the companies that make this stuff could make money off this by selling an option to make backups for say... a dollar per backup and has to be registered to yourself with a separate backup serial key
F-bomb that. Backups SHOULD be legal, yes, because I own (or should own) the data on the disc once I have purchased it. Once I own that data, I should be able to access it in any fashion I choose, whether it is off the original disc, off a backup disc, off a hard drive, whatever. I already paid for the data, the data is still in the exact same form, it is just on different physical media. And should my data become corrupted, they should offer free replacement.
A mod-chip is just one means to an end. There are other ways to circumvent copy protection, but the mod-chip offers some advantages over the others. Just because it circumvents copy protection does not automatically mean that it is used for playing illegally copied games. That is just one 'end'. There are several different 'ends' that the mod-chip is a 'means to'. I could use several analogies about my hands being used to kill some one or my back yard being used to grow narcotics or my car being used to carpool so that my friends don't have to buy cars.
I am all for big business, but I hold my personal liberties higher. Selling copied games should be illegal, but selling/installing mod-chips should not.
Seeing that you already own an iMac, I think the bigger question is why are you so insistent on running Linux on your Mac?
funny, i asked myself the same thing. Last summer I was a few months in to my Linux transition on my desktop and I decided I wanted to find a cheap laptop to sit on my couch with and browse the internet as I watched tv. I thought I was going to run Linux on the laptop too, and I ended up with an old PPC powerbook that had OSX on it. I already knew that OSX was built upon BSD and the guy I bought it from told me how I'd feel right at home in OS X, because of it's lineage. I had already done research on ppc linux, but I decided to give OS X a try since I had only used it on kiosk demo machines before. Turns out it is pretty decent, and once I got past it's "quirks" I decided to keep it.
so eventually, I said "what need to I have to change this over to linux" and my answer was "none." I knew I could run X apps with some fudging, but i don't even have a need to do that. I've got ichat, firefox (camino if i feel like it), ssh, Fugu, and Colloquy to suit my needs. Anything else and the 867mhz ppc just seems way too slow (especially compared to my xeon 3050 running at 3.4ghz).
i was first introduced to,a href="http://www.dillo.org/">Dillo on DamnSmall Linux. Sure, it's "ugly" and "lacking features", but it gets the job done and renders pages almost instantaneously on my pentium 133mhz laptop. I'd use it on my desktop if more pages supported it and rendered correctly in it, but the speed is amazing. I'd like to see other browsers strive for dillo's speed and minimalism while rendering pages "correctly".
maybe he's never installed software, period. I know whenever I install ANYTHING in windows, I have to click through a number of screens, including a "do you accept this license?" page. I also know that every other user has to do the exact same thing. I would also venture to say that 0.1% of the population actually reads that EULA before they click Next.
My point is that the public has become numb to these warnings and know all they have to do is hit "OK" to go on. It doesn't matter what OS it is on, this is universal. It is certainly not a flaw of Linux and I don't see it scaring people away.
I'd say the friend is trying too hard, and should just recommend vanilla. If you want other flavors, you'll find out about them later. This is the same reason I wouldn't tell a new user to try Gentoo or Debian, and would instead steer them toward Ubuntu or something similar. This is despite the fact that I personally would prefer the former options.
Too much choice can be bad, but when you never even hear about 95% of the choices, it gets quite a bit easier. If someone wants to complain that the 5 or so major distributions is too many, that is an argument I might listen to. However if someone starts with the 300 number, I already know they aren't looking at the "problem" in an honest way.
The number of developers or users is not at all uniformly distributed. Most of those 300 distributions have a few developers/maintainers at most (or none), because it was someone's random pet project. The top few distributions have most of the developers/maintainers. So, the reality is a lot closer to your second example of 5 distributions than the uniform spreading over all distros.
That is my point, tho. There are choices that will be good for a majority of people, there are choices that are good for a minority, and there are choices that are right for you. The strength of having the choice is that you can find one that is custom tailored to your liking. A good friend who knows you well and knows Linux well will be able to pick out a distro that fits you perfectly. But that is not always the case. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to use the distro that your friend uses just so he can be there to help you in person, even if it isn't the easiest to learn on or the one that suits you best.
While one person might not have heard of all 300+ "distros", chances are that different people have heard of different distros. Personally, I could probably list at least 20 "distros" off the top of my head. Lets say that you could list 20 also. Without running the statistics, I'd bet that at at least 5 of the distros are different. And if we polled a 3rd person, that number of different distros would grow. The point is that the 300+ number is valid and bringing up that number IS looking at the "problem" in an honest way. You cannot simply discredit 300 distros because they are not the top 5. You could argue their validity as distros, but the fact remains that they are there, people spend time maintaining them and people do use them...even if that number is 1 person.
Now, to argue if a distro is legitimate we'd have argue over the definition of a distribution, and that would open up another can of worms. However, I would argue that it would not be too hard to either 1) combine several distros together that are competing to accomplish the same goal or 2) combine several smaller, more custom-purpose distros back in to the main distro they are based on. I'd like to use Debian and all of the 100's of distros based on it as an example. Here is a quick list to go off of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distrib utions#Debian-based If you look down the list and quickly scan the descriptions, you will see "live cd" often, and "easy to use" or "user friendly" often. Debian itself is easy to use and it has a live cd version. I can understand having different versions of Debian, maybe like Debian Pro, Debian Server, Debian Home, Debian Media Center Edition, Debian Embedded (sound like windows XP?) but I don't see the need for all of these "distros" to be 100% completely seperate from Debian. 2 users working on a Easy to Use Live CD seperately could easily combine efforts and reach their common goal with less work. And, they could easily combine with the main Debian live cd to get help from the large debian community. Lets hop back to the desktop and talk about Ubuntu. I do not understand why Ubuntu needs to be a completely different distro from De
so, say you've never eaten ice cream before...maybe you eat frozen yogurt or sherbet or italian ice...something close but not exact. One of your friends tells you "you should really try ice cream, it's just as good if not better than what you eat now." You say, "OK" and he takes you to Baskin Robins. You have a good selection in front of you and you don't know what to pick, so you ask your friend to pick for you. He could pick vanilla...it's basic, most likely you'll like it but it's very plain so it might not be "good enough" to make you switch over forever. Maybe he picks something like Mint Chocolate Chip. It's very popular, has a great flavor, and most likely you'll like it too. Maybe it's not good enough to make you stick to that one flavor forever, but maybe it spurs your interest and you decide to branch out and try other flavors. Or, he could pick something totally bazaar that has nuts in it. You turn out to be allergic to nuts and go to the hospital...and this traumatizes you so much that you never try ice cream again, ever.
You can draw your own conclusions, but sometimes too much to choose from is a bad thing. Choice is a strength and a weakness.
Personally, I think the way that this large number of choices hurts Linux the most is by spreading the number of people who maintain and develop too thin. Would it be better to have 1 user each working on 350 separate distros or maybe have 70 users each working on 5 distros? I'd think the latter would be able to get more work done faster.
[blockquote]It's interesting to stop and think what the doctor who takes out your appendix earns in an hour[/bockquote]
it is interesting, because it actually turn out to be MUCH less than you would imagine. It all depends on exactly what type of doctor you are talking about, but once you see the long hours that doctors acutally work, their high paychecks don't seem so glamorous. I'd argue that most doctors that work in hospitals make between $80-$100 an hour, based on 80-120 hour work weeks. At any rate, it is definitely less than $225.
Who thinks of this crap? Some one talking or cross-fading doesn't keep me from recording...it just means I record some one talking or the cross-fading. Is this not like using a cassette deck to record a regular radio stream? People have been doing this for years. People will be doing this for years to come. I guess if it saves net radio then I don't care, but seriously, what are these guys smoking and can I have some?
from the summary (i refuse to read ZDNet articles):
(2.6GHz Barcelona quad core) with older Intel Xeon quad cores rather than currently shipping ones which would beat the (hypothetical) score AMD claims for the future Barcelona. I guess while even the much slower 2.0GHz Barcelona is due soon AMD didn't think results from the 2.0 would look good enough - even against the slower Xeons they picked. Maybe the right comparison should be either best cpu against best cpu - or compare ones at the same price -- and only shipped products."
I don't understand how the Xeon 5355 is "older than currently shipping ones". I'm not a server processor guru, but when I go to Intel's site and click on server processors, I only see Quad Core 3200 series and Quad Core 5300 Series. Of the 5300 series, the 5355 is the top of the line processor as shown here. So, it looks to me like AMD picked the top of the line, currently shipping processor from Intel.
And while I'd rather see benchmarks on the 2.0ghz Barcelona since they are going to release it first, I do appreciate seeing numbers on a clock-to-clock basis. This shows me that per clock, AMD's Barcelona is doing more work, so even at 2.0ghz I can expect it to do more work than an Intel quad core at 2.0ghz. But I think it's clear that AMD chose to run their Barcelona at 2.6ghz to match the clock speed of the currently shipping, top of the line Intel processor.
While any benchmarks released directly by the manufacturer need to be taken with a grain of salt, I think any story written by some one who works for ZDNet needs even more scrutiny.
Yes, I did check that out, and there was another slackware based distro that was attempting the same thing too. The problem I saw was that pkgsrc wasn't 100% integrated into the system; some base packages were dealt with completely seperate of pkgsrc. I was looking for a 100% integrated solution so I wouldn't have to track 2 sets of packages. Now, maybe things have changed and maybe i'm remembering wrong, but it is definitely worth looking in to again. Thanks for the heads up.
it was interesting reading about your project. I must say that I was personally hoping to see slackware package management emulate FreeBSD Ports. I haven't used slackware in a year now and I left it because I was getting tired of creating my own slackbuild scripts. I am amazed that slackbuilds.org is still running and still current. When I was using slackware (for 3 months or so last year), I hung out in #slackware and I came up with the idea for the central repository. I stayed long enough to give my opinions on how the inner workings of the site should function, but hopped over to Gentoo very shortly after.
At any rate, the reason I jumped to Gentoo was for the package management. I still had the control I loved with Slackware, but I had a package manager that was easier to use. I never wanted to use slapt or swaret because they weren't "native", and I even contemplated using pkgsrc (from netbsd). While portage on gentoo is nice, I was really looking for something exactly like FreeBSD Ports, but I could not use FreeBSD because of my hardware. When I suggested making a slackbuild repository, I was hoping it might turn in to a Ports-esque package manager, where you have a local directory (similar to/usr/ports/) that had all of the slackbuilds in it. You would cd in to the directory you wanted, run the build script (similar to 'make install clean'), it would download the source, grab dependencies, and install the program...exactly like Ports does. And the tree would be updated by cvs, like Ports.
realisticly, Portage in Gentoo is very similar to Ports and it does have some nice additions to it, which is why I love using it. I don't know if I would give up portage to use slackware w/ 'Ports', but the addition of a 'ports' tree would definitely make it more appealing.
My advice to you is to hang out in #slackware if you don't already, and talk to rlworkman (can't remember his handle, but he runs http://rlworkman.net/pkgs/ and is/was a major part of slackbuilds.org). I'm sure Rob and the others in #slackware will give you pointers and help you test.
the mod chip doesn't undermine copy protection, the firmware on the modchip does. On the Xbox, at least, you can install different firmwares that enable you to do different things. I do not believe that all firmwares are illegal, like the Cromwell bios from the Xbox Linux project. So, I would argue that a modchip with this 100% legal bios would be 100% legal.
I am all for guns and modchips (XBMC is the only reason I bought a Xbox), but let me offer this: Should a drug dealer be arrested for selling drugs? Sure, we have laws that say it is illegal to sell drugs, but the logic is to go after the source to cut off the supply.
Personally, I think that as soon as the hardware is purchased it should no longer be controlled by MS. I own the hardware, I can do what I want with it. Since it is currently legal to buy modchips, it should be legal to own modchips, it should be legal to install mod chips, and it should be legal to own a console with a modchip installed. Where I think the current laws should draw the line is at the firmware on the chip or the software run on the console. If the firmware uses MS's code or is compiled with MS's SDK, for instance, I think that could be seen as illegal. But, if the chip has a 100% legal bios, like the Cromwell bios, then I think that chip should be 100% legal. And it should be 100% legal to run software like Linux with a mod chip installed.
[blockquote]These guys obviously haven't seen Total Recall.[/blockquote]
but they have seen Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I guess Emory and Oglethorpe gave up on having Mr. Shake deterraform Earth, so they set their sites on Mars.
you're right. nobody uses their computer for anything other than email and browsing the internet, so no one needs to upgrade their computer ever. There's absolutely no reason for these faster chips. Why would I ever need to do things faster?
the point is, just because YOU don't need a faster computer doesn't mean that EVERYONE doesn't need a faster computer.
Slashdot Mirror
might've just been easier to say: 1 / 1277 * 100 = 0.08%
screen on, apply directly to the computer screen...
F-bomb that. Backups SHOULD be legal, yes, because I own (or should own) the data on the disc once I have purchased it. Once I own that data, I should be able to access it in any fashion I choose, whether it is off the original disc, off a backup disc, off a hard drive, whatever. I already paid for the data, the data is still in the exact same form, it is just on different physical media. And should my data become corrupted, they should offer free replacement.
A mod-chip is just one means to an end. There are other ways to circumvent copy protection, but the mod-chip offers some advantages over the others. Just because it circumvents copy protection does not automatically mean that it is used for playing illegally copied games. That is just one 'end'. There are several different 'ends' that the mod-chip is a 'means to'. I could use several analogies about my hands being used to kill some one or my back yard being used to grow narcotics or my car being used to carpool so that my friends don't have to buy cars.
I am all for big business, but I hold my personal liberties higher. Selling copied games should be illegal, but selling/installing mod-chips should not.
he then goes on to talk about his Powerbook, calling it an iMac. I guess it doesn't take much tech knowledge to become a writer at InfoWeek.
funny, i asked myself the same thing. Last summer I was a few months in to my Linux transition on my desktop and I decided I wanted to find a cheap laptop to sit on my couch with and browse the internet as I watched tv. I thought I was going to run Linux on the laptop too, and I ended up with an old PPC powerbook that had OSX on it. I already knew that OSX was built upon BSD and the guy I bought it from told me how I'd feel right at home in OS X, because of it's lineage. I had already done research on ppc linux, but I decided to give OS X a try since I had only used it on kiosk demo machines before. Turns out it is pretty decent, and once I got past it's "quirks" I decided to keep it.
so eventually, I said "what need to I have to change this over to linux" and my answer was "none." I knew I could run X apps with some fudging, but i don't even have a need to do that. I've got ichat, firefox (camino if i feel like it), ssh, Fugu, and Colloquy to suit my needs. Anything else and the 867mhz ppc just seems way too slow (especially compared to my xeon 3050 running at 3.4ghz).
from the dapartment of redundancy department (tagging beta)
you are not alone, this is the first i've heard of this too. Which I guess also proves the point of this article, as I'm a webmin myself.
i was first introduced to ,a href="http://www.dillo.org/">Dillo on DamnSmall Linux. Sure, it's "ugly" and "lacking features", but it gets the job done and renders pages almost instantaneously on my pentium 133mhz laptop. I'd use it on my desktop if more pages supported it and rendered correctly in it, but the speed is amazing. I'd like to see other browsers strive for dillo's speed and minimalism while rendering pages "correctly".
maybe he's never installed software, period. I know whenever I install ANYTHING in windows, I have to click through a number of screens, including a "do you accept this license?" page. I also know that every other user has to do the exact same thing. I would also venture to say that 0.1% of the population actually reads that EULA before they click Next.
My point is that the public has become numb to these warnings and know all they have to do is hit "OK" to go on. It doesn't matter what OS it is on, this is universal. It is certainly not a flaw of Linux and I don't see it scaring people away.
That is my point, tho. There are choices that will be good for a majority of people, there are choices that are good for a minority, and there are choices that are right for you. The strength of having the choice is that you can find one that is custom tailored to your liking. A good friend who knows you well and knows Linux well will be able to pick out a distro that fits you perfectly. But that is not always the case. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to use the distro that your friend uses just so he can be there to help you in person, even if it isn't the easiest to learn on or the one that suits you best.
While one person might not have heard of all 300+ "distros", chances are that different people have heard of different distros. Personally, I could probably list at least 20 "distros" off the top of my head. Lets say that you could list 20 also. Without running the statistics, I'd bet that at at least 5 of the distros are different. And if we polled a 3rd person, that number of different distros would grow. The point is that the 300+ number is valid and bringing up that number IS looking at the "problem" in an honest way. You cannot simply discredit 300 distros because they are not the top 5. You could argue their validity as distros, but the fact remains that they are there, people spend time maintaining them and people do use them...even if that number is 1 person.
Now, to argue if a distro is legitimate we'd have argue over the definition of a distribution, and that would open up another can of worms. However, I would argue that it would not be too hard to either 1) combine several distros together that are competing to accomplish the same goal or 2) combine several smaller, more custom-purpose distros back in to the main distro they are based on. I'd like to use Debian and all of the 100's of distros based on it as an example. Here is a quick list to go off of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distrib utions#Debian-based If you look down the list and quickly scan the descriptions, you will see "live cd" often, and "easy to use" or "user friendly" often. Debian itself is easy to use and it has a live cd version. I can understand having different versions of Debian, maybe like Debian Pro, Debian Server, Debian Home, Debian Media Center Edition, Debian Embedded (sound like windows XP?) but I don't see the need for all of these "distros" to be 100% completely seperate from Debian. 2 users working on a Easy to Use Live CD seperately could easily combine efforts and reach their common goal with less work. And, they could easily combine with the main Debian live cd to get help from the large debian community. Lets hop back to the desktop and talk about Ubuntu. I do not understand why Ubuntu needs to be a completely different distro from De
maybe I've seen too many movies, but I believe lots of people say this is exactly how the diamond industry works. Just throwing that out there.
so, say you've never eaten ice cream before...maybe you eat frozen yogurt or sherbet or italian ice...something close but not exact. One of your friends tells you "you should really try ice cream, it's just as good if not better than what you eat now." You say, "OK" and he takes you to Baskin Robins. You have a good selection in front of you and you don't know what to pick, so you ask your friend to pick for you. He could pick vanilla...it's basic, most likely you'll like it but it's very plain so it might not be "good enough" to make you switch over forever. Maybe he picks something like Mint Chocolate Chip. It's very popular, has a great flavor, and most likely you'll like it too. Maybe it's not good enough to make you stick to that one flavor forever, but maybe it spurs your interest and you decide to branch out and try other flavors. Or, he could pick something totally bazaar that has nuts in it. You turn out to be allergic to nuts and go to the hospital...and this traumatizes you so much that you never try ice cream again, ever.
You can draw your own conclusions, but sometimes too much to choose from is a bad thing. Choice is a strength and a weakness.
Personally, I think the way that this large number of choices hurts Linux the most is by spreading the number of people who maintain and develop too thin. Would it be better to have 1 user each working on 350 separate distros or maybe have 70 users each working on 5 distros? I'd think the latter would be able to get more work done faster.
it is interesting, because it actually turn out to be MUCH less than you would imagine. It all depends on exactly what type of doctor you are talking about, but once you see the long hours that doctors acutally work, their high paychecks don't seem so glamorous. I'd argue that most doctors that work in hospitals make between $80-$100 an hour, based on 80-120 hour work weeks. At any rate, it is definitely less than $225.
Who thinks of this crap? Some one talking or cross-fading doesn't keep me from recording...it just means I record some one talking or the cross-fading. Is this not like using a cassette deck to record a regular radio stream? People have been doing this for years. People will be doing this for years to come. I guess if it saves net radio then I don't care, but seriously, what are these guys smoking and can I have some?
from the summary (i refuse to read ZDNet articles):
I don't understand how the Xeon 5355 is "older than currently shipping ones". I'm not a server processor guru, but when I go to Intel's site and click on server processors, I only see Quad Core 3200 series and Quad Core 5300 Series. Of the 5300 series, the 5355 is the top of the line processor as shown here. So, it looks to me like AMD picked the top of the line, currently shipping processor from Intel.
And while I'd rather see benchmarks on the 2.0ghz Barcelona since they are going to release it first, I do appreciate seeing numbers on a clock-to-clock basis. This shows me that per clock, AMD's Barcelona is doing more work, so even at 2.0ghz I can expect it to do more work than an Intel quad core at 2.0ghz. But I think it's clear that AMD chose to run their Barcelona at 2.6ghz to match the clock speed of the currently shipping, top of the line Intel processor.
While any benchmarks released directly by the manufacturer need to be taken with a grain of salt, I think any story written by some one who works for ZDNet needs even more scrutiny.
Yes, I did check that out, and there was another slackware based distro that was attempting the same thing too. The problem I saw was that pkgsrc wasn't 100% integrated into the system; some base packages were dealt with completely seperate of pkgsrc. I was looking for a 100% integrated solution so I wouldn't have to track 2 sets of packages. Now, maybe things have changed and maybe i'm remembering wrong, but it is definitely worth looking in to again. Thanks for the heads up.
it was interesting reading about your project. I must say that I was personally hoping to see slackware package management emulate FreeBSD Ports. I haven't used slackware in a year now and I left it because I was getting tired of creating my own slackbuild scripts. I am amazed that slackbuilds.org is still running and still current. When I was using slackware (for 3 months or so last year), I hung out in #slackware and I came up with the idea for the central repository. I stayed long enough to give my opinions on how the inner workings of the site should function, but hopped over to Gentoo very shortly after.
/usr/ports/) that had all of the slackbuilds in it. You would cd in to the directory you wanted, run the build script (similar to 'make install clean'), it would download the source, grab dependencies, and install the program...exactly like Ports does. And the tree would be updated by cvs, like Ports.
At any rate, the reason I jumped to Gentoo was for the package management. I still had the control I loved with Slackware, but I had a package manager that was easier to use. I never wanted to use slapt or swaret because they weren't "native", and I even contemplated using pkgsrc (from netbsd). While portage on gentoo is nice, I was really looking for something exactly like FreeBSD Ports, but I could not use FreeBSD because of my hardware. When I suggested making a slackbuild repository, I was hoping it might turn in to a Ports-esque package manager, where you have a local directory (similar to
realisticly, Portage in Gentoo is very similar to Ports and it does have some nice additions to it, which is why I love using it. I don't know if I would give up portage to use slackware w/ 'Ports', but the addition of a 'ports' tree would definitely make it more appealing.
My advice to you is to hang out in #slackware if you don't already, and talk to rlworkman (can't remember his handle, but he runs http://rlworkman.net/pkgs/ and is/was a major part of slackbuilds.org). I'm sure Rob and the others in #slackware will give you pointers and help you test.
i'll see your simpsons reference and raise you one ATHF: Emory and Oglethorpe
you're sure they had the Cromwell bios on them or you assume they had the Cromwell bios on them or are you attempting sarcasm?
that is just your opinion. some people argue that guns and modchips have no legitimate purpose, too. the question is, where do you draw the line.
the mod chip doesn't undermine copy protection, the firmware on the modchip does. On the Xbox, at least, you can install different firmwares that enable you to do different things. I do not believe that all firmwares are illegal, like the Cromwell bios from the Xbox Linux project. So, I would argue that a modchip with this 100% legal bios would be 100% legal.
I am all for guns and modchips (XBMC is the only reason I bought a Xbox), but let me offer this: Should a drug dealer be arrested for selling drugs? Sure, we have laws that say it is illegal to sell drugs, but the logic is to go after the source to cut off the supply.
Personally, I think that as soon as the hardware is purchased it should no longer be controlled by MS. I own the hardware, I can do what I want with it. Since it is currently legal to buy modchips, it should be legal to own modchips, it should be legal to install mod chips, and it should be legal to own a console with a modchip installed. Where I think the current laws should draw the line is at the firmware on the chip or the software run on the console. If the firmware uses MS's code or is compiled with MS's SDK, for instance, I think that could be seen as illegal. But, if the chip has a 100% legal bios, like the Cromwell bios, then I think that chip should be 100% legal. And it should be 100% legal to run software like Linux with a mod chip installed.
but they have seen Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I guess Emory and Oglethorpe gave up on having Mr. Shake deterraform Earth, so they set their sites on Mars.
you're right. nobody uses their computer for anything other than email and browsing the internet, so no one needs to upgrade their computer ever. There's absolutely no reason for these faster chips. Why would I ever need to do things faster?
the point is, just because YOU don't need a faster computer doesn't mean that EVERYONE doesn't need a faster computer.