I'm no Linux/Open Source zealot, and have little time for those who are. I don't even particularly hate Microsoft (I hate using most of their products, but that's another story), but it makes me angry to even think about the amount of the taxpayer's money that they cream off, when there are free solutions that work equally well. This is a good start at least.
What I'd *really* like to see isn't just the OS replaced on workers' desktop PCs, but a lot of those PCs replaced with VTs. Cheap to buy, cheap to run, and set up to provide only the applications people need to do their job. No tossing it off on the web all day, no Internet usage policies, no clueless outsourced PC support department, just a big old Unix server (or two) conencted to dumb terminals, with users trained in the one or two pieces of software they really need. Not suitable for everyone of course, but perfect for a lot of setups. I'm going OT I know. Sorry.
Really, even for/., this is *too* stupid. You take your little pet idea, be it Linux/P2P/Tivo etc. etc., then proclaim Windows/radio/TV is over./. readers are a tiny niche of the world's population - most people have never hears of P2P, RIAA, DMCA, HDTV and so on, and probably never will. The world doesn't really change so much, especially not peoples habits.
I simply *cannot be bothered* to choose every song I want to listen to, or every TV show I want to watch. I want to sit down, turn on the radio, and have someone else pick the music for me. Some of it I will like, some I won't, some I won't have heard before - I've discovered many of my favourite bands through radio.
And then there's local sports events, news, and some excellent journalism that have no other outlet, and all available whether I'm in my house, in my car, in my garden, on a bus or at work, all while I'm doing something else.
Go to a factory - they'll have the radio on. They won't have gentoo athlon boxen playing fair-use oggs, creaming their jeans about how the whole chain is free as in speech. They have more important things to worry about.
Radios are cheap, easily available, easy to use, and understood by all. They ain't going anywhere.
Disclaimer: most linux users, indeed most linux advocates are not zealots.
Linux zealots are only like terrorists in that they cannot be reasoned with. They are certain their belief is the only correct one, and will not give any ground to those with opposing views.
As this stance is based on faith, not reason or experience, they are unable to defend it in an argument and dismiss all counter claims as disinformation, propaganda, or FUD.
They have a very clear definition of their "enemy", though that enemy quite possibly is barely even aware of their existence and holds little or no emnity towards them. Everything that enemy does is wrong, even if some of those things are essentially the same as they do themselves.
Anyway, to get to the point of the subject header, linux zealots are typically technically uninformed, with a hugely overinflated idea of how much they know. They never let any degree of ignorance stop them contradicting people on Slashdot.
They have incredibly naive ideas, seeming to believe that Linux will make the world a better place to live, as would the annihalation of MS.
They are usually 15 and fit the stereotypyical nerd/loser profile very well.
They might be dangerous black hats if they could just work out how to untar that r00tkit.
A lot of people in here are defending linux zealots by saying they contribute to the open source community. I don't think they do. Linux users contribute; some linux advocates contribute; but the zealots are too busy arguing on comp.unix.solaris. I guess a few of them might have a version 0.0.1 project (written in PERL, natch) on sourceforge, but the world will keep turning after they abandon it.
I used to be an Amiga nut back in the day, and so much of the Linux community reminds me of the Amiga scene back then. Many talented people working on many great projects, but way too many losers caught up in ill-informed flame wars. (IMHO the Amiga was much more worthy of zealotry than Linux - it was something new, exciting, and genuinely different, not just essentially one more Unix-a-like.)
Bottom line: linux zealots are idiots and not worth our attention, just like every other kind of zealot.
Disclaimer: I don't care about purity of licenses. I don't care about C vs C++. I don't care about RMS.
KDE is just the most remarkable piece of free software I've ever seen. It's so big, so slick and advances at such an incredible pace. It works perfectly, and just the same on Linux, Solaris and BSD (though I haven't used and BSDs in a while). It's wonderful.
I used to love GNOME, but now, with the best will in the world. I can't take it seriously as a rival to KDE.
Forte - most open source apps built with Forte on Solaris considerably outperform the same apps built with GCC. Sun's C compilers are the shit, and that's before you even get into debugging with them.
Docs - I get so frustrated with sucky docs on Linux. (Or, more particularly, no docs at all.) And don't give me that "you have the source, that's the best doc of all" crap.
Stability and predictability/ I *like* the fact that most of Solaris hasn't changed since 2.4. I know where I stand on any machine. I still use the old Sun sed/awk/ksh/etc etc because I know that whatever Solaris I have to work on, they're always there.
Okay, so the open source apps Sun bundle are always a few versions behind the current release. So what? I know they've been tested above and beyond what the authors tested, and if it's still a problem I can build the new version myself. With Forte.
Support - far and away the best I ever used. Partly a result, I guess, of having the same people make the hardware and the OS. I never understood how it's bad that MS make an OS for Intel h/w, but it's no problem to make Linux for AMDs.
No. They were going to stop it with 8. There was an early beta of 9, then it was pulled. It was probably the best part of a year before it got resurrected.
The Solaris installer is ridiculously simple, and it has Jumpstart, which is the best installation system going. (The Webstart installer stinks though - no one could argue with that.)
The patch system is 100% fine, especailly if you're using PatchPro. Patches could install quicker, but it's not a problem really.
The package system isn't great, but it does the job most people require of it. Solaris is a server OS - you don't generally add much packaged software, and there often aren't many dependencies to fill. It's also an OS often maintained by the kind of admins with the smarts to build their own binaries targeted for their own systems.
Some Unix users couldn't care less that there's yet another test release of Linux.
I don't remember seeing any "Solaris 8 kernel revision 23 relased" front page stories, perhaps because they would be very uninteresting, but primarily becuase they wouldn't give a busload of dickless weenies the chance to tell everyone how they just built it on their Gentoo Athlon boxen with the gcc they pulled down from CVS through their iptables firewall. Oh and by the way they're posting with lynx, using screen because they're so leet. And isn't that what Slashdot's all about?
I think they bought them just to close them down. B&P was eventually made semi-available for free, and a couple of years ago its author managed to release the source code as freeware.
It's still being maintained, and I've heard rumours of people trying to port it to Unix, but never anything concrete.
It's a work of insane genius, and I'm sure there's a whole generation of people who would love it, should it ever run on a more, err, readily available, OS.
Not exactly vintage, but my A1200 still sees a fair bit of use, primarily to run Bars and Pipes, but SWOS gets the odd outing too. I have an A4000 too, but it makes too much noise for the environment I want to use it in. Every time I use the Amiga I'm surprised by the speed and friendliness of the OS. Wonderful computers.
I've also got a Sun ELC (external disk, board in the back of the monitor) which I dig out when I need to check something on SunOS 2.5. Which, admittedly, doesn't happen an awful lot these days.
I haven't had the chance to check 1.3 out for a while, but last time I looked I couldn't find dynamic text. That's a killer for me. Is it back yet? Or reimplemented in some other way?
Re:Problems with newer versions
on
PHP 5 Beta 1
·
· Score: 1
I've never really run into problems with code being broken by running it on later versions of PHP4. I always try to stick to the core function set, and if I'm writing code for other people, the odd function_exists() can save a lot of frustration.
3 to 4 was different, as will be 4 to 5, but we expect that don't we?
More worrying is that ISPs very rarely upgrade PHP, even in the face of well known security holes. (And of course it's utterly trivial to find out what version of PHP a server is running.)
Slashdot Mirror
Sun's OpenBoot PROM uses FORTH. You can write programs for it if you're so inclined.
If you *need* graphics capabilites, Sunrays would do just fine. If not, stick with the VTs.
I'm no Linux/Open Source zealot, and have little time for those who are. I don't even particularly hate Microsoft (I hate using most of their products, but that's another story), but it makes me angry to even think about the amount of the taxpayer's money that they cream off, when there are free solutions that work equally well. This is a good start at least.
What I'd *really* like to see isn't just the OS replaced on workers' desktop PCs, but a lot of those PCs replaced with VTs. Cheap to buy, cheap to run, and set up to provide only the applications people need to do their job. No tossing it off on the web all day, no Internet usage policies, no clueless outsourced PC support department, just a big old Unix server (or two) conencted to dumb terminals, with users trained in the one or two pieces of software they really need. Not suitable for everyone of course, but perfect for a lot of setups. I'm going OT I know. Sorry.
Really, even for /., this is *too* stupid. You take your little pet idea, be it Linux/P2P/Tivo etc. etc., then proclaim Windows/radio/TV is over. /. readers are a tiny niche of the world's population - most people have never hears of P2P, RIAA, DMCA, HDTV and so on, and probably never will. The world doesn't really change so much, especially not peoples habits.
I simply *cannot be bothered* to choose every song I want to listen to, or every TV show I want to watch. I want to sit down, turn on the radio, and have someone else pick the music for me. Some of it I will like, some I won't, some I won't have heard before - I've discovered many of my favourite bands through radio.
And then there's local sports events, news, and some excellent journalism that have no other outlet, and all available whether I'm in my house, in my car, in my garden, on a bus or at work, all while I'm doing something else.
Go to a factory - they'll have the radio on. They won't have gentoo athlon boxen playing fair-use oggs, creaming their jeans about how the whole chain is free as in speech. They have more important things to worry about.
Radios are cheap, easily available, easy to use, and understood by all. They ain't going anywhere.
Are you using Solaris by any chance? (Sucky IDE great NFS.)
Disclaimer: most linux users, indeed most linux advocates are not zealots.
Linux zealots are only like terrorists in that they cannot be reasoned with. They are certain their belief is the only correct one, and will not give any ground to those with opposing views.
As this stance is based on faith, not reason or experience, they are unable to defend it in an argument and dismiss all counter claims as disinformation, propaganda, or FUD.
They have a very clear definition of their "enemy", though that enemy quite possibly is barely even aware of their existence and holds little or no emnity towards them. Everything that enemy does is wrong, even if some of those things are essentially the same as they do themselves.
Anyway, to get to the point of the subject header, linux zealots are typically technically uninformed, with a hugely overinflated idea of how much they know. They never let any degree of ignorance stop them contradicting people on Slashdot.
They have incredibly naive ideas, seeming to believe that Linux will make the world a better place to live, as would the annihalation of MS.
They are usually 15 and fit the stereotypyical nerd/loser profile very well.
They might be dangerous black hats if they could just work out how to untar that r00tkit.
A lot of people in here are defending linux zealots by saying they contribute to the open source community. I don't think they do. Linux users contribute; some linux advocates contribute; but the zealots are too busy arguing on comp.unix.solaris. I guess a few of them might have a version 0.0.1 project (written in PERL, natch) on sourceforge, but the world will keep turning after they abandon it.
I used to be an Amiga nut back in the day, and so much of the Linux community reminds me of the Amiga scene back then. Many talented people working on many great projects, but way too many losers caught up in ill-informed flame wars. (IMHO the Amiga was much more worthy of zealotry than Linux - it was something new, exciting, and genuinely different, not just essentially one more Unix-a-like.)
Bottom line: linux zealots are idiots and not worth our attention, just like every other kind of zealot.
BTW - I use Linux.
I agree on both counts.
Much as I'd like to, I just can't read this article. The sarcasm or whatever it should be called is just too wearing.
Good satirical writing is not accomplished by writing a "do not" article, then changing all the "do not"s to "do"s.
Disclaimer: I don't care about purity of licenses. I don't care about C vs C++. I don't care about RMS.
KDE is just the most remarkable piece of free software I've ever seen. It's so big, so slick and advances at such an incredible pace. It works perfectly, and just the same on Linux, Solaris and BSD (though I haven't used and BSDs in a while). It's wonderful.
I used to love GNOME, but now, with the best will in the world. I can't take it seriously as a rival to KDE.
But an awful lot of them are idiots.
Forte - most open source apps built with Forte on Solaris considerably outperform the same apps built with GCC. Sun's C compilers are the shit, and that's before you even get into debugging with them.
Docs - I get so frustrated with sucky docs on Linux. (Or, more particularly, no docs at all.) And don't give me that "you have the source, that's the best doc of all" crap.
Stability and predictability/ I *like* the fact that most of Solaris hasn't changed since 2.4. I know where I stand on any machine. I still use the old Sun sed/awk/ksh/etc etc because I know that whatever Solaris I have to work on, they're always there.
Okay, so the open source apps Sun bundle are always a few versions behind the current release. So what? I know they've been tested above and beyond what the authors tested, and if it's still a problem I can build the new version myself. With Forte.
Support - far and away the best I ever used. Partly a result, I guess, of having the same people make the hardware and the OS. I never understood how it's bad that MS make an OS for Intel h/w, but it's no problem to make Linux for AMDs.
No. They were going to stop it with 8. There was an early beta of 9, then it was pulled. It was probably the best part of a year before it got resurrected.
The Solaris installer is ridiculously simple, and it has Jumpstart, which is the best installation system going. (The Webstart installer stinks though - no one could argue with that.)
The patch system is 100% fine, especailly if you're using PatchPro. Patches could install quicker, but it's not a problem really.
The package system isn't great, but it does the job most people require of it. Solaris is a server OS - you don't generally add much packaged software, and there often aren't many dependencies to fill. It's also an OS often maintained by the kind of admins with the smarts to build their own binaries targeted for their own systems.
Some Unix users couldn't care less that there's yet another test release of Linux.
I don't remember seeing any "Solaris 8 kernel revision 23 relased" front page stories, perhaps because they would be very uninteresting, but primarily becuase they wouldn't give a busload of dickless weenies the chance to tell everyone how they just built it on their Gentoo Athlon boxen with the gcc they pulled down from CVS through their iptables firewall. Oh and by the way they're posting with lynx, using screen because they're so leet. And isn't that what Slashdot's all about?
I think they bought them just to close them down. B&P was eventually made semi-available for free, and a couple of years ago its author managed to release the source code as freeware.
It's still being maintained, and I've heard rumours of people trying to port it to Unix, but never anything concrete.
It's a work of insane genius, and I'm sure there's a whole generation of people who would love it, should it ever run on a more, err, readily available, OS.
Not exactly vintage, but my A1200 still sees a fair bit of use, primarily to run Bars and Pipes, but SWOS gets the odd outing too. I have an A4000 too, but it makes too much noise for the environment I want to use it in. Every time I use the Amiga I'm surprised by the speed and friendliness of the OS. Wonderful computers.
I've also got a Sun ELC (external disk, board in the back of the monitor) which I dig out when I need to check something on SunOS 2.5. Which, admittedly, doesn't happen an awful lot these days.
I haven't had the chance to check 1.3 out for a while, but last time I looked I couldn't find dynamic text. That's a killer for me. Is it back yet? Or reimplemented in some other way?
I'm pretty sure I once installed it on Solaris too. Would have been version 3 at the latest. Of course, I could be wrong...
Amen to all that. You talk a lot of sense.
You say that now, but wait till you find out what versiou they're up to.
I run Solaris. We don't /have/ any plugins.
I've never really run into problems with code being broken by running it on later versions of PHP4. I always try to stick to the core function set, and if I'm writing code for other people, the odd function_exists() can save a lot of frustration.
3 to 4 was different, as will be 4 to 5, but we expect that don't we?
More worrying is that ISPs very rarely upgrade PHP, even in the face of well known security holes. (And of course it's utterly trivial to find out what version of PHP a server is running.)
fuck that mainstream shit! Give me "Sado/Maso Disco" or give me nothing!
Last time I worked there Freeserve still used Exim, as does BT Openworld. That may or may not be an endorsement for it.
Whatever gave you that idea?