Disqus - Latest Comments for whitetigersx

Re: Challenged

whitetigersx — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:00:47 -0000

Add of course, if you've been vigilant in your back-ups then you may have backed yourself into the same situation, the malware is in your backup.

Re: Challenged

whitetigersx — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:59:01 -0000

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1...

"Novell wants the community to pick up maintenance and development of AppArmor. But tossing it in the wind and hoping is not good enough assurance for me, so now it's my business to go find sponsors who are willing to pay for AppArmor development," Cowan said.

Re: Challenged

whitetigersx — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:44:41 -0000

edit WorksForMe(tm)

edit: see...

Re: Challenged

whitetigersx — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:42:26 -0000

Phillip has you on the broadband issue.

And I have cable, a fresh vanilla install of openSUSE takes about 45 minutes on an AMD x64 dual processor with 2 gb RAM. Then I have to connect the ethernet cable because linux doesn't support Atheros cards on install. The recommended updates takes about another 45 minutes. Then I have to fight with madwifi to get my wireless working - I still can't get it to work on openSUSE 11.0, and I didn't have the time between homework to figure it out so I'm sticking with 10.3 right now.
My windows installs (unless I'm using one of those annoying recovery disks) takes about 1 hr total.

Also, your link does state 1 billion users by 2008... but are you aware that the Earth's population is well on it's way to 6 billion. So no broadband is not a staple of the average global household.

Re: Challenged

whitetigersx — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:40:41 -0000

Then a good thing will have happened, being that these problems get noticed and fixed. The question is whether or not those same developers will change their habits and start making the changes when the average user reports them.

Re: Rants and Laughs

whitetigersx — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:47:04 -0000

ummmm, Lol, he does have a point. He is talking about the mainstream, and as soon as you mention "I am a software engineer." you take a side stream.

He's not talking about the IT domain, he's talking about the corporate domain, and right now on the desktop linux barely enters into the equation of the corporate, non-IT, non-developer, computer literate world.

That doesn't mean that the IT world as a whole is that small. And honestly your attitude about the mainstream user is exactly what LH rants about.

"No, I do not care much about the problems of the mainstream corporate user."

That is no different from WorksForMe(tm). The mainstream corporate user is the reason that developers have jobs, so please get over yourself.

Re: Rants and Laughs

whitetigersx — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:38:34 -0000

But are you going around evangelizing about how great that FOSS is, especially in a desktop environment?

Re: Rants and Laughs

whitetigersx — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:04:07 -0000

And of course there's the fact that it's not the browser it's the web page usually.

http://www.joelonsoftware.c...

Gives a good example of why standards can be a tough thing to get perfect. I've actually had more web pages break in firefox than in IE(any version). While I like firefox and many of the add-ons that it has it's definitely no worse than firefox.

Re: Rants and Laughs

whitetigersx — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:55:06 -0000

And of course I pay a lot of money for IE. Shoot that's half of my yearly technology budget.

Re: One bug report to rule them all

whitetigersx — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:51:48 -0000

submit a bug report, they're stuck in an infinite loop.

Re: One bug report to rule them all

whitetigersx — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:43:38 -0000

"minor differences in applying commands, which cause the difference in results."

you mean that my OS is even more non-deterministic than usual. I can't even get the same results using the same command in different distros... sign me up, I never wanted a consistent and stable OS anyway.

Re: One bug report to rule them all

whitetigersx — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:18:53 -0000

No, you're right, the average user should instinctively know how to get all of the information that the devs need. It just ahppens when you install linux.

The point isn't that LH is too lazy to report the bugs it's that he's disillusioned with the attitudes of the devs towards the average user of computers. They don't know anything about debug symbols, or fixing a problem by running the following fix program.

{ bool bugReport(true);
while (bugReport)
{worksForMe()};
}.

Most people don't know the first thing about terminal, and since it's all about the end user the bug reports can definitely be an epic fail.

Re: One bug report to rule them all

whitetigersx — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:16:38 -0000

Yay for bug reporters! The are the wave of the future... just hopefully they know what they have to to.

Re: Rants heard 'round the community ver. 10

whitetigersx — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:44:51 -0000

On the other hand proprietary software has to meet those same criteria and also turn a profit (generally speaking) or at least be useful

True, but that drive behind it means that it's going to get more than a few hours a night in attention (if that much) if the dev starts going to late into the night they start making more and more mistakes - the normal person can't code effectively for hours and hours on end.

Which brings up a question. Much of the time spent developing a program requires a series of steps. 1) getting the requirements from the user and analyizing them, 2) taking that analysis and creating a roughed out version of pseudocode and an initial list of class/function/variable/etc..., 3) only after all this is done does it begin to be coded, troubleshot, recoded, etc... until they have a fairly shiny turd that they can release to the public.

So the question is, when people are potentially thousands of miles apart, how effectively are they collaborating on all three steps?

Re: Rants heard 'round the community ver. 10

whitetigersx — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:34:24 -0000

The basis of FOSS is a rip of of UNIX. RMS and crew decided that they wanted to us Unix -but not have to pay for it. (Sure they said they wanted to have more control, but c'mon they just didn't want to pay for, and still get a chance to look at everyone's code.

So they went about copying every single bit of Unix, thing is they couldn't get a kernel. Along came Linus and voila they have a viable working Unix rip off. So the very heart of the FOSS movement is based off of stealing other peoples ideas, making functional( not better, just operational) copies of them and saying it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Re: Rants heard 'round the community ver. 10

whitetigersx — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:00:01 -0000

It all looks so good, my Vista Aero looks like crap compared to that.

Gotta' love the fact that this is a public release that is currently defective by design - they admit that it there are plenty of features that don't work yet, and who knows, we might not even keep some. I wonder if they took any general user input, or just what they devs wanted.

On a side note, I've never liked the up and down arrows for maximize and minimize. They make me think I'm waiting for an elevator.

Re: Rants heard 'round the community ver. 10

whitetigersx — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:46:41 -0000

90% of all computer problems are located between the keyboard and the chair.

Re: Rants heard 'round the community ver. 10

whitetigersx — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:41:46 -0000

You failed to read the part where he had only been using it for all of 48 hours. I personally have thought very similar things when I start using a new operating system/interface. Part of it is breaking out of the groove that you got into with your previous OS/interface.

You then failed to read the part where he said that he has had many similar problems with windows and MacOS. He never said that this was just about how bad Ubuntu is, just some general observations... as a user... you know the people that a software designer (completely different from a script kiddy or random programmer) needs to know in order to improve. And the linux community in general is fairly flacid on this. "Submit a bug report" (in the circular file, you know the little round metal can by my desk), or better yet "submit a patch" (hmmmm, let's just make all of this stuff patches instead of stopping everything, cleaning it all up and making sure it works effectively and efficently.) How about the number of times that new users get a reams worth of technical jargon that sums up to worksForMe().

Most people don't need or want to see a verbose boot and shut down screen. Don't tell me this unless I ask for it, but make sure you write it to a log so that I can check it every now and then just to make sure.

Re: Rants heard 'round the community ver. 10

whitetigersx — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:06:43 -0000

Do you honestly believe that those problems have managed to fix themselves over the past 6 years? Those types of problems are systemic and won't just correct themselves because it's open source and will only get better. Problems like those will only get worse in an absence of some true form of leadership, someone who steps in and says this is how it has to be done to be not only efficent but also consistent.

The chaos theory of the bazaar is true in that it will create some good logical and innovative programs. But this is chaos, it causes more crap to fly out than the odd gem.

Perhaps you've been reading a different blog, but this isn't so much whining about how I can't get my wireless/video/sound/drives/APCI/printer... to work quite right as it is satyrizing the zealots who mindlessly defend something that they don't have a firm grasp on. Nothing is perfect and by defending to the death that it worksForMe() is just one of th reasons why the bazaar doesn't work .

Yes you get more eyes on the project, but human nature has a tendency to pop up about the time that the individual gets it working for themselves. When a program 's only documentation is a wiki/post written by a user there might be a few problems. There can be the tendency to either be too superficial or too technical, that's why a project with funding can take the time to have the documentation vetted by some people who don't know the inner workings of the software.

p.s. There's this great key called return/enter, it's great for breaking an argument into this other interesting concept called sentence and paragraph structure. The eye has a tendency to skip over most of a paragraph if it is too long.

Re: Lusers make me laugh ver.4

whitetigersx — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:57:32 -0000

most probably don't have a clue about good software development practices.

Re: Lusers make me laugh ver.4

whitetigersx — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:48:26 -0000

if (worksForMe())
failOnMoreThanOneLevel();

Re: Lusers make me laugh ver.4

whitetigersx — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:42:13 -0000

"Commercial
Please don't use “commercial” as a synonym for “non-free.” That confuses two entirely different issues.

A program is commercial if it is developed as a business activity. "

Isn't windows and most non-free software developed as a business. I mean as long as business still means trying to make some money from your work by selling something.

Re: Foxnews^H^H^H^Hconn conspiracy

whitetigersx — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:54:42 -0000

Yeah, because it's a great idea to provide out of the box support for one operating system. I mean if those Tyan motherboards only supported Windows then I suppose that would be ok? Nobody is going to get upset because the motherboard doesn't directly support another operating system without having to jump through a couple of hoops?

Or it could be that most Windows users would say, I'm mad, I don't like that. I'm taking this back and getting something that does what I want it to do. Instead of the knee-jerk reaction that it's some conspiracy targeted directly at one operating system and demand that they support them out of the box.

Perhaps the reason that Foxconn didn't bother with a valid linux check is because they can't figure out what the hell to look for.

Re: Foxnews^H^H^H^Hconn conspiracy

whitetigersx — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:42:40 -0000

I've never experienced hardware problems on any of my windows machines - from 3.1 to Vista Home Premium. My wireless, video (including 3d), sound, power management, usb, drive mounting just work on windows.

Linux, my atheros 5007EG still won't work under OpenSUSE, Fedora 9, Ubuntu. This is using the most current madwifi drivers that are supposed to just work. Not for 64 bit, not enough people with x64 and ahteros cards I guess. And yet it's supposed to just work. My audio is sketchy at best on Ubuntu - it turned out that for awhile my realtek audio card wasn't supported, my video card, 3d supported ATI yeah it works, but not for 3d. Why not? there isn't enough desire for 3d technology?

And then, when I update the kernel I have to try and reinstall various software, and hardware. No consistancy as to what breaks - except the wireless, that usually breaks. Windows, I don't have to update the kernel regularly to keep up with new hardware and such. Never had to reinstall my software or hardware because it suddenly stopped working in Windows.

BSOD's, yeah I've had those and they've been issues with the driver. But it boots back up right and starts running everything again. My wireless doesn't stop working and doesn't start back up if I reboot.

Linux is not the devil, neither is Windows, but unlike linux Windows has organization, it responds to customers in much more meaningful ways, it has a more usable stability for the desktop environment. At least as far as the average user is concerned. For them it just works.... that's not copyright infringment is it? Or could that be considered fair use?

Re: Foxnews^H^H^H^Hconn conspiracy

whitetigersx — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:30:44 -0000

Since Linux calls itself as Windows is how it works on all those boards. The question isn't why do manufactures do this, but why doesn't the *nix community create some standard that the manufactures can test against? I've heard linux had to start calling itself windows because it's too much of a moving target otherwise. In otherwords, they can't meet standards because they want to change at a moments notice - damn stability of the system, we have to innovate for innovations sake. I'm sure that the *nix community will fix the issue of having to call itself windows for acpi to work right "eventually".