I can deal with all the app-side funniness about Evil M$ and their days of active x lockdowns, such & such games don't work, etc. I know users aren't supposed to do "weird junk in advanced modes". Windows users stay out of the registry. Linux Newbies stay out of the command line.
But if the OS can't even update itself with the publicly available button so Mr. User can run Firefox 3, that's what says worlds about Linux not being On The Desktop.
I really am being as generous as I can. I have extremely limited requirements of what I shall ask my penguin. I randomly picked ubuntu... "just because". But I may have a new criteria for a distro now: how TRULY Freak-Proof it is. "They say there's a lot of distros out there. They can't all be that unlucky".
There was no button that actually said Hardy. I happened to see a note about that on a webpage when I actually tried to do some homework. The button actually kept saying "Go to Edgy". Dazed and lost, I tried what felt natural, "let's go set the repositories". Still no luck. The overall message was that with only three Userland items involved it exploded.
I actually tried to manually add some stuff back in the command line with apt-get, but that was after the cause was already lost.
On another thread, I heard something like this. I went with ubtuntu for its additional "shrinkwrapping", but then someone told me there's Non-FreeSoftware repositories so if I (gasp) want to play a codec or some non-free mp3 player I could.
I am going into this *expecting* glitches, aka the "best possible newbie". I would just prefer the glitches to be properly recognized.
Ten "ubuntu is easier than Windows" comments later, I can't believe I am twistedly talented enough to be the only guy to break unbuntu in 5 minutes flat.
Recipe:
Begin with a nice, roasted Dapper Drake. See flashy "Upgrade LTS to LTS - Dapper to Hardy". Visit Synaptic & (attempt) to set repositories to Hardy. Begin update attempt. "You must freshen files before getting the new release". Attempt to get new versions of existing. "Edgy Eft is available" (No mention of Hardy.) Clicked to get some Edgy Files.
Your goof captures the spirit of my idea, although I might class that something like a second tier. (Not that there's any hard & fast rule of this.) Third tier would be if you relied on that calculations before and after that goof to then continue some kind of further result as if they were still there.
Using your example, it would be something like developing an Average Sales Growth Per Zip Code comparison with NYC as a prototype template and accidentally including 10048. Then people begin to wonder why the template keeps failing.
"True Genius" is indeed really tough. There's a huge swath of folks like us just below that margin who are certainly smart, but not quite on that ethereal plane. Mental speed is one of the factors. Your note about "computationally expensive 2 details" was telling for me. True genius would crank something like 4 details (Quad-Monocular) with some sort of 50% speed increase to boot. You *could* do that if you had the time to parse down the quarters and then reassemble them,... but by then you've missed the brass ring and the point becomes proven.
Problem is, I agree with the view that genius is close to madness. The price you pay for all that comp power is living in a world where every conclusion is not at all obvious to anyone. The weird paradox becomes that unlike everyone else, if you are "just a garden grade genius" then you spend your time explaining everything, and eventually that messes with your confidence in your intuition. The last component of a true genius might be a telescoping effect where you easily oscillate between "full power" and "pampering the world"... and in so doing, "become likeable",... and then having more time to be a genius.
I dove in head first yesterday and learned a lot about your aforementioned "pretty little libraries". In principle I agree with Debian & Children's managed packages.
I tried to follow an article's published note that you can go from LTS to LTS (and from there to the more volatile rollout after it.) I think I know enough about Apt-Get now to add one or two little libraries and run the rest through Synaptic or something.
Unfortunately, I managed to run into the worst synergy of two web-published upgrade flaws in recent ubuntu, Dapper-Edgy and Anything-Hardy when all the XWindows and screen-render subsystems began to break. Once there's a known dependency break, Synaptic gives up & shuts down, and I finally hung my head in defeat after 12 hours of fighting a hydra.
Since I had no data there anyway, I'll try the iso I made of Hardy to see how the "install experience goes for newcomers".
Okay, By this far I have learned that "support" tends to mean security patches rather than Features. Except for the whopping ones, I'm kinda less interested in security quibbles.
I'm starting to get the idea that I have to upgrade parts of the OS to enjoy new apps, which is still foreign to 10 years of Windows habits, where that's pretty rare.
What I was trying to avoid was what I saw reported when "such and such upgrade broke dependencies for this and that everywhere... this sux".
This is where the distro proliferation, while sounding fun once I finally get this, is unnerving for the moment. I don't exactly know what a set release of ubuntu provides compared to this apparently continuous stream of new items which appear in repositories like "Testing".
Good tip from that other user who noted that Non-Free repositories do exist for Debian, so by golly I can play a codec if I want to.
I'm hearing that my Drake install is mostly useless at this point, so I might as well grind through installs until this stuff gels.
Thanks gang. I am glad to be a part of Linux 2009.
You're on to something. Despite popular complaining, it wasn't "one song worth listening to"... because then we bought those singles that were already iTunes Priced even Back In The Day.
It was when an offering had about five good tunes out of 10 we just knuckled and bought the thing, and hoped they were all on the same side.
Your answer may be the best of all, though I got generally better stuff this second time around.
I'm willing to consider Debian Proper in exchange for a wee less Newbie-fying if that's what it takes to get a more coherent rolling experience.
I did listen to some advice from a friend back then, and did settle on Drake on purpose as a LTS... but apparently it's for varying shades of "long".
This is a campaign inside of a mini-psychology experiment with myself as as sort of Generic GuineaBird. I see the remark that there's arguably a few months left of support for Drake, but the state of affairs is becoming clear by this point.
The good, if funny, news is that "NothingOfValueWasLost". I did absolutely nothing on the Drake box except poke around at a glacial pace. Therefore I can basically nuke the entire thing and rebuild it.
The interesting question becomes uBuntu vs. Debian proper. I'll have to do my research on that whole Proprietary-but-easy vs. Ultra-Free thing. But at least I'm hearing that the problems I am running into are not a mirage either.
As part of my slow campaign, I never set a "cutoff" date when Linux had to be "perfect for me".
Your other note had the crucial remark that the next version of uBuntu is the one with OO3. To me, THAT is THE killer App I need, so I will plan my entire strategy around that. I think I'm slowly evolving into the decision to use that as a trial run, and then get the NEXT LTS release (whatever animal that comes out to) as my Park distro that I camp out on and "just do work".
I got two fascinating and almost-helpful replies to my post, yet between them lies the culture change that makes my point.
You remark that Drake (From June 2006 per Ubuntu wiki) is no longer supported!? Over in Windows land we're coming up on the 8th anniversary of Win XP and still lamenting the failings of "New Kid Vista".
The other reply said I should not look for Firefox... but instead look for "web browsers that might be interesting". Uh... I'm interested in Firefox. If they have a package updater that figures out the weird dependencies, I'll try for that.
Why can't I have a distro that "just works" for 5 years and when I grab an app produced the following year it behaves?
I'm a midline user of Windows, and I'm interested in Linux. However, it really feels like a foreign language with the culture shock that implies.
It feels like I'm in a weird class of exceptions "who don't count". I have a typical install of uBuntu Dapper Drake.
I want to upgrade Firefox, and it simply JustDoesn'tWork.
I get cascading layers of other dependencies to upgrade. Sorry, but for nervous newcomers, that's hard. For what is arguably a flagship transition-to-Linux app (Firefox), I find that really frustrating.
I agree. It's important and educational to talk about moderations. His first sentence is probably not coprophobic, despite the fact that that's the usual troll first post about half the time.
His second sentence contains a multiplicity of clauses. You begin with attempting to descrive God Damning something, which might be the highest form of blasphemy in the fewest possible number of letters. Last I knew that amount of gravity in that small a space was a recipe for creating a black hole.
Now, do I try to fly a kite on the backdraft of the whoosh accusation, or do I get a +1 Ben Stein mod?
(Always talk to the mods in a post. It makes them happy.)
In that season the deaths were not really the ones from the article, but people becoming fatally exhausted and making mistakes, then getting unlucky enough for the reaper to seal the deal.
I agree there's no Boris Karloff figures, but in any particular problem there's usually a lynchpin or three that stymies some otherwise viable process.
I see the role of the senior scientist of each group who gathers the low level data for a while from his team, then hunkers down somewhere to figure out the logjam.
Then the team goes back into gear wheeling out all the conceptual followup cases.
That moment of breaking the logjam is the Eureka moment that deserves a pizza party.
The tragedy/problem is that the range of "wild activities" and even "Proto-Useful" wild activities is so vast, and the really good gems are excruciatingly focused.
The key unstated point of certain tv shows like House is that the guy with the talent be reliable. Supposing the near-genius is only half as good, it would send people up in arms.
Ignoring tricksters, it takes someone at a HIGHER level to verify the first person's exposition. If that initial exposition is sufficiently tough, it could go untagged even if it is in fact wrong.
Going on a limb, I will "make up" the term "Improving the Babble". Even if the scuttle among the masses IS wrong, if it's wrong at a higher level, that should help pave the way for a legitimate powerhouse to eventually be able to take the lead.
Problem is, there's a game theory grid to trying to "hone your genius".
Suppose you're a diamond in the rough. Unconventional thinking is subconsciously held to a far higher standard to begin the path to acceptance. It's easy to disparage an unconventionalist when his first 7 takes sound "crackpot".
But the innovator needs SOME forum to thrash about in to get real raw worldly feedback.
Also, "Universal" or "PolyGeniuses" are a rare subset of your garden genius. Catch them outside of their strength and they will likely walk into one of the Third Tier blunders famous in the literature somewhere.
Unbeknownst to you, your computer noticed how dreadfully little of its resources you ask it to task out, so it signed up to FoldingAtHome under the handle IntelFanCompy7 and is currently co-authoring a paper on Bird Flu.
"Achievement" has many meanings. With the web well on the way past "2.1" and somewhere in the Alpha for 2.5 or something, smart people have a profound resource on tap for First Order questions.
Most great innovation is a coalescence in and around the Eureka moment where you buy people pizza. Let's suppose you are with, oh, the Memristor team. You just announced the Eureka.
Now you have all this iterative case study mapping to go fill out. "Ooh, look, here's some temperature fail data". When people aren't operating by political motives of hoarding their results, these little snips float along the web beautifully. "News tweet: R. J. Hirschmanakan of Finland reports that certain refrigerator circuits interfere with design #142a7."
People-Years of time gets shortened, until an Official Achievement is ready far sooner. Then the senior scientist can do a Sherlockian pipe smoke, and emerge four hours later to announce the theory of the ideal chemical ratios.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, that bothers me.
I can deal with all the app-side funniness about Evil M$ and their days of active x lockdowns, such & such games don't work, etc. I know users aren't supposed to do "weird junk in advanced modes". Windows users stay out of the registry. Linux Newbies stay out of the command line.
But if the OS can't even update itself with the publicly available button so Mr. User can run Firefox 3, that's what says worlds about Linux not being On The Desktop.
I really am being as generous as I can. I have extremely limited requirements of what I shall ask my penguin. I randomly picked ubuntu ... "just because". But I may have a new criteria for a distro now: how TRULY Freak-Proof it is. "They say there's a lot of distros out there. They can't all be that unlucky".
There was no button that actually said Hardy. I happened to see a note about that on a webpage when I actually tried to do some homework. The button actually kept saying "Go to Edgy". Dazed and lost, I tried what felt natural, "let's go set the repositories". Still no luck. The overall message was that with only three Userland items involved it exploded.
I actually tried to manually add some stuff back in the command line with apt-get, but that was after the cause was already lost.
On another thread, I heard something like this. I went with ubtuntu for its additional "shrinkwrapping", but then someone told me there's Non-FreeSoftware repositories so if I (gasp) want to play a codec or some non-free mp3 player I could.
I am going into this *expecting* glitches, aka the "best possible newbie". I would just prefer the glitches to be properly recognized.
Ten "ubuntu is easier than Windows" comments later, I can't believe I am twistedly talented enough to be the only guy to break unbuntu in 5 minutes flat.
Recipe:
Begin with a nice, roasted Dapper Drake.
See flashy "Upgrade LTS to LTS - Dapper to Hardy".
Visit Synaptic & (attempt) to set repositories to Hardy.
Begin update attempt.
"You must freshen files before getting the new release".
Attempt to get new versions of existing.
"Edgy Eft is available" (No mention of Hardy.)
Clicked to get some Edgy Files.
Lights out.
Faster machine and space heating for the winter FTW!
Heh indeed!
Your goof captures the spirit of my idea, although I might class that something like a second tier. (Not that there's any hard & fast rule of this.) Third tier would be if you relied on that calculations before and after that goof to then continue some kind of further result as if they were still there.
Using your example, it would be something like developing an Average Sales Growth Per Zip Code comparison with NYC as a prototype template and accidentally including 10048. Then people begin to wonder why the template keeps failing.
"True Genius" is indeed really tough. There's a huge swath of folks like us just below that margin who are certainly smart, but not quite on that ethereal plane. Mental speed is one of the factors. Your note about "computationally expensive 2 details" was telling for me. True genius would crank something like 4 details (Quad-Monocular) with some sort of 50% speed increase to boot. You *could* do that if you had the time to parse down the quarters and then reassemble them, ... but by then you've missed the brass ring and the point becomes proven.
Problem is, I agree with the view that genius is close to madness. The price you pay for all that comp power is living in a world where every conclusion is not at all obvious to anyone. The weird paradox becomes that unlike everyone else, if you are "just a garden grade genius" then you spend your time explaining everything, and eventually that messes with your confidence in your intuition. The last component of a true genius might be a telescoping effect where you easily oscillate between "full power" and "pampering the world" ... and in so doing, "become likeable", ... and then having more time to be a genius.
I dove in head first yesterday and learned a lot about your aforementioned "pretty little libraries". In principle I agree with Debian & Children's managed packages.
I tried to follow an article's published note that you can go from LTS to LTS (and from there to the more volatile rollout after it.) I think I know enough about Apt-Get now to add one or two little libraries and run the rest through Synaptic or something.
Unfortunately, I managed to run into the worst synergy of two web-published upgrade flaws in recent ubuntu, Dapper-Edgy and Anything-Hardy when all the XWindows and screen-render subsystems began to break. Once there's a known dependency break, Synaptic gives up & shuts down, and I finally hung my head in defeat after 12 hours of fighting a hydra.
Since I had no data there anyway, I'll try the iso I made of Hardy to see how the "install experience goes for newcomers".
More ways than one.
Aren't we usually Freer with help towards each other?
I also have to think that rather than deal with a truckload of hassle the ISPs *without bandwidth problems* will brush them off.
Okay, By this far I have learned that "support" tends to mean security patches rather than Features. Except for the whopping ones, I'm kinda less interested in security quibbles.
I'm starting to get the idea that I have to upgrade parts of the OS to enjoy new apps, which is still foreign to 10 years of Windows habits, where that's pretty rare.
What I was trying to avoid was what I saw reported when "such and such upgrade broke dependencies for this and that everywhere... this sux".
This is where the distro proliferation, while sounding fun once I finally get this, is unnerving for the moment. I don't exactly know what a set release of ubuntu provides compared to this apparently continuous stream of new items which appear in repositories like "Testing".
Good tip from that other user who noted that Non-Free repositories do exist for Debian, so by golly I can play a codec if I want to.
I'm hearing that my Drake install is mostly useless at this point, so I might as well grind through installs until this stuff gels.
Thanks gang. I am glad to be a part of Linux 2009.
You're on to something. Despite popular complaining, it wasn't "one song worth listening to" ... because then we bought those singles that were already iTunes Priced even Back In The Day.
It was when an offering had about five good tunes out of 10 we just knuckled and bought the thing, and hoped they were all on the same side.
You can kill someone with a rubber band and a paperclip. Will that do?
What You Consider Is Irrelevant. Laws Still Apply. Resistance is Futile.
Good sig. Can you work in the "lose/loose" one too?
Hi Tubal-Cain.
Your answer may be the best of all, though I got generally better stuff this second time around.
I'm willing to consider Debian Proper in exchange for a wee less Newbie-fying if that's what it takes to get a more coherent rolling experience.
I did listen to some advice from a friend back then, and did settle on Drake on purpose as a LTS... but apparently it's for varying shades of "long".
This is a campaign inside of a mini-psychology experiment with myself as as sort of Generic GuineaBird. I see the remark that there's arguably a few months left of support for Drake, but the state of affairs is becoming clear by this point.
The good, if funny, news is that "NothingOfValueWasLost". I did absolutely nothing on the Drake box except poke around at a glacial pace. Therefore I can basically nuke the entire thing and rebuild it.
The interesting question becomes uBuntu vs. Debian proper. I'll have to do my research on that whole Proprietary-but-easy vs. Ultra-Free thing. But at least I'm hearing that the problems I am running into are not a mirage either.
As part of my slow campaign, I never set a "cutoff" date when Linux had to be "perfect for me".
Your other note had the crucial remark that the next version of uBuntu is the one with OO3. To me, THAT is THE killer App I need, so I will plan my entire strategy around that. I think I'm slowly evolving into the decision to use that as a trial run, and then get the NEXT LTS release (whatever animal that comes out to) as my Park distro that I camp out on and "just do work".
Good stuff. Thanks.
I got two fascinating and almost-helpful replies to my post, yet between them lies the culture change that makes my point.
You remark that Drake (From June 2006 per Ubuntu wiki) is no longer supported!? Over in Windows land we're coming up on the 8th anniversary of Win XP and still lamenting the failings of "New Kid Vista".
The other reply said I should not look for Firefox ... but instead look for "web browsers that might be interesting". Uh... I'm interested in Firefox. If they have a package updater that figures out the weird dependencies, I'll try for that.
Why can't I have a distro that "just works" for 5 years and when I grab an app produced the following year it behaves?
I'm a midline user of Windows, and I'm interested in Linux. However, it really feels like a foreign language with the culture shock that implies.
It feels like I'm in a weird class of exceptions "who don't count". I have a typical install of uBuntu Dapper Drake.
I want to upgrade Firefox, and it simply JustDoesn'tWork.
I get cascading layers of other dependencies to upgrade. Sorry, but for nervous newcomers, that's hard. For what is arguably a flagship transition-to-Linux app (Firefox), I find that really frustrating.
I agree. It's important and educational to talk about moderations. His first sentence is probably not coprophobic, despite the fact that that's the usual troll first post about half the time.
His second sentence contains a multiplicity of clauses. You begin with attempting to descrive God Damning something, which might be the highest form of blasphemy in the fewest possible number of letters. Last I knew that amount of gravity in that small a space was a recipe for creating a black hole.
Now, do I try to fly a kite on the backdraft of the whoosh accusation, or do I get a +1 Ben Stein mod?
(Always talk to the mods in a post. It makes them happy.)
I read the book.
In that season the deaths were not really the ones from the article, but people becoming fatally exhausted and making mistakes, then getting unlucky enough for the reaper to seal the deal.
Hi.
I agree there's no Boris Karloff figures, but in any particular problem there's usually a lynchpin or three that stymies some otherwise viable process.
I see the role of the senior scientist of each group who gathers the low level data for a while from his team, then hunkers down somewhere to figure out the logjam.
Then the team goes back into gear wheeling out all the conceptual followup cases.
That moment of breaking the logjam is the Eureka moment that deserves a pizza party.
RIP Kurt Vonnegut.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron
The tragedy/problem is that the range of "wild activities" and even "Proto-Useful" wild activities is so vast, and the really good gems are excruciatingly focused.
The key unstated point of certain tv shows like House is that the guy with the talent be reliable. Supposing the near-genius is only half as good, it would send people up in arms.
Ignoring tricksters, it takes someone at a HIGHER level to verify the first person's exposition. If that initial exposition is sufficiently tough, it could go untagged even if it is in fact wrong.
Going on a limb, I will "make up" the term "Improving the Babble". Even if the scuttle among the masses IS wrong, if it's wrong at a higher level, that should help pave the way for a legitimate powerhouse to eventually be able to take the lead.
Problem is, there's a game theory grid to trying to "hone your genius".
Suppose you're a diamond in the rough. Unconventional thinking is subconsciously held to a far higher standard to begin the path to acceptance. It's easy to disparage an unconventionalist when his first 7 takes sound "crackpot".
But the innovator needs SOME forum to thrash about in to get real raw worldly feedback.
Also, "Universal" or "PolyGeniuses" are a rare subset of your garden genius. Catch them outside of their strength and they will likely walk into one of the Third Tier blunders famous in the literature somewhere.
Asimov FTW!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Billiard_Ball
Unbeknownst to you, your computer noticed how dreadfully little of its resources you ask it to task out, so it signed up to FoldingAtHome under the handle IntelFanCompy7 and is currently co-authoring a paper on Bird Flu.
What are you doing these days?
I don't quite agree.
"Achievement" has many meanings. With the web well on the way past "2.1" and somewhere in the Alpha for 2.5 or something, smart people have a profound resource on tap for First Order questions.
Most great innovation is a coalescence in and around the Eureka moment where you buy people pizza. Let's suppose you are with, oh, the Memristor team. You just announced the Eureka.
Now you have all this iterative case study mapping to go fill out. "Ooh, look, here's some temperature fail data". When people aren't operating by political motives of hoarding their results, these little snips float along the web beautifully. "News tweet: R. J. Hirschmanakan of Finland reports that certain refrigerator circuits interfere with design #142a7."
People-Years of time gets shortened, until an Official Achievement is ready far sooner. Then the senior scientist can do a Sherlockian pipe smoke, and emerge four hours later to announce the theory of the ideal chemical ratios.
They're Rollin' ... they're Hatin' ... ...
Tryin' to catch me Drivin' Stupid