Oh, and 1.9K temperature is used because it has a margin of safety for liquid helium (which has 4K boiling point).
1.9 K is below the so-called "lambda point" of helium, which stands at 2.2 K. That point corresponds to a transition to the superfluid state. This may help with heat dissipation in this setup.
A problem with this is, and you probably are already aware, is that the 2005 release was touted as 'polished' and 'stable' and 'greatly improved' at the time as well. We've heard the spin before, and it'll probably take another couple releases before you win people back from Ubuntu and Fedora and whatever else people migrated to. Mandrake/Mandriva lost me in '05 (and I tried the '06 and '07 as well) for a few reasons. Having gone through a lot of Mandriva releases (every since 6.0 or something), I concur that 2005 had quite a few annoyances. It felt that Mandriva wasn't going forward as much it used to. However, overall quality and user experience has improved tremendously with the latest releases (particularly 2007.1). FWIW, the 2008 improvements address exactly what I thought were the last major weak points:
repository management
although quite usable, somewhat cumbersome network management tools
deprecated crypto
Not to mention the long list of huge improvements (better to read the full list), particularly in the laptop support dept.: tickless kernel (sure you can recompile but this is mainstream), improved suspend (already much better in 2007.1), improved wireless...
This is probably true for Linux in general, but in the past year and a half it has really felt like Mandriva has been quickly converging toward an unusually polished state. IMHO, Adam Williamson is right when advising not to post based on previous impressions.
Opposition to DRM also makes a lot of sense to me but pretending to hold the moral high ground, whether it be true or false, is no argument for dismissing any kind of positive evolution of the draft. Uhh, being pedantic, let's stop the rant (but thanks for the misplaced jingoism:)).
What some of the new amendments are trying to introduce is interoperability, and while this is in itself a totally different thing from DRMs, it can actually have a huge impact on DRMs. Indeed, a major reason that some large companies have for backing DRM is market control, not piracy. In the case of music companies it is a matter of life and death for their business model. Force them to open up their DRM to outside implementation and you are severely restricting their ability to lock-down the market and to strengthen the cartelization of their industry. What are you ending up with is software and hardware solutions able to handle anything, with or without DRM. Then let people choose with their wallets whether they think DRMs are acceptable or not. Free market at its finest, and that's the one thing big business is afraid of.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, and 1.9K temperature is used because it has a margin of safety for liquid helium (which has 4K boiling point).
1.9 K is below the so-called "lambda point" of helium, which stands at 2.2 K. That point corresponds to a transition to the superfluid state. This may help with heat dissipation in this setup.
Not to mention the long list of huge improvements (better to read the full list), particularly in the laptop support dept.: tickless kernel (sure you can recompile but this is mainstream), improved suspend (already much better in 2007.1), improved wireless...
This is probably true for Linux in general, but in the past year and a half it has really felt like Mandriva has been quickly converging toward an unusually polished state. IMHO, Adam Williamson is right when advising not to post based on previous impressions.
Opposition to DRM also makes a lot of sense to me but pretending to hold the moral high ground, whether it be true or false, is no argument for dismissing any kind of positive evolution of the draft. Uhh, being pedantic, let's stop the rant (but thanks for the misplaced jingoism :)).
What some of the new amendments are trying to introduce is interoperability, and while this is in itself a totally different thing from DRMs, it can actually have a huge impact on DRMs. Indeed, a major reason that some large companies have for backing DRM is market control, not piracy. In the case of music companies it is a matter of life and death for their business model. Force them to open up their DRM to outside implementation and you are severely restricting their ability to lock-down the market and to strengthen the cartelization of their industry. What are you ending up with is software and hardware solutions able to handle anything, with or without DRM. Then let people choose with their wallets whether they think DRMs are acceptable or not. Free market at its finest, and that's the one thing big business is afraid of.