solarwind wrote:
> KDE 4.2 was released a few days ago and it is the best Linux desktop
> environment to date.
Please excuse me, I suddenly feel violently ill...
I was quite fond of KDE3 (Kubuntu 8.04LTS), then I saw KDE4 and changed
allegiance. I've since switched to Gnome (on Ubuntu 8.10) and haven't looked back.
If I wanted something that looked like Vista, I'd buy Vista. But quite
frankly, I don't want or need something that attempts to shock me with
eye-candy, I want something that'll sit in the background until I tell it to
do something, and won't eat CPU cycles unnecessarily.
KDE, Amarok and KDevelop are the most innovative Linux programs I have
ever seen.
They don't copy. They invent. They lead the pack. There is no audio
player that rivals Amarok 2. There is no desktop that is as rich and
featurful as KDE that consumes less than 200 MB memory and is CPU
efficient.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 6:14 PM, Philip Pemberton <piclistspam_OUTphilpem.me.uk> wrote:
> Please excuse me, I suddenly feel violently ill...
Lol.
> I was quite fond of KDE3 (Kubuntu 8.04LTS), then I saw KDE4 and changed
> allegiance. I've since switched to Gnome (on Ubuntu 8.10) and haven't looked back.
>
> If I wanted something that looked like Vista, I'd buy Vista. But quite
> frankly, I don't want or need something that attempts to shock me with
> eye-candy, I want something that'll sit in the background until I tell it to
> do something, and won't eat CPU cycles unnecessarily.
KDE consumes much less memory than Gnome, is faster than Gnome and QT
is the toolkit of the future. GTK has been silently been going stale
in the background since the past few years. But qt is one of the most
advanced toolkits out there. It's also sponsered by Trolltech so they
have commercial funding and it's all free and open source. It's new,
modern, fast, functional and stylish.
KDE doesn't attempt to shock with eye candy. You can turn off
compositing and use a widget style from 1997 if you want to. It's more
memory efficient, newer and faster than Gnome. Also consumes less
memory. I'm not just speaking out of my rear here. I actually did some
tests of my own.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 6:14 PM, Philip Pemberton <@spam@piclistKILLspamphilpem.me.uk> wrote:
> solarwind wrote:
>> KDE 4.2 was released a few days ago and it is the best Linux desktop
>> environment to date.
>
> Please excuse me, I suddenly feel violently ill...
>
>
> I was quite fond of KDE3 (Kubuntu 8.04LTS), then I saw KDE4 and changed
> allegiance. I've since switched to Gnome (on Ubuntu 8.10) and haven't looked back.
>
> If I wanted something that looked like Vista, I'd buy Vista. But quite
> frankly, I don't want or need something that attempts to shock me with
> eye-candy, I want something that'll sit in the background until I tell it to
> do something, and won't eat CPU cycles unnecessarily.
And by no means am I putting down Gnome. Gnome is great and GTK is
cool too, but they have not been getting anywhere in the past few
years. GTK can't even do menubar mouseovers...
And did I mention that the entire Gnome setup is built around the two
decade old GNU build system? It's time to build a more unified
platform. Part of the reason that Linux hasn't been getting ahead of
windows is because everyone has been doing their own thing and not
working together. KDE is changing all that. We now have a unified
platform for app development and it's all tightly integrated: QT,
Cmake/Scons, KDE base & KDE libs and KDevelop 4. Also has a unified
framework for media (Phonon). Everything literally works out of the
box and not one bit is bloated.
I found for most times since all I needed was a shell and a browser,
ratpoison worked well. Look it up. No mouse. Keyboard shortcuts to pop
windows, move them around (panels) etc. I was using Mutt back then for
e-mail, though... all text.
Re the rash of posts on this subject.
Where possible please try and keep entirely related comments in one post
rather than many short ones.
And please be aware that this is historically a religious subject - highly
boring to many, but no doubt entirely legitimate when discussed amongst
afficionados, and reasonably suitable for discussion in the deep depths of
[OT] as long as it stays polite and rational - as at present - but known to
blow up in moments to full scale flame wars. Which should be avoided if the
thread is to live long and prosper.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 6:44 PM, Nate Duehr <KILLspamnateKILLspamnatetech.com> wrote:
> I found for most times since all I needed was a shell and a browser,
> ratpoison worked well. Look it up. No mouse. Keyboard shortcuts to pop
> windows, move them around (panels) etc. I was using Mutt back then for
> e-mail, though... all text.
>
> I got over it, and bought a Mac. :-)
>
> Nate
Lol, I know what ratpoison is - I used it on a 386 embedded PC with
only a keyboard port.
KDE's a direct copy of all the stuff in better commercial desktops. Always
has been. There's no innovation anywhere than the team constantly
rebuilding how they BUILD... as you pointed out... they mess with the BUILD
system.
Been listening to the KDE/GNOME battles since before anyone used them,
son... they're boring and neither desktop provides much more than bloatware.
Guess what: End users never see the BUILD system, and don't care.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 6:48 PM, apptech <TakeThisOuTapptechEraseMEspam_OUTparadise.net.nz> wrote:
> Re the rash of posts on this subject.
> Where possible please try and keep entirely related comments in one post
> rather than many short ones.
>
> And please be aware that this is historically a religious subject - highly
> boring to many, but no doubt entirely legitimate when discussed amongst
> afficionados, and reasonably suitable for discussion in the deep depths of
> [OT] as long as it stays polite and rational - as at present - but known to
> blow up in moments to full scale flame wars. Which should be avoided if the
> thread is to live long and prosper.
>
>
> Russell
>
Don't worry, I don't hate. I love all open source.
Only reason I still keep winbloze around is for counter-strike and MPLAB...
solarwind wrote:
> And did I mention that the entire Gnome setup is built around the two
> decade old GNU build system?
If it works, why replace it?
I'll admit that Automake and Autoconf are unbelievably awful (in a "what the
HELL possessed someone to write THAT?" way), but for most things, nothing
beats the simplicity of a Makefile.
Gvim 7.1, my vimrc, GNU Make, and a compiler, and I'm happy.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 6:53 PM, Nate Duehr <nateEraseME.....natetech.com> wrote:
> Innovation... (spits coffee across the desk)...
>
> KDE's a direct copy of all the stuff in better commercial desktops. Always
> has been. There's no innovation anywhere than the team constantly
> rebuilding how they BUILD... as you pointed out... they mess with the BUILD
> system.
>
> Been listening to the KDE/GNOME battles since before anyone used them,
> son... they're boring and neither desktop provides much more than bloatware.
>
> Guess what: End users never see the BUILD system, and don't care.
>
> Nate
Guess what: End users DO see how beautiful KDE looks and works out of
the box bloat free. Every app in KDE is solid and feature complete.
Can't say the same for Gnome - it's all over the place.
Good idea. I guess we should all go back to the 16F84 then :)
> I'll admit that Automake and Autoconf are unbelievably awful (in a "what the
> HELL possessed someone to write THAT?" way), but for most things, nothing
> beats the simplicity of a Makefile.
Uhh, CMakeLists.txt? Ya...
> Gvim 7.1, my vimrc, GNU Make, and a compiler, and I'm happy.
>
> But as far as KDE apps go... Amarok rocks.
> On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 6:44 PM, Nate Duehr <nateSTOPspamspam_OUTnatetech.com> wrote:
>> I found for most times since all I needed was a shell and a browser,
>> ratpoison worked well. Look it up. No mouse. Keyboard shortcuts
>> to pop
>> windows, move them around (panels) etc. I was using Mutt back
>> then for
>> e-mail, though... all text.
>>
>> I got over it, and bought a Mac. :-)
>>
>> Nate
>
> Lol, I know what ratpoison is - I used it on a 386 embedded PC with
> only a keyboard port.
>
> And the Mac - I am disappointed in you.
Why? I'm not a developer and don't contribute to Linux desktops, and
it's free so when they finally get something worth using, I can easily
switch back.
I used to be a Linux zealot. Then I realized that the quality
software on Linux is server software. Linux as a desktop is "okay"
but really not better than commercial options.
On the Mac, I can build or download virtually every application ported
from Linux (almost everything), and I have a commercially supported
desktop with real support from major closed source software
manufacturers too. So I get the best of both worlds.
Then add on virtualization and I can have Windows too, if I must. I
rarely boot the Windows VM. Technically I could put a Linux VM on it
too, but why?
Prior to faster machines and virtualization I kept one of "each" OS
online at home, doing something... now after 10 years of running a
Linux server for mail/webserver and other things, I "outsourced" it
all to fastmail.fm, shut the silly blog down, and got on with life...
So... I made the most open option -- the Mac will do it all.
As far as cost, I paid $130 to outfit five machines ("family pack")
with Leopard. I know people that spend more than that on frivolous
stuff. I only have four Macs and one won't do Leopard, so it was $43
a machine. Whoop dee doo.
Linux makes a nice platform for commercial software like Apache
(GPL'ed or not, the main team is PAID to write Apache) and MySQL
(another commercially funded project), and I see very little quality
out of the completely freely written stuff. OpenOffice (another
project with commercial monetary support) struggles to be a copy of MS
Office, which I already have -- and iLife, iWork are good too. All
the commercial closed options are higher quality, when you compare
them feature for feature.
With all the Macs around, iTunes works fine for me and my one old
"regular" iPod, and my iPhone acting as one.
I want to use my computers, not compile other people's code and screw
around with them, prior to them being useful. I used to do Linux From
Scratch, Gentoo from source, all of it... I learned a lot, but
nothing's really changed since then... compiling a kernel is still
compiling a kernel, etc... once you've done it a few times, you don't
need to do it anymore, unless you're developing a kernel driver or
something.
I'm certainly not.
I contend, and will continue to... that users don't need a Linux
desktop at all. They get Windows at a discount similar to the price I
paid for OSX Leopard, and the same thing happens on Mac hardware.
I do get a kick out of how it drives Linux nuts that "free" hasn't
taken over the world yet. There *is* a reason... and it's not just
familiarity... many Linux desktops have adequately mimic'ed the
Windows/Mac interfaces that users aren't completely confused by
them... it's that Linux offers them nothing compelling other than to
copycat the commercial stuff.
Sorry list... others have seen my opinions on this, but I just figured
I'd reiterate them for solarwind. He can be a Linux zealout if he
likes, I don't mind -- developers like Linux. The distros almost all
cater to developers, and not as much to end-users.
The old funny video "Switch to Linux" making fun of the Apple "Switch"
marketing campaign is always a light way to look at it all... but true!
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 10:25 PM, Gökhan SEVER <spamBeGonegstr2005STOPspamEraseMEgmail.com> wrote:
> Hehe, It would be weird to run an RTOS on a 16F84, and especially the name
> of the RTOS in this context were QNX :)
> --
QNX is the best operating system in the world. Unfortunately, it can't
run on PICs for more than one reason.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 10:29 PM, Nate Duehr <KILLspamnatespamBeGonenatetech.com> wrote:
> Why? I'm not a developer and don't contribute to Linux desktops, and
> it's free so when they finally get something worth using, I can easily
> switch back.
They already have something worth using, you just can't see it.
> I used to be a Linux zealot. Then I realized that the quality
> software on Linux is server software. Linux as a desktop is "okay"
> but really not better than commercial options.
It's server and desktop software.
> On the Mac, I can build or download virtually every application ported
> from Linux (almost everything), and I have a commercially supported
> desktop with real support from major closed source software
> manufacturers too. So I get the best of both worlds.
You can do that on any operating system.
> Then add on virtualization and I can have Windows too, if I must. I
> rarely boot the Windows VM. Technically I could put a Linux VM on it
> too, but why?
Why? Why have it on mac?
> Prior to faster machines and virtualization I kept one of "each" OS
> online at home, doing something... now after 10 years of running a
> Linux server for mail/webserver and other things, I "outsourced" it
> all to fastmail.fm, shut the silly blog down, and got on with life...
>
> So... I made the most open option -- the Mac will do it all.
Windows will do it all and so will Linux. Keep in mind that mac is a
ripoff of BSD. They pretty much stole the BSD kernel.
> As far as cost, I paid $130 to outfit five machines ("family pack")
> with Leopard. I know people that spend more than that on frivolous
> stuff. I only have four Macs and one won't do Leopard, so it was $43
> a machine. Whoop dee doo.
That can feed a family in Africa for 130 days. Whoop dee doo is right -.-
> Linux makes a nice platform for commercial software like Apache
> (GPL'ed or not, the main team is PAID to write Apache) and MySQL
> (another commercially funded project), and I see very little quality
> out of the completely freely written stuff. OpenOffice (another
> project with commercial monetary support) struggles to be a copy of MS
> Office, which I already have -- and iLife, iWork are good too. All
> the commercial closed options are higher quality, when you compare
> them feature for feature.
I guess it strongly depends on what software you use. Amarok is the
best audio player there is. K3B is the best CD/DVD burning app and I
can do anything with it - far better than Nero.
> With all the Macs around, iTunes works fine for me and my one old
> "regular" iPod, and my iPhone acting as one.
> I want to use my computers, not compile other people's code and screw
> around with them, prior to them being useful. I used to do Linux From
> Scratch, Gentoo from source, all of it... I learned a lot, but
> nothing's really changed since then... compiling a kernel is still
> compiling a kernel, etc... once you've done it a few times, you don't
> need to do it anymore, unless you're developing a kernel driver or
> something.
>
> I'm certainly not.
>
> I contend, and will continue to... that users don't need a Linux
> desktop at all. They get Windows at a discount similar to the price I
> paid for OSX Leopard, and the same thing happens on Mac hardware.
That is just what lazy people say.
> I do get a kick out of how it drives Linux nuts that "free" hasn't
> taken over the world yet. There *is* a reason... and it's not just
> familiarity... many Linux desktops have adequately mimic'ed the
> Windows/Mac interfaces that users aren't completely confused by
> them... it's that Linux offers them nothing compelling other than to
> copycat the commercial stuff.
This is where the KDE foundation comes in. It's not just a copy.
> Sorry list... others have seen my opinions on this, but I just figured
> I'd reiterate them for solarwind. He can be a Linux zealout if he
> likes, I don't mind -- developers like Linux. The distros almost all
> cater to developers, and not as much to end-users.
That is completely incorrect. Ubuntu is the most end-user distro I
have seen and it caters to end users more than developers.
> The old funny video "Switch to Linux" making fun of the Apple "Switch"
> marketing campaign is always a light way to look at it all... but true!
>
> http://www.ubergeek.tv/article.php?pid=54
You do realize that countries like Russia and India and several
smaller countries are phasing out microsoft or apple and replacing
with Linux - even complete government systems. Very successfully, I
might add. You are just playing follow the leader and ignorantly
reiterating what certain mac/windows fanboys say over and over again -
that their time is so important and mac/winbloze saves them a few
minutes out of their life. You haven't seen the other distros and
complete end user systems (classrooms, government clients) and so on
running Linux very successfully.
Well I have lived and worked in 3rd world countries for nearly 40 years in
total. I doubt seriously that you are really very capable of understanding
what comprises "success". What is truly successful here is most typically
dismal and near useless in the context of your lifestyle in the US ...
everything relates to, and needs context!
:-))
Regards/Roger, in Bangkok
On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 12:05 PM, solarwind <EraseMEx.solarwind.xEraseMEgmail.com> wrote:
> > ... so it was $43
> > a machine. Whoop dee doo.
> That can feed a family in Africa for 130 days. Whoop dee doo is right -.-
>
> ...
> You do realize that countries like Russia and India and several
> smaller countries are phasing out microsoft or apple and replacing
> with Linux - even complete government systems. Very successfully, I
> might add. You are just playing follow the leader and ignorantly
> reiterating what certain mac/windows fanboys say over and over again -
> that their time is so important and mac/winbloze saves them a few
> minutes out of their life. You haven't seen the other distros and
> complete end user systems (classrooms, government clients) and so on
> running Linux very successfully.
>
> --
> solarwind
> ...
>
On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 12:42 AM, Roger, in Bangkok <@spam@mercies@spam@spam_OUTcscoms.com> wrote:
> Whew, what a long thread ...
>
> Well I have lived and worked in 3rd world countries for nearly 40 years in
> total. I doubt seriously that you are really very capable of understanding
> what comprises "success". What is truly successful here is most typically
> dismal and near useless in the context of your lifestyle in the US ...
> everything relates to, and needs context!
> :-))
> Regards/Roger, in Bangkok
Fancy words.
Let me begin by stating that your above ignorant assumption proves to
be incorrect as I do not reside in the US. Also, your reference to
"3rd world countries" is vague as the term itself is disputable. I
doubt seriously that you are capable of making these assumptions about
someone you have no idea about while sitting behind your keyboard in
your mother's basement.
Would it help if said I liked OS2 when it was in vogue?
Recently I upgraded SuSe 11 to 11.1 with the new KDE, what a disaster
- for some reason it doesn't sit well with my Lenovo X61, so with my
user log in I get a black screen and Plasma crashes (not quite sure
of what Plasma is supposed to do), in fact the only way I can log on
to my system is via Root - any new user I add I get the same problem.
Oh yes, re-installing SuSe did nothing but wipe out the boot record
for itself and Vista.
Here our main data acquisition system, which for the real operations its
usually is deployed on aircraft platform. In the heart of the system lies a
very ugly QNX 4.25, which is one of the weirdest OS I have ever used in my
life. It took many days for me to configure the network setting on the
system.
We want to move on to QNX 6.4 but there is not much support in which will
accommodate, nor I do not know where to start.
> On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 10:25 PM, Gökhan SEVER <TakeThisOuTgstr2005.....TakeThisOuTgmail.com> wrote:
> > Hehe, It would be weird to run an RTOS on a 16F84, and especially the
> name
> > of the RTOS in this context were QNX :)
> > --
>
> QNX is the best operating system in the world. Unfortunately, it can't
> run on PICs for more than one reason.
>
>
> --
> solarwind
>
solarwind wrote:
> You do realize that countries like Russia and India and several
> smaller countries are phasing out microsoft
*Russia* is phasing out Microsoft? When you can buy a copy of Windows XP for
$10, and get Microsoft Office, Adobe CS3, and Solidworks free with your
purchase?
Comrades, I think someone is suffering from a chronic foot-in-mouth disease.
:)
Gökhan SEVER wrote:
> Why not use a development environment, like Eclipse. How do you debug your
> code?
Usually with either Kdbg, DataDisplayDebugger or Nemiver. I have been known to
use gdb from the command-line, but only when forced to (read: when I'm SSH'd
into a remote machine that doesn't have X installed).
> Whew, what a long thread ...
>
> Well I have lived and worked in 3rd world countries for nearly 40 years in
> total. I doubt seriously that you are really very capable of
> understanding
> what comprises "success". What is truly successful here is most typically
> dismal and near useless in the context of your lifestyle in the US ...
> everything relates to, and needs context!
> :-))
> Regards/Roger, in Bangkok
Fancy words.
> Let me begin by stating that your above ignorant
> assumption proves to be incorrect as I do not reside
> in the US.
Ontario qualifies as "the US" for the purposes of the point being made.
> Also, your reference to "3rd world countries" is vague
> as the term itself is disputable.
Clue. Look at his email address. You may be able to work out what country he
is in.
But,
No. Absolutely not. Not in any way.
While the term may be used ignorantly by those who choose to do so, when a
person of erudtion uses it is incumbent upon the hearer to assume that it is
being used correctly, and in this case he is one and it is. Wikipedia
notwithstanding :-).
You may consider it to be shown in green here
RIB presently lives in the green area to the left of the thin red coastal
stripat the right of the map. At the top of the gulf.
The red strip is arguable as being 1st world (and is not where he lives) and
is possibly so coloured because of all the heavy-metal that was endows on it
by several 1st world powers in decades gone by.
> I doubt seriously that you are capable of making these assumptions about
> someone you have no idea about while sitting behind your keyboard in
> your mother's basement.
That comment is facile and humorously ignorable in the context - as he's
older than you once claimed to be and more than 3 times older than you claim
to be - and if his mother is blessed to be still alive she's doing very well
indeed *BUT* it is not the sort of comment that should be made on this list,
please. I'll let it through as I know RIB will take it in good heart, but
yer mother dresses you funny / yer motherwearsarmy boots / my dadsbiggerthan
yerdad / yeahwellmydadsapoliceman ... comments are innappropriate.
> Regards, solarwind, not in the US
Ontario damnit, Ontario. Right next door. You can almost see Chicago on a
bad day. Close enough to the US. Probably even 1st world.
And, no, the words weren't fancy. They just tried to say that there are
other perspectves, and living amongst others in absolutely vastly different
situations may qualify one to comment just alittle.
Russell
Not in the US
In China from next week for 2 weeks.
> solarwind wrote:
>> You do realize that countries like Russia and India and several
>> smaller countries are phasing out microsoft
>
> *Russia* is phasing out Microsoft? When you can buy a copy of
> Windows XP for
> $10, and get Microsoft Office, Adobe CS3, and Solidworks free with
> your
> purchase?
>
> Comrades, I think someone is suffering from a chronic foot-in-mouth
> disease.
solarwind's idealism aside, Putin appears to *really* dislike help
from the outside computing world, judging by his little outburst
recently:
Sounds like he has a serious inferiority complex, doesn't it? :) Not
surprising though, coming from the guy who said that he'll be "whacking
bandits in the outhouse."
Putin's paranoid rhetoric aside, he does not speak for Russian users an
overwhelming majority of whom use Windows, and have no intention to switch.
On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 2:55 AM, Gökhan SEVER <spamBeGonegstr2005@spam@spam_OUTgmail.com> wrote:
> Which QNX are you referring as the best?
>
> Here our main data acquisition system, which for the real operations its
> usually is deployed on aircraft platform. In the heart of the system lies a
> very ugly QNX 4.25, which is one of the weirdest OS I have ever used in my
> life. It took many days for me to configure the network setting on the
> system.
>
> We want to move on to QNX 6.4 but there is not much support in which will
> accommodate, nor I do not know where to start.
>
> QNX is no Linux.
I'm referring to QNX 6.4 (I think that's the version) I can get it to
boot up literally in less than half a second on my old embedded 386
DX4.
They went more or less open source recently. You can get all of their
stuff for free (OS, Momentics IDE, drivers). So start downloading and
developing!
QNX is no Linux but I wish Linux was QNX. QNX is the most ideal OS
I've seen (microkernel, modular system, minimalistic yet gets the job
done) and almost impossible to crash.
> On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 2:55 AM, Gökhan SEVER <gstr2005EraseMEgmail.com> wrote:
> > Which QNX are you referring as the best?
> >
> > Here our main data acquisition system, which for the real operations its
> > usually is deployed on aircraft platform. In the heart of the system lies
> a
> > very ugly QNX 4.25, which is one of the weirdest OS I have ever used in
> my
> > life. It took many days for me to configure the network setting on the
> > system.
> >
> > We want to move on to QNX 6.4 but there is not much support in which will
> > accommodate, nor I do not know where to start.
> >
> > QNX is no Linux.
>
> I'm referring to QNX 6.4 (I think that's the version) I can get it to
> boot up literally in less than half a second on my old embedded 386
> DX4.
>
> They went more or less open source recently. You can get all of their
> stuff for free (OS, Momentics IDE, drivers). So start downloading and
> developing!
>
> QNX is no Linux but I wish Linux was QNX. QNX is the most ideal OS
> I've seen (microkernel, modular system, minimalistic yet gets the job
> done) and almost impossible to crash.
>
>
> --
> solarwind
>
On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Gökhan SEVER <RemoveMEgstr2005EraseMEspam_OUTgmail.com> wrote:
> I bet you cant log in to desktop less than a minute on your old system.
I bet I can! QNX does not use X. They have their own Photon system
which is very tiny and fast.
> What mission critical application are you running on your QNX platform?
Not all of us have super secret FBI jobs that require us to create
mission critical applications. I'm a student who does this as a hobby.
I like QNX because its fast, simply and easy to use. And it's open
source. It is now anyway.
And they have their Momentics IDE free to use so you can build your
entire system in less than a MB I think using their system builder. If
you have not used their new utilities, you should give them a try
because they make developing stuff really easy.
Best of all, the most advanced microkernel (Neutrino) ever is fully open source.
What more reasons could you ask for to use QNX? I use it on anything
that's not a desktop machine. I have a beagleboard http://beagleboard.org/ in my car that I loaded with QNX. It's
basically a media player with a bunch of other useful goodies at the
moment, but once I figure out this whole OpenGL think, I'm going to
attach my USB GPS unit to it and make it into a navigation system.
Photon is really cool. I'd say it's more like windows than X.
It's not a refuse of *aid* or *help* but business proposition.
Why Russia will buy American's PC that are build in China, when Russian
can buy Russian's PC build in China?
It's only question of money, not dislike of "outside computing world".
And it's not a paranoid rhetoric.
It's always best to spend the money *inside* the country.
Dell can't offer anything that surpass the concurrence.
Do you plan to remain a student hobbyist forever? That would be the
question to ask yourself when deciding how much time to spend on things
today...
I get a kick out of your youthful "secret FBI jobs" that "require mission
critical applications" comment. The "Man" isn't the only "company" that has
mission critical applications. Anything you take for granted in modern
life, is often a "mission-critical" application. Banks/brokerages,
insurance companies, telecom, power companies, hell... anything
"infrastructure" related have "mission critical" systems too, not just the
"secret FBI guys".
Mission-critical is simple to define: The company bleeds real cash money
every second the system is off-line. When systems are that
mission-critical, it means the loss in dollars and cents is too high to
sustain business without a serious hit to the bottom line without them.
There's LOTS of systems out there like this, and the vast majority aren't
run by "secret FBI" men. Getting jobs working on them takes talent, time,
and a certain focus that not all people have.
Trying to stay within the lines of what I can and can't share here, my
company receives somewhere between 5 and 7 million dollars in revenue
annually for a small customer base and 7 person (including manager) team to
be available 24/7 for "mission critical" outages of certain
telecommunications systems.
Economically, this obviously indicates that the customers lose more than
they gain by not having us on-call to immediately address system down-time.
Thus, you can see that they're saying they'd lose more than the 5-7 million
dollars collectively from system problems and outages, than they save by
having us available at a moment's notice.
(Yes, they get other perks, such as a dedicated staff member or two they
know by name, weekly status meetings tailored to their needs, a person who
knows not only their systems, but their business rules and procedures,
etc... it's not just the on-call part. But you get the idea.)
So... I think this is the "hidden question" someone here might be asking you
if they ask you "How many mission-critical systems do you know run on QNX
[or insert any other technology here]." Many of the people on the list are
further down the road of making a career out of technology, and know that
where you're at, EVERYTHING looks exciting and interesting. After a while
you learn to temper your excitement with a little more pragmatic look at the
"new" and "latest and greatest" that comes out every year.
Kinda like our discussion about KDE 4.whatever. It literally is a
"WHATEVER!" for those of us that have watched Unix desktops since long
before KDE and Gnome were a twinkle in someone's eye in their basement.
WindowMaker wasn't bad, in it's time... still isn't. I hear it's making a
comeback... not to surprising. Not a SINGLE work-related system (in telecom
anyway) I've worked on has even had X loaded, nor were Unix/Linux X-based
desktops used to ACCESS them even, in systems that can typically make their
owners $600,000 an HOUR in raw cash revenue... if they're up and running and
processing phone calls... X would be a security risk beyond belief, and all
you ever see of the GUI on these boxes is an SSH command line.
Would you rather build something like that, that makes your "nut" every
month -- or play with QNX? You can do both, but you'll not be as good at
both as you are at only one...
Linux is a fun toy for me from time to time, and runs my "freetime" stuff.
Solaris makes me money. You know?
On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Nate Duehr <@spam@nateRemoveMEEraseMEnatetech.com> wrote:
> Do you plan to remain a student hobbyist forever? That would be the
> question to ask yourself when deciding how much time to spend on things
> today...
> I get a kick out of your youthful "secret FBI jobs" that "require mission
> critical applications" comment. The "Man" isn't the only "company" that has
> mission critical applications. Anything you take for granted in modern
> life, is often a "mission-critical" application. Banks/brokerages,
> insurance companies, telecom, power companies, hell... anything
> "infrastructure" related have "mission critical" systems too, not just the
> "secret FBI guys".
>
> Mission-critical is simple to define: The company bleeds real cash money
> every second the system is off-line. When systems are that
> mission-critical, it means the loss in dollars and cents is too high to
> sustain business without a serious hit to the bottom line without them.
>
> There's LOTS of systems out there like this, and the vast majority aren't
> run by "secret FBI" men. Getting jobs working on them takes talent, time,
> and a certain focus that not all people have.
>
> Trying to stay within the lines of what I can and can't share here, my
> company receives somewhere between 5 and 7 million dollars in revenue
> annually for a small customer base and 7 person (including manager) team to
> be available 24/7 for "mission critical" outages of certain
> telecommunications systems.
>
> Economically, this obviously indicates that the customers lose more than
> they gain by not having us on-call to immediately address system down-time.
>
> Thus, you can see that they're saying they'd lose more than the 5-7 million
> dollars collectively from system problems and outages, than they save by
> having us available at a moment's notice.
>
> (Yes, they get other perks, such as a dedicated staff member or two they
> know by name, weekly status meetings tailored to their needs, a person who
> knows not only their systems, but their business rules and procedures,
> etc... it's not just the on-call part. But you get the idea.)
>
> So... I think this is the "hidden question" someone here might be asking you
> if they ask you "How many mission-critical systems do you know run on QNX
> [or insert any other technology here]." Many of the people on the list are
> further down the road of making a career out of technology, and know that
> where you're at, EVERYTHING looks exciting and interesting. After a while
> you learn to temper your excitement with a little more pragmatic look at the
> "new" and "latest and greatest" that comes out every year.
>
> Kinda like our discussion about KDE 4.whatever. It literally is a
> "WHATEVER!" for those of us that have watched Unix desktops since long
> before KDE and Gnome were a twinkle in someone's eye in their basement.
>
> WindowMaker wasn't bad, in it's time... still isn't. I hear it's making a
> comeback... not to surprising. Not a SINGLE work-related system (in telecom
> anyway) I've worked on has even had X loaded, nor were Unix/Linux X-based
> desktops used to ACCESS them even, in systems that can typically make their
> owners $600,000 an HOUR in raw cash revenue... if they're up and running and
> processing phone calls... X would be a security risk beyond belief, and all
> you ever see of the GUI on these boxes is an SSH command line.
>
> Would you rather build something like that, that makes your "nut" every
> month -- or play with QNX? You can do both, but you'll not be as good at
> both as you are at only one...
>
> Linux is a fun toy for me from time to time, and runs my "freetime" stuff.
> Solaris makes me money. You know?
>
> Nate
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 9:20 PM, Nate Duehr <EraseMEnate@spam@natetech.com> wrote:
>> Do you plan to remain a student hobbyist forever? That would be the
>> question to ask yourself when deciding how much time to spend on
>> things
>> today...
>
> Yes. I'm going into life sciences.
Okay, that helps.
> So, all in all, what's your point? (No sarcasm)
Many newcomers to the list don't tell the list if they're students of
electrical engineering, computer science, or something completely
different and only a hobbyist.
Knowing that your intention is to remain a hobbyist, means anyone
attempting to "mentor" via the list, won't (necessarily) pick on you
for odd choices of OS, desktop, whatever. Obviously a hobbyist can
always do what they like.
Well, so can anyone really -- but I think you might have been missing
that the people responding might have been tailoring their responses
as if you were discussing the *professional* merits of some of these
systems.
QNX is used very lightly in professional circles (but it is used), as
is the Linux Desktop. Thus, anyone thinking (this is a guy studying
electronics, or computers, who eventually needs to get a job) might
give you a harder time about your choices, than they would a pure
hobby endeavor.
Hobbies are fun, and no one will pick on you for using QNX in hobby
activities.
That's all I was thinking... of course there's always zealouts who
will pick on your choices nevertheless... (GRIN), but I think
generally you find folks on this list are attempting to relate to
professional computing and PIC programming more than hobbyists, unless
someone points out that "it's just a hobby" for them.
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 12:03 AM, Nate Duehr <@spam@natespam_OUT.....natetech.com> wrote:
> Many newcomers to the list don't tell the list if they're students of
> electrical engineering, computer science, or something completely
> different and only a hobbyist.
Yea, lol.
> Knowing that your intention is to remain a hobbyist, means anyone
> attempting to "mentor" via the list, won't (necessarily) pick on you
> for odd choices of OS, desktop, whatever. Obviously a hobbyist can
> always do what they like.
Anyone can do what they like, lol.
> Well, so can anyone really -- but I think you might have been missing
> that the people responding might have been tailoring their responses
> as if you were discussing the *professional* merits of some of these
> systems.
Ahh.
> QNX is used very lightly in professional circles (but it is used), as
> is the Linux Desktop. Thus, anyone thinking (this is a guy studying
> electronics, or computers, who eventually needs to get a job) might
> give you a harder time about your choices, than they would a pure
> hobby endeavor.
QNX is one of the most advanced real time embedded microkernels out
there. It's used in mission critical and medical applications
especially where reliability is a must.
> Hobbies are fun, and no one will pick on you for using QNX in hobby
> activities.
>
> That's all I was thinking... of course there's always zealouts who
> will pick on your choices nevertheless... (GRIN), but I think
> generally you find folks on this list are attempting to relate to
> professional computing and PIC programming more than hobbyists, unless
> someone points out that "it's just a hobby" for them.
>
> Nate
> QNX is one of the most advanced real time embedded microkernels out
> there. It's used in mission critical and medical applications
> especially where reliability is a must.
Yawn. So say their marketing folks. Most of the other microkernel
vendors say the same thing. We've got two operating systems that
operate above the QNX Neutrino microkernel, and I don't think we find
it to be any miracle cure for the problems we experience with other
kernels (including linux, BTW.)
I am still not %100 sure why we are using QNX 4.25 in our atmospheric
measurement experiments. A data acquisition software runs on a QNX 4.25,
deployed either on a ground or aircraft --where here ground means our lab in
the department. There is analog-to-digital converter board, a serial
interface card to handle many inputs streams, and some specialized cards to
communicate with a GPS device and some propriety communication interfaces.
In a typical atmospheric measurement campaign (here atmospheric measurements
mean real-time [or near real-time] aerosol-cloud samplings) usually more
than at least 10 different devices is interfaced and the data is displayed
on QNX screen, and the same data is also recorded for
post-processing purposes.
It is aimed to sample each device at 25Hz at least, later before the
processing these value could be modified according to our needs. In a 2-3
hours of data acquisition we get a raw file on the size of a couple hundreds
MBs.
QNX very stable, QNX real-time but our problem is the data acquisiton
software is old and don't meet some of our expectations. It is also
closed-source we can modify it. (and as a secret it has a very awkard
programming interface.)
I propose to switch to the newest QNX 6.4 or carry our software platform to
either on Windows or Linux. I still don't know whether these alternative
handle our high-amount data measurement tasks (so-to-speak mission critical
experiments (we are not doing a secret FBI job here either :) salute
"solarwind" ;) -we can't sample at the same point in the atmopshere if we
miss the spot, there is no going back -can hear if the data is missing why
not interpolate commands --heh lets leave this discussion to another day:) )
>
> On Feb 2, 2009, at 9:35 PM, solarwind wrote:
>
> > QNX is one of the most advanced real time embedded microkernels out
> > there. It's used in mission critical and medical applications
> > especially where reliability is a must.
>
> Yawn. So say their marketing folks. Most of the other microkernel
> vendors say the same thing. We've got two operating systems that
> operate above the QNX Neutrino microkernel, and I don't think we find
> it to be any miracle cure for the problems we experience with other
> kernels (including linux, BTW.)
>
> BillW
>
> I am still not %100 sure why we are using QNX 4.25 in our atmospheric
> measurement experiments. A data acquisition software runs on a QNX 4.25,
> deployed either on a ground or aircraft --where here ground means our lab in
> the department. There is analog-to-digital converter board, a serial
> interface card to handle many inputs streams, and some specialized cards to
> communicate with a GPS device and some propriety communication interfaces.
> In a typical atmospheric measurement campaign (here atmospheric measurements
> mean real-time [or near real-time] aerosol-cloud samplings) usually more
> than at least 10 different devices is interfaced and the data is displayed
> on QNX screen, and the same data is also recorded for
> post-processing purposes.
>
> It is aimed to sample each device at 25Hz at least, later before the
> processing these value could be modified according to our needs. In a 2-3
> hours of data acquisition we get a raw file on the size of a couple hundreds
> MBs.
>
> QNX very stable, QNX real-time but our problem is the data acquisiton
> software is old and don't meet some of our expectations. It is also
> closed-source we can modify it. (and as a secret it has a very awkard
> programming interface.)
>
> I propose to switch to the newest QNX 6.4 or carry our software platform to
> either on Windows or Linux. I still don't know whether these alternative
> handle our high-amount data measurement tasks (so-to-speak mission critical
> experiments (we are not doing a secret FBI job here either :) salute
> "solarwind" ;) -we can't sample at the same point in the atmopshere if we
> miss the spot, there is no going back -can hear if the data is missing why
> not interpolate commands --heh lets leave this discussion to another day:) )
>
>
> May I get some opinions on this?
>
> Thank you.
I would say switch to 6.4. Never trust windows to do anything right.
Use a POSIX like operating system. QNX, Linux, BSD are all good.
Agreed. We're a VxWorks shop for much of our embedded "stuff", and ten plus
years ago a Microware OS9 shop. All of the marketing material from both
those embedded says they'll save the world, too. They don't. The vast
majority of problems in embedded systems are in the application code, not
the OS.
Embedded OS's are a commodity nowadays... they're all fighting for a very
small space. The real competition is in how well they can support
sophisticated customers with problems, and the best embedded coder I ever
met is now at Green Hills Software and has been for years... they're
supposedly good too, but never used any of their stuff...
After playing with Fedora 10 and KDE 4.2.1 for a few days, I was
going to say some bad words about KDE. But then I learned a few
tricks and like it better now.
1. I was not even able to move the button on the panel initially.
Finally google helped. Strange design.
2. After switching to "Folder View" and tradition menu, now
I can work better under KDE.
3. Samba network share problem with media playing. Finally
solved with VLC. Other media player does not work with
KDE very well, they tend to copy the whole file before playing.
On Wednesday 01 April 2009 23:00:14 Xiaofan Chen wrote:
> 3. Samba network share problem with media playing. Finally
> solved with VLC. Other media player does not work with
> KDE very well, they tend to copy the whole file before playing.
This is almost certainly not a KDE problem (unless you meant Dragon). Most
other players do not leverage KDE code. Neither does samba.
On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 11:13 PM, Shawn Tan <.....shawn.tan@spam@EraseMEaeste.net> wrote:
> On Wednesday 01 April 2009 23:00:14 Xiaofan Chen wrote:
>> 3. Samba network share problem with media playing. Finally
>> solved with VLC. Other media player does not work with
>> KDE very well, they tend to copy the whole file before playing.
>
> This is almost certainly not a KDE problem (unless you meant Dragon). Most
> other players do not leverage KDE code. Neither does samba.
Google tells me it is a KDE problem or the KDE file system/file manager
problem. Interestingly I have similar problem with KDE 3 (Ubuntu 8.04)
and XFCE 4 with Thunar. LXDE (using pcmanfm) seems to work.
On Thursday 02 April 2009 06:09:59 Xiaofan Chen wrote:
> problem. Interestingly I have similar problem with KDE 3 (Ubuntu 8.04)
> and XFCE 4 with Thunar. LXDE (using pcmanfm) seems to work.
>
> More info:
> http://www.debianhelp.org/node/5411
> http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/850487.html
>
> The recommended solution is to mount the shared drive. I tend
> to think this is not a very good solution. For now, VLC solved
> the problem.
Oh! It just never occured to me that you were using an unmounted file-system
thru the GUI.
That just doesn't seem the 'right' thing to do, to me. (=
Mplayer is supposed to support the smb:// protocol too. So, you may be able to
use that too.
On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 7:15 AM, Shawn Tan <.....shawn.tanRemoveMEaeste.net> wrote:
> On Thursday 02 April 2009 06:09:59 Xiaofan Chen wrote:
>> problem. Interestingly I have similar problem with KDE 3 (Ubuntu 8.04)
>> and XFCE 4 with Thunar. LXDE (using pcmanfm) seems to work.
>>
>> More info:
>> http://www.debianhelp.org/node/5411
>> forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/850487.html
>>
>> The recommended solution is to mount the shared drive. I tend
>> to think this is not a very good solution. For now, VLC solved
>> the problem.
>
> Oh! It just never occured to me that you were using an unmounted
> file-system thru the GUI.
>
> That just doesn't seem the 'right' thing to do, to me. (=
It is not unmounted file system. It is user space file system using
fuse, fusesmb works fine for me with Ubuntu 8.04/8.10 under
Gnome.
Quote: Its main advantage over mounting shares manually is its
flexiablity in the settings, and how it auto updates and finds new
shares as they appear on the network.
As a Ubuntu Gnome user for a long time, I think this is
way better than the mount approach.
> On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 7:15 AM, Shawn Tan <shawn.tanEraseME@spam@aeste.net> wrote:
>> On Thursday 02 April 2009 06:09:59 Xiaofan Chen wrote:
>>> problem. Interestingly I have similar problem with KDE 3 (Ubuntu 8.04)
>>> and XFCE 4 with Thunar. LXDE (using pcmanfm) seems to work.
>>>
>>> More info:
>>> http://www.debianhelp.org/node/5411
>>> forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/850487.html
>>>
>>> The recommended solution is to mount the shared drive. I tend
>>> to think this is not a very good solution. For now, VLC solved
>>> the problem.
>>
>> Oh! It just never occured to me that you were using an unmounted
>> file-system thru the GUI.
>>
>> That just doesn't seem the 'right' thing to do, to me. (=
>
> It is not unmounted file system. It is user space file system using
> fuse, fusesmb works fine for me with Ubuntu 8.04/8.10 under
> Gnome.
>
> The following pages describes fusesmb.
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FuseSmb
>
> Quote: Its main advantage over mounting shares manually is its
> flexiablity in the settings, and how it auto updates and finds new
> shares as they appear on the network.
>
> As a Ubuntu Gnome user for a long time, I think this is
> way better than the mount approach.
>
On the other hand, quite some people were hit by the
fusesmb/smbclient bug under Linux (Ubuntu, Arch, etc).
bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fusesmb/+bug/198351 http://guide.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6743501
My brother-in-law is now experimenting Xubuntu 8.10 based
HiWeed Linux and was hit by the Thunar/fusesmb problem.
One possible solution is to dowgrade smbclient to 8.04
version. The other solution is to use pcmanfm instead of
Thunar.
Hiweed: Xubuntu respin with Chinese enhancements. http://www.hiweed.com/ (runs well with XFCE or LXDE)
Word. KDE 4.2 is awesome. Also, I recommend you Arch Linux. Unlike
Ubuntu, the distro's internals are far cleaner and far easier to
upgrade and manage. You always have the latest version and there are
no "releases" like Ubuntu. You always have the latest software.
On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 4:35 AM, solarwind <x.solarwind.xspam_OUT@spam@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 8:17 AM, Xiaofan Chen <spamBeGonexiaofanc@spam@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I use Firefox. KDE 4.2.2 is kind of beautiful.
>
> Word. KDE 4.2 is awesome. Also, I recommend you Arch Linux. Unlike
> Ubuntu, the distro's internals are far cleaner and far easier to
> upgrade and manage. You always have the latest version and there are
> no "releases" like Ubuntu. You always have the latest software.
I tried to use Arch Linux before. You just need to keep running "pacman -Syu".
But the problem is that main distro is Ubuntu and all other distros are for
playing. So after a while, Arch just breaks trying to upgrade huge amount
of packages. This is also related to the fact that there is not a fast local
mirror of Arch Linux here in Singapore. So I just recently removed Arch.
Last time I also had positive experiences with PCLinuxOS with KDE.
Now I am less interested in trying out other Linux distros. I will only
use Ubuntu along with Fedora from now on on the Linux front.
Ubuntu just works. Fedora got more cutting edge things.
Xiaofan Chen wrote:
> I tried to use Arch Linux before. You just need to keep running "pacman -Syu".
>
> But the problem is that main distro is Ubuntu and all other distros are for
> playing. So after a while, Arch just breaks trying to upgrade huge amount
> of packages. This is also related to the fact that there is not a fast local
> mirror of Arch Linux here in Singapore. So I just recently removed Arch.
>
> Last time I also had positive experiences with PCLinuxOS with KDE.
> Now I am less interested in trying out other Linux distros. I will only
> use Ubuntu along with Fedora from now on on the Linux front.
> Ubuntu just works. Fedora got more cutting edge things.
>
> Xiaofan
If you install an update manager like shaman, you don't even need to run
pacman -Syu. And I've never had the problem of Arch Linux breaking when
upgrading a large number of packages. In my opinion, it's the most
stable distro out there.
> If you install an update manager like shaman, you don't even need to
> run
> pacman -Syu. And I've never had the problem of Arch Linux breaking
> when
> upgrading a large number of packages. In my opinion, it's the most
> stable distro out there.
You will. Just wait until something like the C ABI changes in the
compiler, like happened a couple of years ago to ALL users of GCC.
Lots of breakage, all different types in different distros. Or maybe
a lovely Perl major number release... stuff like that ALWAYS catches
even the best distros off guard and you find yourself without a
working desktop machine, messing with it while you have a business or
other "real world" deadline to get something DONE on the box.
I love Linux, but I stick with distros that wait a little while (and
have "experimental" or "unstable" branches if you really need the
latest and greatest code for some reason), so I can get some damn work
done with/on the machine.
After you get out of your first 10 years of Linux use -- you've had
the entire desktop break during a "routine" upgrade so many times you
get quite sick of it.
Linux is a cesspool of instability because right about the time anyone
gets version 4 or 5 of something out and gets most of the kinks worked
out of it, the developers see something else to attract their ADD-
poster-child brains to, and off they go, creating the "next new
thing". Oooh, look... shiny object... must follow shiny object! It
gets old. (Especially since it barely keeps up with both Windows and
Mac desktops for usability and consistency, let alone stability!)
Linux (command line) for servers, Mac OSX for the desktop -- is how
most admins I know who've been working on Unix for any length of time,
roll these days.
Maybe with Linux/KDE/Gnome/Enlightenment/
GODonlyKnowsWhatDesktopThisYear in Virtual Machines for tinkering with
or testing code for the production servers.
That's what people do who actually have Unix jobs getting paid to get
things DONE do, anyway. Only a rare few are willing to put up with
the Linux desktop headaches over the long-haul.
On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 4:28 PM, Nate Duehr <spamBeGonenatespam_OUTRemoveMEnatetech.com> wrote:
> Linux (command line) for servers, Mac OSX for the desktop -- is how
> most admins I know who've been working on Unix for any length of time,
> roll these days.
>
This seems to be true. The desktop can be either Mac OS X or
Windows XP.
> Only a rare few are willing to put up with
> the Linux desktop headaches over the long-haul.
>
I would not say "rare few". But the percentage is low.
Time flies, it has been more than 10 years since I first tried Slackware
3.5 on a 486 desktop having used Sun OS and DEC VAX VMS and
Ultrix a bit before that. But my real use of Linux was from 2005 with
Ubuntu 5.04. I think it has made a lot of progress and is good for
home use. For work as an electronics design engineer, I do not think
Linux will replace Windows anytime soon due to the availablity
of software under Linux. After all, most of the software to drive the
design only work under Windows. Some EDA software packages
used to only work under Unix, now Windows is a fine choice along
with Linux.
> > If you install an update manager like shaman, you don't even need to
> > run
> > pacman -Syu. And I've never had the problem of Arch Linux breaking
> > when
> > upgrading a large number of packages. In my opinion, it's the most
> > stable distro out there.
>
> You will. Just wait until something like the C ABI changes in the
> compiler, like happened a couple of years ago to ALL users of GCC.
> Lots of breakage, all different types in different distros. Or maybe
> a lovely Perl major number release... stuff like that ALWAYS catches
> even the best distros off guard and you find yourself without a
> working desktop machine, messing with it while you have a business or
> other "real world" deadline to get something DONE on the box.
> >
> That's what people do who actually have Unix jobs getting paid to get
> things DONE do, anyway. Only a rare few are willing to put up with
> the Linux desktop headaches over the long-haul.
Yeah, that sad day when you have to venture from your parent's basement into
the real world. Suddenly you've got other things to worry about.
On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 8:35 PM, Tony Smith <.....ajsmithRemoveMEbeagle.com.au> wrote:
> Yeah, that sad day when you have to venture from your parent's basement into
> the real world. Suddenly you've got other things to worry about.
>
> Tony
Fortunately, I don't live in my parent's basement and I already have
other things to worry about.
> > Yeah, that sad day when you have to venture from your parent's basement
into
> > the real world. Suddenly you've got other things to worry about.
> >
> > Tony
>
> Fortunately, I don't live in my parent's basement and I already have
> other things to worry about.
So we won't be seeing you at this year's kernel compiling funfest?
> On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 8:35 PM, Tony Smith <ajsmith@spam@beagle.com.au>
> wrote:
>> Yeah, that sad day when you have to venture from your parent's
>> basement into
>> the real world. Suddenly you've got other things to worry about.
>>
>> Tony
>
> Fortunately, I don't live in my parent's basement and I already have
> other things to worry about.
Tony, that was a bit rough -- I get the joke about "coders in their
parent's basements" in reference to Linux fans, but Solarwind is a
college-bound young person who seems to be working hard to get to his
goals. Even if he said he were in his parent's basement, he's doing
more than most young folk I know these days...
Anyway... I shared my thoughts about the Linux Desktop strictly from a
pragmatic sense of sharing with him that after a while, you just tire
of the minor "brokenness" of every release. Not to pick on him for
his use of his time.
> >> Yeah, that sad day when you have to venture from your parent's
> >> basement into
> >> the real world. Suddenly you've got other things to worry about.
> >>
> >> Tony
> >
> > Fortunately, I don't live in my parent's basement and I already have
> > other things to worry about.
>
> Tony, that was a bit rough -- I get the joke about "coders in their
> parent's basements" in reference to Linux fans, but Solarwind is a
> college-bound young person who seems to be working hard to get to his
> goals. Even if he said he were in his parent's basement, he's doing
> more than most young folk I know these days...
>
> Anyway... I shared my thoughts about the Linux Desktop strictly from a
> pragmatic sense of sharing with him that after a while, you just tire
> of the minor "brokenness" of every release. Not to pick on him for
> his use of his time.
The comment was more aimed at fanboys rather than anyone in particular. I
got tired of the *nix treadmill ages ago. The last attempt was EMC (CNC),
no docs for the interface, very fussy about library versions, bits missing
and/or broken and so on.
Eventually 'does it work' takes precedence over 'but it's free / yay
Stallman / but it's Linux / M$ sucks & Winblows / fix it yourself / works
for me' etc. Fine if you're 14 and excited, as you say, by the latest shiny
thing. These days I'll just pay a couple of hundred dollars rather than
spend a week fixing (and failing) something that was 'free'. MythTV is a
perfect example.
The gamers & overclockers are no different chasing FPS, and I'll lump the
're-install XP every 6 months' crowd in there too. If you like that sort of
thing, well, have fun.
Often they seem to be solving a problem that doesn't exist, like the bloke
fixing the horrible M$ .DOCX files. Why? They're just zipped XML, the
latest OO reads them, old Word versions have a converter, and even
WordPerfect (or Corel whatever) reads them too.
The "Living in your parent's basement" phase would tend to come AFTER
the enthusiastic college bound young person" phase. Once you get OUT
of the parent's house to a college dorm, you have MUCH more freedom
and opportunity to FAIL. School Pressures, Unprecedented Competition,
Alcohol, Online Gaming, Sex, Drugs, Too much money, Not enough
money... (and when I was in school, those damn Computers were one of
the Distractions...) Not to mention the "what do you mean that my
degree in X doesn't get me a job with a salary high enough to rent my
own apartment?" issue alluded to in other threads.
Solarwind is aimed nicely, but he hasn't arrived anywhere yet, and
that pre-med (that's what "healthcare" means, right?) track it pretty
fraught with perils. I wish him luck...
On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 1:24 AM, Tony Smith <RemoveMEajsmithKILLspamTakeThisOuTbeagle.com.au> wrote:
> Eventually 'does it work' takes precedence over 'but it's free / yay
> Stallman / but it's Linux / M$ sucks & Winblows / fix it yourself / works
> for me' etc. Fine if you're 14 and excited, as you say, by the latest shiny
> thing. These days I'll just pay a couple of hundred dollars rather than
> spend a week fixing (and failing) something that was 'free'. MythTV is a
> perfect example.
I kind of agree with you. But maybe that was not true when I was
younger. And from time to time I still like to fix things by myself.
Just yesterday, I found out that there is an open source Samsung
SCX-4200 driver and I tried it and it works.
> The gamers & overclockers are no different chasing FPS, and I'll lump the
> 're-install XP every 6 months' crowd in there too. If you like that sort of
> thing, well, have fun.
I do not play games and I am not overclockers, I do not reinstall XP/Vista
every 6 months (used to do that in the Win95/98SE days). But I do
install new Ubuntu version every 6 months just to keep up (I also keep
the latest LTS version along with the latest version, like 8.04/8.10 now).
> Often they seem to be solving a problem that doesn't exist, like the bloke
> fixing the horrible M$ .DOCX files. Why? They're just zipped XML, the
> latest OO reads them, old Word versions have a converter, and even
> WordPerfect (or Corel whatever) reads them too.
>
But there are different ways to solve the problem. Maybe that is
the beauty or ugliness of the Open Source movement -- everyone
wants to scratch his own itch and creates something new. So there
are many distributions, many programs solving the same problems.
In the end, it comes down to choices and I think it is a good thing
overall.
On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 9:30 PM, Xiaofan Chen <spamBeGonexiaofanc@spam@gmail.com> wrote:
> But there are different ways to solve the problem. Maybe that is
> the beauty or ugliness of the Open Source movement -- everyone
> wants to scratch his own itch and creates something new. So there
> are many distributions, many programs solving the same problems.
> In the end, it comes down to choices and I think it is a good thing
> overall.
But the problem with this is, if we have 100 people eaching making
their own house, we have 100 houses that are mediocre. Instead, if we
get those 100 people and get everyone to pitch in to make one big
apartment, it'll be detailed, complete, high quality and to everyone's
taste.
We have a million different open source programs that do the same
thing but sometimes none of them compare to their commercial
counterpart because each developer does their own thing and there is
very little collaboration.
Take MS Office for example. We have people working on openoffice,
abiword, koffice and a few other office suites. They are all good, but
NOTHING compares to office 2007. As much as I hate to say this, I love
office 2007. It's beautiful, feature rich, user oriented, complete,
high quality, stable and so on. Why? Because we have a handful of
strong developers at microsoft working on the same thing. Wait, not a
handful, a LOT. Now imagine what would happen if we had all the
developers working on KDE only, for example. We would end up with
something a lot better than what we have now.
> On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 9:30 PM, Xiaofan Chen <RemoveMExiaofancspam_OUTgmail.com>
> wrote:
>> But there are different ways to solve the problem. Maybe that is
>> the beauty or ugliness of the Open Source movement -- everyone
>> wants to scratch his own itch and creates something new. So there
>> are many distributions, many programs solving the same problems.
>> In the end, it comes down to choices and I think it is a good thing
>> overall.
>
> But the problem with this is, if we have 100 people eaching making
> their own house, we have 100 houses that are mediocre. Instead, if we
> get those 100 people and get everyone to pitch in to make one big
> apartment, it'll be detailed, complete, high quality and to everyone's
> taste.
Nah, it doesn't work that way... you get an apartment complex with a
leaky roof, carpets that aren't installed straight, trim work that's
peeling off the walls, and plumbing that doesn't work.
Quality coding is quality coding, doesn't matter how big or small the
project is. The "many eyes makes better code" theory only goes so
far. Quality is not related to size. Or as a boss of mine puts
it... "Quality Assurance is not a department, it's a way of doing
business."
You take 100 mediocre coders and put them on the same team, they're
just going to create a bigger mediocre program. They might learn a
bit from one-another, but in general -- the overall quality of the
project isn't going to go up.
This is why in the really successful (big or small) open-source
projects, there's always a small number of "superstar" coders --
they're the ones with the skill and persistence to keep the mid-grade
coders from really messing up the whole project.
>
You can find similar circumstances to back up that observation
(scientifically) in other things, for example professional sports.
Many teams are strong, but they often require one or more superstars
to make it to the playoffs or to win the respective championship
game. This doesn't detract from the team, far from it.
It just disproves your view that taking a bunch of mediocre work and
making it bigger, doesn't necessarily make the resulting code any
better.
Either way, we need good coders who know what they're doing. Part of
the reason that most microsoft products are quality is because of the
tight quality control they have in place. And by tight I mean tight.
In the open source world, we have no such quality control.
solarwind wrote:
> Either way, we need good coders who know what they're doing. Part of
> the reason that most microsoft products are quality is because of the
> tight quality control they have in place. And by tight I mean tight.
>
> In the open source world, we have no such quality control.
>
"tight" != buffer overflow
Well, there is a catch: Linux and Unix-type systems are very solid in
the back end (underneath X and the graphical stuff) whereas winbloze
is really weak and vulnerable there. On the graphics side, X is buggy
and winbloze is solid.
On Monday 06 April 2009 09:30:55 Xiaofan Chen wrote:
> I kind of agree with you. But maybe that was not true when I was
> younger. And from time to time I still like to fix things by myself.
> Just yesterday, I found out that there is an open source Samsung
> SCX-4200 driver and I tried it and it works.
Hey Xiao Fan,
Does the SCX-4200 scanning work as well? I'm tempted to get this printer as it
is being heavily discounted as an older model.
On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 8:00 AM, Shawn Tan <shawn.tanspam_OUTaeste.net> wrote:
>
> Does the SCX-4200 scanning work as well? I'm tempted to get this printer as it
> is being heavily discounted as an older model.
>
Yes it worked with the Samsung driver under Ubuntu Linux last time I tried it.
I have not tried this for a while as now it is only used as a network printer
and it is connected to the Western Digital Mybook World Edition's USB
host port. I have not tried to use it as a network scanner.
It is cheap and quite good. The printer will warn you about "tonner low"
too early but my borther-in-law found a trick to solve that problem. So
we have not used the 2nd laser cartridge yet despite heavy use in
year 2008.
On Tuesday 07 April 2009 09:05:52 Xiaofan Chen wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 8:00 AM, Shawn Tan <RemoveMEshawn.tanKILLspam@spam@aeste.net> wrote:
> > Does the SCX-4200 scanning work as well? I'm tempted to get this printer
> > as it is being heavily discounted as an older model.
>
> Yes it worked with the Samsung driver under Ubuntu Linux last time I tried
> it. I have not tried this for a while as now it is only used as a network
> printer and it is connected to the Western Digital Mybook World Edition's
> USB host port. I have not tried to use it as a network scanner.
>
> It is cheap and quite good. The printer will warn you about "tonner low"
> too early but my borther-in-law found a trick to solve that problem. So
> we have not used the 2nd laser cartridge yet despite heavy use in
> year 2008.
LOL! A trick! You should really share what that involved.
On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 8:44 AM, solarwind <KILLspamx.solarwind.x.....gmail.com> wrote:
> If you install an update manager like shaman, you don't even need to run
> pacman -Syu. And I've never had the problem of Arch Linux breaking when
> upgrading a large number of packages. In my opinion, it's the most
> stable distro out there.
So I just tried Arch yesterday. I want to try out some small installations
using LXDE and XFCE (4.60 was just out). I tried them on a minimum
Ubuntu 8.10 installation and it did not work well even though they
both work fine with a normal Ubuntu 8.10 installation. It is said
that minimum Arch installation works fine with LXDE and XFCE.
The basic Arch installation using the USB flash disk image is
fast as your blog says. Basica setup is fine with editing a few
configuration files with nano. Installation of X is not difficult even
though the wiki forgot to tell me to install the input driver (last time it
is not necessary) so I got no mouse and keyboard initially
and had to hit the power off button (no reset button with this PC).
After the initial setup, I got LXDE and XFCE basically working.
Still I got no sound. Then I decided to try out Gnome first to
see if I am missing something and used Shaman.
Shaman is far away from the smoothness of Synaptic. Long
way to go. Gnome is basically working as well. But still
no sound.
So I guess the first day with Arch is not so good. Worse than
last times I tried it back in 2007 (0.8 through 2007.08).
The good thing is that it really asks you to go deeper
in the configuration. So I get better understanding of
how things work (LXDE is similar, XFCE is now not small).
Anyway, I will try harder to get sound working first
(the device is listed, the mixer is fine, there is just
no sound from any applications). Maybe I need to
go deeper into alsa and fix pulseaudio.
And iBus is not working either. That is another
thing needs to be fixed.
On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 3:25 PM, Xiaofan Chen <spam_OUTxiaofancKILLspamgmail.com> wrote:
> After the initial setup, I got LXDE and XFCE basically working.
> Still I got no sound. Then I decided to try out Gnome first to
> see if I am missing something and used Shaman.
> Shaman is far away from the smoothness of Synaptic. Long
> way to go. Gnome is basically working as well. But still
> no sound.
>
> Then I installed pulseaudio to help to solve the sound problem.
> Unfortunate it is broken: libcap updates broke pulseaudio.
> http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=69750
But I like the abs system, kind of like the FreeBSD ports
system. It is actually quite easy to rebuild a package.
> So I guess the first day with Arch is not so good. Worse than
> last times I tried it back in 2007 (0.8 through 2007.08).
Maybe it is my fault this time.
> The good thing is that it really asks you to go deeper
> in the configuration. So I get better understanding of
> how things work (LXDE is similar, XFCE is now not small).
>
> Anyway, I will try harder to get sound working first
> (the device is listed, the mixer is fine, there is just
> no sound from any applications). Maybe I need to
> go deeper into alsa and fix pulseaudio.
I should have try harder to get alsa working and not
complicated things by using pulseaudio (one more
variable). Anyway, I removed pulseaudio and digged
deeper into alsa and finally got sound working.
> And iBus is not working either. That is another
> thing needs to be fixed.
On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 8:28 PM, Xiaofan Chen <RemoveMExiaofancRemoveMEEraseMEgmail.com> wrote:
>> And iBus is not working either. That is another
>> thing needs to be fixed.
>
> Next thing to do.
Works now after a few minutes of Google search. It seems that I need to
update ~/.profile instead of ~/.bashrc with ibus settings. Strange.
Anyway, I am happy now. Arch seems to be faster in Gnome,
LXDE and XFCE than under Ubuntu 8.10. Maybe it is less
polluted now (less applications installed).
Did you read the beginner's guide in the wiki? That's the article to
read, not the other ones. You need to install alsa and add the alsa
daemon in /etc/rc.conf.
I'm waiting to see the April 23 release of Kubuntu 9.04, it will have
KDE 4.2. Kubuntu has always made changes to the KDE menus and control
panel to make it "Ubuntu". The last Kubuntu release didn't really work
very well on the (virtual) machine I tried it on, but I blame that on
KDE 4.1 more than anything else. Hoping for the best with this new one.
Yes I've read it and done it but it was not working. The volume was right,
the card was listed. But there was only noise from the speakers.
I think it was because the default card was not set right. I have another
TV card which was not working under Linux. After disable the loading of that
module (cx88xx), the sound is working. Take note I do not need to do this
in Ubuntu or Fedora.
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 3:34 AM, Bob Blick <bobblickspamftml.net> wrote:
> I'm waiting to see the April 23 release of Kubuntu 9.04, it will have
> KDE 4.2. Kubuntu has always made changes to the KDE menus and control
> panel to make it "Ubuntu". The last Kubuntu release didn't really work
> very well on the (virtual) machine I tried it on, but I blame that on
> KDE 4.1 more than anything else. Hoping for the best with this new one.
>
(Resend due to PIClist down)
I agree that KDE 4.1 was not working well for 8.10. But I installed the
KDE 4.2.2 from launchpad ppa and it works fine under 8.10.
I will try Ubuntu 9.04 once it is out, normally I will wait for
a few weeks. I like the new notify-osd and I actually tried it
with Ubuntu 8.10 and Fedora 10.
I have tried the 64bit 9.04 beta - it is still have many many bugs - I'd say
that was in Alpha stage, so I have some doubts if it will be ready for 23rd
of April or whatever the deadline was. I think it worth to wait for a while
after they release it as most people will not bother to installing it while
it is in 'beta' but when they say it is 'final' - so I suppose the bug
reports will be higher when it comes out for the first couple of weeks at
least.
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 3:34 AM, Bob Blick <KILLspambobblickspamBeGoneftml.net> wrote:
> > I'm waiting to see the April 23 release of Kubuntu 9.04, it will have
> > KDE 4.2. Kubuntu has always made changes to the KDE menus and control
> > panel to make it "Ubuntu". The last Kubuntu release didn't really work
> > very well on the (virtual) machine I tried it on, but I blame that on
> > KDE 4.1 more than anything else. Hoping for the best with this new one.
> >
> (Resend due to PIClist down)
>
> I agree that KDE 4.1 was not working well for 8.10. But I installed the
> KDE 4.2.2 from launchpad ppa and it works fine under 8.10.
>
> I will try Ubuntu 9.04 once it is out, normally I will wait for
> a few weeks. I like the new notify-osd and I actually tried it
> with Ubuntu 8.10 and Fedora 10.
>
> --
> Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 1:00 AM, Xiaofan Chen <@spam@xiaofancSTOPspam@spam@gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree that KDE 4.1 was not working well for 8.10. But I installed the
> KDE 4.2.2 from launchpad ppa and it works fine under 8.10.
>
> I will try Ubuntu 9.04 once it is out, normally I will wait for
> a few weeks. I like the new notify-osd and I actually tried it
> with Ubuntu 8.10 and Fedora 10.
I just tried Kubuntu Jaunty on my laptop. Flawless. Arch Linux on
destkop. Flawless. And I have a troublesome laptop (Dell 6000 with a
stubborn wireless card).
On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 6:44 PM, solarwind <x.solarwind.xspamBeGonespamBeGonegmail.com> wrote:
> I just tried Kubuntu Jaunty on my laptop. Flawless. Arch Linux on
> destkop. Flawless. And I have a troublesome laptop (Dell 6000 with a
> stubborn wireless card).
I have an old Notebook (Dell 600M, Pentium M 1.30MHz, 256M DDR RAM,
40GB HDD). I was using XP and Fedora 6 on it. The problem is that
the keyboard controller died and it will keep giving out random
characters from time to time (even if I take out the keypads and
disable the keyboard controller in Windows). Do you have some solution
for this under Linux? I have an external USB keyboard.
If this can be solved, I would install Arch with LXDE on it.
On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 12:54 AM, Xiaofan Chen <spamBeGonexiaofancgmail.com> wrote:
> I have an old Notebook (Dell 600M, Pentium M 1.30MHz, 256M DDR RAM,
> 40GB HDD). I was using XP and Fedora 6 on it. The problem is that
> the keyboard controller died and it will keep giving out random
> characters from time to time (even if I take out the keypads and
> disable the keyboard controller in Windows). Do you have some solution
> for this under Linux? I have an external USB keyboard.
>
> If this can be solved, I would install Arch with LXDE on it.
You either have to go into the kernel level or the X input driver. I
remember doing this a while back - but in my case, I was trying to get
the funny media buttons to work. There are certain "codes" for each
key that I believe are unique. So if you can get to them (sorry I
forgot how) then you could disable it. Another way is through the
kernel's hardware interface - just disable the keyboard controller as
a source of input. It can be done - I just forgot how.
So I continue with my Arch Experiment. I removed Gnome, tried LXDE
and XFCE, both work fine. Then I tried slim as per your suggestion,
it is fine. But it is not easy to change language sessions as easy
as gdm. So I reinstalled gdm.
Put network dameon in the background does improve the boot speed
by quite a bit (using dhcp here). Thanks for the tip from Solarwind.
LXDE is really very fast. Now the slowest application to start seems
to be Firefox. I have Java based EIoffice which seems to be much
faster than OpenOffice. XFCE is not as fast but seems to offer more
programs. Still I need to carry on the experiment to see if I can
really avoid Gnome and KDE.
On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 9:00 AM, Xiaofan Chen <spam_OUTxiaofancSTOPspamgmail.com> wrote:
> Summary of my Arch Experiment until yesterday.
> http://mcuee.blogspot.com/2009/04/arch-linux-revisited.html
>
> So I continue with my Arch Experiment. I removed Gnome, tried LXDE
> and XFCE, both work fine. Then I tried slim as per your suggestion,
> it is fine. But it is not easy to change language sessions as easy
> as gdm. So I reinstalled gdm.
>
> Put network dameon in the background does improve the boot speed
> by quite a bit (using dhcp here). Thanks for the tip from Solarwind.
>
> LXDE is really very fast. Now the slowest application to start seems
> to be Firefox. I have Java based EIoffice which seems to be much
> faster than OpenOffice. XFCE is not as fast but seems to offer more
> programs. Still I need to carry on the experiment to see if I can
> really avoid Gnome and KDE.
If you want to be hardcore, all you need is Openbox and tint2 for the
panel and a systray of your choice. Starts up faster than X itself :)
I hate you guys, you made me to try the KDE already, now have to try LXDE
too :-)
Anyways, I was so surprised that KDE has pretty much the same memory
requirements than Gnome, I thought it needs way more than that. And it looks
definitely better, have much more applications and little things that
probably nobody really needs but nice to have :-) BTW: the Krusader is
really nice, and also Kdevelop looks very useful - it even has a PIC asm
syntax highlight, and maybe with the code snipplets I can create frequently
used code insertations quicker. Hmm, maybe have to install gputils and all
those stuff to gie it a try... Ehh, too much thigs to do, too less time to
done :-)
> Summary of my Arch Experiment until yesterday.
> http://mcuee.blogspot.com/2009/04/arch-linux-revisited.html
>
> So I continue with my Arch Experiment. I removed Gnome, tried LXDE
> and XFCE, both work fine. Then I tried slim as per your suggestion,
> it is fine. But it is not easy to change language sessions as easy
> as gdm. So I reinstalled gdm.
>
> Put network dameon in the background does improve the boot speed
> by quite a bit (using dhcp here). Thanks for the tip from Solarwind.
>
> LXDE is really very fast. Now the slowest application to start seems
> to be Firefox. I have Java based EIoffice which seems to be much
> faster than OpenOffice. XFCE is not as fast but seems to offer more
> programs. Still I need to carry on the experiment to see if I can
> really avoid Gnome and KDE.
>
> --
> Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com
On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 11:48 AM, Tamas Rudnai <TakeThisOuTtamas.rudnaispamRemoveMEgmail.com> wrote:
> I hate you guys, you made me to try the KDE already, now have to try LXDE
> too :-)
>
> Anyways, I was so surprised that KDE has pretty much the same memory
> requirements than Gnome, I thought it needs way more than that. And it looks
> definitely better, have much more applications and little things that
> probably nobody really needs but nice to have :-) BTW: the Krusader is
> really nice, and also Kdevelop looks very useful - it even has a PIC asm
> syntax highlight, and maybe with the code snipplets I can create frequently
> used code insertations quicker. Hmm, maybe have to install gputils and all
> those stuff to gie it a try... Ehh, too much thigs to do, too less time to
> done :-)
>
> Tamas
LXDE, in my opinion is a waste of time because it is just a collection
of other software out there bundled up in a package. Yes, it's fast,
but so is Openbox and Fluxbox with tint2. And ya, KDE4.2 rocks and
KDevelop needs time to become stable again.
On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 11:55 PM, solarwind <KILLspamx.solarwind.xspamspam_OUTgmail.com> wrote:
> LXDE, in my opinion is a waste of time because it is just a collection
> of other software out there bundled up in a package. Yes, it's fast,
> but so is Openbox and Fluxbox with tint2. And ya, KDE4.2 rocks and
> KDevelop needs time to become stable again.
LXDE is getting better if you look at the website. I am okay with
the missing Recyclebin. pcmanfm is actually better than Thunar
of XFCE. That being said, you are right that it does not offer too
much right now. XFCE looks more integrated now but the memory
footprint is getting bigger.
I tried Openbox with some lightweight panels (including lxpanel,
pypanel, fbpanel, etc) and find that LXDE seems to be better.
I agree KDE 4.2 looks good. Take note I do not like kDE 3.x especially
under Ubuntu/Fedora, therefore I do not use really use KDE for a long
time. Sometimes I do not even bother to install it.
Now I have KDE 4.2 installed in Fedora 10 and Ubuntu 8.10, both
are running fine. Still I have not used it extensively to really say I like it.
On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 7:30 PM, Xiaofan Chen <xiaofancRemoveMEgmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe Gnome 3 will be as revolutionary as KDE 4.
I sure hope so. But to make that happen, they need GTK3. Qt4 is what
made KDE4. Gnome3 needs GTK3. GTK2 is too primitive. You cant even get
a menubar mouseover in this toolkit - how annoying.
Guys, for me the KDE and even KDE 4.2 is a big no after all my tests on my
machine. There were so many small things that annoyed me. I even installed
Kubuntu 8.10 and then upgraded to 4.2 following the official instructions
but I had so many troubles including once or twice the X crashed after
logging in from the KDM. That NEVER happened with Gnome!
So I am back to Gnome... I think it's the end of my play time, and now have
to work again :-)
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 7:30 PM, Xiaofan Chen <spam_OUTxiaofancRemoveMEEraseMEgmail.com> wrote:
> > Maybe Gnome 3 will be as revolutionary as KDE 4.
>
> I sure hope so. But to make that happen, they need GTK3. Qt4 is what
> made KDE4. Gnome3 needs GTK3. GTK2 is too primitive. You cant even get
> a menubar mouseover in this toolkit - how annoying.
> -
On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 4:27 PM, Tamas Rudnai <TakeThisOuTtamas.rudnaiRemoveME@spam@gmail.com> wrote:
> Guys, for me the KDE and even KDE 4.2 is a big no after all my tests on my
> machine. There were so many small things that annoyed me. I even installed
> Kubuntu 8.10 and then upgraded to 4.2 following the official instructions
> but I had so many troubles including once or twice the X crashed after
> logging in from the KDM. That NEVER happened with Gnome!
>
> So I am back to Gnome... I think it's the end of my play time, and now have
> to work again :-)
I did not use it so often so I have not encounter stability issue. And I do
not use KDM, I always use gdm. By the way I was under the
impression that KDE under Ubuntu was always a bit inferior to the
Gnome counterpart. Other distros (I tried OpenSuse and PCLinux)
seemed to do better jobs in KDE. But that is just my personal
opinion.
> I did not use it so often so I have not encounter stability issue. And I do
> not use KDM, I always use gdm. By the way I was under the
> impression that KDE under Ubuntu was always a bit inferior to the
> Gnome counterpart. Other distros (I tried OpenSuse and PCLinux)
> seemed to do better jobs in KDE. But that is just my personal
> opinion.
>
Well, I was using Suse - aka 'original Suse' before Novell bought them up -
and was using KDE. I really disliked Gnome by that time.
KDE was so much better. But now it seems everything is upside down. KDE is
visually more entertaining, but they changed the file manager which I do not
like, and I could not find a real advantage over Gnome. Gnome at least was
working fine with my twin monitor environment, KDE failed on that too
(altough I could move the mouse cursor over the othe screen having the
original aka. pure X cursor over there). KDE has this applet thingy similar
to MacOS, but then I could not get it activated by pressing the wheel (as it
was pressing the ball on a Mac mouse. And also when I upgraded to the 4.2
there were big red X on some items on the desktop saying some components are
missing or misconfigured. Well, I just upgraded following the procedure, so
I guess the error is not in the user...
Also what annoyed me is that the selecion followed the mouse but as a slow
reaction.
Anyway, I stuck to Gnome for a while, I had no time left for further playing
around the OS.
On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 6:52 PM, Tamas Rudnai <tamas.rudnaispam_OUT@spam@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, I was using Suse - aka 'original Suse' before Novell bought them up -
> and was using KDE. I really disliked Gnome by that time.
The initial KDE was of course better than the initial Gnome. But once
Gnome 2.0 was out, I liked Gnome better than KDE.
> KDE was so much better.
I do not agree, at least I do not quite like KDE 3.x which many
KDE people likes. I have not found any real advantages
of KDE 3.x over Gnome 2.2x even under the Linux
distros I considered with better KDE implementation
than Kubuntu. BTW, I do not like the name Kubuntu (or Xubuntu)
either, it is just Ubuntu with KDE (or XFCE).
> But now it seems everything is upside down. KDE is
> visually more entertaining, but they changed the file manager which
> I do not like, and I could not find a real advantage over Gnome.
That is true. So far I have not found any real advantages of
KDE 4.2 over Gnome 2.2x other than visual appeal. But
to me that is something new. ;-) So at least I would give
it a try. I do not like Dolphin. I do not like Konqueror either...
Actually I prefer pcmanfm or nautilus under KDE...
On the other hand, I like LXDE so far.Very fast. But there
is a catch, I would still install Gnome along with LXDE
so that I can still run Gnome applications if necessary.
On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 7:49 AM, solarwind <.....x.solarwind.xspam.....gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 7:30 PM, Xiaofan Chen <xiaofancKILLspamEraseMEgmail.com> wrote:
>> Maybe Gnome 3 will be as revolutionary as KDE 4.
>
> I sure hope so. But to make that happen, they need GTK3. Qt4 is what
> made KDE4. Gnome3 needs GTK3. GTK2 is too primitive. You cant even get
> a menubar mouseover in this toolkit - how annoying.
BTW, interestingly I have issues with IE8 with this site. I have not
Vista for a week so I decided to use it again. One object is also is to
confirm cdb's great findings of MPLAB update date bug. ;-)
>> But now it seems everything is upside down. KDE is
>> visually more entertaining, but they changed the file manager which
>> I do not like, and I could not find a real advantage over Gnome.
>
> That is true. So far I have not found any real advantages of
> KDE 4.2 over Gnome 2.2x other than visual appeal. But
> to me that is something new. ;-) So at least I would give
> it a try. I do not like Dolphin. I do not like Konqueror either...
> Actually I prefer pcmanfm or nautilus under KDE...
>
I was playing with Arch for the past few days and came back
to KDE and felt like my KDE 4.2.2 experiment would end very
soon. The startup is slow. The logout is slow. Initially it was
more smooth under Fedora, now KDE 4.2 behaves the same
under Fedora and Ubuntu. Worst is that console-helper hangs
under KDE for Fedora and Google does not tell me the answer...
On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Xiaofan Chen <@spam@xiaofancspamKILLspamgmail.com> wrote:
>
> I was playing with Arch for the past few days and came back
> to KDE and felt like my KDE 4.2 experiment would end very
> soon. The startup is slow. The logout is slow. Initially it was
> more smooth under Fedora, now KDE 4.2 behaves the same
> under Fedora and Ubuntu. Worst is that console-helper hangs
> under KDE for Fedora and Google does not tell me the answer...
>
> Anyway, I would still give it a try...
>
KDE 4.2 under Ubuntu 8.10 is still not too bad even though
the startup/logout are slower. KDE 4.2 under Fedora 10 is
worse and with the console-helper bug.
Since Arch seems to be faster than Fedora 10 and Ubuntu 8.10.
So I installed KDE 4.2 under Arch Linux. The speed of startup
is similar, but the logout is faster than FC10 and Ubutu. The
programs still spit out various warning messages.
All in all, KDE 4.2 is not ready for prime time. But it at least
gives me some incentives to use it. Over the time, it may
be polished further and it might catch up Gnome in terms
of stability and wins over Gnome over features.
badtech.org> wrote:
