I though the joke on GNU's site was pretty good. It was why Unix has few viruses. It says lets say you want to infect your machine, type wget (virus's URL).tar.gz Make sure you are cded into the right directory. Next untar the virus. Then you must cd into the virus's folder. Next type make to make it. Next log in as root and type make install. Then type install. Run the program. You probably will need to be root if it wants to damage things.
With windows, just do the following, open up Internet Explorer, well that's it, your infected by killer porn ads.
With OSX, you download a copy of the virus, mount it, and then get told that this version only works on PPC and you must run the virus on an emulator. It will have to run slower.
Microsoft, like Standard Oil, AT&T, IBM, and other megacompanies will not last forever. They sit on an unstable piece of terratory which they got by knocking IBM off. Linux does have a huge advantage of not needing people to use it. It only needs to be good enough for devs. It can develop until it gets where it needs to. It is remarkably closer than before. Hardware support is improving all the time. Nearly all flash drives, hard drives, cd drives, and the like work. WiFi support is improving rapidly. Modem support is improving and in addition, modems are starting to matter less and less with the spread of ethernet, which is well suported. Most monitors work now. Most graphics cards work, though you need propriatary drivers, though Intel recently opened up. AMD did to, and when ATI is aquired by them, AMD may convince them to open their drivers up. iPods work, as well as several other MP3 players. Real Media works. I would say Linux has progressed more the past 3 years than Windows has in the last 10.
We lack one big thing, the OEM. Few will download a copy of linux and install and configure it themselves, but OEMs will. They can also support MP3, DVD, MPEG, Java, Flash, Real, and possibly Windows Media and Quicktime. They will be able to configure the hardware themselves.
We also lack advertising. Microsoft and Apple advertise a lot on TV, people know their name. If Red Hat, Novel, Linspire, Canoical, Xandros, and other Linux companies (possibly IBM) were to start advertising, they could get the word out. Linux and BSD dominate the server market because they were supported by HP, Sun, IBM, and Dell, so to conquer the desktop, we need the same thing.
Also, many projects to help people have improved drastically. Open Office has gotten compatible with MS Office, Wine has gotten much better than in the past, and other than DirectX, it is stable. With the help of the new Wine Doors program, configuring WINE will be easier than ever. With Wine Doors you can DL a simple script and it will install, configure, and create shortcuts to whatever windows app will work. Instead of having to check the app DB and use winecfg to install a copy of Internet Explorer or Office 2000, you could DL a script, run it in Wine Doors, and it would DL and install (and ask for the CD occasionally) whatever you want setting DLL overrides and the like for you. VLC, Thunderbird, Abiword, Gimp, and Gaim are also important.
Firefox has shown that FOSS can do reasonably well. I encourage all of you to switch friends over to Firefox. Firefox being cross platform will work for Linux and Windows, so if it succeeds, linux becomes better at browsing the web because web devs will design sites to support FF too. Open Office is the next step. If you know someone considering buying a copy of MS Office, show them OOo and let them see if they like it.
Also, if a friend wants to switch, encourage them to multiboot first. Set up their PC for them with a good, easy distro such as Ubuntu, Freespire, or another simple one. Set up their hardware. Set up Wine for them. Set up Java and Flash as well as Real and MP3 support (and possibly libdvdcss). Partition their disk for them, and set up the drivers for Linux to write to NTFS and for Windows to read and write to ext3.
And showing off is important to. A well configured Linux laptop is an object of curiosity. If others see it, they will want to know what it is. Explain to them what linux is, but dont sound idealistic. Don't talk about how revolutionary FOSS is, talk about how practicle it is for vendors to not have to reinvent the wheel. Explain how hardware vendors want you to spend more on hardware and less on software. Dont be afraid to show off the interesting stuff like an Xbox running Xebian, or a PS2 running linux or an iPod or PDA or PocketPC that have been hacked. Explain that although linux used to be hard to use, that it is used by Google on their servers, Tivo uses linux. Several cell phones and PDAs use linux, and about 40% of all websites use linux and a large number a
Not only that, but the RIAA spends most of the money it gains from suing people on legal fees. If they loose a few cases and have to pah $1000 upfront to have the HDD inspected, $15000 in attorny fees, and they are ordered to pay court cost and the defendants legal fees which could cost another $20000 then they loose $36000. I am not sure what the real figures are, that is just a guess.
True, if I remember right, every single oppresive dictatorship in history has banned guns or restricted the hell out of them before becoming oppressive. Bush however has at least once as far as I can remember, spoken in favor of allowing people to own guns. It is the people who oppose the republicans that want to ban them. If you dont think that a disorganized group of citizens with guns could resist our military and martial law, then take a look at Iraq. Our military has had noticable difficulty with the relativly small number of resistance fighters there, take what we have there and multiply it by 80, and that is what martial law here would be like. The military could not defeate its own nation.
Why are their not programs that do this for iTunes in the same way. They both cannot really be patched? An option of converting it from WMA protected to WMA unprotected would be good to minimize quality loss.
Visa has now chosen to recognize this issue and not be party to breaking the law.
As if iTunes and Napster are. Their DRM scheme pretty much only can exist through a loophole in the Fair Use laws. Fair Use says you can do certain things by right, but this DRM blocks you from those things because the loophole is that you have the right to do things, but DRM can block you. Then there is the RIAA itself. It is a cartel group designed to set prices and force all artist to join and pay a fee and give up their rights. It is only in existance due to a loophole in antitrust laws. Imagine if WalMart, Target, Shopco, and KMart all joined together to set prices and require any new stores to give them money to sell things in an area. They would be sued out of existance. Also, copyright infringment is a civil issue, not a criminal one, so Visa has no right to be involved.
Well thanks to XM, you dont hear ads and you can get devices that record (this is legal by the home recording act) music for you. Oh and BTW, copyright infringment, not a crime per say. You cant recieve criminal punishment for it, just civil.
That is because MS doesn't care in the sligtest what OS you actually use, from a buisness perspective, as long as you buy a license for Windows, they don't have any reason to care if you use it on a PC that multiboots linux and Windows. They probably should, from a buisness prospective, be a little more open. Take Virtual PC. I think from a buisness perspective, porting it to linux and OSX-Intel and even open sourcing it would be a good idea because from a buisness perspective, it encourages people to buy a license for Windows to multiboot and another license to run inside of Linux or Mac in case you may occasionally need a program or game, and don't want to reboot (and lets say Wine can't already handle it) into windows, you could always use Virtual PC. While they are at it, making a deal with Apple to trade NTFS support and in exchange they would get to support NTFS helps both of them now that Macs run Windows too. Supporting the EXT and Reiser systems would also help linux users who might consider a license to windows to multiboot with if it would write and read EXT2/3 or Reiser/4. Making Windows Swap aware would also help with both OSX and Linux multibooters. Windows Media could also be a good thing to port as it helps spread that format and allows for Linux users or Mac users to use Playforsure devices. They should also port Windows to Xen.
But back to virtual PC. MS might as well open source it and go beyond just making it free. There are several reasons to do this. First, it encourages people to use multiple copys of the same OS meaning more copys of Windows would be in demand. Second, it would make the FOSS community change their outlook on MS. MS would no longer be seen as the evil closed source company, they would be seen as the first company to release virtualization software that doesn't require an OS be ported that is FOSS. They also could OS Virtual PC for PPC since it really doesn't sell all that well and most people will just use QEMU or another cheaper, quicker, emulator and it encourages people to buy Windows. They also end up getting free R&D if they open it up and the EU will be happy.
Many people cannot see beyond their own lives and own backyards to see the big picture. Unless privacy violations are going to directly affect their lives and those they know/care about, it won't make any waves with the general population.
In your rant against the government, you point out something, if the general population is hurt, they fight back. Essentially, they safeguard themselves.
Surveillance these days is transparent enough to make this feasible.
Maybe it is feasible from the point of being able to be done secretly, but keep in mind, it is very expensive, the government has to pay people to monitor you, and these people cost more than they can ever afford.
Those that oppose these policies are made out to be shrill wackos that will dogmatically adhere to a quaint old document that is out of touch with the "post 9/11" world.
That is because most who oppose this are wackos. I have not heard any logical arguments against wiretapping. Keep in mind, there is one thing that will always sepparate us from the facist regimes that the current party would absolutly never remove, that is the 2nd Ammendment. Hitler, Stalin, Musolini, they all did one thing that allowed them to oppress their citizens, they removed their citizens defences. The Republican party can't restrict guns because the NRA gives them so much money, so they can't restict guns and therfor can't oppress people, the deocrats on the other hand, you have to watch them...
When the parts for laptops get cheap enough that someone could manufacture a $100 laptop, *then the market will be flooded with $100 laptops*. There are a dearth of hardware manufacturers out there already competing to make the cheapest laptop they can.
It is cheap by leaving out stuff like a hard drive, and instead has 512 MB of flash (though I think some models might have 1GB). It will lack a CD drive. It will have a very slow 366 Mhz AMD Geode processor, so that it can run without fans and wont use much power. It has a tiny display, that might work for writting documents, but giving presentations or watching movies would probably not work. It doesn't have a particularly powerful battery, though because it has a small display, no HDD to spin, and a slow processor, it will stay up a long time on one charge. It has 128 MB of RAM. It lacks a PCI slot. It does have an SD slot, a special "mesh networking" wifi card, 3 USB 2.0 ports, an SD slot, speakers, a microphone, and of course, it is very durable because it has been ruggedized and because it has no moving parts. It is perfect for schools were students will probably do little more than type on a word processor (probably something like Abiword), research, maybe art, and simple stuff like that. You or I would probably not want it.
I do think they should sell the laptops commercially for $200-$300 though so that people who might want to help the project could purchase one for that price and in doing so pay for 2 free laptops for poor children. I also think that if they ever start mass producing them, they shouldn't be limited to just the poor nations. I think schools in the US might like the idea of being able to check out these to students to help with school work and stuff, especially in inner city areas.
My only question is why is Gnome used as the desktop? Gnome is a great desktop environment, but it seems like these machines, having only 128 MB of ram and no way to do swap partions (it would ruin a flash drive to use it for swap) it seems like fluxbox, XFce, or blackbox might be better. I realize the gnome is modified, but still.
Slashdot Mirror
With windows, just do the following, open up Internet Explorer, well that's it, your infected by killer porn ads.
With OSX, you download a copy of the virus, mount it, and then get told that this version only works on PPC and you must run the virus on an emulator. It will have to run slower.
Fortunitly, most linux virus's have been patched.
We lack one big thing, the OEM. Few will download a copy of linux and install and configure it themselves, but OEMs will. They can also support MP3, DVD, MPEG, Java, Flash, Real, and possibly Windows Media and Quicktime. They will be able to configure the hardware themselves.
We also lack advertising. Microsoft and Apple advertise a lot on TV, people know their name. If Red Hat, Novel, Linspire, Canoical, Xandros, and other Linux companies (possibly IBM) were to start advertising, they could get the word out. Linux and BSD dominate the server market because they were supported by HP, Sun, IBM, and Dell, so to conquer the desktop, we need the same thing.
Also, many projects to help people have improved drastically. Open Office has gotten compatible with MS Office, Wine has gotten much better than in the past, and other than DirectX, it is stable. With the help of the new Wine Doors program, configuring WINE will be easier than ever. With Wine Doors you can DL a simple script and it will install, configure, and create shortcuts to whatever windows app will work. Instead of having to check the app DB and use winecfg to install a copy of Internet Explorer or Office 2000, you could DL a script, run it in Wine Doors, and it would DL and install (and ask for the CD occasionally) whatever you want setting DLL overrides and the like for you. VLC, Thunderbird, Abiword, Gimp, and Gaim are also important.
Firefox has shown that FOSS can do reasonably well. I encourage all of you to switch friends over to Firefox. Firefox being cross platform will work for Linux and Windows, so if it succeeds, linux becomes better at browsing the web because web devs will design sites to support FF too. Open Office is the next step. If you know someone considering buying a copy of MS Office, show them OOo and let them see if they like it.
Also, if a friend wants to switch, encourage them to multiboot first. Set up their PC for them with a good, easy distro such as Ubuntu, Freespire, or another simple one. Set up their hardware. Set up Wine for them. Set up Java and Flash as well as Real and MP3 support (and possibly libdvdcss). Partition their disk for them, and set up the drivers for Linux to write to NTFS and for Windows to read and write to ext3.
And showing off is important to. A well configured Linux laptop is an object of curiosity. If others see it, they will want to know what it is. Explain to them what linux is, but dont sound idealistic. Don't talk about how revolutionary FOSS is, talk about how practicle it is for vendors to not have to reinvent the wheel. Explain how hardware vendors want you to spend more on hardware and less on software. Dont be afraid to show off the interesting stuff like an Xbox running Xebian, or a PS2 running linux or an iPod or PDA or PocketPC that have been hacked. Explain that although linux used to be hard to use, that it is used by Google on their servers, Tivo uses linux. Several cell phones and PDAs use linux, and about 40% of all websites use linux and a large number a
Not only that, but the RIAA spends most of the money it gains from suing people on legal fees. If they loose a few cases and have to pah $1000 upfront to have the HDD inspected, $15000 in attorny fees, and they are ordered to pay court cost and the defendants legal fees which could cost another $20000 then they loose $36000. I am not sure what the real figures are, that is just a guess.
True, if I remember right, every single oppresive dictatorship in history has banned guns or restricted the hell out of them before becoming oppressive. Bush however has at least once as far as I can remember, spoken in favor of allowing people to own guns. It is the people who oppose the republicans that want to ban them. If you dont think that a disorganized group of citizens with guns could resist our military and martial law, then take a look at Iraq. Our military has had noticable difficulty with the relativly small number of resistance fighters there, take what we have there and multiply it by 80, and that is what martial law here would be like. The military could not defeate its own nation.
Why are their not programs that do this for iTunes in the same way. They both cannot really be patched? An option of converting it from WMA protected to WMA unprotected would be good to minimize quality loss.
Does this mean that he can be sent to jail, but OJ Simpson cant?
Maybe, if your really lucky, you get enough royalties to afford a Mac.
I think the DMCA allows for reverse engineering to provide cross compatability.
I think judging by the way MS works, if the OS isn't messed up that is a glitch.
Dont be silly, AOL users don't blend in with regular web traffic. When was the last time an AOL user got modded up on slashdot?
Well thanks to XM, you dont hear ads and you can get devices that record (this is legal by the home recording act) music for you. Oh and BTW, copyright infringment, not a crime per say. You cant recieve criminal punishment for it, just civil.
Football tackle you
Because China is currently not threatening to destroy the world in a Holy War, and China is slowly becoming less restrictive.
But back to virtual PC. MS might as well open source it and go beyond just making it free. There are several reasons to do this. First, it encourages people to use multiple copys of the same OS meaning more copys of Windows would be in demand. Second, it would make the FOSS community change their outlook on MS. MS would no longer be seen as the evil closed source company, they would be seen as the first company to release virtualization software that doesn't require an OS be ported that is FOSS. They also could OS Virtual PC for PPC since it really doesn't sell all that well and most people will just use QEMU or another cheaper, quicker, emulator and it encourages people to buy Windows. They also end up getting free R&D if they open it up and the EU will be happy.
I would say if propriatary software vendors ph34r us, then that is good, that means that they see us as a serious threat.
You can't hardly blame windows, nobody ever expects a virus to be preinstalled on their hardware, well, except with some OEMS and their "demos".
Oh good, I was afraid I would have to be in shape to do nothing with the new Wii.
I do think they should sell the laptops commercially for $200-$300 though so that people who might want to help the project could purchase one for that price and in doing so pay for 2 free laptops for poor children. I also think that if they ever start mass producing them, they shouldn't be limited to just the poor nations. I think schools in the US might like the idea of being able to check out these to students to help with school work and stuff, especially in inner city areas.
My only question is why is Gnome used as the desktop? Gnome is a great desktop environment, but it seems like these machines, having only 128 MB of ram and no way to do swap partions (it would ruin a flash drive to use it for swap) it seems like fluxbox, XFce, or blackbox might be better. I realize the gnome is modified, but still.