I've used Windows since version 2.x so I'm no newbie with Windows nor computers in general. Recently I tried installing Windows 2000 and Windows XP on the same disk with Linux. And even I spent about 3 days on that, I failed to install either of them. The best the Windows could do was to corrupt the partition table complitely (which I was luckily able to save from Linux live-cd). You spent 2 days and managed to get it installed, and yet you claim it is the Linux which is hard to use?
But you are absolutely right. The configuration could be more easy for new users and I think that every new version of Ubuntu has improved this a little. So I suggest that you give it another try when the next version is released and perhaps even give it a little more time than 2 days. I would recommend 2 weeks, which seems to be enough for Windows-users to learn the benefits of using Linux.
GPL doesn't allow you to distribute closed source software with the GPL lisenced software (The reason why other distributions don't have codecs and drivers with them.). Sounds to me that Linux Mint is not following the GPL license.
> Anyone in the same boat? any ideas why this could happen?
Let's say that I give you 5000 euros. You can give 1000 euros to any 5 people who asks for it. Now, you get 2000000 letters from people where they explain why they should get the money. What would you do?
The point of pre-installed Linux is that if there is a pre-installed Linux, then most likely the hardware is well supported in Linux also. This is why I would buy a computer with pre-installed Linux, rather than one without.
Also having pre-installed Linux would most likely increase the Linux user-base.
> I run into strange things like not being able to print out a landscape PDF in portrait
Let me guess, you have Ubuntu and you only tried the default PDF program to print it? It has a bug, which is fixed it current svn/cvs version, but meanwhile you wait it to arrive to your Ubuntu, install and try xpdf. It is not as pretty, but printing works with it.
All-In-One-Gestures work in a way that you have to hold down the right mouse button while you do the gesture, and it draws a red line whichs shows you what kind of a gesture you are making. I don't know what you have tried, but I seriously suggest you to try again. I never understood what mouse gestures are good for untill I tried it myself. My wife was even more skeptic, untill she tried, and even she likes it!
I wonder how could anyone live without colored tabs. Yes, those sure are "must-have" extensions.
You really need only mouse gestures, addblock, web developer, html validator, downthemall, flashblock, linkification and phpbb user hide, if you are reading phpbb forums. That's only 8.
> You only need to open up if and when you modify Spring framework with your own code.
Insightful my ass.
First, open source itself does not mean anything else, except that you can view the source. If we are talking GPL which most people talk about when they speak about open source, you can use and rape the GPL code as much as you want in your closed source projects and you have to publish nothing as long as you don't distribute it.
On the other hand, if you do distribute GPL licensed code, then everything distributed with it must be GPL (or under a license that follows the rules of GPL). This is the reason why you don't see closed source binaries distributed with Linux distributions.
GPL doesn't take any rights away from the users of the GPL program, it only gives them more rights to use it, with certain condititions.
But besides GPL, there are others also. For example SQLite is public domain. It means that you can do anything with the code, no restrictions at all.
What about open source without any licenses? Well that would be copyrighted material. It means that you have no permission to distribute it. In some countries it might even be illegal to modify it.
Not quite so. Microsoft uses xml in their new format, but I doubt that anyone could read that because: - It uses element names that can't be understand without reading the 6000 page specifications. - Most of the media-data is in a format that can't be understand even with the 6000 page specifications.
> I can not but wonder why FireFox is considered to be a secure browser. It seems to have more security issues than IE lately
0. "seems to have" doesn't sound very scientific proof.
1. Each security bug in Firefox is revealed and count as one, in IE not all are revealed (mostly only if they are public already) and often several have been counted as one by Microsoft. And most like Microsoft is not the only one. Opera didn't reveal the security bug it fixed untill a long time after the version had been released, perhaps under the pressure of the person who found it. Most likely all closed source software vendors hide a lot of details from the customers. In open source world you can't do this, because every patch you make is public and in the case of Firefox, viewed by several different people.
2. Even with the situation mentioned in 1), Firefox has less critical security issues than IE. Of course it is fun to count the total amount of security bugs, but which matters more to you. 1 bug that allows attacker to steal all your data and install your computer full of viruses, or 10 bugs that allow attacker to change the background of the webpage without your permission?
3. Repair times for severe bugs are a lot faster than they are for IE.
4. I still have not seen a single news about using a security bug in Firefox to infect user's computer. IE on the other hand has had a lot of these news. So either there are not severe bugs enough to be used or the users of Firefox are simply not attractive for the attackers.
Just because of the 4) it doesn't matter what browser you use and you are safe, unless it is IE. Sure it can change when Firefox gets more popular (I hear this a lot.). But it's market share has increased a lot and we are still waiting this to happen. Apache is also a market leader and it doesn't seem to have much problems either. Perhaps open source is just better.
And the name is Firefox, only first letter is in upper case.
> Sorry kneejerkers, but its going to require a much more detailed description of those patches
Well you could just RTFA if you are interested in details. Linus: "(with my patches, double-clicking on the title bar isn't a special event: it's configurable along with right- and middle-clicking, and with the exact same syntax for all)"
If you have for example cancer and a drug company is making money for providing you the cure for it. You really don't care how they got it, as long as you are able to pay for the drug. It is better to have expensive drug rather than not having it at all. You are not forced to participate.
But there is of course a better solution also. Drug research could be funded by goverments, with tax money. This would allow cheap drugs and all the research data could be public, which would speed up the research a lot, assuming that same amount of money would be used. Or the other way around, the same amount of research could be archieved with smaller amount of money. Free is always better than closed.
> But testing for lynx, webtv and things like that? No way.
Testing with Lynx is actually quite a good idea. Not only will you make sure that blind people can see your site, you can also confirm the complexity of your website and how easily information can be found from there.
I think they (Intel) estimated at some point that the Moore's law would work at least to 2015. At that point they would need to start working with something smaller than atoms to keep it up.
But of course the processor development can still continue after that. We could for example stack many layers on each other to get a 3d chip.
Or who knows if we learn how to manipulate the particles of the atoms (or something similar) and create a chip using those.
I couldn't agree more. - Metric: 1 km = 1000 m = 1000000 mm - US system: 1 ml = 1760 yd = 5280 ft = 63360 in
Heck, it took me 3 minutes just to write the US example and I had to use wikipedia and calculator as a help to do that. What was that guy thinking when he invented that weird system?!
> I'm sure nearly every downloadable product patches security flaws in secret.
Except open source products, because they really kind hide it. They might not mention it on the change log (while they usually do), but even if they don't, users can see it from the code.
I don't think Opera is fighting that much with IE as it is with Firefox (which we all know, is open source). So this is quite interesting news. Especially if you think that the security hole was known by a security company, so they probably wanted to reveal the hole if Opera wouldn't do that. Which raises the question: How many holes have Opera found internally, and not revealed those at all, ever?
Ever wondered why there are so little security holes in Opera? It's not like they would have the best programmers in the world. Microsoft has more money and Firefox has more developers, yet both of them seem to have more holes, which seems unrealistic.
> You could argue for better firefox support, but as much as we love linux, I suppose they have no obligation to make it work for something that is that > small minority among desktop users.
Yes. And imagine the savings we would get if we stop supporting other minorities also, like the blind.
I'm not requesting them to support Linux. I'm requesting them to support some open format, so the users of the Linux have at least an option to make a legal viewer for themselves to watch what is called "public".
The point is not to create green pigs, the point is to prove that we can do anything. But basicly green pigs is a relatively easy tasks when compared to creating a pig with wings and a genetic ability to learn to use them and fly. But in theory it is already possible, all we need to know is what genes we need to use and where to put them. That is difficult, but possible. The more we learn, the more we can do.
Slashdot Mirror
I've used Windows since version 2.x so I'm no newbie with Windows nor computers in general. Recently I tried installing Windows 2000 and Windows XP on the same disk with Linux. And even I spent about 3 days on that, I failed to install either of them. The best the Windows could do was to corrupt the partition table complitely (which I was luckily able to save from Linux live-cd). You spent 2 days and managed to get it installed, and yet you claim it is the Linux which is hard to use?
But you are absolutely right. The configuration could be more easy for new users and I think that every new version of Ubuntu has improved this a little. So I suggest that you give it another try when the next version is released and perhaps even give it a little more time than 2 days. I would recommend 2 weeks, which seems to be enough for Windows-users to learn the benefits of using Linux.
GPL doesn't allow you to distribute closed source software with the GPL lisenced software (The reason why other distributions don't have codecs and drivers with them.). Sounds to me that Linux Mint is not following the GPL license.
> What can you do about it.
Move to Europe
> Anyone in the same boat? any ideas why this could happen?
Let's say that I give you 5000 euros. You can give 1000 euros to any 5 people who asks for it. Now, you get 2000000 letters from people where they explain why they should get the money. What would you do?
Quantum physics don't need to obey laws.
And this theory is not invented by Hawkings, I first time heard about it more than 10 years ago. Why this is news now, I have no idea.
The point of pre-installed Linux is that if there is a pre-installed Linux, then most likely the hardware is well supported in Linux also. This is why I would buy a computer with pre-installed Linux, rather than one without.
Also having pre-installed Linux would most likely increase the Linux user-base.
> I run into strange things like not being able to print out a landscape PDF in portrait
Let me guess, you have Ubuntu and you only tried the default PDF program to print it? It has a bug, which is fixed it current svn/cvs version, but meanwhile you wait it to arrive to your Ubuntu, install and try xpdf. It is not as pretty, but printing works with it.
Standards are so good that everyone should have one.
All-In-One-Gestures work in a way that you have to hold down the right mouse button while you do the gesture, and it draws a red line whichs shows you what kind of a gesture you are making. I don't know what you have tried, but I seriously suggest you to try again. I never understood what mouse gestures are good for untill I tried it myself. My wife was even more skeptic, untill she tried, and even she likes it!
I wonder how could anyone live without colored tabs. Yes, those sure are "must-have" extensions.
You really need only mouse gestures, addblock, web developer, html validator, downthemall, flashblock, linkification and phpbb user hide, if you are reading phpbb forums. That's only 8.
> You only need to open up if and when you modify Spring framework with your own code.
Insightful my ass.
First, open source itself does not mean anything else, except that you can view the source. If we are talking GPL which most people talk about when they speak about open source, you can use and rape the GPL code as much as you want in your closed source projects and you have to publish nothing as long as you don't distribute it.
On the other hand, if you do distribute GPL licensed code, then everything distributed with it must be GPL (or under a license that follows the rules of GPL). This is the reason why you don't see closed source binaries distributed with Linux distributions.
GPL doesn't take any rights away from the users of the GPL program, it only gives them more rights to use it, with certain condititions.
But besides GPL, there are others also. For example SQLite is public domain. It means that you can do anything with the code, no restrictions at all.
What about open source without any licenses? Well that would be copyrighted material. It means that you have no permission to distribute it. In some countries it might even be illegal to modify it.
> A web browser is a GUI.
GUI = Graphical User Interface
Lynx = Text based web browser
You were saying... ?
> XML means it is readable by humans.
Not quite so. Microsoft uses xml in their new format, but I doubt that anyone could read that because:
- It uses element names that can't be understand without reading the 6000 page specifications.
- Most of the media-data is in a format that can't be understand even with the 6000 page specifications.
> I can not but wonder why FireFox is considered to be a secure browser. It seems to have more security issues than IE lately
0. "seems to have" doesn't sound very scientific proof.
1. Each security bug in Firefox is revealed and count as one, in IE not all are revealed (mostly only if they are public already) and often several have been counted as one by Microsoft. And most like Microsoft is not the only one. Opera didn't reveal the security bug it fixed untill a long time after the version had been released, perhaps under the pressure of the person who found it. Most likely all closed source software vendors hide a lot of details from the customers. In open source world you can't do this, because every patch you make is public and in the case of Firefox, viewed by several different people.
2. Even with the situation mentioned in 1), Firefox has less critical security issues than IE. Of course it is fun to count the total amount of security bugs, but which matters more to you. 1 bug that allows attacker to steal all your data and install your computer full of viruses, or 10 bugs that allow attacker to change the background of the webpage without your permission?
3. Repair times for severe bugs are a lot faster than they are for IE.
4. I still have not seen a single news about using a security bug in Firefox to infect user's computer. IE on the other hand has had a lot of these news. So either there are not severe bugs enough to be used or the users of Firefox are simply not attractive for the attackers.
Just because of the 4) it doesn't matter what browser you use and you are safe, unless it is IE. Sure it can change when Firefox gets more popular (I hear this a lot.). But it's market share has increased a lot and we are still waiting this to happen. Apache is also a market leader and it doesn't seem to have much problems either. Perhaps open source is just better.
And the name is Firefox, only first letter is in upper case.
> Sorry kneejerkers, but its going to require a much more detailed description of those patches
Well you could just RTFA if you are interested in details. Linus: "(with my patches, double-clicking on the title bar isn't a special event: it's configurable along with right- and middle-clicking, and with the exact same syntax for all)"
If you have for example cancer and a drug company is making money for providing you the cure for it. You really don't care how they got it, as long as you are able to pay for the drug. It is better to have expensive drug rather than not having it at all. You are not forced to participate.
But there is of course a better solution also. Drug research could be funded by goverments, with tax money. This would allow cheap drugs and all the research data could be public, which would speed up the research a lot, assuming that same amount of money would be used. Or the other way around, the same amount of research could be archieved with smaller amount of money. Free is always better than closed.
> But testing for lynx, webtv and things like that? No way.
Testing with Lynx is actually quite a good idea. Not only will you make sure that blind people can see your site, you can also confirm the complexity of your website and how easily information can be found from there.
2004-01-26 he said that it would be solved in two years:j html?articleID=17500979
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.
I think they (Intel) estimated at some point that the Moore's law would work at least to 2015. At that point they would need to start working with something smaller than atoms to keep it up.
But of course the processor development can still continue after that. We could for example stack many layers on each other to get a 3d chip.
Or who knows if we learn how to manipulate the particles of the atoms (or something similar) and create a chip using those.
> Metric is a very easy system
I couldn't agree more.
- Metric: 1 km = 1000 m = 1000000 mm
- US system: 1 ml = 1760 yd = 5280 ft = 63360 in
Heck, it took me 3 minutes just to write the US example and I had to use wikipedia and calculator as a help to do that. What was that guy thinking when he invented that weird system?!
> I'm sure nearly every downloadable product patches security flaws in secret.
Except open source products, because they really kind hide it. They might not mention it on the change log (while they usually do), but even if they don't, users can see it from the code.
I don't think Opera is fighting that much with IE as it is with Firefox (which we all know, is open source). So this is quite interesting news. Especially if you think that the security hole was known by a security company, so they probably wanted to reveal the hole if Opera wouldn't do that. Which raises the question: How many holes have Opera found internally, and not revealed those at all, ever?
Ever wondered why there are so little security holes in Opera? It's not like they would have the best programmers in the world. Microsoft has more money and Firefox has more developers, yet both of them seem to have more holes, which seems unrealistic.
> ...still no cure for greed.
I think Smith & Wesson got that covered years ago.
> You could argue for better firefox support, but as much as we love linux, I suppose they have no obligation to make it work for something that is that > small minority among desktop users.
Yes. And imagine the savings we would get if we stop supporting other minorities also, like the blind.
I'm not requesting them to support Linux. I'm requesting them to support some open format, so the users of the Linux have at least an option to make a legal viewer for themselves to watch what is called "public".
The point is not to create green pigs, the point is to prove that we can do anything. But basicly green pigs is a relatively easy tasks when compared to creating a pig with wings and a genetic ability to learn to use them and fly. But in theory it is already possible, all we need to know is what genes we need to use and where to put them. That is difficult, but possible. The more we learn, the more we can do.
> Penguins Disappearing From Southern Hemisphere
Microsoft must be behind of all of this. Who else would like to see cute little penguins to disappear from the world.