It is not the eye-candy that makes KDE and Gnome so heavy, it is all the other services provided in the background.
This is a consequence, which cannot easily be avoided. The only thing I'd wish for is a better modularization. The current desktop environments are close to all or nothing. You can drop the one or other service, but the minimal set is still huge and in my view very intrusive.
Why using windows at all? All computers do this. Maybe get rid of monitors after all... Content is made available by a combination of morse code and whistles.
...one of the more important reasons I stopped using KDE and never started with GNOME was bloat. With bloat I don't mean featuritis, if it as only features, I could ignore those I don't need, but there was dependency hell. I started KDE and it started dozens (slight exaggeration) of services, which I don't need and don't want and suddenly everything looks different. Programs, which have nothing to do with KDE suddenly have a different fileselectorbox. A sluggish one. Ok, if I start KDE maybe I should not complain to get KDE style. But also suddenly some imbecile programs cluttered my console with warning messages. Made development really hard, because I hardly was able to see my own temporary debug output, as it was drowned in a mass of junk messages. And no, not all of them could be disabled. When I tried to contact the KDE and application developers about that, the started playing responsibility ping-pong.
A nice Qt based desktop environment would be fine. But only if it depends only on qt libs and only if it does not hijack the whole computer.
This is possible and probably true for many decisions. But for telecommuting I am a bit sceptical. Management often has someting of a control freak. Not being able to see that the work drone is actually sweating from 9-5++....
Maybe... A few posts above I added some links with a certain brand of cattle with the same or similar gene defect. In the documentation I once saw about those, this was their major problem. But of course, between a ton of cattle and a few grams of mouse there might be a difference.
You miss the problem. It is a gene defect for a reason. The muscles are growing, but the blood vessels don't adapt accordingly. This gives those animals (there are humans with this defect, too), a tremendously lower endurance. Definitely anti-quarterback.
I have this sneaking suspicion that if genome 'brakes' are present in most animals, they're probably there for a reason.
The problem is, that there is a huge amount of muscle tissue, but the blood supply is insufficient. Those animals (and humans) are not that much stronger, than normal ones, but their endurance is tremendously lower.
This is a fairly common way to handle it. But this is one advantage of being a freelancer: You see quite a few of different policies. Hardly two companies handle the same things exactly in the same way. What I wanted to say is that not all 'hate topics' are always IT's fault. See: EmagGeek (574360). Depending on his skill this can be a good thing, or a total disaster.
The author is a troll, no doubt. But nevertheless, his 'article' spawned a couple of very interesting threads. If I still were into administration, some of the experiences posted here would provide me with some good arguments for management and users. I find most of the responses here in one way or the other very interesting.
Yes, and it can be a real pain in the ass. Password aging. Wrong password entered three times. Account locked. Call support. Open support ticket. Department is billed ~$100. No joke, I have seen that. Consequence? Passwords are on a piece of paper taped to the monitor.
at a small company, they were enablers; at the larger company, they had different priorities.
Yes, I know what you mean. As freelancer I worked in some startups and larger companies.. In startups very often the admins where enablers. The ones in larger companies, however, mostly knew what they were doing.
How about "Why can't I telecommute? Burning gas here and back every day is not green."
And whether telecommuting is allowed or not is for the IT deparment to decide?
How about "these dozen pages are blocked, and yes, I do need them for work"?
Since my short and awful intermezzo as system administrator I am working as freelancing softwaredeveloper. Been in more than a dozen companies since. I had never problems with the administrator. Strange? Or perhaps because I understand why there a certain rules? And yes, once, only once I experienced something similar you mention. Pages blocked though there are needed for work? In this company you wished that was the only problem. You could not even write an email to get support how to configure, e.g. speex. Hey, this name contains 'pee'. This is disgusting. So what to do? Complain to management as some poster here propose? Sorry to burst that bubble, this was not done by IT it was done to IT, by an incompetent management. IT was just good enough to suffer the consequences.
I think procurement is the least problem and produces the least bad blood. Simply said, everybody understands when requests for a new and faster computer are denied with the answer: Not in the budget. This clearly is not a genuine IT problem. They can only spend money they are allowed to spend. The real problem are restrictions non-IT staff don't really understand. Why is it not allowed to log from home to the company server to read mail? Why can I not connect my laptop to the company network? Why am I not even allowed to insert a usb-stick in my work computer? Hey, this website is blocked by the firewall. No, I don't need it for work, but...
How to solve this problem? No idea. In my short time as system administrator I never was able to do it. Management cannot really help, since usually they are non-IT. Security also is no question of 'democracy'. Even if the whole company 'votes' against an admin to allow private computers in the company net, it does not make the problems go away. My advice for management? Find an IT person you trust and support him. Especially when he has to make unpopular decisions.
Management should make rules in broad strokes, leaving the details to IT departments,
Management usually has no clue when it comes to IT. So the best they can do is to say: Make it work. But this is something any normale IT guy would try to do anyway. I never met one who was a masochist and liked it to be 'beaten' by his non-IT colleagues.
But management's rules should also incorporate a means for appeal of counterproductive patterns of decisions on IT's part,
And who decides when a superficially counterproductive decision has to be appealed? "Hey, I constantly forget my password. I demand, that we don't use access control anymore. At home in my windows pc I don't need to login either".
Ok, this is a very extreme example. Even the most stupid non-IT person might see that this is not a good idea in a corporate environment. But why are experts called 'experts'? Usually because they know something that is not common knowledge. Do you think that security bends to management decisions? What is your job? How would you like it when constantly an IT guy comes and tells you, what you are doing is wrong? Let's go to the boss and verify your decisions and your work.
and the article describes such an informal means for use when no formal means is available.
The article is an insult for every system administrator. It implies that IT worker are idiots, that anybody without any training who managed to install firefox at home can do their jobs. I won't even start talking about the not remotely hidden hostility agains IT in this article.
Uh, no. Unless thee circumstances are very special, a computer crash or a network intrusion is not going to result in the loss of life as in the case of a fire. It's exactly this sort of inflated self-importance that breeds contempt for IT.
Loss of life? Only in rare circumstances, agreed. But I have the distinct feeling, that for some companies loss of life would be more acceptable than having their trade secrets spread around. And a fire really might be preferable to some companies compared with a public relations disaster like when perhaps millions of user data leak into the wild. My comparison of IT administration with a fire department is not that far off. The work of a fire department also isn't always about saving lifes.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually I am even able to do this without Qt classes. ;-)
No, I did not.
This is a consequence, which cannot easily be avoided. The only thing I'd wish for is a better modularization. The current desktop environments are close to all or nothing. You can drop the one or other service, but the minimal set is still huge and in my view very intrusive.
Why using windows at all? All computers do this. Maybe get rid of monitors after all... Content is made available by a combination of morse code and whistles.
...one of the more important reasons I stopped using KDE and never started with GNOME was bloat. With bloat I don't mean featuritis, if it as only features, I could ignore those I don't need, but there was dependency hell. I started KDE and it started dozens (slight exaggeration) of services, which I don't need and don't want and suddenly everything looks different. Programs, which have nothing to do with KDE suddenly have a different fileselectorbox. A sluggish one. Ok, if I start KDE maybe I should not complain to get KDE style. But also suddenly some imbecile programs cluttered my console with warning messages. Made development really hard, because I hardly was able to see my own temporary debug output, as it was drowned in a mass of junk messages. And no, not all of them could be disabled. When I tried to contact the KDE and application developers about that, the started playing responsibility ping-pong.
A nice Qt based desktop environment would be fine. But only if it depends only on qt libs and only if it does not hijack the whole computer.
I was system administrator and now I am developer. Never management... so how would I know? ;-)
This is possible and probably true for many decisions. But for telecommuting I am a bit sceptical. Management often has someting of a control freak. Not being able to see that the work drone is actually sweating from 9-5++....
Maybe... A few posts above I added some links with a certain brand of cattle with the same or similar gene defect. In the documentation I once saw about those, this was their major problem. But of course, between a ton of cattle and a few grams of mouse there might be a difference.
...what an elephant with this gene defect would look like.
You miss the problem. It is a gene defect for a reason. The muscles are growing, but the blood vessels don't adapt accordingly. This gives those animals (there are humans with this defect, too), a tremendously lower endurance. Definitely anti-quarterback.
The problem is, that there is a huge amount of muscle tissue, but the blood supply is insufficient. Those animals (and humans) are not that much stronger, than normal ones, but their endurance is tremendously lower.
Belgians thought bigger:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Blue
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmkj5gq1cQU
This is a fairly common way to handle it. But this is one advantage of being a freelancer: You see quite a few of different policies. Hardly two companies handle the same things exactly in the same way. What I wanted to say is that not all 'hate topics' are always IT's fault. See: EmagGeek (574360). Depending on his skill this can be a good thing, or a total disaster.
The author is a troll, no doubt. But nevertheless, his 'article' spawned a couple of very interesting threads. If I still were into administration, some of the experiences posted here would provide me with some good arguments for management and users. I find most of the responses here in one way or the other very interesting.
Who is we? Looks like someone here has a too high opinion of himself.
Yes, and it can be a real pain in the ass. Password aging. Wrong password entered three times. Account locked. Call support. Open support ticket. Department is billed ~$100. No joke, I have seen that. Consequence? Passwords are on a piece of paper taped to the monitor.
:-)
Yes, I know what you mean. As freelancer I worked in some startups and larger companies.. In startups very often the admins where enablers. The ones in larger companies, however, mostly knew what they were doing.
I don't? I worked as admin for a couple of month.
;-)
What? Not a single IT person fired? Unbelievable.
And? What do you tell them to do?
And whether telecommuting is allowed or not is for the IT deparment to decide?
Since my short and awful intermezzo as system administrator I am working as freelancing softwaredeveloper. Been in more than a dozen companies since. I had never problems with the administrator. Strange? Or perhaps because I understand why there a certain rules? And yes, once, only once I experienced something similar you mention. Pages blocked though there are needed for work? In this company you wished that was the only problem. You could not even write an email to get support how to configure, e.g. speex. Hey, this name contains 'pee'. This is disgusting. So what to do? Complain to management as some poster here propose? Sorry to burst that bubble, this was not done by IT it was done to IT, by an incompetent management. IT was just good enough to suffer the consequences.
Not to the article, but to some of the other comments. Minor difference.
I think procurement is the least problem and produces the least bad blood. Simply said, everybody understands when requests for a new and faster computer are denied with the answer: Not in the budget. This clearly is not a genuine IT problem. They can only spend money they are allowed to spend. The real problem are restrictions non-IT staff don't really understand. Why is it not allowed to log from home to the company server to read mail? Why can I not connect my laptop to the company network? Why am I not even allowed to insert a usb-stick in my work computer? Hey, this website is blocked by the firewall. No, I don't need it for work, but...
How to solve this problem? No idea. In my short time as system administrator I never was able to do it. Management cannot really help, since usually they are non-IT. Security also is no question of 'democracy'. Even if the whole company 'votes' against an admin to allow private computers in the company net, it does not make the problems go away. My advice for management? Find an IT person you trust and support him. Especially when he has to make unpopular decisions.
Management usually has no clue when it comes to IT. So the best they can do is to say: Make it work. But this is something any normale IT guy would try to do anyway. I never met one who was a masochist and liked it to be 'beaten' by his non-IT colleagues.
And who decides when a superficially counterproductive decision has to be appealed? "Hey, I constantly forget my password. I demand, that we don't use access control anymore. At home in my windows pc I don't need to login either".
Ok, this is a very extreme example. Even the most stupid non-IT person might see that this is not a good idea in a corporate environment. But why are experts called 'experts'? Usually because they know something that is not common knowledge. Do you think that security bends to management decisions? What is your job? How would you like it when constantly an IT guy comes and tells you, what you are doing is wrong? Let's go to the boss and verify your decisions and your work.
The article is an insult for every system administrator. It implies that IT worker are idiots, that anybody without any training who managed to install firefox at home can do their jobs. I won't even start talking about the not remotely hidden hostility agains IT in this article.
Loss of life? Only in rare circumstances, agreed. But I have the distinct feeling, that for some companies loss of life would be more acceptable than having their trade secrets spread around. And a fire really might be preferable to some companies compared with a public relations disaster like when perhaps millions of user data leak into the wild. My comparison of IT administration with a fire department is not that far off. The work of a fire department also isn't always about saving lifes.