CollegeLinux Released to the Public 281
YOU ARE SO FIRED! writes "It seems that the Swiss Robert Kennedy College (with the aptly named website) has released CollegeLinux, a Linux distribution based off of Slackware, to the public. If only my employees could've used this in school - I wouldn't have to fire them so much! See the interview with the dean of the school for more information."
Will it ever stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
(That aside, all the distro waste was one of the reasons I switched to FreeBSD)
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps, but there needs to be an easy way to install them too. What's the guarantee that a given distro's not going to break something?
Question: Is there a driver installation standard that includes how to do it within KDE/Gnome? If there's not, then there's a nasty weakness there that'll pretty much guarantee most companies won't support it. If it is there, how often does it change? Does it change?
*Note: In case it's not obvious, I'm not knowledgable about Linux. From what little I've used it, the thought of installing a driver makes me go ewwwww. I'm spoiled by my 'Setup.exe, [Ok], [Ok], [Ok] *bam* you're up and running' expectation I've developed from using Windows 2000.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:4, Funny)
more like
Setup.exe, [PRAY], [PRAY], [PRAY] *bam* you're screen is blue
and you get no information about what is really going on to troubleshoot!
I fucking hate the little blue bar that slowly fills as you install crap. Tell me what is really going on. I don't speak microsoft blue bar language!
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:3, Interesting)
"and you get no information about what is really going on to troubleshoot!"
Now this I totally agree with. I want to know what's going on too, but 99% of computer users don't want, and shouldn't need, to know.
An example. A new graphics adaptor is a piece of consumer electronics these days, with a nice shiny box and everything. Would I prefer to perhaps recompile my f**cking OS kernel to get it working, or pop in a CD and wait? Hmmm... (And both methods require rebooting and nervous anticipation, BTW, Windows does not have the monopoly on that).
--
I like Linux AND Windows. Shoot me.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
So I reboot and try again. Same thing. But I notice that the drivers are not uncompressed so maybe I can just install through the add new hard ware wizard. Yeah it is possible but takes forever, and several reboots, and much cursing, and a dive or two into safe mode.
So a few days later ATI comes out a new driver, that correct their screw up with the last one. Ok, I go download and install. Hmm, why is the screen flickering and why are my fps's so slow? Yank out the driver and reinstall after much cursing and frustration and now everything works.
I lay the blame at both ATI and MS.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:3, Insightful)
Flamebait? He's got a respectable point. Most Windows users (including myself) are afraid of what we lose when moving to Linux. Having VM-Ware (at least initially) would make the transition much more bearable. If VM-Ware came with a distro of Linux for a reasonable price (I think VM-Ware is around $300, if memory serves) then I probably would attempt a switch because I'd have something to fallback on.
Honestly, I wish moderators wouldn't just assume one-liners are automatically insulting. I've gotten burned a couple of times like that over the last few days.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
Count me in on that sentiment. My job'd like me to run Linux but there's still stuff that has to get done. I don't have a lot of fiddlin time. Nothing against Linux, but my good productivity has been rewarded with increased expectactions. It's like I have a well established cache!
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
Hmm. Too bad it's illegal for you to rip them to Mp3, then you'd only need 22 CDs.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:3, Funny)
rip software to mp3? well, i mean i could see it working for windows (its not like the lossy compression could possibly make it any worse) but i dont think the rest of it would work too well
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm spoiled by my 'Setup.exe, [Ok], [Ok], [Ok] *bam* you're up and running' expectation I've developed from using Windows 2000.
That's funny, this is an experience I've *never* had with windows 2000. Software yes, drivers no. maybe now, 3 years after the initial relase of the new hardware abstraction layer, maybe NOW companies are finally getting it right, but not back when I actually used that stupid OS.
Aside from that, the Linux kernel scans the hardware at boot time and loads whatever modules it needs. It's got some conf files in etc to configure the modules with. So all the hardware vendors have to do is give us a 2.2.x and a 2.4.x module with some basic instructions on installing it. It's just not that hard to do, especially comparing it to making Windows drivers.
For windows, sure you can click your setup.exe and it's up and running, but did you bother to consider that your installer had to see if it was win95/95, winMe, win2k, nt4, or winXP before it installed a driver? That's FIVE (count'em) different HALs they provide for! With Linux, there's only 3 relevant stable kernels at the moment. Lots of subversions of them, certainly, but only 3 when it comes down to it. Write for the LCD of each of them and make a driver for 2.0.x, 2.2.x, and 2.4.x.
BETTER YET. Get your driver programmers to submit the drivers directly to LKML and see if they're accepted. I imagine they would be if there wasn't a better one already available. They might rewrite it, they will almost certainly audit it. If you are serious about supporting Linux, you'll check with the kernel developers.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
Actually, it's more like 2.5. Win95/98 use the same driver model. NT4 had its own driver model. Win2k and WinXP both use WDM, but a lot of NT4 drivers can be made to work in the NT5 series with minor config file changes. WinME supprots WDM and Win9x drivers, so with minor changes to the .inf file it will use whatever you already had. Most new hardware just needs to have a WDM driver written to support ME, 2K and XP. 9x and NT 4 are still in use, so you should probably support them too, but this still only adds up to 3, 2 of which are remarkably similar. Oh, and did I mention that MSDN provides you with tutorials, and a comprehensive help reference as part of the Driver Development kit (free download), as well as simple examples which can be extended easily for your particular hardware? Want to write a DirectX 9 video driver? Just take the reference renderer and replace the bits you can do in hardware with your own code.
Get your driver programmers to submit the drivers directly to LKML and see if they're accepted.
So I create a modem, which is basically just a DSP, and put all of the controller code into the driver. Or maybe I make sound cards with 5.1 speaker output and implement the AC-3 decoder in the driver (a la Creative Labs' SBLive! series). I should just GPL this software, and give it away? Right, so now every 5.1 channel sound card supported by linux has an AC-3 software decoder, and it's even been ported back to windows. Great, I've just lost one of my major selling points and my competitor, who didn't have to pay for the development, is undercutting me. Oh, and those nice people from Dolby have just sent some lawyers around. It seems that AC-3 decoding is patented, and I'm a licensed distributer of this technology. They want $0.25 for everyone running Linux with code derived from my driver now...
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
So you'd agree, then, that a simpler way of getting the driver installed would be preferable. Right?
I mean, the Linux Community can't install drivers into the kernel before the hardware's available.
BTW, Windows is pretty close in that regard. Every release of Windows has drivers for LOTS and I do mean LOTS of hardware. The problem is that Windows upgrades happen every couple of years, and it's a new purchase to attain them. Pity Service Packs don't cover that, heh.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
If someone sells some PC hardware, you can bet they give you drivers in the box for every recent version of Windows. And/or you can download the latest ones from their website, or any of a dozen "driver library" sites.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
For things that *do* need a special kernel module, like for instance NVidia's drivers, you extract the source, say "make" and wait until the prompt comes back, then put a line in the startup script that says "modprobe NVdriver" or whatever. It's far easier than pissing about with Windows's "Add new hardware..." wizard that sits and scans through every possible device until it guesses, usually wrongly, what you've installed. Even when it does guess correctly, it often forces you to reinstall perfectly working devices.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ack! Drivers in the kernel??? (Score:2)
Ever hear of bloat? Having every driver known to man in the kernel would create a monster.
And having modules saves newbies from having to recompile to insert 'just what they need', and hope it doesn't hose it totally.
Not all people can manage to compile a kernel, plus if you want to save on drive space, you dont install things such as GCC... so you are screwed in that case.
Re:Ack! Drivers in the kernel??? (Score:2, Insightful)
By the same token, you should wear a seatbelt when riding in a car, but not everybody does.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2, Insightful)
Having so much effort wasted on many different distributions is stupid. Can you imagine what type of improvements could have been made to Linux in general with the programming time invested in maintaining many different distributions?
I mean absolutely no offense to the developers working on College Linux. But would you trade College Linux for a working way to change resolution on the fly, reliable working sound interfaces, simple dual monitor setup, and other enhancements that users have come to expect from other operating systems? I would.
Absolutely wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean you would already have a free clone of YOUR favorite OS NOW if everyone would just team up and agree that your favorite GUI and OS's philosophy is the best?
The problem is, there are people who actually work on projects, and those who criticize other's projects. The reason that there are so many projects is that people disagree on what the 'correct' way of doing things is. If you want a windows clone, use windows. Otherwise, choose the distribution that fits your computing style the best.
Oh, and by the way, ctl-alt-+ and ctl-alt-- changes your resolutions in X on-the-fly, if you compile your quality sound driver and insert it into the kernel, you'll have reliable sound, and xfreee86 +xinerama works great for MULTI-monitor setups, not just dual-monitor setups.
Furthermore, the developers that work on making different distributions have totally different skill sets than driver developers and applications developers. In other words, you can't assume that if these people weren't developing their distribution they would be fixing problems with sound, video, etc.. In fact, if they weren't developing their distribution, they would probably be posting nonsense on slashdot, and complaining about how all the current distributions are crap.
Sorry if I come off as harsh, but I hate this type of thinking. Some people are so lazy, but expect the world of others. Parasites.
Re:Absolutely wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
As much as I love Linux/X11, I find the method you mentioned as less than desirable. Yes, it changes the resolution. It also leaves me with a virtual desktop size of the default resolution. Thus, to see all of the desktop at once is not possible, requiring me to mouse to the edges and have the "view" scroll around.
if you compile your quality sound driver and insert it into the kernel, you'll have reliable sound,
Oh, I agree completely that a quality sound driver in the kernel is reliable. The sound daemons for the X11 desktops aren't so great (arts for kde comes to mind). Of course, joe user compiling a sound driver for the kernel is an interesting thought (READ: not going to happen).
xfreee86 +xinerama works great for MULTI-monitor setups, not just dual-monitor setups.
I have tried both using xinerama and not using xinerama for my Matrox card. Xinerama gave better overall results, but liked to crash under certain applications. Without Xinerama, the crashes didn't occur, but I didn't get what I wanted across multiple screens. All this was done on Red Hat though. On Mandrake, it was setup for me by the installer, and it worked a lot nicer. I didn't check to see if it was using Xinerama or not.
Sorry if I come off as harsh
You did.
but I hate this type of thinking.
You hate thinking along the lines of "easy to use"? Remember, easy to use for an adept and a common user are tottally different things (and a lot of people have better things to do, the computer is just a tool to them).
Some people are so lazy, but expect the world of others. Parasites.
"Some people" as you put it, also cannot program. Like myself. You don't want me contributing to (insert project here), because the code would suck (which is why I left the comp sci program and went into admin instead). Obviously, "normal users" need a computer to do certain tasks (productivity apps, etc..), but cannot contribute. By your definition that makes them parasites, but they cannot do anything about that.
Yes, I can read man pages. Yes, I can use vi to edit the X config file. Yes, I edit apache's config in the same way. But I am in the field. The average office worker isn't. And at home, there is no help desk other than emails and newsgroups -- non-instantaneous help. (Users like instant help).
Re:Absolutely wrong (Score:2)
You are too busy demanding the next thing to appreciate what you have and how far this whole thing has come (I say this as someone who has been using linux for only about 3 1/2 years).
Dude, I've only been at it for about a year now, and I've already seen HUGE leaps forward! I'm hooked.... :)
As a testimonial, I've spent the last 10 years or so writing music for fun and games, and I promised myself a long time ago that whenever I was able to record these songs I would. Linux and free software has made that possible for me. Check out my sig. :)
Windows couldn't do it for me. Period. Sure, I could have spent hundreds of dollars on some app that *might* have done it. Then I could've spent the next 3 months learning how to use it. Instead I've got two apps that make a killer combination, and both have user interfaces that are familiar to me (one of them uses the command line!).
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
What makes you think programmer time is fungible? It's not. More to the point -- what makes you think that anyone would have bothered with Linux in the first place, including Linus himself, if it didn't come with the freedom to do your own thing?
It is an error to assume that if the people who worked on this project had not worked on it, that their time and knowledge would have been spent on some other Linux-related project. If the Linux community had been afraid of "wasted effort" -- better known as diversity -- as you seem to be, perhaps they never would have bothered at all. They'd be using Windows, or maybe Solaris, and keeping their ideas to themselves.
Remember, this whole Linux thing started when Linus said the existing free Unix distributions (Minix and BSD) weren't quite what he was looking for, and went off to do his own thing. Or, alternately, when RMS said the existing software systems didn't quite offer the freedoms he wanted, and went off to make one that would. If Linus and RMS had stopped to worry about whether they were duplicating someone else's efforts, where would we be? Nowhere.
The choice is not whether people work on different projects or on the same project. The choice is whether people work on projects of their own choosing, or work on no project at all. To cut into people for exercising freedom is not advancing Linux; it is attacking the very wellspring of exuberance that birthed Linux and keeps it advancing.
See also my journal entry [slashdot.org], second section, on "wasted effort" Stalinism.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
If Linus and RMS had stopped to worry about whether they were duplicating someone else's efforts, where would we be? Nowhere.
I disagree with your answer. :) We'd be in handcuffs along with the rest of the Windows lusers....
Pardon my elitist attitude. :)
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:3, Insightful)
LOL, I think that's sort of the point - the end user shouldn't have to think about interfaces, sound servers, and replacing one with the other!
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
LOL, I think that's sort of the point - the end user shouldn't have to think about interfaces, sound servers, and replacing one with the other!
Luckily, that problem has been solved with ALSA being merged into the code, and ALSA seems to support every sound card.
iirc, the problem with OSS as a sound interface was that in some instances you had to pay some money for better stuff.
As far as the sound servers go, perhaps you should consider looking at the projects that actually use the sound interfaces you're talking shit about. The ones I'm working with (as an enduser), both ecasound and Audacity, have OSS interfaces. Audacity is adding ALSA as portaudio gets it. They're looking to add Jack and Arts support as well. Ecasound already has alsa, jack, and arts support. From the end-user's point of view, it doesn't matter, the apps both support something you already have on your computer. From the audiophile's point of view, it doesn't matter, the apps both support the one you want. :) (Audacity's is forthcoming, btw)
This is a classic example of people not knowing what the fuck they're talking about, that's all. :)
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, finding out which hardware works with your system is always a pain. A modern Operating System should just work, after all. I have found these [microsoft.com] resources [microsoft.com] to be invaluable when trying to find out whether something will work with my OS or not.
Of course, I am kidding. But realize all OSes have hardware issues and many times those issues force the user to step outside "the experience" (or pay someone else to) in order to fix the problem that they are having.
To give Microsoft credit, the end user has to do this less and less often if they are working with generic setups and applications. However, once you specialize (on any platform) you run the risk of forcing the user to "think about interfaces."
We forget that Microsoft has the same issues as Apple and Linux, but that is because there is a huge industry that has built up around the support of the OS that is used on 90% of the desktops. That "after market" industry is in many ways an extension of the "ease-of-use" on the user end.
I work in end-user support and the same problems that I hear that Linux must overcome are consistently present in Windows as well. The "average" user is no more adept at using Windows or dealing with its problems. They may be better at it than on a Mac and BeOS, but they still need lots of help.
Just my .02
Maybe many distros aren't the problem... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is all well and good, but maybe we need some other terminology than "distro". A term which implied sort of half-fledged distro-ness [sic], for instance for a distro *based on* something, but focussed in a certain area, would be very useful.
If this were the case, you would have your general distros (Redhat, Slack, Debian), and then, in sub-groups or similar, you would have Redhat-based College Distro, or Debian-based Medical Records distro or whatever....
Re:Maybe many distros aren't the problem... (Score:2)
I think a functional labelling would be more appropriate, such as distros targetted towards "servers", "desktops", "new-to-linux", and/or "complete customization" (PC term for "hardcore geek").
Now, before I'm be flamed to death for trying to put certain distros under any of those labels, I completely realize ANY distro can be used for ANY purpose (as other posters have pointed out, they're ALL just the same kernel, and a whole bunch of the same utilities and patches, but with some extra "glue", packaging, and support systems). That's the real beauty of Linux, but it takes a while for a newbie to realize this.
The whole reason there are so many distros is because certain people didn't like how other distros were "focused".
Examples:
But for newbies (and remember, everyone is a newbie at one point), I feel it's best to start with the pre-packaged, easy-to-use (trade-off: harder to customize) version of any softare, and work your way up.
Re:Maybe many distros aren't the problem... (Score:2)
What you need is a family-tree. Maybe one at distrowatch or something.
For example, I'd quite like to produce a distro which is *exactly* like Mandrake, but without the need to agree to an End User License Agreement. Counts as a distro? Nope. But it would need a different name, hence more confusion among users.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to follow the herd install redhat or suse. Linux is about choice. I think Microsoft has bullied the industry so long that people have trouble with more then one way to think or have more then one way to do something. They want consistency and familiarity. The people I see complaining most about both gnome and kde for example are newbies and Windows users who are afraid to switch. People who use Linux/Unix understand that having more then one desktop environment is not bad.
How does this hurt Linux? You mean commercial support? They all target Suse, Redhat, and Debian. Companies like Oracle for example are specifically targeting RedHat advanced server since it changes the least. Also if you go to nvidia's website you will see drivers for quite alot of distro's.
Their are not numerous Linux versions, just distributions. They only look different because of different scripts and WindowManager themes running. Some of the package versions may differ but they are %95 the same from other distro's that are out at the same time. Mandrake 9, Redhat 8, Suse 8.1 all have the same versions of gcc, perl,kde, and apache for example. Its not like they are totally different beasts. Its easy to port.
Also I do not understand about your rat with hardware manufactures supporting mac users over linux ones. I find the situation opposite since Linux has more users and they use different kinds of hardware. Only ATI is behind and they are already at work with a unified driver model for Linux and Windows to compete against nvidia. Isn't competition great?
Companies and certain users want only one way of thinking are already in Microsoft's camp and will not change. A one and only one version of Linux will not convince them to switch. They are the ones already in
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2, Insightful)
huh....How does this hurt ? Of course it does. This is not economics, this is human society. When you want to provide an alternative to Microsoft then it is imperative to provide a unified face.
Actually its ironical that the most intelligent people in one dimension are so brainless [sorry for the harsh term] in another dimension. I have been like that when I was shouting up and down about linux. Let me give you an example: linux in itself came about due to a "critical mass" of organized people saying "hey lets get something out of this malleable chunk of cool code. There WAS before that the *BSD's and unix variants, what was definitely lacking was a concerted effort bounded together by the GPL and also the timing of the internet boom. But linux success HAS been in "rolling out" standard server based software - quickly roll out apache, php, mysql and get running....its SIMPLE isnt it ? its repeatable and its easy to do. quickly do a configure,make, make install - it works across MOST if NOT ALL of the software. WHY ? because the authors want to provide a uniform way of doing things. Extending this to a slightly larger scale doesnt seem to cross the minds of the ners?
While choice might be good for innovation and anti-monopolistic checks too much of choice does hurt. So a EE person asks me what is linux ? I say its an OS with a bunch of utilities. They ask "where can i download it"? and I say "huh....its like soap. you can get many flavours. The most popular is RedHat but you know this driver is supported better in the other distro but you know the security is best in Bastille but you know debian is the best in stability so you have to decide what you want to do" and the people go "huh-uh. thanks for the info.....later". This is for the end user side and believe me it does present a confused picture. For the developer side, thats us, it fractures a LOT of the effort. KDE reinvents the wheel,GNOME cannot *gasp* do what KDE has
done and so reinvents it in a slightly different form and so on and on. Imagine the number of install work, the number of packages, the number of hacks, the effort going into each of these distros - if they were to be combined into a select few then I can bet those distros will be awesome.
I cant believe I typed so much. Very sorry for the length. I just really dont agree that too much choice is great. There is a balance just like in real life for most things.
And, by the way, my univ has a linux distro too : SULinux [stanford.edu]
Thanks for reading.
vv
You missed something (Score:2)
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
huh....its like soap. you can get many flavours. The most popular is RedHat but you know this driver is supported better in the other distro but you know the security is best in Bastille but you know debian is the best in stability so you have to decide what you want to do
Looks to me like you failed to provide a unified front. People ask me about Linux and I say "It's a free OS, you can download several for free." Then they say "Where?". I just tell them "Well, you should check out Mandrake first. It's the one I use, so I definitely recommend it. There's a lot of choice in distributions, but they're all built on the same stuff, so they interoperate well. Mandrake's a great one to start with, and you may never need another one. The beauty of choice, though, is that if you like Linux but you're dissatisfied with Mandrake, you can check out the others."
It's every bit in how you present it. Just make sure you're telling them the truth, and you're doing everything you can to help them (and charging an appropriate fee if you prefer).
From a university's standpoint, say they want their students to use Linux, but they don't want to support a few different distributions? Fine, roll their own and tell the kids "use this one or find someone else to support it. You're tuition covers this one." Anything unreasonable about that? They can give their kids something that installs out of the box and works on their network. Can they do that with Windows? Nope. They can achieve a close approximation, but not the real deal. Linux is the way...
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
The real biggest differense between distro's to me is that slackware uses the BSD style init scripts and everybody else uses system4 style init scripts.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2, Insightful)
There are already unified driver support projects, and there's a huge project at http://www.linuxbase.org/ [linuxbase.org] in which the goal is "to develop and promote a set of standards that will increase compatability among Linux distributions and enable software applications to run on any compliant system."
We will do it, just give us a couple more years. Windows was written over several decades, and Linux is very new still!
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:5, Informative)
Video Cards that are supported under MacOS X:
Nvidia GeForce4 MX, Ti
ATI Rage, Rage Pro, Rage Pro Turbo
ATI Radeon 7xxx, 8xxx, 9xxx (I'll be generous and give MacOS X the 9700, but I don't think ATI supports the 9700 under MacOS X yet)
Video Cards that are supported under Linux:
Nvidia Riva 128, TNT, TNT2
Nvidia GeForce2, GeForce2 MX
Nvidia GeForce3, GeForce3 Ti
Nvidia GeForce4 MX, GeForce4 Ti
ATI Mach64
ATI Rage, Rage Pro, Rage Pro Turbo
ATI Radeon 7xxx, 8xxx, 9xxx (some cards better supported than others)
Matrox Millennium, Millennium 2, Mystique
Matrix G100, G200, G400, G450, G550
Matrix Parhelion
Intel i810, i820, i845, i850G, etc
All SiS video cards
Most S3/Via video cards
A few other oddball chipsets
Let's try SCSI controllers.
SCSI Controllers supported under MacOS X
Atto U3D (Ultra 160)
Adaptec PowerDomain Ultra160 series
Adaptec PowerDomain Ultra Narrow series
QLogic (?? not sure which ones)
SCSI Controllers supported under Linux
All Adaptec SCSI controllers
All DPT SCSI controllers
All AMI SCSI controllers
All LSILogic/NEC SCSI controllers
All QLogic SCSI controllers
All Atto SCSI controllers
Dozens of oddball SCSI controllers
How about serial ATA controllers, sound cards, or combo Firewire/USB2.0 cards?
Nah. I think I've basically proven my point.
The only manufacturers who are dragging their feet on Linux support are ATI (uuggghhh... ATI sucks), Logitech (still no webcam drivers for Linux... I chucked my Logitech webcam a long time ago), AMD, and a few extremely minor companies who produce crappy USB/Firewire peripherals. Yes, MacOS does have much better support wrt USB/Firewire peripherals. I have trouble making my USB compact flash reader work with Linux. It's supported under XP and MacOS, though.
Seriously, this is not a troll. I feel that it's silly to go around saying that MacOS X has more drivers than Linux. It's a ridiculous claim that is easily proven false.
I own a Blue & White PowerMac (450 MHz G3) that's got an ATI video card and Adaptec SCSI controller. For a while, I had delusions of upgrading my PowerMac, like you can upgrade a PC. Not so. My choices are limited to an ATI Radeon 7000 PCI video card (no AGP slot on older PowerMacs) or an overpriced Adaptec Ultra160 SCSI controller. Good luck finding Atto or Qlogic SCSI controllers.
After doing a lot of research, I discovered that my PCI slots are basically useless. I can't put in a sound card, TV card, GeForce4 MX video card (because you can't buy them... they are Apple OEM only!), DVD decoder card, or anything else that I put in my Linux PC.
Macs are just not very upgradable. Once you buy a Mac, your upgrade options basically consist of an ATI video card or Adaptec SCSI controller. That's it. Once you buy both of them, you can add more hard drives. Whoop-de-doo.
I should probably rewrite this post so that it doesn't read so much like flamebait or a troll, but I'm too lazy.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2, Informative)
Ummm, I don't have a history of being a pro-Apple person, but even *I* know that the high end PCI sound cards generally plug into a Mac or a PC and with the right software do a hell of a good job of sound editing. I just downloaded and archived all the latest drivers for my Delta 66 sound card last week and MacOS is well supported.
If you mean you can't go into CompUSA and buy commodity-crap sound cards and schlepp 'em into your Mac, that might be a different story.
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
Can be a good argument, can be a bad argument. (Score:2)
They want it to work. They want to turn it on, they want to do stuff, and they want to turn it off. They want their kids to 'learn' on it and they want to do their checkbook on it. Maybe a bit more.
They also want it to be inexpensive.
They don't want 'choices' like this little penguin is painted red and this little penguin is painted blue. They don't want to know that this, they don't care and think that makes computers too complicated.
See, I've polled my neighbors. Because when they come over, they see a 'a whole lot of computers' and are just shocked that I have that many. When they see my wife's iMac and are shocked that she has her own computer.
Talking to them, a low end iMac would be perfect. It's easy to use, you just plug in your keyboard and go, and it'd manage photographs, video cameras, and everything. If they want to get that cable modem and plug it in, that'd work too.
That $299 Lindows PC won't do that. Not that easily. It also won't come with any form of support that they could call that would help them out for the first fiew months of owning their new computer.
Plus, it doesn't look as cool. That's the honest truth, asthetics matter. not the neon lighting clear side case kinda of asthetics, but the cool factor of a floating LCD on a base.
Expandability? Who needs it. That machine will probably last them longer than their next car in some instances (3-5 years). Who cares if they don't have the next best feature, the latest version of whatsit, or anything else.
That is what I think most linux advocates don't understand. They need it to just work, and just work well. The only people that need upgradability are the extreme gamers, the geeks, and the wannabes
Re:Can be a good argument, can be a bad argument. (Score:2)
Linux has potential assuming that it will become more usable and somehow get marketed. Apple has potential if they sell a Mac with numbers (clock speed, megs of RAM, etc) identical to a $799 PC for $799. Few would buy a more expensive machine merely because it looks better.
it's called the source code (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Will it ever stop? (Score:2)
The distros aren't really all that different from distro to distro. They are all based on the 2.4 kernel, /etc and /usr/{bin,lib,sbin} can be counted on. Docs in /usr/share/doc is a pretty safe bet. There's no need to buy expensive developer tools or get a driver signed. Make it GPL and you'll get free help debugging your driver. You might even have someone you don't have to pay take over entirely (cool! free driver support!).
If all of that seems too much, they have the option to publically release the technical docs. If the hardware is at all popular, someone will write a Linux driver for it.
IMHO, hardware manufacturors who are afraid to GPL drivers (or at least make a reasonable compromise) are either tinfoil hat paranoid, or it would reveal that most of those exciting marketing bullet points on the box are actually implemented (badly) in software or it would reveal that the hardware is buggy with many ugly hacks in the driver to make it go.
I don't buy the line about valuable intellectual property since if it was that good (or even if it wasn't), they'd patent it.
Re:And that is why OS X will ultimately beat Linux (Score:2)
You say KDE can't hold a candle to OSX on the desktop, I say OSX can't keep up with KDE's speed, KDE is catching up with Apple's oh-so-important eye candy, and KDE is FREE.
Re:And that is why OS X will ultimately beat Linux (Score:2)
How do you get him to keep still?
Re:And that is why OS X will ultimately beat Linux (Score:2)
Linus works as a desktop for me.
How do you get him to keep still?
Two answers:
1. Pay him.
2. Don't call him RMS/Linus.
Re:And that is why OS X will ultimately beat Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And that is why OS X will ultimately beat Linux (Score:2)
I agree. Linux has been on my desktop for quite a few years now, and I don't miss Windows one bit, and my Slackware setup has enough eye-candy on the desktop to make several Mac-heads envious. Sure, there are some more challenging things to learn if you want to get more out of the machine, but you can say that about any powerful tool.
Re:And that is why OS X will ultimately beat Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
While using 10.1-10.1.5 I was pleased with the "beauty" of the thing as most people are. But when it came to running anything that didn't come pre-installed I didn't find it any more reliable, or easy to configure than a typical Windows machine.
I purchased SEVERAL peripheral devices and got most of them at an Apple store... just to be on the safe side. Even so, whether these devices would work or not was a crap-shoot.
Still I hung in there waiting for the promised benefits of Jaguar. When it came out I went and *purchased* a copy, even though I hadn't had my machine for 6 months yet.
Jaguar for me, and for many other people posting on the Apple forums was a total disaster. Not only did it provide few improvments that I could see, but the system was completely unstable.
Like so many other people at the Apple forums I wondered if maybe my hardware was at fault. People there have been advised to send their machines in for repair (at their expense) in order to cure Jaguar problems. Getting their machines back the glitches remain and they are out another $300. The level of support from what I can see is hardly any better than what a typical PC user would get from Microsoft and any name brand hardware vendor. You would at *least* expect with hardware and software comming from one company that there woul be no finger pointing about random lockups. But there is.
The happy ending to my story is that I used the unreliability of my iBook as an excuse to try out Yellow Dog Linux. I figured if *that* didn't work I'd take the machine back to the Apple store for another one.
That was 6 months ago and I don't think the machine has crashed or locked up once. I'm running Mozilla and Apache and PHP and all sorts of things that never worked right under OS X.
I prefer Evolution for email and calandar to anything OS X provided. I load picture from my camera into file folders with automatic thumbnail viewing. The KDE desktop looks as good as OS X in many respects and better in some too, plus it is more configurable than OS X is likely to be.
Updating is as easy as the OS X update program was. I type "apt-get update" followed by "apt-get upgrade" every week or two and its all taken care of. I could easily automate this, or make an icon out of it.
Did I have to study a bit to get all this stuff working? Yes I did. But I've spent far less time getting Linux to work the way I want and ultimatly succeeded whereas I spent far more time stuggling with my broken Jaguar and ultimately gave up. Which was the time better spent?
Maybe you're right and OS X will beat Linux, but to do so, Apple will have to make a quantum leap in support services. They will also have to do a much better job of herding hardware vendors into the OS X corral than they have so far. They'll have to do this without raising their prices, because PC prices continue to drop.
I can't make the math work for it. Maybe you can.
Re:And that is why OS X will ultimately beat Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, Linux isn't the problem. The Linux kernel is not a bad piece of software. The problem is X. X is a truly ancient solution to the problem of drawing windows on the screen. It was designed beck in the days when a graphical terminal was just that; a machine connected to a mainframe which had a graphical display instead of a textual one. X advocates claim that it has great network transparency. In a way, they are right, but the transparency is at too low a level. Compare X and MS Remote Desktop over a low-bandwidth link for an example. Modern features, like alpha blending are not supported by the X11 protocol, and adding 3d acceleration has to be done by hacking in an kludge of OpenGL, which destroys the network transparency.
There are some open source projects, like Fresco [fresco.org] that aim at providing an alternative to X, but Apple have actually created one with Quartz Extreme. A lot of the problem with Linux is that it is living in the past, trying to recreate X/UNIX from decades ago. When they find a bit that's too antiquated to be useful, they hack it a bit until it looks kind-of modern.
Microsoft threw out DOS with NT (although they supported it until Windows Me), Apple threw out the old Mac OS with OS X. Th *nix crowd are still trying to adapt legacy ideas to modern computing. They will probably be able to for years to come, but eventually they will discover that you have to break backwards compatibility, or end up with a horrible kludge of aging ideas.
An aside: Have you noticed how many Linux users claim x86 is good, in spite of being a hideous architecture, because it's popular, but refuse to accept a parallel claim about Windows?
Re:And that is why OS X will ultimately beat Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Joy. More unwarranted X bashing.
X advocates claim that it has great network transparency. In a way, they are right, but the transparency is at too low a level.
Why?
Modern features, like alpha blending are not supported by the X11 protocol, and adding 3d acceleration has to be done by hacking in an kludge of OpenGL, which destroys the network transparency.
What, you mean the RENDER extension? And I've coded in OpenGL under X11, and I have no idea what you mean by "destroying the network transparency" -- OpenGL is quite transparent over the network. In some ways more so than X11 itself.
Apple have actually created one with Quartz Extreme.
Which isn't network transparent and uses an insane amount of resources. Less features, more resource usage...why is it good again?
When they find a bit that's too antiquated to be useful, they hack it a bit until it looks kind-of modern.
Oh, for Chrissake. OS X doesn't look like anything but a large collection of not particularly usable eye candy to me. So I guess it's all in the taste.
They will probably be able to for years to come, but eventually they will discover that you have to break backwards compatibility, or end up with a horrible kludge of aging ideas.
I've found that the merit of a design is in how long it can run before it has to go. Windows 9X, for instance, lasted a little over five years. The classic Mac OS lasted a good fifteen. UNIX is at about 30 and shows no signs of slowing down.
An aside: Have you noticed how many Linux users claim x86 is good, in spite of being a hideous architecture, because it's popular, but refuse to accept a parallel claim about Windows?
What, that there's benefits to using something popular? Sure there is. That doesn't mean that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks in all cases. Windows is popular, so it's easy to find software for, etc, etc, but it's expensive, somewhat buggy, and a pain to know what's going on in the internals. x86 is popular, and while the instruction set is old, it's the only real contender out there. Alpha's dead, SPARC doesn't kick ass any more, the (desktop) PowerPC may one day become important again but lost a huge amount of ground when Apple trusted Motorola instead of IBM to do development.
I don't think anyone loves the x86 instruction set. It's just that the best bang/buck processors currently out there happen to use it.
Re:And that is why OS X will ultimately beat Linux (Score:2)
umm I take offense, "us crackheads" are smart enough to add/edit stuff ourselves witch in reality if you know what you are doing is 10-20x faster than waiting on a stupid os wizard.
Add new drive: echo /dev/sda1 /fire vfat \ rw,users,auto,showexec,umask=000,quiet 0 0 >> /etc/fstab
time: 2 seconds
sit and wait for gui time: 2-5 minutes
There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's GNU/Linux.
great yet another distro.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:great yet another distro.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but a certain anarchy is *inherent* in the wee beastie, and rather the point of the GPL I'm afraid.
If some sort of "United Linux" were released the very first thing that would happen is that someone would dick it around and release *that*, thus *pleasing* untold thousands who liked that version better.
Sucks to be able to get what you want, don't it? Makes you go to a lot of trouble to figure out just what that is, which admitedly some people find an unpleasant experience, and then makes *you* responsible for the choice you made, again, an experience some people find rather unpleasant.
I'm not among the crowd that shouts "RTFM," or claims that Linux *should* be hard to keep the unwashed masses away. Those people are antisocial dorks. But if people don't want the choices that Linux offers, well, there *are* other alternatives.
If you can't guess, I'm not among the "Linux is the only true OS and shall dominate the world, or else you're scum" crowd either.
Horses for courses.
MS *is* evil though. That's a different subject.
KFG
Re:great yet another distro.... (Score:2)
Re:great yet another distro.... (Score:2)
I wish I could have picked this as a degree: (Score:2)
DAMNIT. I was thinking: Where can I sign up? ^_^
Hey now... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hey now... (Score:2)
Re:Hey now... (Score:2)
100MBIT MIRROR of college.ch (Score:5, Informative)
Slackware again? (Score:4, Interesting)
ttyl
Farrell
Re:Slackware again? (Score:3, Informative)
I've used it for 8 years going on 9 and have no complaints. I know where everything is and don't have to root around (no pun intended
I like Slackware. It's stable, free, and intuitive.
But it's a matter of choice. Linux is Linux, and it's all good.
Because its very BSDish (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slackware again? (Score:2)
KFG
Re:Slackware again? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slackware again? (Score:2)
Re:Slackware again? (Score:2)
Maybe because Slackware is just that cool?
I started playing around with Linux From Scratch. I realized that most of the things I wanted to customize to suit my tastes are exactly the things Slackware does, the difference being that with Slackware it's already done for me so I don't have to.
Re:Slackware again? (Score:2)
eh? (Score:2)
CMU has a linux distribution too (Score:5, Informative)
Re:CMU has a linux distribution too (Score:3, Informative)
Hey guys I found a fast T-3 server to download it (Score:3, Informative)
http://mirrors.sunsite.dk/collegelinux/ [sunsite.dk]
Wireless (Score:5, Insightful)
Really valuable for a college environment would be a completely idiot-proofed wireless network setup utility. This utility or package should:
-Have all the driver modules compiled, and the configuration files kept up to date about different manufacturers' model identifications.
-Have a convinent popup tool, ideally triggered at the card-insertion time, and iconifying shortly after, that provides helpful stats and diagnostics. How hard would it be to convert 700 lines of iwconfig, ifconfig, and driver messages to:
"Discovered SSID "foo"."
"No IP number available after 20 seconds. Respawning DHCPCD." (to make up for some setups that seem to make DHCP have a fit if you pop the card and suspend, then pick up later."
"DHCP results: IP number is 127.0.0.43"
"Current situation: Signal/noise = 54/40. 353 bad sends, 107 bad recieves"
Re:Wireless (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wireless (Score:2)
I once got Redhat 8 to work with it, but after I rebooted it didn't work anymore.
I once got RedHat 7.2 to work with it (for good) and then I upgraded to 8. I tried to duplicate this elsewhere and it did not work.
Its very inconsistent.
I've never gotten mandrake to see any wireless cards on any of my computers.
The only computers that did manage to get working (with redhat 7.2) are laptops.
If Linux Distros want to keep up with other real operating systems they should realize how popular wi-fi is now and make it as easy as Windows XP or OS X to setup. This would be a good opportunity to show up Windows XP because it works, but it could be a whole lot better.
Re:Wireless (Score:2)
i was referring to having to turn off the card, eject, put back in... otherwise the system can go unstable, or the card just won't work. i have had this experience with win98/winME/win2000 on the same laptop. i was pleasantly surprised that mandrake 9.0 did not do the same.
don't assume i am trolling because i speak of a benefit of linux over windows.
Mirror online (Score:4, Informative)
screen shots at
ss1 [cedarville.edu]
ss2 [cedarville.edu]
ss3 [cedarville.edu]
GNOME 2.2 and XFree86 4.3 for CollegeLinux (Score:3, Informative)
heres a bit on distrowatch 8) (Score:4, Informative)
Collegiate? (Score:2, Informative)
Go Penguins!
hehe (Score:4, Funny)
So does it stay out late, drink a lot and not function well in the morning?
Slashdot jumped the shark on this one (Score:3, Insightful)
YOU ARE SO FIRED! writes "It seems that the Swiss Robert Kennedy College (with the aptly named website) has released CollegeLinux, a Linux distribution based off of Slackware, to the public. If only my employees could've used this in school - I wouldn't have to fire them so much! See the interview with the dean of the school for more information."
Let's recap it -
YOU ARE SO FIRED!!. If only my employees could've used this in school.
I can just say that this bullshit additude towards different people pisses me off. Don't fire them. Teach them. Just because someone learns something different does not mean that they can not learn something different. Don't be such a total fucking asshole towards people and slashdot should be higher then posting this crap.
Re:Slashdot jumped the shark on this one (Score:2)
Is there an echo in here? Slashdot is higher th a n a kite.
Re:Slashdot jumped the shark on this one (Score:2)
Only one reasonable response to this post.
YOU ARE SO FIRED.
Alright! (Score:2)
VoyNetworks Linux Distribution (Score:2)
It includes all the libraries, utilities, and server parts that we require for just about everything, with our own RC files and tweaks. It includes tight monolithic kernels for hardware platforms we use frequently (such as the Asus 1400r's).
Installation is exactly this:
1) Plug power cord in.
2) Set BIOS up for normal server operation (change "Halt On Errors" to none, "AC Power Loss" to "On", and boot order to "Floppy, CD, HDA".
3) Insert CD and boot.
4) Log in, mount CD, and type "install.os". Instructions were on the boot screen.
5) reboot.
Step 4 needs fine tuning. This is the first ISO we've made from Linux, so it still has the Slackware root image. install.os is on the cd part..
I've never really felt that something like this really needs to be redistributed though. Is there much of a demand for something like this?
We started doing this years ago, because I was tired of installing, then taking 1/2 hour to make all our changes before we could use it.. Now we just install and put the machines in a pile. When they're delegated, we put them in at the colo, assign an IP, and they're done. The developer or site manager (usually me) can make whatever customizations they'd like.
We used to include a web server, but since versions of Apache change frequently enough, and everyone wants something different, I stopped doing that now. We use no less than 4 varieties of web servers, depending on who's working on it and what they want done.
I was thinking of putting this, along with some of our interesting custom tools (like BoT, our monitoring software) up on a site. I guess this is a good time to ask if there's interest in it..
Re:NO ONE GIVES A FUCK! (Score:2)
Thats great and all but you replied to $$$$$exyGal... I am willing to bet this user is a female...
Re:NO ONE GIVES A FUCK! (Score:2)
-Bill
Re:I love Linux! (Score:2)
Let us know, please, how do we, Linux users, waste our time on Linux? Have you ever tried the damn OS other than Windows?
Re:Asshole (Score:2)
Re:Asshole (Score:2)
Bzzzt. That's wrong. Having to do research to decide which overpriced commodity parts to buy is NOT easier. It's much more difficult. Hell, that's part of the reason that I don't use *nix. I don't want to throw money away on some stupid NVIDIA Voodoo TNT Super Ultra Mega Video card when all I want to use is my $10 card which works very happing in W2K.
Re:Asshole (Score:2)
Re:Hmmm can you make linux any easier? (Score:5, Insightful)
People -- personal computers can _always_ be easier to use. This elitist attitude of "it should be hard to install / use / program" has just got to stop. Where would we be if everyone who wanted to do anything with a personal computer still had to do it with nothing but a hex keypad and machine code? No GUIs, no mice, no high-resolution color screens, not even an ASCII keyboard. My first computer was like this, and while I learned a lot because of it, the personal computer is far too important a device, far too potent a tool, for everyone to have to go through a steep learning curve just to use it.
We're where we are at _because_ we've made them _easier_ to use / install / program, people. They should (and eventually will be) even more transparent, even easier to use. Computers need to bend over backwards for the people using them, _not_ the other way around.
Regards,
John
Re:lose all credibility (Score:2)
Re:Questions... (Score:2)
How hard is it to at least deny any path containing a slash? Sheesh.