No, but the stupid users (and the not-so-stupid) will think it is.
We must note that for 10 years straight MS has been targeting their product to the uneducated majority (I mean not computer educated). They have been able to bear the fruits of that stupidity (as in not-wanting-to-switch, afraid-of-thinking, that kind of things) for so many years.
Now when the tables are turned, and the stupidity is against them (negative PR because of 'craplets'), they don't want it. Sorry, but you can't have the cake and eat it at the same time.
> The US designed the ISS. We are using the Space Shuttle to build it. The Russians have launched 2 small station modules. As true as it is, don't forget that when the ISS was just two modules the Russians landed MIR, because it was 11 years in space.:)
I'd be careful shouting things like that before actually engaging your brain yourself; he's totally correct. Say the sea level rises an average of 5cm over 50 years. This means there's an extra 5cm of water at every location there's ocean/sea. Now, if you move a massive object over one side, say, the moon, that has enough gravity to pull a huge amount of water over to one side of the earth... well now that 5cm on the one side of the planet has moved and added onto the 5cm on the other side of the planet. With more water, there's more water for the moon to pull. So, on the side with the moon, the water has gone up by the original 5cm, and all the extra being pulled by the moon.
You're absolutely right! With the average depth of the ocean at least 1000 meters (I'm not sure how much, it is at least that much) an average 5 cm are... let me think, 0.0005% more water for the Moon to pull!!! Yes, I am sure that explains the sinking of the whole damned island!
> What you said will be true if the so called "sea level" is a perfect flat surface. However, the Earth, as a water ball is quite bumpy and is shaped by gravitational force, tidal force, structure of the seabed, and ocean current. The few centimeter overall difference can easily be magnified locally by the factors above.
Insightful?!?!?!
Come on, guys! He doesn't understand basic physics!!! How on earth is 1 centimeter going to be magnified? With a magnifying glass, I presume? The only thing that can change the form of the Earth's water level is gravity and some occasional high tidal wave from a volcano, or a hurricane. Seabed and currents don't have anything to do with it (well, they can have as they influence the gravity, but that is so weak, that it is not measurable at all).
Exactly! When an animal shits, it always covers the shit with dirt. Not like the people that throw garbage on the ground and expect it to disappear! So, actually those people are worse than animals.
> Getting sued for P2P only costs a screenshot of an IP address. Getting sued for buying from allofmp3.com likely requires probably cause and a subpoena of financial transaction records.
Even better, the prosecution has to proove that you bought them, and knew that was illegal! I mean, it is not that easy to be sued for buying something illegaly, without proving you did it on purpose.
I don't think that having Linux on them is prohibiting installing Windows. You just may not have enough memory for the last one, but that's the life. It's the 100$, not the 1000$ PC.
I've been through it in training, so I know exactly what it's like. I still don't consider it torture. This is the same mentality that tells us it's wrong to occasionally discipline a child physically, or to eat meat because "it's cruel to the wiffle cows".
For what I know I am not a cow or a child. I have not only constitutional rights, but also BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS (and the declaration was signed/whatever by USA). If torture was moral or legal, it would be used on US sitizens as well, all the time. But a child is a child, and disciplining a child is still not torture by almost all people's definitions. The declaration of human rights explicitly says that every man have the right to preserve their honor. If you like being tortured, go ahead. Just don't expect all will like that. And what's wrong if you don't eat meat? I personally have butchered pigs (not sure what the term is), but I don't like animal torture.
Why do you bother to use an acronym when you're going to spell the whole thing out anyway? Yes, exactly, and even if he dropped the acronym it is obvious he is not a mathematician.
Just define "secure" and I'll agree that you can say at least something with "Goedel" in it.
I don't think anyone's been killed by a computer-ignorant octogenarian checking his email. Oh, sure, it is sooo coool to have your identity stolen, just because one friend of yours didn't care. Actually, there are fates worse than death.
People have been killed by those not fit to drive. (And it's worth noting that the system hasn't proven too good at keeping those people off the road, by the way) Are you sure? Becaus you don't know what is going to happen without those rules, it has never been tried. Oh, wait, it is being tried - try some third world capital?
Ignorant computer users pose a minimal risk to life and property.... unles you mean your identity, therefore all your property. And if you kill yourself because you're broke, yup, that is just an incident. Lucky me, no harm done, whatsoever...
Theoretically, in the 'land of the free', we don't legislate activities that pose little risk to otherwise uninvolved parties. Of course, there are numerous examples of this not actually happening in reality, but that's beside the point. Legislate? Why not just educate the people. Mandate encryption. If people don't want to know, they shouldn't get a computer. They should not be allowed to use online banking and stuff. If you can't do it online, go to your local bank branch. It will be better.
Why invite the government where it's not absolutely needed? Because it is clearly getting out of hand. No legislation, the government does more than that - spending money in the right direction, that is the way.
Iran is a mullahcracy, Haha. Sounds funny. But what do you mean?
has a supreme leader for life, That can be removed if one of the councils says so. They just don't bother to reelect him.
political canadates must be "selected", Like... if they are not felons? Or that they do not lobby for war? Selected if they are suitable according to their religious book. So what? Like you will accept anyone to run for president or senator.
state controlled press, Info? And to what extent? Like... some of the press is controled by the state? Or that all is? Be more specific.
Iran does not have religious freedom, Unfortunately with such a variety you don't have that much choice with this one. Eventually one or another will be unhapy. By the way, their jews and armenians have the right to drink wine, which the muslims can't. Tough shit.
Iran even has a bloody moral police with incredible powers to arrest and detain. I'd like to see more info on that.
Like... in the Iran-Iraq war (the war USA financed and sold guns for), Iraq used their WMD arsenal of chemical wearpons, Iran did not, even though they had. Makes you wonder, why? And who has the higher ground, with the discovery of Israel's mining of half of Lebanon with cluster bombs.
Oh, sure they have problems. Torture... but not like Gitmo? And surveilance, but not like the PATRIOT act?
No, really, if someone makes such a tool it can be defended being for interoperability purposes, can't he? That is protected by DMCA? At least I heard so...
It may well be legitimate to refuse to supply information in a civil case if that information may be used to incriminate oneself in a crime.
Actually, no. From what I have read you are compelled to give your password, but any incriminating information for a criminal case against you cannot be used in such a case.
Momentum is only conservered in perfectly elastic collisions, something that simply does not happen in the real world (ignoring photons and superconductors). You conserve momentum, energy and many other parameters of a system on a daily basis. Unfortunately, I might add. If classical physics can be evaded with the uncontrolled use of words like "relativity", "quantum", or as you say, "non-perfectly elastic", it would be great. However...
If you had read the article you would realise that the trick is to get them to impart their momentum more favorably in one direction than another. Exactly. If they patent it and give us the blueprints, we can show you how it DOES NOT work. Anyway, with such vague details, presented by guys that clearly do not understand physics...
However the amount of thrust generated is tiny, you feed in 700W of electricity and get a tiny 88mN of thrust. It does however compare favorably with an ion-drive, the ESA SMART-1 drive consuming the same amount of power produces 70mN of thrust. The ion drive also has 10 times the mass, and an operational life one tenth that of the electromagentic drive. As a thruster for a deep space probe it looks like a good candidate. Sure, it looks good. That does not mean it works.
I would add that this article is *not* in the latest issue of New Scientist either, but the 9th of September issue, which is now two issues old It's more like a 1st April publication, but...
Look, I don't say that this cannot be done... just this guy clearly has not done it. And check what momentum means, by the way.
The issue is that technically while GPLv2 code can be incorperated into GPLv3 code, the reverse is not nescisarily true. Let's see... programs with two licenses, that state that if you merge them you'll have to publish them under both licenses, and each other states you cannot publish under another license. Yup, I see how that can be done...
Under GPLv2, I can write a security library that touches the TPM chip on a PC, verifies that the programs you are running are what they are reporting to be and reports back with the results. The obvious first step is that my library has to verify that it is itself uncompromised if my library can't verify it's integrity, no programmer can rely on the results of my library's responces. Verifying integrity is done with simple HASHES like MD5... for example, my Gentoo always verifies the downloads with the hashes I previously got. You will be perfectly safe under both GPLv2 and GPLv3 to create software to do that, and to verify all your libraries/whatever (I don't know why Linux does not do it, but it seems a rather nice idea). However, you don't want that. You want digital signing.
Should you really trust software on a remote machine just because it says so? That is the fundamental question, and the answer is NO! First, keys can leak, so if a malware writer gets them the library that you TRUST will f*&ck you very, very bad. Second, there might be a way to simulate the expected behaviour.
If my library uses other GPLv2 libraries in the compile, I can verify & lock to specific versions I trust, that's fine. However, GPLv3 requires that I accept and allow any changes to the supporting libraries to be incorperated into my code - thus negating my ability to fully trust my own code. I just don't get how GPLv3 has anything to say which libraries you trust... you can make a hash of a sort, dunno... maybe that could be implemented by the hardware. That does not need digital signatures. Yes, signatures will make things easier, but the goal you're trying to achieve is achievable without that.
I am aware that people have issues with trusted computing, DRM, etc. However they each have thier place in the world. I don't agree with Tivo's decision to incorperate a lockout into thier system, but given the position they are in between providing the features customers want and being sued by the owners of the content that the people want, I can understand it. I certainly think that trusted computing and DRM have places where they are important - medical, financial, and security environments come to mind immediately. The GPLv2 allows Linux and GNU software to be constructed & run in these environments. The GPLv3 does not. WTF?! If you have a company, you can perfectly well GPLv3 software, then sell it with the hardware to the military for example. You just have to supply them with the key to sign their binaries. They'll get the same level of security, even better, because THEY will be signing the binaries. What is the f*#*ng problem? GPL provides that. Noone says that you must give the source, only if they want it.
Repeat after me: TCP is not bad. With adequate protection like GPLv3 it can be very beneficial. We should just not let the others take advantage of OSS by locking it with TCP.
So Tivo created a device that you can't upgrade yourself. [shrug] You wouldn't have been able to if they put in a ROM instead of FLASH memory anyway. However, I can take that code they returned to the community, redirect the driver interfaces for it & make a DVR out of my PC, or even my Lynksys router if I package the videostream from a PC with a tuner card. The device Tivo made is almost irrelivant in the grand scheme of things, it'll sell for what 2 years? maybe 3? 50 years from now, I can take thier code and make it work. But why did they put TCP in it anyway? They just bend to the presure of **AA. Why not exercise the same right and demand that they
Do you enjoy spam? With network neutrality, it becomes illegal for ISPs to block spam. I always thought that e-mail was send from a host and received from a host. If the hosts "delete unwanted mail", whatever that means , good for them. It is not changing the priotities of the traffic, speed, etc... your mail provider gets all the spam, and then deletes it. Fine with me.
The rest of your post is the same BS. Be ashamed of yourself.
Yes, perfectly right... I am just waiting for the time that it would be actually better for you to stand and protect these child-pornogrphers, because the f%#king politicans are making these laws so far stretched.
Really, all should read 1984 and then pretend the world is in the right direction.
For all the "but"'s - A half truth is a damned whole lie.
Several years ago I started using Slack. Unfortunately, I couldn't set Skype's audio, and subsequently I dumped it. Yeah, I tried Linux From Scratch, but I could not wait for it.
A year ago I started using Linux again. I installed SuSE and used it for a while, even fixed the problem with the ACPI (laptop, I know I should have checked before, but it works after all). Then I tried Slack again, but Skype was not working. I never managed to run Debian, cuz of a problem with the PCMCIA (Yeah, this laptop might look like a pile-o-shit, but I have it), which I know is solvable, but I did not bother.
Then I got Gentoo. A friend of mine said - you might as well try Gentoo - to a comment about Linux From Scratch. Since then even he switched from Slack...
For seven months now I am a Gentoo fanatic (and proud of it). Indeed, the system taught me a lot - how to configure all those pesky programs. Everything is compiled, which have two good consequences: 1. Compilation settings are managed very well, without my support (I am a programmer and it is good to have it) 2. No dependency problems. Really, no binary compatibility with 64bit, non-standart binaries. For now I did not have one problem that was not resolved using emerge.
I thing Ubuntu sucks mostly because of the sudo default... but it is me. In fact, Gentoo is my system of choise I will not abandon easily. First, I made all of my hardware (except the card reader, I might make a driver for it, when I have time) - ACPI and ATI video to run without problems. Even after I first made my DSDT table for the kernel, I always store it between reinstalls (Yup, two consecutive --rebuild-tree on reiserfs and some scripts were screwed. I know I could have done it without reinstall, but I didn't know it then).
I think knowing Gentoo will teach you all you need to know about Linux. And of course, the good ol' forums.
Funny?! This is more like +5000 Insightful... They simply can't attack them, because their resources are stretched to the limit. And they have to defeat a good-sized adversary with lots of money and sworn markets, not a dropout like the previous. Also the world is mostly getting tired of all the hassle.
I am talking about MS, Sony and Netscape, not USA, Iran and Iraq. No, really.
Slashdot Mirror
No, but the stupid users (and the not-so-stupid) will think it is.
We must note that for 10 years straight MS has been targeting their product to the uneducated majority (I mean not computer educated). They have been able to bear the fruits of that stupidity (as in not-wanting-to-switch, afraid-of-thinking, that kind of things) for so many years.
Now when the tables are turned, and the stupidity is against them (negative PR because of 'craplets'), they don't want it. Sorry, but you can't have the cake and eat it at the same time.
> The US designed the ISS. We are using the Space Shuttle to build it. The Russians have launched 2 small station modules. :)
As true as it is, don't forget that when the ISS was just two modules the Russians landed MIR, because it was 11 years in space.
I'd be careful shouting things like that before actually engaging your brain yourself; he's totally correct. Say the sea level rises an average of 5cm over 50 years. This means there's an extra 5cm of water at every location there's ocean/sea. Now, if you move a massive object over one side, say, the moon, that has enough gravity to pull a huge amount of water over to one side of the earth... well now that 5cm on the one side of the planet has moved and added onto the 5cm on the other side of the planet. With more water, there's more water for the moon to pull. So, on the side with the moon, the water has gone up by the original 5cm, and all the extra being pulled by the moon.
... let me think, 0.0005% more water for the Moon to pull!!! Yes, I am sure that explains the sinking of the whole damned island!
You're absolutely right!
With the average depth of the ocean at least 1000 meters (I'm not sure how much, it is at least that much) an average 5 cm are
> What you said will be true if the so called "sea level" is a perfect flat surface. However, the Earth, as a water ball is quite bumpy and is shaped by gravitational force, tidal force, structure of the seabed, and ocean current. The few centimeter overall difference can easily be magnified locally by the factors above.
Insightful?!?!?!
Come on, guys! He doesn't understand basic physics!!! How on earth is 1 centimeter going to be magnified? With a magnifying glass, I presume? The only thing that can change the form of the Earth's water level is gravity and some occasional high tidal wave from a volcano, or a hurricane. Seabed and currents don't have anything to do with it (well, they can have as they influence the gravity, but that is so weak, that it is not measurable at all).
That said, how can you magnify the difference?
Exactly!
When an animal shits, it always covers the shit with dirt. Not like the people that throw garbage on the ground and expect it to disappear!
So, actually those people are worse than animals.
> Getting sued for P2P only costs a screenshot of an IP address. Getting sued for buying from allofmp3.com likely requires probably cause and a subpoena of financial transaction records.
Even better, the prosecution has to proove that you bought them, and knew that was illegal! I mean, it is not that easy to be sued for buying something illegaly, without proving you did it on purpose.
>If you create a MS DRM document you will never, outside of hacking it, be able to transfer your files away from Microsoft.
I don't believe that! Can't you send them with e-mail or decrypt it with some MS-provided tool?
Links, anyone?
I don't think that having Linux on them is prohibiting installing Windows. You just may not have enough memory for the last one, but that's the life. It's the 100$, not the 1000$ PC.
> Yeah, beta software can do odd things at times. Mod parent down please.
So you claim that Windows XP is beta?
I think that their activation procedure is stupid and insulting, but hey, it's just my opinion. The GP has a very good point.
I've been through it in training, so I know exactly what it's like. I still don't consider it torture. This is the same mentality that tells us it's wrong to occasionally discipline a child physically, or to eat meat because "it's cruel to the wiffle cows". For what I know I am not a cow or a child. I have not only constitutional rights, but also BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS (and the declaration was signed/whatever by USA). If torture was moral or legal, it would be used on US sitizens as well, all the time. But a child is a child, and disciplining a child is still not torture by almost all people's definitions. The declaration of human rights explicitly says that every man have the right to preserve their honor. If you like being tortured, go ahead. Just don't expect all will like that. And what's wrong if you don't eat meat? I personally have butchered pigs (not sure what the term is), but I don't like animal torture.
... with the guns USA provided them to fight Iran!
Why do you bother to use an acronym when you're going to spell the whole thing out anyway?
Yes, exactly, and even if he dropped the acronym it is obvious he is not a mathematician.
Just define "secure" and I'll agree that you can say at least something with "Goedel" in it.
I don't think anyone's been killed by a computer-ignorant octogenarian checking his email.
... unles you mean your identity, therefore all your property. And if you kill yourself because you're broke, yup, that is just an incident. Lucky me, no harm done, whatsoever...
Oh, sure, it is sooo coool to have your identity stolen, just because one friend of yours didn't care. Actually, there are fates worse than death.
People have been killed by those not fit to drive. (And it's worth noting that the system hasn't proven too good at keeping those people off the road, by the way)
Are you sure? Becaus you don't know what is going to happen without those rules, it has never been tried. Oh, wait, it is being tried - try some third world capital?
Ignorant computer users pose a minimal risk to life and property.
Theoretically, in the 'land of the free', we don't legislate activities that pose little risk to otherwise uninvolved parties. Of course, there are numerous examples of this not actually happening in reality, but that's beside the point.
Legislate? Why not just educate the people. Mandate encryption. If people don't want to know, they shouldn't get a computer. They should not be allowed to use online banking and stuff. If you can't do it online, go to your local bank branch. It will be better.
Why invite the government where it's not absolutely needed?
Because it is clearly getting out of hand. No legislation, the government does more than that - spending money in the right direction, that is the way.
Iran is a mullahcracy,
... if they are not felons? Or that they do not lobby for war? Selected if they are suitable according to their religious book. So what? Like you will accept anyone to run for president or senator.
... some of the press is controled by the state? Or that all is? Be more specific.
... in the Iran-Iraq war (the war USA financed and sold guns for), Iraq used their WMD arsenal of chemical wearpons, Iran did not, even though they had. Makes you wonder, why? And who has the higher ground, with the discovery of Israel's mining of half of Lebanon with cluster bombs.
Haha. Sounds funny. But what do you mean?
has a supreme leader for life,
That can be removed if one of the councils says so. They just don't bother to reelect him.
political canadates must be "selected",
Like
state controlled press,
Info? And to what extent? Like
Iran does not have religious freedom,
Unfortunately with such a variety you don't have that much choice with this one. Eventually one or another will be unhapy. By the way, their jews and armenians have the right to drink wine, which the muslims can't. Tough shit.
Iran even has a bloody moral police with incredible powers to arrest and detain.
I'd like to see more info on that.
Like
Oh, sure they have problems. Torture... but not like Gitmo? And surveilance, but not like the PATRIOT act?
... does it run on Linux?
No, really, if someone makes such a tool it can be defended being for interoperability purposes, can't he?
That is protected by DMCA? At least I heard so...
It may well be legitimate to refuse to supply information in a civil case if that information may be used to incriminate oneself in a crime.
Actually, no. From what I have read you are compelled to give your password, but any incriminating information for a criminal case against you cannot be used in such a case.
Why? They are using the software, not distributing it.
Momentum is only conservered in perfectly elastic collisions, something that simply does not happen in the real world (ignoring photons and superconductors).
...
You conserve momentum, energy and many other parameters of a system on a daily basis. Unfortunately, I might add. If classical physics can be evaded with the uncontrolled use of words like "relativity", "quantum", or as you say, "non-perfectly elastic", it would be great. However...
If you had read the article you would realise that the trick is to get them to impart their momentum more favorably in one direction than another.
Exactly. If they patent it and give us the blueprints, we can show you how it DOES NOT work. Anyway, with such vague details, presented by guys that clearly do not understand physics...
However the amount of thrust generated is tiny, you feed in 700W of electricity and get a tiny 88mN of thrust. It does however compare favorably with an ion-drive, the ESA SMART-1 drive consuming the same amount of power produces 70mN of thrust. The ion drive also has 10 times the mass, and an operational life one tenth that of the electromagentic drive. As a thruster for a deep space probe it looks like a good candidate.
Sure, it looks good. That does not mean it works.
I would add that this article is *not* in the latest issue of New Scientist either, but the 9th of September issue, which is now two issues old
It's more like a 1st April publication, but
Look, I don't say that this cannot be done... just this guy clearly has not done it. And check what momentum means, by the way.
The issue is that technically while GPLv2 code can be incorperated into GPLv3 code, the reverse is not nescisarily true. ... programs with two licenses, that state that if you merge them you'll have to publish them under both licenses, and each other states you cannot publish under another license. Yup, I see how that can be done...
... you can make a hash of a sort, dunno ... maybe that could be implemented by the hardware. That does not need digital signatures. Yes, signatures will make things easier, but the goal you're trying to achieve is achievable without that.
Let's see
Under GPLv2, I can write a security library that touches the TPM chip on a PC, verifies that the programs you are running are what they are reporting to be and reports back with the results. The obvious first step is that my library has to verify that it is itself uncompromised if my library can't verify it's integrity, no programmer can rely on the results of my library's responces.
Verifying integrity is done with simple HASHES like MD5... for example, my Gentoo always verifies the downloads with the hashes I previously got. You will be perfectly safe under both GPLv2 and GPLv3 to create software to do that, and to verify all your libraries/whatever (I don't know why Linux does not do it, but it seems a rather nice idea). However, you don't want that. You want digital signing.
Should you really trust software on a remote machine just because it says so? That is the fundamental question, and the answer is NO! First, keys can leak, so if a malware writer gets them the library that you TRUST will f*&ck you very, very bad. Second, there might be a way to simulate the expected behaviour.
If my library uses other GPLv2 libraries in the compile, I can verify & lock to specific versions I trust, that's fine. However, GPLv3 requires that I accept and allow any changes to the supporting libraries to be incorperated into my code - thus negating my ability to fully trust my own code.
I just don't get how GPLv3 has anything to say which libraries you trust
I am aware that people have issues with trusted computing, DRM, etc. However they each have thier place in the world. I don't agree with Tivo's decision to incorperate a lockout into thier system, but given the position they are in between providing the features customers want and being sued by the owners of the content that the people want, I can understand it. I certainly think that trusted computing and DRM have places where they are important - medical, financial, and security environments come to mind immediately. The GPLv2 allows Linux and GNU software to be constructed & run in these environments. The GPLv3 does not.
WTF?! If you have a company, you can perfectly well GPLv3 software, then sell it with the hardware to the military for example. You just have to supply them with the key to sign their binaries. They'll get the same level of security, even better, because THEY will be signing the binaries. What is the f*#*ng problem? GPL provides that. Noone says that you must give the source, only if they want it.
Repeat after me: TCP is not bad. With adequate protection like GPLv3 it can be very beneficial. We should just not let the others take advantage of OSS by locking it with TCP.
So Tivo created a device that you can't upgrade yourself. [shrug] You wouldn't have been able to if they put in a ROM instead of FLASH memory anyway. However, I can take that code they returned to the community, redirect the driver interfaces for it & make a DVR out of my PC, or even my Lynksys router if I package the videostream from a PC with a tuner card. The device Tivo made is almost irrelivant in the grand scheme of things, it'll sell for what 2 years? maybe 3? 50 years from now, I can take thier code and make it work.
But why did they put TCP in it anyway? They just bend to the presure of **AA. Why not exercise the same right and demand that they
The third factor is that you have three tries, and then it dies forever.
That said, it is good to have only four digits. The helpful thing is that to use it you have to provide a physical ID (the card itself).
Do you enjoy spam? With network neutrality, it becomes illegal for ISPs to block spam. ... your mail provider gets all the spam, and then deletes it. Fine with me.
I always thought that e-mail was send from a host and received from a host. If the hosts "delete unwanted mail", whatever that means , good for them. It is not changing the priotities of the traffic, speed, etc
The rest of your post is the same BS. Be ashamed of yourself.
Yes, perfectly right ... I am just waiting for the time that it would be actually better for you to stand and protect these child-pornogrphers, because the f%#king politicans are making these laws so far stretched.
Really, all should read 1984 and then pretend the world is in the right direction.
For all the "but"'s - A half truth is a damned whole lie.
Yeah, in fact all that reasons are correct.
...
Several years ago I started using Slack. Unfortunately, I couldn't set Skype's audio, and subsequently I dumped it.
Yeah, I tried Linux From Scratch, but I could not wait for it.
A year ago I started using Linux again. I installed SuSE and used it for a while, even fixed the problem with the ACPI (laptop, I know I should have checked before, but it works after all). Then I tried Slack again, but Skype was not working. I never managed to run Debian, cuz of a problem with the PCMCIA (Yeah, this laptop might look like a pile-o-shit, but I have it), which I know is solvable, but I did not bother.
Then I got Gentoo. A friend of mine said - you might as well try Gentoo - to a comment about Linux From Scratch. Since then even he switched from Slack
For seven months now I am a Gentoo fanatic (and proud of it). Indeed, the system taught me a lot - how to configure all those pesky programs. Everything is compiled, which have two good consequences:
1. Compilation settings are managed very well, without my support (I am a programmer and it is good to have it)
2. No dependency problems. Really, no binary compatibility with 64bit, non-standart binaries. For now I did not have one problem that was not resolved using emerge.
I thing Ubuntu sucks mostly because of the sudo default... but it is me. In fact, Gentoo is my system of choise I will not abandon easily. First, I made all of my hardware (except the card reader, I might make a driver for it, when I have time) - ACPI and ATI video to run without problems. Even after I first made my DSDT table for the kernel, I always store it between reinstalls (Yup, two consecutive --rebuild-tree on reiserfs and some scripts were screwed. I know I could have done it without reinstall, but I didn't know it then).
I think knowing Gentoo will teach you all you need to know about Linux. And of course, the good ol' forums.
Funny?! This is more like +5000 Insightful ... They simply can't attack them, because their resources are stretched to the limit. And they have to defeat a good-sized adversary with lots of money and sworn markets, not a dropout like the previous. Also the world is mostly getting tired of all the hassle.
I am talking about MS, Sony and Netscape, not USA, Iran and Iraq. No, really.
or Won'tPlay,ForSure. Simple typo, guys, happens to everyone :)