And on this front, I would say that Mozilla SeaMonkey is currently our best (and maybe our only) hope of getting a better browser for Linux.
It sounds like they're doing it right, which is a good thing. Netscape got so caught up in competing with MS that their product suffered. This is the main reson that I think Linus should just ignore MS/Mindcraft for the time being.
Pardon my ignorance, but I can't see what's so difficult about writing a browser. It's basically a TCP/IP client with an HTML parser and an image renderer. What's the hard part that takes so long? I know the people working on it are all good programmers, so there must be some hidden "tarpit" that I don't know about.
TedC
Re:My Solution: kmail
on
Netscape 4.6
·
· Score: 2
Sick and tired of my browser choking on some JS and killing my email. Notice that this is not a problem with MS products.
My Solution: I create a 2nd account just for browsing. That way when my browser crashes it does not interfere with the messenger email client.
I started using kmail (version 1.0.17 is stabe enough to use) so that when Netscape crashes it doesn't trash my email. I also wrote a shell script that cleans things up after a crash to make things easier.
You're right about MS -- credit where credit is due, IE is a better browser. It has some annoying features, but at least it works.
Seriously , though: Could it be that the kernel folks are trying to fix some issues in time for the 3rd Mindcraft test?
I hope not. The last thing we need is Microsoft driving the development of Linux. Since there are no shareholders involved, Linus has the option of just ignoring them, and working on things that are the most important, instead of putting out fires in the press.
Kernel video driver crashes -> whole system falls over.
AFAIK most video cards can't be reset from an inconsistent state without a hard reset of the host system, so this isn't entirely a software problem. Same goes for keyboards; I've had the keyb controller crash and leave me stranded without an input device other then the mouse. Technically neither the kernel not X has crashed, but I can't even exit X using . It would be nice to have a hard-wired key for this purpose.
As far as XFree86 never crashing, running XF86Setup and selecting a 104-key PS/2 keyb does it for me. I'm using a standard 104-key Dell keyb, nothing fancy.
Is there a page out there anywhere or a howto or a pointer on how to actually compile and install a new kernel, and perhaps get rid of the graphical boot messages?
To disable the graphical boot messages, edit/etc/lilo.conf and remove the lines "vga=274" and "debug=2", and then run/sbin/lilo. If you want to ditch the graphical login, edit/etc/inittab and change the line "id:5:initdefault:" to "id:3:initdefault:" (be careful not to change anything but the 5 to a 3).
Does this mean that the Linux market is fulfilling the predictions of open-source skeptics by beginning to fragment into incompatibility, just as Unix did before it?
I've installed both COL 2.2 and RH 6.0, and it seems to me that they're converging, not fragmenting. COL has LIZARD and RH has GNOME, but other than that they are very similar; both use the 2.2.5 kernel, glibc 2.1, XFree86 3.3.3.1, KDE 1.1, etc. RH has maintained their tradition of shipping a pre-patched kernel, but some things will never change, I guess.
I think the author may have been alluding to chapter four of The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks. This book is a classic; highly recommended, two thumbs up.
Let's assume for purposes of discussion that Linux really does suck, and Windows really is better than Linux. The question then becomes: Are the additional features and stability (cough) of Windows worth giving up my freedom for?
This may sound idealogical, but it's not. What I'm really asking myself is this: Do I want to spend the rest of my life as an MS application programmer, waiting for the Next Big Thing from Redmond to see which way my career is going to go, or do I stick with Linux and be a participant in the field of computer science as Ken has been.
Did anyone follow the link to MENSA and take the MENSA workout? The obvious answer to #10 is 8, but this can't be right, because a circle doesn't really have any "sides". I must be looking at the problem wrong...
I read all of the posts (so far), and I didn't have a clue what half of them were talking about. It's great. I love it. I spent a couple hours last night surfing around trying to figure this stuff out. Some of the posts are wrong, but they're still good because they got me thinking.
We need more stories like this on/., instead of all the World Dominion fluff and mindless flaming.
I'm not a GPL groupie either, but any language you choose to adopt in the long haul had bette be open.
I agree. Who wants to spend a *lot* of time mastering a language that's controlled by some commercial entity, and then have them turn around and change the rules in the middle of the game? It doesn't matter how good the language is, or how many people are using it.
I'll buy proprietary games and applications all day long, but I refuse to let a company (any company, not to single out just Sun) without my best interests in mind control the direction of my career.
This sounds like another MS setup to make Linux look bad, and attach Linus and Alan to the "failure" of Linux.
What we need is an open test conducted by a trusted third party. MS can show up with their 50 drones and go head to head against a handful of Linux/Samba/Apache developers.
That would be something to read about, instead of all these bogus benchmarks payed for by Bill.
So what you're saying is that they might lose more customers than they gain by releasing the specs.
No, what I'm saying is that by opening their specs, NVIDIA would expose IP to their competitors, and lose customers indirectly by allowing their competitors to produce better products. This would be a good thing for customers in the short term, but not so good for NVIDIA, and I really can't expect them to act in a way that's not in their own best interest. We're all human, after all.
I think it's $80 with tech support, and $40 without. Hopefully the $40 version will include printed documentation. I can't see paying $40 for a couple of CDs full of Free Software.
The TNT support will be binary-only, which means Redhat probably won't even distribute it, if they stick to the GPL that is.
Red Hat signed an NDA and released a binary-only driver for the Intel i740. This driver was recently released as Open Source, so good things can come from less than perfect beginnings.:-)
If someone released specs they would gain more in users than they would lose by giving out the specs.
An assertion often made, but never proven.
Five years from now all 3D chips will have about the same features and level of performance (as most 2D chips do now), IP will no longer be that important, and we can all use Open Source drivers. Until then I don't mind meeting NVIDIA half way.
Slashdot Mirror
It sounds like they're doing it right, which is a good thing. Netscape got so caught up in competing with MS that their product suffered. This is the main reson that I think Linus should just ignore MS/Mindcraft for the time being.
Pardon my ignorance, but I can't see what's so difficult about writing a browser. It's basically a TCP/IP client with an HTML parser and an image renderer. What's the hard part that takes so long? I know the people working on it are all good programmers, so there must be some hidden "tarpit" that I don't know about.
TedC
My Solution: I create a 2nd account just for browsing. That way when my browser crashes it does not interfere with the messenger email client.
I started using kmail (version 1.0.17 is stabe enough to use) so that when Netscape crashes it doesn't trash my email. I also wrote a shell script that cleans things up after a crash to make things easier.
You're right about MS -- credit where credit is due, IE is a better browser. It has some annoying features, but at least it works.
TedC
I hope not. The last thing we need is Microsoft driving the development of Linux. Since there are no shareholders involved, Linus has the option of just ignoring them, and working on things that are the most important, instead of putting out fires in the press.
TedC
I forgot that angled brackets get intrerpreted as HTML tags...
TedC
AFAIK most video cards can't be reset from an inconsistent state without a hard reset of the host system, so this isn't entirely a software problem. Same goes for keyboards; I've had the keyb controller crash and leave me stranded without an input device other then the mouse. Technically neither the kernel not X has crashed, but I can't even exit X using . It would be nice to have a hard-wired key for this purpose.
As far as XFree86 never crashing, running XF86Setup and selecting a 104-key PS/2 keyb does it for me. I'm using a standard 104-key Dell keyb, nothing fancy.
TedC
TedC
To disable the graphical boot messages, edit /etc/lilo.conf and remove the lines "vga=274" and "debug=2", and then run /sbin/lilo. If you want to ditch the graphical login, edit /etc/inittab and change the line "id:5:initdefault:" to "id:3:initdefault:" (be careful not to change anything but the 5 to a 3).
TedC
I think you probably did. I have both COL 2.2 and RH 6.0, and the only significant difference is that RH includes GNOME (which is very nice, BTW).
TedC
I've installed both COL 2.2 and RH 6.0, and it seems to me that they're converging, not fragmenting. COL has LIZARD and RH has GNOME, but other than that they are very similar; both use the 2.2.5 kernel, glibc 2.1, XFree86 3.3.3.1, KDE 1.1, etc. RH has maintained their tradition of shipping a pre-patched kernel, but some things will never change, I guess.
TedC
I think the author may have been alluding to chapter four of The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks. This book is a classic; highly recommended, two thumbs up.
TedC
This may sound idealogical, but it's not. What I'm really asking myself is this: Do I want to spend the rest of my life as an MS application programmer, waiting for the Next Big Thing from Redmond to see which way my career is going to go, or do I stick with Linux and be a participant in the field of computer science as Ken has been.
The answer should be obvious.
TedC
Exactly! When I went to school, lines were straight. :-)
TedC
Did anyone follow the link to MENSA and take the MENSA workout? The obvious answer to #10 is 8, but this can't be right, because a circle doesn't really have any "sides". I must be looking at the problem wrong...
TedC
We need more stories like this on /., instead of all the World Dominion fluff and mindless flaming.
TedC
The Voodoo 3 has about the same performance as the Voodoo 2 SLI, or in other words is about twice as fast as a single Voodoo 2 board.
TedC
I agree. Who wants to spend a *lot* of time mastering a language that's controlled by some commercial entity, and then have them turn around and change the rules in the middle of the game? It doesn't matter how good the language is, or how many people are using it.
I'll buy proprietary games and applications all day long, but I refuse to let a company (any company, not to single out just Sun) without my best interests in mind control the direction of my career.
TedC
What's Ron got to do with students who are too damn lazy to study?
TedC
I write commercial software because I love to program. Why would I want to spend all day doing something that I don't like? That doesn't make sense.
TedC
What we need is an open test conducted by a trusted third party. MS can show up with their 50 drones and go head to head against a handful of Linux/Samba/Apache developers.
That would be something to read about, instead of all these bogus benchmarks payed for by Bill.
TedC
No, what I'm saying is that by opening their specs, NVIDIA would expose IP to their competitors, and lose customers indirectly by allowing their competitors to produce better products. This would be a good thing for customers in the short term, but not so good for NVIDIA, and I really can't expect them to act in a way that's not in their own best interest. We're all human, after all.
TedC
TedC
Red Hat signed an NDA and released a binary-only driver for the Intel i740. This driver was recently released as Open Source, so good things can come from less than perfect beginnings. :-)
TedC
Nothing has been released yet (or even officially announced), so who can say?
TedC
An assertion often made, but never proven.
Five years from now all 3D chips will have about the same features and level of performance (as most 2D chips do now), IP will no longer be that important, and we can all use Open Source drivers. Until then I don't mind meeting NVIDIA half way.
TedC