I'd recommend Bored of The Rings to really slow readers. It's amazing how it captures most of the story (the important bits, at least), and crams the last two books into what seemed like the last few pages of a 176 page book. The jokes get tired after the 100th time or so, if you're patient, much sooner if you're like me. Still, I've read worse.
not to mention you can't take a web site from the shitter, to the couch, out on the porch, on the bus, on the shitter at work, in the drive through at mcdonalds....
You can, with a wireless PDA. OK, Maybe not on the bus or to the drive through, but it's good enough to haul around the house.
Once their site recovers, you might want to check out their weekly status reports. They've made a lot of progress in designing their higher thrust engines, and the manned lander has just reached the point where it's stable enough (namely, they don't change the design radically on a weekly basis) to put a person on it and hope to get the person back with all bones intact.
There's a lot of stuff that has to come together for them to achieve their goal, and they have at least some of it under control.
Sort of. If I remember correctly, they claim to have a proof (using game theory) that the best an interrogator can do if you use their software, is keep beating you. They can't prove that you're holding anything back from them. This is valuable in some extreme situations (if you're guarding a secret important enough to die for), but doesn't really stop you from giving them what they want, hoping that they'd stop anyway. Pain is funny like that.
This has been said elsewhere, but it's worth repeating: Cryptography alone won't solve all your security problems. Especially if you live in a country where the use of cryptography is illegal, the secret police assumes that you're guilty until proven innocent, and they have the authority to try to extract secrets from you by any means they consider necessary.
Great, but unless you can prove it, they'll keep on beating her. You might consider giving her at least one unimportant password to give them in exchange for them stopping the beating.
Why? Because RedHat continues to release everything they develop under the GPL? Because they're trying to create a credible alternative to MS-Windows on the desktop, so people like me won't have a future of writing.Net crapplications to look forward to?
What is it about message boards that make normally civilized people turn into stereotypical razor-tounged neophytes?.
I read my post again this morning, and you're right - it (and therefore I) was impolite. I apologize for that. There's rarely a good reason for such impoliteness, and in this case there was none. I'll be good from now on, I promise...
I think we both agree that all the desktop offerings available on Linux aren't good enough for human consumption at this point.
I do have two problems with your argument, though: You're basing it on a list of X's shortcomings (bad font support, for example), but then brush aside the solutions available now (XRender, for example) as "hacks", ignoring the fact that applications use those extensions now, and therefore don't suffer from the problems you're basing your argument on.
The second problematic argument is that the extra libraries X applications use are somehow respobsible for KDE and GNOME's bad performance. Having looked at the problem myself, I know that's not the case.
Since KDE relies on separate applications to present the user with a UI (Konqueror to browse the file system, various control center applets to configure things, etc.) it introduces significant delays when trying to do everyday tasks that should be fast. Those delays are caused by having to wait for the system to load the application, and dynamically link it into the many libraries that it needs to do anything. This is perceived as GUI slowness by the user, but is in fact a more fundamental problem. Replacing the GUI and the desktop won't solve that problem, and fixing it will make the overall user experience better. Look here for information on some work being done to address that. To be honest, I don't know how far along any of this work is, and whether it will find its way to people's desktops anytime soon.
You could make the argument that having all those libraries loaded impacts system performance because you have to start swapping sooner. I'd agree, but I won't pick that area as the first thing to optimize.
Even if X imposes a constant slowdown on every call to a graphics primitive, it still doesn't explain why some X applications are so slow, and therefore, replacing X with something that's faster by a constant won't make a difference.
We should keep in mind that there are very few examples in this industry where a clean break with the past and a complete rewrite didn't end in disaster. It would take at least three years for anyone to come up with a compelling replacement for X and its desktop environments, and Linux needs something sooner. That's assuming that whoever is going to take on this enormous task will actually succeed in shipping anything.
Indications? Are you referring to outright statements from CEOs and advocates to get Linux kicking and screaming onto the desktop?
No, I'm referring to actual code I can download and run. RedHat Null is an example. And, I don't think a decent Linux desktop is a single Red Hat beta away - it's more like two major versions away, which is still faster than starting from scratch. It looks like RedHat's next version is going to be OK, for some people, and if they refine it for the next release, it'll be a decent product.
battling environments,...Get a decent distribution
How is any distribution going to solve the Gnome versus KDE issue? You're not making any sense there.
My mistake - I thought you were referring to the user having to battle the desktop environment when trying to get anything done. Now, if I wanted to weasel out of this one without admitting to making a mistake, I could say that distributions could smooth the differences between desktop environments by having their respective control panels modify parameters of the other environment, so keep things consistent, but I won't say that. Even though it's true.
BeOS, NeXTSTEP, OS X, all fast, modern, elegant, graphical environments: Everything that X and Gnome/KDE are not. It's been done before, it can be done again, and with open source, be done even better.
Assuming, of course, that GNOME and KDE can't be fixed. I believe they can be fixed, if somebody cared enough to do it, and that they can be fixed before a from-scratch alternative hits beta.
It's not that I'm saying it can't be done - it can. It's only code, and we know how to write code (well, at least I do - that's how I make my living). I'm saying that the economics of your propositions won't work. The X/KDE/GNOME combo is good enough for some people now, and is actively being made better for more and more people, through a series of small, low-risk changes. Any alternative you can come up with will be of no use to anybody for several years, and then it will have to fight for acceptance, with no application base to speak of, and with competition from a better X/GNOME/KDE desktop. (better, because I don't think it can get worse...)
And, last, but not least:
I'm sure it was a lapse of stupidity on my part, I apologize.
Just to make it clear: I don't think you're stupid. Now, that' you've read it on Slashdot, you know it's true.:-)
Because most of the sources are available elsewhere, and aren't much use to anybody not running Lindows? Because bandwidth costs money? Because nobody feels like it?
Take a look at this response: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=40190&cid=4284 363
Looked at it. Your argument is full of inaccuracies, (for example, the Mozilla developers did not "develop their own widget sets"), enough to make it completely nonsensical.
Let's dissect it, since we have nothing more entertaining to do at the moment:
personally I'd like to see something done with OpenBeOS. BeOS was a wonderfully full featured and elegant GUI, as well as very easy to use.
And users just flocked to it! You're also missing the point: X is not a GUI. Repeat after me: X is not a GUI.
While that is useful for the corporate and geek environment, it is absolutely useless for a consumer.
Where's the proof? What is it that makes it "useless" Spit it out, buddy! Don't keep us guessing!
X by itself might be fast, but to get it to anywhere near the usability and even asthetic qualities of other GUIs, it becomes slow.
Oh, so X is fast now. Interesting.
What gets X "near the usablitiy and even asthetic (sic) qualities of other GUIs" is software like KDE and GNOME. These are not X.
I can only guess how you draw your extraordinary conclusion that "[X] becomes slow". I'm assuming that you mean that KDE is slow, or that GNOME is slow. You'd be right, of course - they are slow.
Unfortunately, your failure to understand why they are slow leads you to the wrong conclusion. You can do much more to speed up KDE by fixing Linux's dynamic linking mechanism than by replacing X. In fact, you could replace X completely, port KDE to your spiffy new X replacement, and KDE would still be slow.
[In response to somebody saying that the XFree86 project is working on hardware autodetection] That's a major step, but how will it handle driver updates? Will grandma have to recompile her kernel? That's a straw man. Nobody needs has to compile the kernel to replace X drivers right now, but you're implying that your grandmother would have to, for some reason.
Make your grandmother proud, sonny - start making sense.
these flaws I've listed and many others need to be addressed by X or by a new GUI.
What many others? And you haven't actually listed any flaws.
What's more, you acknowledge that whatever flaws you imagine exist in X can actually be fixed. In light of that, why ditch X?
You also say:
I got tired of ugly fonts,
...One word: XRender
poor performance,
...Not an X issue
battling environments,
...Get a decent distribution
the need for tinkering,
... Get a decent distribution
and at the same time pretending it was somehow better than Windows, so I stopped using it.
Finally You make a coherent point! I thought I'd never see the day.
There's absolutely no point in pretending that a product is superior if it doesn't work for you. You can do one of several things - keep using the product, hoping that it will eventually get better, stop using it, and find something else to use, or fix it. Seems like you've made your decision, and you're happy enough with it. Good for you - you've obviously made the right decision.
The interesting question, for the rest of us, is "will the Linux desktop ever be good enough for the likes of Picky Tokki?"
I've seen indications that some companies are determined to drag Linux, kicking and screaming, and place it square on the desktop. RedHat's most recent beta impressed the hell out of me, for example, precisely because even after installing it, I still have no idea what its XF86Config file looks like, or even where it is. Out of the box, the fonts look nice, the system administration tasks I had to do (Setting up networking with DHCP) didn't require dropping to the command line, most error messages made sense... At this rate, they'll have something solid in a couple of releases.
And they didn't have to replace X with "something better" to pull this off.
That's a non-sequitur. X is the functional equivalent of GDI, which hasn't changed that much since Windows 1.0. GDI has absolutely NO impact on the Windows UI. By the same token, X has no impact on the Unix GUI. Therefore, there's nothing for a user to like or not to like about X.
If you think otherwise, prove it. Use complete sentences of the form "X is broken because ". I'm still waiting for you to state what exactly is wrong with X.
I've seen a definition of similarity in mathematics once. It said that two things are similar when a layman can't tell the difference between them, and a mathematician will immediately see that they're unrelated. Your example of "similarity" falls under that definition.
Mac OS ceased to be adequate many many years ago. Apple recognized that, and tried to rewrite it from scratch - twice. Both attempts were disasters. Then, Apple ended up buying a new OS, not writing one.
Thanks for helping me prove my point.
All great leaps in innovation in the operating system world required abanding old code and old systems [...] Linux itself has several such milestones, such as LibC, VM code, packet filtering, and more.
These are all great examples of evolutionary change. The kernel was never ditched, and rewritten from scratch with the vague excuse that "it's broken and stops the proliferation of Linux".
And, I'm disappointed to note, you still haven't pointed to a single, unfixable problem with X that's big enough to justify starting from scratch.
I doubt it would be hard to do backwards compatability, either through a legacy API or through an X client running on top of the new GUI.
So, you want to ditch X, and get to keep it, with an X server running on top of whatever it is you pick to replace X. Of course, now you have to worry about how X applications would integrate with your New'n'Spiffy (tm) windowing system. Don't forget that at least initially (say, first 5-8 years or so), most of the applications would want to use will be X applications, so desktop integration with X clients IS going to be an issue.
Everytime I bring this up and people come up with knee-jerk reactions to defend X
That's because your idea is misguided. When you casually suggest throwing away ~200000 LOC (for the server alone) and at least ten times as much code in libraries, clients, desktop gizmos, screensavers, drivers, video rendering and 3D services - you name it, I would expect YOU to come up with a reason why you think that would be a good idea, not the other way around.
In short, I think you should answer the following question first:
What's bad enough about X that dumping it and launching the massive undertaking of rewriting it would be cheaper than fixing?
...something with no backwards compatibility whatsoever, something that forces everybody to throw away every single application they have, or run an X server on top of.
I'll still bet good money that most Linux machines out there don't (and can't) dual boot. Linux is just more useful as a server than as a desktop at this point. As evidence, you can look at the lousy sales numbers for Linux games, you can look at how successful server and enterprise services Linux companies are, relative to companies that focus on the desktop, and consider all the companies that use Linux machines to run their POS applications and servers - they typically have more than 1 such machine.
Also, here's a list of Linux machines that don't dual boot:
* TiVO * Sharp Zaurus 5000D, or whatever they call it * snom 100 VoIP phone * hippo Internet Phone * Telepong mobile phone * GITWiT mobile phone * Aplio/PRO IP Phone * Ericsson cordless webpad/phone * SK Telecom IMT2000 WebPhone * Galleo "Mobile Multimedia Communicator" * JCC iBOX-2 * Sylvania Internet/TV * Nokia Media Terminal * SONICblue Rio Central * Kerbango (3Com) Internet Radio * PhatNoise PhatBox * HP Digital Entertainment Center * Linksys Wireless Presentation Gateway * Toshiba Wireless Mobility Server * Cyclades TS100 * Aries integrated server * Motorola DCT5000 (According to Lineo... This surprised me) * Sony's PlayStation II
I tried to weed out dead platforms from this list, but there may still be some corpses there. Still, it seems like companies try to ship devices running Linux, and some of them do.
Sun's newly announced Linux servers don't boot Windows, to the best of my knowledge. IBM's mainframes don't run Windows.
So, I honestly don't understand how you can claim that your anecdotal evidence can prove anything about the percentage of Linux machines that dual boot.
The study's data is skewed because most Linux systems dual-boot with Windows
Where did you get that idea? I'm pretty sure all the people who use Linux as a server platform don't dual boot into Windows 98 just so they can play The Sims at the end of the day.
Of the 20 or so Linux machines I have here, exactly 0 dual boot.
Boom. Instant jail time. Digital cable systems are scrambled with 3DES or Rijndael or RC4 or some other cipher. This is what the DMCA was actually intended for: to prevent piracy of cable and satellite television service.
Actually I was thinking that this can be a good way for MSOs to offer service to people who don't want a digital cable box.
Of course, knowing how these guys work, it will never happen.
By people who don't mind being sexually assaulted in the anus.
Or people whose country doesn't have DMCA like laws yet, or people who have the sense to distribute their work anonymously, and the means to do so.
I was just stating that software systems can be hacked. I don't think hacking a copy protection scheme is ethically wrong - using this knowledge to violate the social contract that stipulates that people are entitled to compensation for their work, is.
With CPU cycles being as cheap as they are now, and with most desktop systems being ridiculously fast for what they're asked to do, I could think of a few interesting things you could pull off with something like this.
Hook your computer up to your digital cable system, and have it do the QAM demodulation. Then, pump the results to an MPEG transport demux and MPEG decoder. Boom. Instant digital cable box.
Same thing, in reverse. Output IF, and hook it up to an upconverter and amplifier. Now you're your own cable company. The equipment typically used to do this is insanely expansive, and hard to get. This can make community cable television, for example, much easier and cheaper to implement.
Interestingly, the decoding/encoding is all done on a commodity, general purpose computer, so all copy protection schemes become hackable, the way they were with software DVD players.
More importantly, software is easier to fix and upgrade than hardware. This could result in significant cost savings for people who want to use this kind of technology commercially....and, having said that, this is not a new concept - winmodems have been doing this for a while now.
Slashdot Mirror
Which one was that? The one with the lady elf? In my copy, it's not on the back cover.
It is a cheap, nasty trick, though.
I'd recommend Bored of The Rings to really slow readers. It's amazing how it captures most of the story (the important bits, at least), and crams the last two books into what seemed like the last few pages of a 176 page book. The jokes get tired after the 100th time or so, if you're patient, much sooner if you're like me. Still, I've read worse.
One word: Dust.
not to mention you can't take a web site from the shitter, to the couch, out on the porch, on the bus, on the shitter at work, in the drive through at mcdonalds....
You can, with a wireless PDA. OK, Maybe not on the bus or to the drive through, but it's good enough to haul around the house.
The guy strapped to the thing with the peroxide tanks is Russ Blink. Carmack is flying this thing from the safety of his desk.
Once their site recovers, you might want to check out their weekly status reports. They've made a lot of progress in designing their higher thrust engines, and the manned lander has just reached the point where it's stable enough (namely, they don't change the design radically on a weekly basis) to put a person on it and hope to get the person back with all bones intact.
There's a lot of stuff that has to come together for them to achieve their goal, and they have at least some of it under control.
I see what you mean. When I last saw their page, that paper wasn't there yet.
This still doesn't solve the problem of somebody torturing your spouse to get the secret out of you, though.
Sort of. If I remember correctly, they claim to have a proof (using game theory) that the best an interrogator can do if you use their software, is keep beating you. They can't prove that you're holding anything back from them. This is valuable in some extreme situations (if you're guarding a secret important enough to die for), but doesn't really stop you from giving them what they want, hoping that they'd stop anyway. Pain is funny like that.
This has been said elsewhere, but it's worth repeating: Cryptography alone won't solve all your security problems. Especially if you live in a country where the use of cryptography is illegal, the secret police assumes that you're guilty until proven innocent, and they have the authority to try to extract secrets from you by any means they consider necessary.
Luckily I never tell my wife any of my passwords
Great, but unless you can prove it, they'll keep on beating her. You might consider giving her at least one unimportant password to give them in exchange for them stopping the beating.
Not that the CIA would ever do that, of course...
Why? Because RedHat continues to release everything they develop under the GPL? Because they're trying to create a credible alternative to MS-Windows on the desktop, so people like me won't have a future of writing .Net crapplications to look forward to?
...Or go straight for the weird stuff.
Or buy CDs from artists you've never heard of.
Hey, it's not the guy's fault if mama and papa John were cruel to him, and named him Gonzo...
What is it about message boards that make normally civilized people turn into stereotypical razor-tounged neophytes?.
...Get a decent distribution
:-)
I read my post again this morning, and you're right - it (and therefore I) was impolite. I apologize for that. There's rarely a good reason for such impoliteness, and in this case there was none. I'll be good from now on, I promise...
I think we both agree that all the desktop offerings available on Linux aren't good enough for human consumption at this point.
I do have two problems with your argument, though: You're basing it on a list of X's shortcomings (bad font support, for example), but then brush aside the solutions available now (XRender, for example) as "hacks", ignoring the fact that applications use those extensions now, and therefore don't suffer from the problems you're basing your argument on.
The second problematic argument is that the extra libraries X applications use are somehow respobsible for KDE and GNOME's bad performance. Having looked at the problem myself, I know that's not the case.
Since KDE relies on separate applications to present the user with a UI (Konqueror to browse the file system, various control center applets to configure things, etc.) it introduces significant delays when trying to do everyday tasks that should be fast. Those delays are caused by having to wait for the system to load the application, and dynamically link it into the many libraries that it needs to do anything. This is perceived as GUI slowness by the user, but is in fact a more fundamental problem. Replacing the GUI and the desktop won't solve that problem, and fixing it will make the overall user experience better. Look here for information on some work being done to address that. To be honest, I don't know how far along any of this work is, and whether it will find its way to people's desktops anytime soon.
You could make the argument that having all those libraries loaded impacts system performance because you have to start swapping sooner. I'd agree, but I won't pick that area as the first thing to optimize.
Even if X imposes a constant slowdown on every call to a graphics primitive, it still doesn't explain why some X applications are so slow, and therefore, replacing X with something that's faster by a constant won't make a difference.
We should keep in mind that there are very few examples in this industry where a clean break with the past and a complete rewrite didn't end in disaster. It would take at least three years for anyone to come up with a compelling replacement for X and its desktop environments, and Linux needs something sooner. That's assuming that whoever is going to take on this enormous task will actually succeed in shipping anything.
Indications? Are you referring to outright statements from CEOs and advocates to get Linux kicking and screaming onto the desktop?
No, I'm referring to actual code I can download and run. RedHat Null is an example. And, I don't think a decent Linux desktop is a single Red Hat beta away - it's more like two major versions away, which is still faster than starting from scratch. It looks like RedHat's next version is going to be OK, for some people, and if they refine it for the next release, it'll be a decent product.
battling environments,
How is any distribution going to solve the Gnome versus KDE issue? You're not making any sense there.
My mistake - I thought you were referring to the user having to battle the desktop environment when trying to get anything done. Now, if I wanted to weasel out of this one without admitting to making a mistake, I could say that distributions could smooth the differences between desktop environments by having their respective control panels modify parameters of the other environment, so keep things consistent, but I won't say that. Even though it's true.
BeOS, NeXTSTEP, OS X, all fast, modern, elegant, graphical environments: Everything that X and Gnome/KDE are not. It's been done before, it can be done again, and with open source, be done even better.
Assuming, of course, that GNOME and KDE can't be fixed. I believe they can be fixed, if somebody cared enough to do it, and that they can be fixed before a from-scratch alternative hits beta.
It's not that I'm saying it can't be done - it can. It's only code, and we know how to write code (well, at least I do - that's how I make my living). I'm saying that the economics of your propositions won't work. The X/KDE/GNOME combo is good enough for some people now, and is actively being made better for more and more people, through a series of small, low-risk changes. Any alternative you can come up with will be of no use to anybody for several years, and then it will have to fight for acceptance, with no application base to speak of, and with competition from a better X/GNOME/KDE desktop. (better, because I don't think it can get worse...)
And, last, but not least:
I'm sure it was a lapse of stupidity on my part, I apologize.
Just to make it clear: I don't think you're stupid. Now, that' you've read it on Slashdot, you know it's true.
Because most of the sources are available elsewhere, and aren't much use to anybody not running Lindows? Because bandwidth costs money? Because nobody feels like it?
Take a look at this response: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=40190&cid=4284 363
Looked at it. Your argument is full of inaccuracies, (for example, the Mozilla developers did not "develop their own widget sets"), enough to make it completely nonsensical.
Let's dissect it, since we have nothing more entertaining to do at the moment:
personally I'd like to see something done with OpenBeOS. BeOS was a wonderfully full featured and elegant GUI, as well as very easy to use.
And users just flocked to it! You're also missing the point: X is not a GUI. Repeat after me: X is not a GUI.
While that is useful for the corporate and geek environment, it is absolutely useless for a consumer.
Where's the proof? What is it that makes it "useless" Spit it out, buddy! Don't keep us guessing!
X by itself might be fast, but to get it to anywhere near the usability and even asthetic qualities of other GUIs, it becomes slow.
Oh, so X is fast now. Interesting.
What gets X "near the usablitiy and even asthetic (sic) qualities of other GUIs" is software like KDE and GNOME. These are not X.
I can only guess how you draw your extraordinary conclusion that "[X] becomes slow". I'm assuming that you mean that KDE is slow, or that GNOME is slow. You'd be right, of course - they are slow.
Unfortunately, your failure to understand why they are slow leads you to the wrong conclusion. You can do much more to speed up KDE by fixing Linux's dynamic linking mechanism than by replacing X. In fact, you could replace X completely, port KDE to your spiffy new X replacement, and KDE would still be slow.
[In response to somebody saying that the XFree86 project is working on hardware autodetection]
That's a major step, but how will it handle driver updates? Will grandma have to recompile her kernel?
That's a straw man. Nobody needs has to compile the kernel to replace X drivers right now, but you're implying that your grandmother would have to, for some reason.
Make your grandmother proud, sonny - start making sense.
these flaws I've listed and many others need to be addressed by X or by a new GUI.
What many others? And you haven't actually listed any flaws.
What's more, you acknowledge that whatever flaws you imagine exist in X can actually be fixed. In light of that, why ditch X?
You also say:
I got tired of ugly fonts,
...One word: XRender
poor performance,
...Not an X issue
battling environments,
...Get a decent distribution
the need for tinkering,
... Get a decent distribution
and at the same time pretending it was somehow better than Windows, so I stopped using it.
Finally You make a coherent point! I thought I'd never see the day.
There's absolutely no point in pretending that a product is superior if it doesn't work for you. You can do one of several things - keep using the product, hoping that it will eventually get better, stop using it, and find something else to use, or fix it. Seems like you've made your decision, and you're happy enough with it. Good for you - you've obviously made the right decision.
The interesting question, for the rest of us, is "will the Linux desktop ever be good enough for the likes of Picky Tokki?"
I've seen indications that some companies are determined to drag Linux, kicking and screaming, and place it square on the desktop. RedHat's most recent beta impressed the hell out of me, for example, precisely because even after installing it, I still have no idea what its XF86Config file looks like, or even where it is. Out of the box, the fonts look nice, the system administration tasks I had to do (Setting up networking with DHCP) didn't require dropping to the command line, most error messages made sense... At this rate, they'll have something solid in a couple of releases.
And they didn't have to replace X with "something better" to pull this off.
But not in a way that consumers like.
That's a non-sequitur. X is the functional equivalent of GDI, which hasn't changed that much since Windows 1.0. GDI has absolutely NO impact on the Windows UI. By the same token, X has no impact on the Unix GUI. Therefore, there's nothing for a user to like or not to like about X.
If you think otherwise, prove it. Use complete sentences of the form "X is broken because ". I'm still waiting for you to state what exactly is wrong with X.
Please, go ahead and list any benefits to X to the consumer,
1. It works.
2. It's universally supported by Unix desktop applications.
I've never heard anyone from the X camp list any, so if there are, I'd love to hear them.
One word: Q-tips.
It's a simliar issue with Mac OS X and Mac OS 9
I've seen a definition of similarity in mathematics once. It said that two things are similar when a layman can't tell the difference between them, and a mathematician will immediately see that they're unrelated. Your example of "similarity" falls under that definition.
Mac OS ceased to be adequate many many years ago. Apple recognized that, and tried to rewrite it from scratch - twice. Both attempts were disasters. Then, Apple ended up buying a new OS, not writing one.
Thanks for helping me prove my point.
All great leaps in innovation in the operating system world required abanding old code and old systems [...] Linux itself has several such milestones, such as LibC, VM code, packet filtering, and more.
These are all great examples of evolutionary change. The kernel was never ditched, and rewritten from scratch with the vague excuse that "it's broken and stops the proliferation of Linux".
And, I'm disappointed to note, you still haven't pointed to a single, unfixable problem with X that's big enough to justify starting from scratch.
I doubt it would be hard to do backwards compatability, either through a legacy API or through an X client running on top of the new GUI.
So, you want to ditch X, and get to keep it, with an X server running on top of whatever it is you pick to replace X. Of course, now you have to worry about how X applications would integrate with your New'n'Spiffy (tm) windowing system. Don't forget that at least initially (say, first 5-8 years or so), most of the applications would want to use will be X applications, so desktop integration with X clients IS going to be an issue.
Everytime I bring this up and people come up with knee-jerk reactions to defend X
That's because your idea is misguided. When you casually suggest throwing away ~200000 LOC (for the server alone) and at least ten times as much code in libraries, clients, desktop gizmos, screensavers, drivers, video rendering and 3D services - you name it, I would expect YOU to come up with a reason why you think that would be a good idea, not the other way around.
In short, I think you should answer the following question first:
What's bad enough about X that dumping it and launching the massive undertaking of rewriting it would be cheaper than fixing?
My answer would be: Nothing.
...something with no backwards compatibility whatsoever, something that forces everybody to throw away every single application they have, or run an X server on top of.
Why, exactly?
The workaround is to disable the onunload handler. This is the kind of workaround that breaks legitimate applications.
I'll still bet good money that most Linux machines out there don't (and can't) dual boot. Linux is just more useful as a server than as a desktop at this point. As evidence, you can look at the lousy sales numbers for Linux games, you can look at how successful server and enterprise services Linux companies are, relative to companies that focus on the desktop, and consider all the companies that use Linux machines to run their POS applications and servers - they typically have more than 1 such machine.
Also, here's a list of Linux machines that don't dual boot:
* TiVO
* Sharp Zaurus 5000D, or whatever they call it
* snom 100 VoIP phone
* hippo Internet Phone
* Telepong mobile phone
* GITWiT mobile phone
* Aplio/PRO IP Phone
* Ericsson cordless webpad/phone
* SK Telecom IMT2000 WebPhone
* Galleo "Mobile Multimedia Communicator"
* JCC iBOX-2
* Sylvania Internet/TV
* Nokia Media Terminal
* SONICblue Rio Central
* Kerbango (3Com) Internet Radio
* PhatNoise PhatBox
* HP Digital Entertainment Center
* Linksys Wireless Presentation Gateway
* Toshiba Wireless Mobility Server
* Cyclades TS100
* Aries integrated server
* Motorola DCT5000 (According to Lineo... This surprised me)
* Sony's PlayStation II
I tried to weed out dead platforms from this list, but there may still be some corpses there. Still, it seems like companies try to ship devices running Linux, and some of them do.
Sun's newly announced Linux servers don't boot Windows, to the best of my knowledge. IBM's mainframes don't run Windows.
So, I honestly don't understand how you can claim that your anecdotal evidence can prove anything about the percentage of Linux machines that dual boot.
The study's data is skewed because most Linux systems dual-boot with Windows
Where did you get that idea? I'm pretty sure all the people who use Linux as a server platform don't dual boot into Windows 98 just so they can play The Sims at the end of the day.
Of the 20 or so Linux machines I have here, exactly 0 dual boot.
Boom. Instant jail time. Digital cable systems are scrambled with 3DES or Rijndael or RC4 or some other cipher. This is what the DMCA was actually intended for: to prevent piracy of cable and satellite television service.
Actually I was thinking that this can be a good way for MSOs to offer service to people who don't want a digital cable box.
Of course, knowing how these guys work, it will never happen.
By people who don't mind being sexually assaulted in the anus.
Or people whose country doesn't have DMCA like laws yet, or people who have the sense to distribute their work anonymously, and the means to do so.
I was just stating that software systems can be hacked. I don't think hacking a copy protection scheme is ethically wrong - using this knowledge to violate the social contract that stipulates that people are entitled to compensation for their work, is.
With CPU cycles being as cheap as they are now, and with most desktop systems being ridiculously fast for what they're asked to do, I could think of a few interesting things you could pull off with something like this.
...and, having said that, this is not a new concept - winmodems have been doing this for a while now.
Hook your computer up to your digital cable system, and have it do the QAM demodulation. Then, pump the results to an MPEG transport demux and MPEG decoder. Boom. Instant digital cable box.
Same thing, in reverse. Output IF, and hook it up to an upconverter and amplifier. Now you're your own cable company. The equipment typically used to do this is insanely expansive, and hard to get. This can make community cable television, for example, much easier and cheaper to implement.
Interestingly, the decoding/encoding is all done on a commodity, general purpose computer, so all copy protection schemes become hackable, the way they were with software DVD players.
More importantly, software is easier to fix and upgrade than hardware. This could result in significant cost savings for people who want to use this kind of technology commercially.