it's not communistic.
As for cooperation vs freedom, free software is about freedom. It's not an inalienable right or an absolute sense of freedom, but software authors can grant their users freedom through free and open source licenses. There are things that free software allows you to choose to do that proprietary software does not. That sounds like the definition of freedom to me.
Whether or not free software will succeed does depend on how important people consider the freedom of the user to be (sometimes vs the freedom of the distributor), and also whether or not free software is worth sticking with over a proprietary product, simply for the fact that it is free.
And in the sentence you actually quoted, Stallman is not suggesting that anyone hates freedom, or that they're against it--merely that Richard Stallman's stance on [software] freedom is stronger than theirs. And since you apparently know a thing or two about his stance on the matter, I highly doubt you would seriously argue otherwise.
Did you skip the part where he said "given the same amount of time and familiarity"?
Thanks for a well-reasoned response to my somewhat insubstantial one example.
Sudo configurations are pretty flexible. You can limit sudo permissions to a specific (set of) executable(s), and you can also have it ask for the root password rather than the user password. In fact, this is the default behavior on some distributions (the one that I remember doing things this way is openSUSE).
I agree that the on-demand nature of UAC is a definite win over the sudo command's manual nature, but I disagree that there needs to be such a "middle ground" between the limited user and administrator. An administrator who knows what he is doing shouldn't need nagging to remind him that what he's doing could damage his computer. An administrator who doesn't know what he is doing absolutely shouldn't log in as root. The Ubuntu developers put their "money" where their mouth is on this philosophy, leaving root login disabled, for the advanced user to set up if they decide it is necessary.
Make that per hour per session and suddenly the numbers for sudo go way, way down. If it's the same console session, you don't have to re-enter your password for typing sudo for a few minutes, until it hasn't been used recently. If it's the same Gnome or KDE session, it won't even prompt you at all.
The most obviously moral/practical solution in my opinion would be to order the text used from Amazon and then read the pirated electronic version.
The navigation bar is Flash. Those problems could be as much Flash's fault as Firefox's. Perhaps changing your Flash version would solve that problem?
By default, I believe Ubuntu creates a separate /boot partition. You can free up the 20GB or whatever you're using for Ubuntu by deleting the Ubuntu partition (and the swap partition, if it creates one) and just leaving the /boot partition behind. That partition doesn't have to be very big to hold your kernels and your grub installation; you won't miss the 100MB space at the beginning of your partition table.
The Frozen Throne is not WoW or even an MMO.
Amarok's dependencies aren't actually 180MB--that's just the way Ubuntu (or Debian) packages the KDE libraries. On Gentoo, for example, you can compile Amarok to total, with dependencies, less than iTunes' 60+MB.
Finally, if your program actually *is* going to need 180MB of code, you can bet it's better to have it separated into a reusable library.
It's not a certified Unix. It's actually a better "Unix" than Unix(tm). ;-)
Certifying it would basically take away the only thing those Unix(tm) guys have left. Would you really want to do that to them?
What do you intend to do about the apparent econ^H^H^H^H Slashdot political troll crisis, and what specific amendments do you have in mind for the bailout p^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H moderation system?
I think that your points are valid, but also an overreaction to the GP. I think, or at least hope, that the GP's post was more intended to illustrate a difference in perspective than to suggest that fundamentalists are actually representative of Christians generally. The main point I interpreted from it remains true, I think:
Whether or not its fair, fundamentalists are seen as representative of Christians for a reason, and that reason is difficult to understand from within a Christian perspective.
Politicians pander to the popular type. If libertarianism were more popular, politicians would (at least pretend to) pander towards that type much more.
As a current student at a "good" public high school, I just want you to know that it is really heartening to find someone who really hated high school and succeeded in life despite it. I'm not a terrible student (ranked 27 in a class of over 500), but I've become very undermotivated in high school and the reactions of my family and others to this lack of motivation sometimes make me wonder about my prospects after high school.
I really need people to affirm for me, sometimes, that life after high school is different, and that some day I won't be summarized as a letter A-F.
The two positions are the same (they are opinions of different thing), but the opinion/emotional response is the same: outrage.
Outrage is generally a more vocally expressed opinion than complacence or acceptance.