The swap requirement for Civilization: CTP is for people who have the minimum RAM requirement (32 MB). That's assuming you're running X and no other apps (about 16-20 MB used). If you have 64 MB of physical RAM, then you will only need about 58 MB of swap. If you have 128 MB of physical memory, you probably won't be swapping at all.
The requirements could say "x" MB of memory (physical or virtual), but that would confuse some people.
Re:Another Version ? I'M BEGINING TO FEEL SICK!
on
KDE 1.1.1 is out
·
· Score: 1
Well, you see, when people are no longer rebooting their systems every day, they need to do something that uses up that time. Systems administration would be it.
I would definitely rather have an Open Source hardware driver than a binary-only one. But I already own a Dxr2 decoder card (silly me), and if a binary-only driver comes from Creative Labs, I'll be damned if I don't use it. Of course, I'll never buy a product for which the potential for OSS drivers nearly impossible, which makes the G200 a great card to consider.
I have the Matrox MGA-G200 specifications on me, in PDF format. I downloaded them to make a point, and if Matrox changes their mind about the G200, it's too late for them.
Matrox has been making some great moves with opening up specifications and providing the facilities for which Open Source drivers develop and proliferate. Logitech is very much the same, where everything from wheel mice to sophisticated joysticks are well supported by pure Open Source drivers. These companies need to be constantly reminded that they're doing a great job, and they're slowly helping the entire industry do the same.
The point is, Open Source is great, and it's the preferred option. It's not the only option (sometimes it's not even an option, which is the case for the SBLive drivers), but it's by far the recommended option.
In their little (or big, considering the elephant) roundup and subsequent crushing of CD's, they could end up crushing Linux CD's full of Free Software without knowing that making copies of Free Software is OK.
It will take a long time before people realise that you can take a company's flagship product in their boxed set and make unlimited copies for unlimited distribution and unlimited usage without infringing any copyrights (with the possible exception of non-free software included in Caldera, SuSE, and the Apps CD in Official Red Hat). It just sounds unusual.
I remember once when someone told me that I shouldn't be copying CD's. I told him I was copying Red Hat CD's from their boxed set, and he said "isn't that illegal?" I told him that it's legal, even recommended, to make copies of Linux and give it to your friends. Not only thats, it's legal to start a company whose sole purpose is selling Linux distributions made by other companies and organisations. The premise is bound to confuse anyone.
Most of this article makes sense, and I agree with what Katz has to say. Video gaming clubs and programming clubs would be excellent things to do with the barrage of computers being sent by the Feds and not being used.
I believe people should have the right to express themselves, but they must be able to voluntarily limit themselves. In school, I wanted to rebel, wear trenchcoats and such, but there's only so far you can go before you starting pissing people off. And that's not a good impression to make.
By the way, about the trenchcoats and Goth clothing, the solution is simple. Uniforms. A dress code. Dress codes are used at work, so why not at schools?
The main point I'm trying to make, though, is the fact that I have no pity for a kid that is bored. Being bored means you're -too- active, and you can never sit still and wait for anything. That's a really bad habit to have when entering the work environment. I guess video games, MTV, and our culture has to take some blame for today's short attention spans.
I had to take many "boring" classes in high school, but I didn't complain. In fact, I found them to be an exercise for my brain. How long could I sit still and listen to something I already know without getting distracted? Now there's a quality I want to bring into a meeting with the CEO at work.
This is definitely good news for FreeBSD. I long to try it out and see its advantages for myself. I currently use Linux, and looking into FreeBSD is always a good idea. Linux helped render Titanic's CGI, and now FreeBSD helped render the Matrix's CGI. This is great for both operating systems!
I don't care too much for the differences between Linux and *BSD. They're both Unix-like systems (*BSD more so), they're both completely Free Software, and they're not Microsoft!
The only thing I noticed about the press release was the fact that they said it wouldn't be possible with another OS. It would probably be possible with Linux, but not practical if the people they hired are more familiar with FreeBSD.
Stop calling them pirates. They're not murderers on the high seas you know. It's really Lucasfilm's fault if it get copied in violation of their copyright, and it's their responsibility to keep a lid on things.
First of all, it's not pirating, it must be known as "unauthorised copying." How did making copies suddenly get confused with treachery and killing on the high seas?
It's the copyright holder's sole responsibility to make sure their copyrights are observed. Intellectual property isn't a right, it's an artificially created set of laws designed to protect proprietary information.
And violation of copyright is not "theft," either. You're not stealing any material goods, and theft is purely defined as the taking of material goods illegally.
If unauthorised copying is to stop, it's the copyright holder's responsibility. After all, they're getting a free ride by holding a virtual monopoly on an idea. They should at least have the responsibility to protect their "property," and someone copies it in violation of copyright, it's entirely the fault of the copyright holder for not foreseeing that eventuality.
If CD's and DVD's actually stuck to realistic prices then none of this would happen, because it wouldn't be economically feasible to download MP3's and VCD's if CD's and DVD's were cheap. I can't believe DVD's cost so much even though the media costs less than a dollar to make. Who are they kidding? By charging these prices, they are almost guaranteed of unauthorised copying.
Blame the copyright holders. By law, they are responsible for the violation of their copyright. Don't get mad at the "pirates." Arrgh. Polly want a cracker? Sheesh.
Some people find it awkward to use the word "we" when it could be a solo operation. "We" at Guardian Consulting Services would like to let you know that.:-)
You're right that Windows and Macintosh comprise 90% of the market in the desktop arena, possibly even more than that. I wouldn't advise Apple to make their own port of the QuickTime clients, but what's the problem in licensing their codecs under an NDA to make binary modules for XAnim? That would give them some serious brownie points, at little or no cost to them.
The problem with "public software" is that it might be confused with stuff in the "public domain," that is, not copyrighted. Public domain is the total extreme: use it any way you which, you don't have to give any credit to anyone, and you can licence it any way you want. The GPL, on the other hand, restricts the licencee (when compared to BSD-type or public domain) in return for increased freedom of the masses.
I tend to call it "Free Software," always capitalised as if it were something special. And I would never use "Free" by itself, because it's way too ambigious. Examples: "Is this Free Software? Cool." "Check out this new Free Software Web browser!"
If you like to add Latin words in your everyday speech, you could always say "Software Libre" or simply "libre." "Is this Software Libre? Cool." "Check out this new Software Libre Web browser!" "I'm working on modifying this libre application." That just sounds a little weird.
See, in French, they have no problem with the confusion. Free is either "gratuit" or "libre," with libre meaning free as in free speech. "Regardez ce logiciel libre que j'ai obtenu, Pierre!" or "Pierre, ces pingouins offrent la biere gratuite!"
I think Netscape Navigator 3.0 fulfills those three requirements, although its dependence on Motif and its closed-sourced nature makes it much worse than kfm from an OSS point of view.
Sorry about the train thing. I actually prefer trains than aircraft myself, and they are quite safe in reality. It's just Amtrak's reputation. Have you heard this one?
"I found out that maglev trains work by hovering a few inches above the track. I wish Amtrak trains stayed that close to the track."
One of the most memorable train rides I took was on the Shinkansen in Japan, from Yokohama to Tokyo. The next train ride was on Amtrak, from New York to Washington. I call tell you that on the Amtrak train I was holding on for dear life. There's never I time when the train stays still!
Bleeding Edge Magazine did an extensive "test" today (which was sponsored by Red Hat Software and VA Research, by the way) which proves that Linux is faster than NT than Web and file serving. PHB's, watch out.
It started out as a decent article about O'Reilly's "animal book" history. But the moment I read "shareware Linux programming language," my interest in the article, and any good reputation USA Today ever had, went down the drain in a hurry. Blech.
Volumes on the shareware Windows programming language feature pictures of kamikaze warplanes and Amtrak trains, because "Windows likes to crash," O'Reilly says.
I would think that the sounds that we cannot hear would be dependent on the person. For example, no one in my household except for me can hear televisions making an extremely loud, high-pitched sound even if it's mute. And some people put the treble up on their stereos too far--they like it, but all I hear is a horrible high-pitched, scratching sound along with the music. It must be due to sounds higher than about 18kHz. I wonder what MP3 encoding does to those sounds?
32 Bits and RH? I don't think so.
on
CDE vs Gnome
·
· Score: 1
Speaking as a member of 32BO, you'd be surprised how un-commercial it really is. Although I didn't write that particular article, I know that Red Hat does not have any association with 32 Bits Online at the moment. Red Hat doesn't advertise on our site, and our efforts to become a content provider for redhat.com have not been conclusive.
Another fact, by the way--I use Window Maker. By itself.
I was reading the interview with IBM's Charles Palmer. He was talking about "joyriders"--hackers who break into a system just to look around. He makes an analogy to breaking and entering:
Some of the "joyriders" -- hackers who access systems just for the challenge -- think it's harmless since they usually don't "do" anything besides go in and look around. But if a stranger came into your house, looked through everything, touched several items, and left (after building a small, out of the way door to be sure he could easily enter again), would you consider that harmless?
He's right in some respects. But would anyone mind if someone broke into your house, didn't touch anything, and left a note telling you when he broke in, how he broke in, and how to prevent any future break-ins?
The only way you can steal movies is if you take someone else's VHS tape. Then you're really stealing the tape, not the movie.
The terms "stolen" and "theft" should not be used when discussing intellectual property. In the immortal words of Richard M. Stallman:
--- Copyright apologists often use words like ''stolen'' and ``theft'' to describe copyright infringement. At the same time, they ask us to treat the legal system as an authority on ethics: if copying is forbidden, it must be wrong.
So it is pertinent to mention that the legal system--at least in the US--rejects the idea that copyright infringement is ``theft''. Copyright advocates who use terms like ``stolen'' are misrepresenting the authority that they appeal to.
The idea that laws decide what is right or wrong is mistaken in general. Laws are, at their best, an attempt to achieve justice; to say that laws define justice or ethical conduct is turning things upside down. ---
I downloaded the preview of SciTech to see how it would support my Matrox Millenium II PCI card. The most amazing thing was that I got 1152x864 resolution on a monitor that has a maximum resolution of 1024x768! I don't know if that was SDD, but it's really cool.
Read the licence statement at http://xanim.va.pubnix.com/xa_copylic.html. Note that is *isn't* open source, because it can only be used for non-commercial uses.
If anything, Corel is helping the Linux community find out what is needed before Linux can be on the desktop in a big way. I've made a few suggestions:
(1) Standardise Linux distributions To run desktop applications without difficulty, we need to make sure that similar system software, libraries and packaging systems are available. Most of the Linux distributors are standardising on rpm and glibc so this may become less of a problem.
(2) Standardise Linux desktop components We'll need to standardise on one desktop, possibly GNOME or KDE. This may sound bad, but real techies know that if you don't like it, change it--after all, it is X11. If Red Hat ends up using GNOME as part of their distribution as planned, expect GNOME to become the standard interface.
(3) Standardise Linux desktop API This may sound even worse than (2), but we need to make sure that some sort of standard in how Linux applications behave is achieved. Being a Linux user for a while now, I don't need this hand-holding, but lots of inexperienced desktop users need a consistent interface. Microsoft has done reasonably well in this regard, and I'm sure Linux could kick their ass in this department given the necessary effort.
(4) More desktop applications This is obviously something that will occur more rapidly once (1)-(3) are achieved. Full-featured, Personal finance software, vector graphics and diagramming, desktop publishing, and scheduling will be needed to ensure Linux's success in the desktop.
(5) More hardware support Hardware support has been amazingly good in Linux. Of course, hardware support is most important when considering Linux gaming. We need to make sure that 3D accelerator cards and API's are readily available in Linux, even if it's binary-only.
This should cover many of the requirements I think the Linux community will have to start thinking about. I've seen plenty of developments with LSB and GNOME but there's a long way to go. Corel may be a little too early in developing a desktop-only Linux distribution targeted at the newbie.
What's with this pronouncing on acronyms?? In Canada, we spell them out. HP-UX is "h pee you ex" AIX is "ey eye ex" chown is "see h own" chmod is "see h mod" du is "dee you" /etc is "slash ee tee see" egcs is "ee gee see ess" vrml is "vee ar em el" GUI is "gee you eye" FAQ is "eff ay que" UPS is "you pee ess"
Got it? We wouldn't spell out WYSIWYG, because that would be stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
The swap requirement for Civilization: CTP is for people who have the minimum RAM requirement (32 MB). That's assuming you're running X and no other apps (about 16-20 MB used). If you have 64 MB of physical RAM, then you will only need about 58 MB of swap. If you have 128 MB of physical memory, you probably won't be swapping at all.
The requirements could say "x" MB of memory (physical or virtual), but that would confuse some people.
Well, you see, when people are no longer rebooting their systems every day, they need to do something that uses up that time. Systems administration would be it.
I would definitely rather have an Open Source hardware driver than a binary-only one. But I already own a Dxr2 decoder card (silly me), and if a binary-only driver comes from Creative Labs, I'll be damned if I don't use it. Of course, I'll never buy a product for which the potential for OSS drivers nearly impossible, which makes the G200 a great card to consider.
I have the Matrox MGA-G200 specifications on me, in PDF format. I downloaded them to make a point, and if Matrox changes their mind about the G200, it's too late for them.
Matrox has been making some great moves with opening up specifications and providing the facilities for which Open Source drivers develop and proliferate. Logitech is very much the same, where everything from wheel mice to sophisticated joysticks are well supported by pure Open Source drivers. These companies need to be constantly reminded that they're doing a great job, and they're slowly helping the entire industry do the same.
The point is, Open Source is great, and it's the preferred option. It's not the only option (sometimes it's not even an option, which is the case for the SBLive drivers), but it's by far the recommended option.
In their little (or big, considering the elephant) roundup and subsequent crushing of CD's, they could end up crushing Linux CD's full of Free Software without knowing that making copies of Free Software is OK.
It will take a long time before people realise that you can take a company's flagship product in their boxed set and make unlimited copies for unlimited distribution and unlimited usage without infringing any copyrights (with the possible exception of non-free software included in Caldera, SuSE, and the Apps CD in Official Red Hat). It just sounds unusual.
I remember once when someone told me that I shouldn't be copying CD's. I told him I was copying Red Hat CD's from their boxed set, and he said "isn't that illegal?" I told him that it's legal, even recommended, to make copies of Linux and give it to your friends. Not only thats, it's legal to start a company whose sole purpose is selling Linux distributions made by other companies and organisations. The premise is bound to confuse anyone.
So, what's the elephant's opinion on this one?
Most of this article makes sense, and I agree with what Katz has to say. Video gaming clubs and programming clubs would be excellent things to do with the barrage of computers being sent by the Feds and not being used.
I believe people should have the right to express themselves, but they must be able to voluntarily limit themselves. In school, I wanted to rebel, wear trenchcoats and such, but there's only so far you can go before you starting pissing people off. And that's not a good impression to make.
By the way, about the trenchcoats and Goth clothing, the solution is simple. Uniforms. A dress code. Dress codes are used at work, so why not at schools?
The main point I'm trying to make, though, is the fact that I have no pity for a kid that is bored. Being bored means you're -too- active, and you can never sit still and wait for anything. That's a really bad habit to have when entering the work environment. I guess video games, MTV, and our culture has to take some blame for today's short attention spans.
I had to take many "boring" classes in high school, but I didn't complain. In fact, I found them to be an exercise for my brain. How long could I sit still and listen to something I already know without getting distracted? Now there's a quality I want to bring into a meeting with the CEO at work.
This is definitely good news for FreeBSD. I long to try it out and see its advantages for myself. I currently use Linux, and looking into FreeBSD is always a good idea. Linux helped render Titanic's CGI, and now FreeBSD helped render the Matrix's CGI. This is great for both operating systems!
I don't care too much for the differences between Linux and *BSD. They're both Unix-like systems (*BSD more so), they're both completely Free Software, and they're not Microsoft!
The only thing I noticed about the press release was the fact that they said it wouldn't be possible with another OS. It would probably be possible with Linux, but not practical if the people they hired are more familiar with FreeBSD.
Arrhh! Polly want a cracker?
Stop calling them pirates. They're not murderers on the high seas you know. It's really Lucasfilm's fault if it get copied in violation of their copyright, and it's their responsibility to keep a lid on things.
First of all, it's not pirating, it must be known as "unauthorised copying." How did making copies suddenly get confused with treachery and killing on the high seas?
It's the copyright holder's sole responsibility to make sure their copyrights are observed. Intellectual property isn't a right, it's an artificially created set of laws designed to protect proprietary information.
And violation of copyright is not "theft," either. You're not stealing any material goods, and theft is purely defined as the taking of material goods illegally.
If unauthorised copying is to stop, it's the copyright holder's responsibility. After all, they're getting a free ride by holding a virtual monopoly on an idea. They should at least have the responsibility to protect their "property," and someone copies it in violation of copyright, it's entirely the fault of the copyright holder for not foreseeing that eventuality.
If CD's and DVD's actually stuck to realistic prices then none of this would happen, because it wouldn't be economically feasible to download MP3's and VCD's if CD's and DVD's were cheap. I can't believe DVD's cost so much even though the media costs less than a dollar to make. Who are they kidding? By charging these prices, they are almost guaranteed of unauthorised copying.
Blame the copyright holders. By law, they are responsible for the violation of their copyright. Don't get mad at the "pirates." Arrgh. Polly want a cracker? Sheesh.
Some people find it awkward to use the word "we" when it could be a solo operation. "We" at Guardian Consulting Services would like to let you know that. :-)
You're right that Windows and Macintosh comprise 90% of the market in the desktop arena, possibly even more than that. I wouldn't advise Apple to make their own port of the QuickTime clients, but what's the problem in licensing their codecs under an NDA to make binary modules for XAnim? That would give them some serious brownie points, at little or no cost to them.
The problem with "public software" is that it might be confused with stuff in the "public domain," that is, not copyrighted. Public domain is the total extreme: use it any way you which, you don't have to give any credit to anyone, and you can licence it any way you want. The GPL, on the other hand, restricts the licencee (when compared to BSD-type or public domain) in return for increased freedom of the masses.
I tend to call it "Free Software," always capitalised as if it were something special. And I would never use "Free" by itself, because it's way too ambigious. Examples:
"Is this Free Software? Cool."
"Check out this new Free Software Web browser!"
If you like to add Latin words in your everyday speech, you could always say "Software Libre" or simply "libre."
"Is this Software Libre? Cool."
"Check out this new Software Libre Web browser!"
"I'm working on modifying this libre application."
That just sounds a little weird.
See, in French, they have no problem with the confusion. Free is either "gratuit" or "libre," with libre meaning free as in free speech.
"Regardez ce logiciel libre que j'ai obtenu, Pierre!"
or
"Pierre, ces pingouins offrent la biere gratuite!"
When this card is supported for Linux, I'm buying it post-haste. Now I know why I bought a 19" .25mm monitor!
I think Netscape Navigator 3.0 fulfills those three requirements, although its dependence on Motif and its closed-sourced nature makes it much worse than kfm from an OSS point of view.
Sorry about the train thing. I actually prefer trains than aircraft myself, and they are quite safe in reality. It's just Amtrak's reputation. Have you heard this one?
"I found out that maglev trains work by hovering a few inches above the track. I wish Amtrak trains stayed that close to the track."
One of the most memorable train rides I took was on the Shinkansen in Japan, from Yokohama to Tokyo. The next train ride was on Amtrak, from New York to Washington. I call tell you that on the Amtrak train I was holding on for dear life. There's never I time when the train stays still!
Bleeding Edge Magazine did an extensive "test" today (which was sponsored by Red Hat Software and VA Research, by the way) which proves that Linux is faster than NT than Web and file serving. PHB's, watch out.
It started out as a decent article about O'Reilly's "animal book" history. But the moment I read "shareware Linux programming language," my interest in the article, and any good reputation USA Today ever had, went down the drain in a hurry. Blech.
Volumes on the shareware Windows programming language feature pictures of kamikaze warplanes and Amtrak trains, because "Windows likes to crash," O'Reilly says.
I would think that the sounds that we cannot hear would be dependent on the person. For example, no one in my household except for me can hear televisions making an extremely loud, high-pitched sound even if it's mute. And some people put the treble up on their stereos too far--they like it, but all I hear is a horrible high-pitched, scratching sound along with the music. It must be due to sounds higher than about 18kHz. I wonder what MP3 encoding does to those sounds?
Speaking as a member of 32BO, you'd be surprised how un-commercial it really is. Although I didn't write that particular article, I know that Red Hat does not have any association with 32 Bits Online at the moment. Red Hat doesn't advertise on our site, and our efforts to become a content provider for redhat.com have not been conclusive.
Another fact, by the way--I use Window Maker. By itself.
I was reading the interview with IBM's Charles Palmer. He was talking about "joyriders"--hackers who break into a system just to look around. He makes an analogy to breaking and entering:
Some of the "joyriders" -- hackers who access systems just for the challenge -- think it's harmless since they usually don't "do" anything besides go in and look around. But if a stranger came into your house, looked through everything, touched several items, and left (after building a small, out of the way door to be sure he could easily enter again), would you consider that harmless?
He's right in some respects. But would anyone mind if someone broke into your house, didn't touch anything, and left a note telling you when he broke in, how he broke in, and how to prevent any future break-ins?
There's only one way to get ground troops fighting in a "painless" war. Mech droids.
The only way you can steal movies is if you take someone else's VHS tape. Then you're really stealing the tape, not the movie.
The terms "stolen" and "theft" should not be used when discussing intellectual property. In the immortal words of Richard M. Stallman:
---
Copyright apologists often use words like ''stolen'' and ``theft'' to describe copyright infringement. At the same time, they ask us to treat the legal system as an authority on ethics: if copying is forbidden, it must be wrong.
So it is pertinent to mention that the legal system--at least in the US--rejects the idea that copyright infringement is ``theft''. Copyright advocates who use terms like ``stolen'' are misrepresenting the authority that they appeal to.
The idea that laws decide what is right or wrong is mistaken in general. Laws are, at their best, an attempt to achieve justice; to say that laws define justice or ethical conduct is turning things upside down.
---
I downloaded the preview of SciTech to see how it would support my Matrox Millenium II PCI card. The most amazing thing was that I got 1152x864 resolution on a monitor that has a maximum resolution of 1024x768! I don't know if that was SDD, but it's really cool.
Read the licence statement at http://xanim.va.pubnix.com/xa_copylic.html. Note that is *isn't* open source, because it can only be used for non-commercial uses.
If anything, Corel is helping the Linux community find out what is needed before Linux can be on the desktop in a big way. I've made a few suggestions:
(1) Standardise Linux distributions
To run desktop applications without difficulty, we need to make sure that similar system software, libraries and packaging systems are available. Most of the Linux distributors are standardising on rpm and glibc so this may become less of a problem.
(2) Standardise Linux desktop components
We'll need to standardise on one desktop, possibly GNOME or KDE. This may sound bad, but real techies know that if you don't like it, change it--after all, it is X11. If Red Hat ends up using GNOME as part of their distribution as planned, expect GNOME to become the standard interface.
(3) Standardise Linux desktop API
This may sound even worse than (2), but we need to make sure that some sort of standard in how Linux applications behave is achieved. Being a Linux user for a while now, I don't need this hand-holding, but lots of inexperienced desktop users need a consistent interface. Microsoft has done reasonably well in this regard, and I'm sure Linux could kick their ass in this department given the necessary effort.
(4) More desktop applications
This is obviously something that will occur more rapidly once (1)-(3) are achieved. Full-featured, Personal finance software, vector graphics and diagramming, desktop publishing, and scheduling will be needed to ensure Linux's success in the desktop.
(5) More hardware support
Hardware support has been amazingly good in Linux. Of course, hardware support is most important when considering Linux gaming. We need to make sure that 3D accelerator cards and API's are readily available in Linux, even if it's binary-only.
This should cover many of the requirements I think the Linux community will have to start thinking about. I've seen plenty of developments with LSB and GNOME but there's a long way to go. Corel may be a little too early in developing a desktop-only Linux distribution targeted at the newbie.
What's with this pronouncing on acronyms?? In Canada, we spell them out.
HP-UX is "h pee you ex"
AIX is "ey eye ex"
chown is "see h own"
chmod is "see h mod"
du is "dee you"
/etc is "slash ee tee see"
egcs is "ee gee see ess"
vrml is "vee ar em el"
GUI is "gee you eye"
FAQ is "eff ay que"
UPS is "you pee ess"
Got it? We wouldn't spell out WYSIWYG, because that would be stupid.