Depends on what you're willing to compromise. I have Nvidia Optimus, everything works perfectly for me. I had to use bumblebee and not Nvidia's own hacks, since NV's don't work yet, and bumblebee does, but it's pretty close to the Windows experience. While it doesn't auto-detect apps and select Intel/Nvidia automatically for me, it does allow me to manually force Nvidia usage much more simply, so I score that a wash.
Intel for 2D/desktop - works great. Nvidia for performance 3D - works great. Auto-power-off of Nvidia when not in use - works great.
The only thing I get in Windows that I don't get in Linux at the moment, when I'm docked with 2+ monitors connected in Windows, The drivers seem to understand the connection setup, and the Nvidia chip will stay hot/lit-up all the time, to drive monitor #3. In Linux, if the Intel graphics can't make all the connected displays go, they don't. I'm told that I could fix this too, with quite a bit of hackery/tinkering, but I just plain can't be arsed.
Setup literally consisted of 3 or 4 commands and some testing to verify it was working correctly. No reboot needed, just an X restart once everything was in place.
Now, since I have a nice high end Dell, I can bypass the entire issue by making the Nvidia chip the primary/only graphics adapter, but that kills my battery runtime (from 5-6 hours easily, down to 2-3), and makes the machine hotter and louder.
"Those wishing to support the GNOME Foundation can become a friend of GNOME." And if we just want Gnome 3.0 and Unity and friends to catch a clue and toddle off? Is there a "Gnome 2.X was good, but the current garbage is just that" organization? I think it would get a lot of supporters. Maybe we can get Cinnamon named the official successor.
JOR-EL! We've told you again and again, the Kryptonian geothermal power systems are SAFE! If you don't stop this scaremongering campaign, the council will have you censured! Charges may be filed in the Hall of Justice!
Like many others, myself included, you have misunderstood. It is not a surgery simulator. It's not simulating you performing surgery. It's a SURGEON simulator. It simulates you performing a surgeon.
It's deeply broken and bad, and Steam refused to allow me to return for refund, so I watch people play it on Youtube sometimes, and it's in my library. Worst 6$ in recent memory.
"Time, we know, is relative. You can travel light years through the stars and back, and if you do it at the speed of light then, when you return, you may have aged mere seconds while your twin brother or sister will have aged twenty, thirty, forty or however many years it is, depending on how far you traveled. This will come to you as a profound shock, particularly if you didn't know you had a twin brother or sister."
I wish you were correct, but it's not so. While there are a few very open Android devices, the great majority need many binary blobs to function, and not just for graphics. Some need binary blobs for touchscreen, WLAN, GPU, more.
I don't know of any truly free and open devices, which don't require any binary drivers to fully function. I'm sure some exist, but they're not the devices you're thinking of.
I'm sorry, I was excessively brief so as to be approachable while still somewhat informative.
Balmer had his shitfit several years ago, as I'd pointed out. Around that same time, WinPhone went from being a second class citizen to being a major focus again. More recently, Microsoft flat out bought Nokia. That better?
Personally, I think MS bought Nokia in order to continue the current WinPho or Bust plan, which seems to be trending strongly towards "or Bust". The Nokia stockholders seemed not to care as long as it meant a payout. MS needed that "partnership" to continue, in the worst way.
Disclaimer: I hate all cell phones and wish they'd go away. If that makes me an MS-hating troll, clearly you haven't read my other posts, where I more clearly lay out my reasons for disliking Microsoft. Their meddling in the cell phone market ain't it.
If you're not willing to do any work at all, run the fully stock distro. Debian even makes discs with the most essential non-free bits (firmware for WLAN/LAN) built in. Anything beyond that, you may need to do a very small amount of work, or hire a nerd.
If you're not willing to do any work at all, hire a nerd to help. If you're not willing to work at all, and you're not willing to hire a nerd, run Windows.
If you're not willing to work, not willing to pay, and not willing to run Windows, you've backed yourself into an impossible situation due to your contrary nature, and you deserve the bootyass-raping that life will eventually give you.
I have. It reminded me a lot of my first generation iPad when I got it. Potential maybe, but stifled by lack of non-basic apps that people want to use. Apple got through that stage by being the only serious players in the market. MS is going up against two deeply-entrenched and not-deeply-retarded adversaries, I don't see it working out as smoothly.
Not forced, no. I recall Ballmer throwing a minor shitfit a few years back when he walked around the MS office campus and noticed that EVERYONE was using an iPhone.
Of course, right after that he bought Nokia and forced WinPho8 down the world's collective throats, so it may have changed since, but it's likely that it's encouraged but not required.
GP is fully correct. Every OCZ product I've ever had has failed, often dramatically, and OCZ's "support" was laughable. I've had public exchanges with OCZ execs where they dismissed concerns about device quality and ignored issues. They're reaping what they sowed here.
While I agree that "FOSSies" can be detrimental to some proposed feature additions, I disagree with your general sentiment that they are detrimental to all progress.
If you take the opposite point, that anything should be added if it adds to the user experience, you'll end with a distro that is Windows. Fully binary, almost impossible to support or troubleshoot, but it has SOO MANY shiny things, also binary-only.
The FOSSies may be extreme, but they built and maintained the sandbox up from nothing. While you think you have grand plans for that sandbox, you MUST respect those who set the original rules, or you will not be welcomed in their sandbox.
For a real world example, I run Debian on my laptop. In it's purest post-install form, it is lacking quite a few things, a very few I consider essentials (needs binary blobs to make the Intel WLAN go), and some others that I very much like but could live without (Chrome with all the Google services instead of Chromium). I even installed a few things that would make the Debian purists cry (Steam, which is binary-only, and on my desktop, the binary-only Nvidia driver).
What's the point? With a few minor tweaks, I can add any binary-only shinies that I'd like. Debian doesn't stop me. It just doesn't offer them out of the box, which seems to be your preference. The difference between us? I accept a little adjustment and tinkering to make everything Just So, and acknowledge the POV and desires of the DFSG or FOSS purists, even where I disagree or don't feel as strongly, while you mock and deride them and seem to expect the distros to package things YOUR WAY and support YOUR vision.
If you don't understand why the GPL is important, you're still free to use and abuse Linux. Just don't expect anyone who DOES understand it's importance to care about your POV.
If you weren't alive (and therefore most likely not paying the license) when it first aired, then you weren't paying for it then, and have no rights to watching it now, unless you'd like to purchase a retroactive license. I'm sure the beeb would be happy to come around and collect 20+ years of back dues from you, adjusted for inflation.
You know, I keep hearing this, but MS's vision for tablet computing was very, very different. I actually owned several examples of MS's tablet PCs, and then owned a first gen iPad. I now have a Nexus 10, in case anyone wondered.
The Tablet PC (TPC) was big, heavy, had horrible battery life, and almost always was a convertible laptop as well. They pictured the laptop becoming a portrait orientated clipboard lookalike, with the full processing power, heat, noise, etc of the laptops of the day.
Apple launched the iPad and it was thinner, lighter, cooler-running and longer-lasting than any major laptop of the time. Laptops were just starting to hit the 5 pound mark and still be usable, iPad was around 1 pound. laptops were still pushing 15-16" displays very hard, the iPad was right around 9 inches diagonal. Laptops were generally between 1 and 2 hours run time, the iPad did anywhere from 8 hours on up, depending on how you had power management set up.
Sure, the broadest strokes of your statement are true. Microsoft announced tablet PCs years before Apple and everyone yawned. However, it wasn't (only) because it was from Microsoft. It was because the idea was premature, and the MS version we were sold sucked rather hard.
I have no counterpoint or argument to most of your post. I just wanted to mention that the Nexus 7 (2013 version) and Nexus 10 both make fantastic ereaders, if you don't mind a backlit device.
If you prefer non-backlit, my daughter has the Kindle Paperwhite and I put all the books on there for her. It doesn't accept ePub, true, but Calibre is your friend and can convert everything to AZW or mobi and then copy it to your Kindle for you.
It's not exactly what you want, since it's not truly pay-what-you-want, just pay-nearly-what-you-want-with-a-minimum-and-less-granularity, but it does approximate that one point and hit all the others:
Ok, so Switzerland, who is entirely familiar with the concept of mercenaries, is invaded by France?
The solution lies directly North of Switzerland. Calculate expected damages due to invasion, offer half that amount to the Germans, and watch France surrender.
Hell, if you play your cards right, maybe Germany will cede some of France's territory to you after a few hours, when the French surrender!
(This is for comedic value and is not a serious statement regarding Germany, France, or Switzerland.)
So the minor data point that Linux Steam only allows you to download/install/run games that have native ports means nothing....
I run Linux most of the time. I run Steam most of the time. I have two Steam installs, one native and one under Wine, simply so I can play most of my games.
Hear that GabeN? This should be your next item! An unsupported checkbox somewhere that lets me download and try to run games not yet supported under my OS. If you could tie into my wineconfigs and run unsupported-but-preconfigured, that would be even better, thanks!
Actually, there's nothing in MicroUSB itself that makes it particularly fragile.
It's the handset manufacturers who don't want it to be robust. They're very happy selling you a device with a 90 day warranty and an expected lifespan of about a year.
Like wars, revolutions are terrible, bloody things, filled with loss for both sides. This is necessary, else we would have Jefferson's idea of revolutions every year.
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Right? Gimme my fuckin points, Andover. I need to put some on this asshole over here!
Depends on what you're willing to compromise. I have Nvidia Optimus, everything works perfectly for me. I had to use bumblebee and not Nvidia's own hacks, since NV's don't work yet, and bumblebee does, but it's pretty close to the Windows experience. While it doesn't auto-detect apps and select Intel/Nvidia automatically for me, it does allow me to manually force Nvidia usage much more simply, so I score that a wash.
Intel for 2D/desktop - works great.
Nvidia for performance 3D - works great.
Auto-power-off of Nvidia when not in use - works great.
The only thing I get in Windows that I don't get in Linux at the moment, when I'm docked with 2+ monitors connected in Windows, The drivers seem to understand the connection setup, and the Nvidia chip will stay hot/lit-up all the time, to drive monitor #3. In Linux, if the Intel graphics can't make all the connected displays go, they don't. I'm told that I could fix this too, with quite a bit of hackery/tinkering, but I just plain can't be arsed.
Setup literally consisted of 3 or 4 commands and some testing to verify it was working correctly. No reboot needed, just an X restart once everything was in place.
Now, since I have a nice high end Dell, I can bypass the entire issue by making the Nvidia chip the primary/only graphics adapter, but that kills my battery runtime (from 5-6 hours easily, down to 2-3), and makes the machine hotter and louder.
"Those wishing to support the GNOME Foundation can become a friend of GNOME."
And if we just want Gnome 3.0 and Unity and friends to catch a clue and toddle off? Is there a "Gnome 2.X was good, but the current garbage is just that" organization? I think it would get a lot of supporters. Maybe we can get Cinnamon named the official successor.
JOR-EL! We've told you again and again, the Kryptonian geothermal power systems are SAFE! If you don't stop this scaremongering campaign, the council will have you censured! Charges may be filed in the Hall of Justice!
Like many others, myself included, you have misunderstood. It is not a surgery simulator. It's not simulating you performing surgery. It's a SURGEON simulator. It simulates you performing a surgeon.
It's deeply broken and bad, and Steam refused to allow me to return for refund, so I watch people play it on Youtube sometimes, and it's in my library. Worst 6$ in recent memory.
"Time, we know, is relative. You can travel light years through the stars and back, and if you do it at the speed of light then, when you return, you may have aged mere seconds while your twin brother or sister will have aged twenty, thirty, forty or however many years it is, depending on how far you traveled. This will come to you as a profound shock, particularly if you didn't know you had a twin brother or sister."
I wish you were correct, but it's not so. While there are a few very open Android devices, the great majority need many binary blobs to function, and not just for graphics. Some need binary blobs for touchscreen, WLAN, GPU, more.
I don't know of any truly free and open devices, which don't require any binary drivers to fully function. I'm sure some exist, but they're not the devices you're thinking of.
Did you reply to the wrong post, or just not read mine?
GP bashed "FOSSies", not me.
I'm sorry, I was excessively brief so as to be approachable while still somewhat informative.
Balmer had his shitfit several years ago, as I'd pointed out. Around that same time, WinPhone went from being a second class citizen to being a major focus again. More recently, Microsoft flat out bought Nokia. That better?
Personally, I think MS bought Nokia in order to continue the current WinPho or Bust plan, which seems to be trending strongly towards "or Bust". The Nokia stockholders seemed not to care as long as it meant a payout. MS needed that "partnership" to continue, in the worst way.
Disclaimer: I hate all cell phones and wish they'd go away. If that makes me an MS-hating troll, clearly you haven't read my other posts, where I more clearly lay out my reasons for disliking Microsoft. Their meddling in the cell phone market ain't it.
If you're not willing to do any work at all, run the fully stock distro. Debian even makes discs with the most essential non-free bits (firmware for WLAN/LAN) built in. Anything beyond that, you may need to do a very small amount of work, or hire a nerd.
If you're not willing to do any work at all, hire a nerd to help. If you're not willing to work at all, and you're not willing to hire a nerd, run Windows.
If you're not willing to work, not willing to pay, and not willing to run Windows, you've backed yourself into an impossible situation due to your contrary nature, and you deserve the bootyass-raping that life will eventually give you.
I have. It reminded me a lot of my first generation iPad when I got it. Potential maybe, but stifled by lack of non-basic apps that people want to use. Apple got through that stage by being the only serious players in the market. MS is going up against two deeply-entrenched and not-deeply-retarded adversaries, I don't see it working out as smoothly.
Not forced, no. I recall Ballmer throwing a minor shitfit a few years back when he walked around the MS office campus and noticed that EVERYONE was using an iPhone.
Of course, right after that he bought Nokia and forced WinPho8 down the world's collective throats, so it may have changed since, but it's likely that it's encouraged but not required.
GP is fully correct. Every OCZ product I've ever had has failed, often dramatically, and OCZ's "support" was laughable. I've had public exchanges with OCZ execs where they dismissed concerns about device quality and ignored issues. They're reaping what they sowed here.
While I agree that "FOSSies" can be detrimental to some proposed feature additions, I disagree with your general sentiment that they are detrimental to all progress.
If you take the opposite point, that anything should be added if it adds to the user experience, you'll end with a distro that is Windows. Fully binary, almost impossible to support or troubleshoot, but it has SOO MANY shiny things, also binary-only.
The FOSSies may be extreme, but they built and maintained the sandbox up from nothing. While you think you have grand plans for that sandbox, you MUST respect those who set the original rules, or you will not be welcomed in their sandbox.
For a real world example, I run Debian on my laptop. In it's purest post-install form, it is lacking quite a few things, a very few I consider essentials (needs binary blobs to make the Intel WLAN go), and some others that I very much like but could live without (Chrome with all the Google services instead of Chromium). I even installed a few things that would make the Debian purists cry (Steam, which is binary-only, and on my desktop, the binary-only Nvidia driver).
What's the point? With a few minor tweaks, I can add any binary-only shinies that I'd like. Debian doesn't stop me. It just doesn't offer them out of the box, which seems to be your preference. The difference between us? I accept a little adjustment and tinkering to make everything Just So, and acknowledge the POV and desires of the DFSG or FOSS purists, even where I disagree or don't feel as strongly, while you mock and deride them and seem to expect the distros to package things YOUR WAY and support YOUR vision.
If you don't understand why the GPL is important, you're still free to use and abuse Linux. Just don't expect anyone who DOES understand it's importance to care about your POV.
Given that support for flo (Nexus 7 2013/Nexus 7 FHD) is still "TBD", it might take a while. I'm sure it'll get support eventually, though.
If you weren't alive (and therefore most likely not paying the license) when it first aired, then you weren't paying for it then, and have no rights to watching it now, unless you'd like to purchase a retroactive license. I'm sure the beeb would be happy to come around and collect 20+ years of back dues from you, adjusted for inflation.
You know, I keep hearing this, but MS's vision for tablet computing was very, very different. I actually owned several examples of MS's tablet PCs, and then owned a first gen iPad. I now have a Nexus 10, in case anyone wondered.
The Tablet PC (TPC) was big, heavy, had horrible battery life, and almost always was a convertible laptop as well. They pictured the laptop becoming a portrait orientated clipboard lookalike, with the full processing power, heat, noise, etc of the laptops of the day.
Apple launched the iPad and it was thinner, lighter, cooler-running and longer-lasting than any major laptop of the time. Laptops were just starting to hit the 5 pound mark and still be usable, iPad was around 1 pound. laptops were still pushing 15-16" displays very hard, the iPad was right around 9 inches diagonal. Laptops were generally between 1 and 2 hours run time, the iPad did anywhere from 8 hours on up, depending on how you had power management set up.
Sure, the broadest strokes of your statement are true. Microsoft announced tablet PCs years before Apple and everyone yawned. However, it wasn't (only) because it was from Microsoft. It was because the idea was premature, and the MS version we were sold sucked rather hard.
I have North of 2000 books on my old second generation Kindle. It's only about three quarters full.
On my Nexus 10, I have almost the same number, but it's four GB. Why? Graphics-heavy books and manuals don't work all that well on eink, for me.
I have no counterpoint or argument to most of your post. I just wanted to mention that the Nexus 7 (2013 version) and Nexus 10 both make fantastic ereaders, if you don't mind a backlit device.
If you prefer non-backlit, my daughter has the Kindle Paperwhite and I put all the books on there for her. It doesn't accept ePub, true, but Calibre is your friend and can convert everything to AZW or mobi and then copy it to your Kindle for you.
Calibre: http://calibre-ebook.com/about
It's not exactly what you want, since it's not truly pay-what-you-want, just pay-nearly-what-you-want-with-a-minimum-and-less-granularity, but it does approximate that one point and hit all the others:
http://storybundle.com/
Also, Humble Bundle themselves have done ebook bundles twice now. Ask them to do more.
Ok, so Switzerland, who is entirely familiar with the concept of mercenaries, is invaded by France?
The solution lies directly North of Switzerland. Calculate expected damages due to invasion, offer half that amount to the Germans, and watch France surrender.
Hell, if you play your cards right, maybe Germany will cede some of France's territory to you after a few hours, when the French surrender!
(This is for comedic value and is not a serious statement regarding Germany, France, or Switzerland.)
So the minor data point that Linux Steam only allows you to download/install/run games that have native ports means nothing....
I run Linux most of the time. I run Steam most of the time. I have two Steam installs, one native and one under Wine, simply so I can play most of my games.
Hear that GabeN? This should be your next item! An unsupported checkbox somewhere that lets me download and try to run games not yet supported under my OS. If you could tie into my wineconfigs and run unsupported-but-preconfigured, that would be even better, thanks!
Actually, there's nothing in MicroUSB itself that makes it particularly fragile.
It's the handset manufacturers who don't want it to be robust. They're very happy selling you a device with a 90 day warranty and an expected lifespan of about a year.
You are if he feels like ticketing you, yes.
Like wars, revolutions are terrible, bloody things, filled with loss for both sides. This is necessary, else we would have Jefferson's idea of revolutions every year.