 |
 |
|
|
| |
| |
| |
|
Statistics |
| Unique Visitors: 415 |
| Total Unique Visitors: 5659956 |
| Visitors Out: 357 |
| Total Visitors Out: 357 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| Rants and Laughs 4 |
| 2008-09-02 23:58:00 |
Got a whole bunch of 'em queued up for you guys tonight.8 reasons why every computing student will love Linux. If you're a student out there and reading this... don't fall for it! They're just trying to harvest your boredom to do work for them.Moving from Mac to Ubuntu: Why I'm switching. Wow, she's changing her whole OS over a file manager and some panels. Complete with the standard luser comments.A nice little rant from jimmac. Another "I'm so proud" post. I see that, in no time, Linux has become the OS for annoying and condescending grandsons.An autopackage dev gives up on Linux.In case you haven't see it, a bit more on Ryan Farmer, of the Foxconn BIOS (non-)issue fame. mjg's observations. Farmer complaining about being banned from Ubuntu forums. And his very own blog.Who knew? CrossOv...
|
| |
|
| National Convention of Anarchy |
| 2008-08-25 23:54:00 |
What else happens every four years other than the olympics? Why, the DNC!OMGWTF! I can't view the videos using Linux! EPIC FAIL!Slashtards. Seriously, how do you keep doing it? How do you stay so inspired? I find myself struggling to keep up.First of all, they do support Windows and Mac. So, that's like 99% of all computers. Why don't we first worry about the people who don't have computers, instead of worrying about the 1% of computer users who just like being fucking annoying.But that last 1%, don't we care about them too? or wait just a second, do the Democrats not care about lusers? Could it be? Such an intelligent, polite crowd? What if they are the swing vote? Doesn't their quest for freedom synergize with the Democratic message? Don't we want them on our side?Even though their numbe...
|
| |
|
| Certified to suck |
| 2008-08-22 17:10:00 |
Hey guys. Turns out, I had the awesome privilege to look in to Linux certification this past week. You know, like how when Novell says SUSE runs well on some laptops, then, well, it should? Well, turns out they have a funny definition of "well".So umm, lets see, say I'm looking at HP's certification page, and I decide the 6510b is the one I want. Oh, look, it's certified by Novell. But you know, I'm thorough, so let me check out the certification report.Nice, this thing is YES CERTIFIED. Ok. So far so good. Let me take a look under the Tested Configuration spec. Desktop Effect Enabled? Yes. Cool. Power Management? Also Yes. Sweet. That means I'm set to go right?Oh, what are these Config Notes?1) Intel 865GM graphics needs to install seperately, please d...
|
| |
|
| Challenged |
| 2008-08-07 00:59:00 |
Yay. A challenge. But before I start, let me point out a few mistakes you've already made:You commented on my blog.You replied to another commenter. (Hell, even I know not to do that)You challenged me.You know, I don't even know if I want to spend so much time on this. It looks like commenters on your blog already called you on your bullshit. There's not really much for me to add. But I'll try anyways.I’m a system administrator, and I want to get XP and Ubuntu installed as quickly as possible on as many machines as possible. What flexibility do I have with the Windows XP Professional CD as far as meeting this need? Well, as far as I can see, I only have the CD to do the install. I have to sit through each screen by hand, clicking through the dialogs one by one until the install finishes....
|
| |
|
| Rants and Laughs |
| 2008-08-05 13:02:00 |
Argh. I'm getting way behind on these things, so I'm combining the Rants and Laughs posts into one series. I can feel that we're getting closer and closer to becoming the anti-slashdot. Perhaps ~/. is an appropriate way to refer to this site.First the rants:Aaron Toponce talks about immaturity in the Linux community. What you say? Lusers are often ignorant, arrogant, and unhelpful? Blasphemy!Vertical panel's in GNOME suck. What you say? Half baked features in open source software? Again, Blasphemy!Justin Carmony asks, why are some open source advocates hypocrites?Fun with a Debian InstallThis one has made the rounds, but in case you missed it, Matthew Paul Thomas discusses why Free Software has poor usability. Though he's much too polite for my taste.Scott James Remnant on why LSB will con...
|
| |
|
| One bug report to rule them all |
| 2008-08-04 15:32:00 |
Whatup y'all. I hope I haven't worn out all those refresh buttons on your browsers. Just because I don't post for a few days, y'all want to declare the death of this blog? You wish.Anyways, today I'm talkin' about one of the community's crown jewels: bug trackers. We've heard it all before. Open bug tracking increases collaboration, transparency, and saves lives of poor, hungry children, etc.But guess what? take a look at the bug trackers out there. They're mostly full of hogwash. Most of the bug reports go something like this...Johnny User writes...Hi. I'm trying to use ellipticaljerk-0.3.2, but my speakers make a farting sound when I click the jerk button. Then it crashes. Is this a bug?Sammy Developer writes...Hi Johnny. The jerk button works for me.Bug...
|
| |
|
| Foxnews^H^H^H^Hconn conspiracy |
| 2008-07-27 22:37:00 |
What's up ass-captains? I've been very fortunate to be able to watch you guys shit your panties about this Foxconn thing, only to have the whole thing disputed. Leave it to the luser mob to create a whole movement out of some stupid bug.But I'm not going to let you go that easily. You see, the saddest part is, you guys don't even realize how we all got into this whole mess in the beginning. OMGWTF! This motherboard's BIOS doesn't work w/Linux! Given that you know at least a Slashdot article's worth of information about how Linux distributions work, how did you expect it to work in the first place?Seriously. Just think about it from Foxconn's perspective for two fucking seconds. What exactly are they supposed to do? If they want to test a motherboard with Linux, which Linux do they test it ...
|
| |
|
| Lusers make me laugh ver. 3 |
| 2008-07-25 18:50:00 |
More laughs.One Week with an OpenMoko FreerunnerThe system it comes with, even after upgrading, is still very rough. It mostly works for doing phone calls and SMSsDamn. That's hot shit. SMSs.But, as this is free software, there is hope that this will be fixed eventually."Eventually". If there ever was a FOSS motto, that must be it.GCompris, some open source educational software with an interesting license: In order to promote the use of GNU/Linux, the windows version has a limited number of activities.Hurray for promoting free software with cripple-ware!Things I did this week with Ubuntu 8.04. Holy shit man. All that? If every Windows user wrote a blog post everytime they did the same things, the internets would run out of disk space.Moblin dumps Ubuntu for Fedora the move to Fedora was a...
|
| |
|
| The fallacy of choice |
| 2008-07-16 23:49:00 |
I'm sure by now I don't really have to describe in detail this phenomenon: Whenever you criticize a luser about his choice of OS, he'll inevitably come back with, "at least it gives me choices." Choice in window manager, choice in terminal application, choice in file manager, choice in desktop environment, choice in kernel version, you name it.This "choice", as loudly as it is trumpeted, is a key reason that Linux has not made it on the desktop. Let me attempt to show you why.Every argument for "choice" is usually accompanied by a statement along the lines of, "there are many different kinds of users that prefer different choices, therefore we need to support all of them." In terms of distribution of choices, given 10 choices, this statement implies the following type of distribution.In ot...
|
| |
|
| Don't feed the trolls! |
| 2008-07-15 19:19:00 |
Looks like this Manu guy took the bait.Let's just see what he has to say, shall we? (sorry, many blockquotes to follow)Is your system unstable? “Who knew. When a system doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t crash.” All of Google runs Linux. So Google doesn’t do anything? Well that’s news. Nasa probably doesn’t do anything either? The French administration doesn’t do anything? Oh wait, that was a bad example.Holy crap. I've never heard this argument before! You know what, I'll help you out. The NYSE runs Linux too! That's really great to know. I'll be sure to recommend Linux to my grandma next time she wants to set up a global stock exchange in her knitting room.Lusers always like to find instances of companies or organizations with extremely uncommon Linux use cases and somehow s...
|
| |
|
| What is KDE? |
| 2008-07-09 22:11:00 |
Administrative note: Google banned my ads! WTF? Anywhow, they've totally earned a spot on my lame lusers list. So instead, you can check out some LHB merch. Not much there yet. We can do a T-shirt design contest or something lame like that.So, once in a while, some random person (lets say my poor old grandma) will ask me, "What is KDE?". I'm too lazy to try to come up with an explanation myself, so instead I refer to the What is KDE page. Surely, it's linked right off the front page, so it should be perfect to explain to lay people what KDE is all about, right?I'll just start at the top.KDE or the K Desktop Environment, is a network transparent contemporary desktop environment for UNIX workstations. Woah. I think you lost my grandma already. She probably thinks its some kind of kinky see-t...
|
| |
|
| Turn your head and KOffice |
| 2008-07-08 20:42:00 |
You know, just when I thought it couldn't get any worse with OpenOffice, along come the KDE folks with yet another office suite.Why? Seriously? Why? goddamnit. Every line of code you guys write for KOffice is a line of code that could have gone into improving OpenOffice. Please know that you are probably doing the world more harm than good by working on this.Maybe someone thinks that if Linux has like 3 billion office suites, then it can finally take over MS Office? I mean, there's so much choice. Who could possibly resist?KWord. It like, totally integrates with your desktop. Like it uses the same icons. And colors. Cool. It can also show me garbled versions of documents that people send me. With fonts and colors that are consistent with my desktop. Sweet. Oh, and it's based on frames, app...
|
| |
|
| (Ubuntu) Rants (?) heard 'round the community, ver 8 |
| 2008-06-28 14:46:00 |
Damn. I thought putting Gentoo as a choice in the poll would totally skew the results, but looks like Ubuntu is holding strong.In honor of Ubuntu, here's a few links to make you feel warm an fuzzy about this awesome distro.Hardy Heron makes Ivan Kuznetsov think about getting a MacMatt Cutts' yet another list of shit that's broken in Hardy. Seriously guys, do I sense a pattern?Polishlinux.org says Hardy isn't quite there yet (scroll down to the part "Hard time with Heron"). BTW? Is it Polish as in the country? or polish as in the verb? Time for another poll?Finally, Markus Amersdorfer likes to document all the time he's wasted with various versions of Ubuntu, getting things to work that should have just worked in the first place (like Flash or java) But I'm sure all the newbs out there will...
|
| |
|
| I can has encryption too? |
| 2008-06-25 00:49:00 |
Wow. I didn't even know about this one until a coworker pointed it out to me today.There are three main security/encryption/certificate libraries on Linux. Yep, three. That's two more choices than we need. Hurray?There's the famous OpenSSL, which lots of both proprietary companies and free software projects use.Then there's the freetard gnutls, because you know, GNU/free is more free than free. Seriously, they wrote another implementation because they couldn't deal with the fact that while OpenSSL was BSD licensed, it required that they OpenSSL project be advertised in derivative works. Hey check it, I got this great idea: I want to clone a useful and carefully developed library just so that nobody can tell me how to give the authors credit. Who's with...
|
| |
|
| Die in a Fire! Burn in Hell! |
| 2008-06-24 15:19:00 |
Do you find using Linux painful? Is it like being in hell? Well at least now you can make the visual experience match the psychological one. Hurray for choice!I vote for this to be the new default Ubuntu theme. It would give potential users a fair heads up about what they're getting themselves into. Someone quick! file an "idea" on the brainstorm site!
...
|
| |
|
| Run Forrest Run! |
| 2008-06-23 23:45:00 |
Administrative note: check out the widget on your right to vote on the distro you hate the most! (feed subscribers, you'll have to visit the page, since Blogger doesn't let me put the poll into the main feed). In a week or so, we will have a little party to announce the most hated Linux distro. A sort of, anti-distrowatch if you will.Back to ranting. Once upon a time, there was the conservative computer user. He'd get his hardware set up, his software set up, get it all working, then not change a thing for as long as he could. The only time he'd change anything was when he wanted some new functionality so bad, that he was willing to forget all his principles just to obtain it. And when he did so, he made sure to change as little as possible.Actually, it turns out most computer users are li...
|
| |
|
| Quickie |
| 2008-06-21 14:06:00 |
Unfortunately, don't have any time to post anything today. I've got a social event to attend.But I will leave you with a quick quote that comes from one of the most senior engineers at my workplace. This guy is as anti-microsoft as you can get, but he also doesn't give two shits about how to configure a Linux system. We recently helped him install Ubuntu Hardy because his old FC3 install was getting a little long in the tooth. After a day or so of Q&A (because Debian-based systems are so different from Red Hat-like ones, for no reason) he came around to trying to install is trusty old text editor from source, and realized that Ubuntu doesn't have any dev libraries installed. We explained to him how Ubuntu is more user-oriented and so doesn't have a lot of the traditional developer supp...
|
| |
|
| Those crazy Austrians |
| 2008-06-17 23:55:00 |
I've been seeing a bunch of freetards trumpeting up their victory in Munich for a while now. They don't talk too much about Vienna though, which was a complete clusterfuck.I found an article that provides some deep, super deep, I mean all the way up in ya ovaries deep, analysis of what happened.Their first, huge mistake was their attempt to roll out their own GNU/Linux distribution called Wienux.Hmm, why does that sound so typical?But you know, it's nice that y'all talk all kinds of garbage about how open source lets you fork shit and how that's better than having sex with your neighbor's poodle, but then when a deployment fucks up? you come back and slam them for forking, as if it was the dumbest idea in the first place, and that it was soooo obvious.Back in 2003, Microsoft and the German...
|
| |
|
| Melancholy and the Infinite Suckiness |
| 2008-06-17 15:50:00 |
My rant energy meter is feeling a little low today, so I'll go with a more melancholy tone.Sometimes watching Linux people just makes you sad and depressed.For example, you get to see Linus (the god damn creator of the OS himself) unable to get flash working. Dude, Linus, three words: works for me.Or you get to see upstream and downstream be so friendly towards each other.Or you get to see core system components bit rot because nobody cares.Or you get to see hackers that are totally out of touch with ordinary users. (dude is that a mullet? and btw, people were using webcams ages ago)Sigh. Keep trying guys. You're almost there. I can just feel it.edit: Argh, fixed that last link.
...
|
| |
|
| Rants (?) heard 'round the community, ver 6 |
| 2008-06-16 14:38:00 |
Some IT guy's kid hates Linux. Looks like the legion of freedom already got to this one though.Awesome dude. You foisted Ubuntu 64bit onto your unsuspecting child. Isn't that some form of child abuse? Citizen's arrest, anyone?Anyways, a few days later, he writes another post saying his kid doesn't exactly want to boink the 32bit version either.Why do I get the feeling that it's just childspeak for "I hate you dad, but I don't have the guts to say it. Please at least stop wasting my time."But this guy forgot the cardinal rule of how to be a luser. If a potential convert claims that they can't do XYZ with Linux, tell them that they don't really need to do XYZ anyways. Geez. What an undiscplined child. You would have figured he'd know how to compile his kernel by now. Anyone got some spare Ritalin?
...
|
| |
|
| How to be a Linux user |
| 2008-06-14 13:29:00 |
I'm sure all of this is already in y'all's blood. But you know, I figured I should write it down for all the noobs out there. They need to learn how to behave properly as a luser.If something doesn't work for you, tell yourself that you don't really need it anyways.Convert at least five others to user your distribution of choice. Even against their will. Do whatever it takes. Lie about how it makes such a great OS. Tell them the people at the NYSE use it. Tell them it gets less viruses. Tell them it runs on their toaster, so it's awesome. If they resist, here's some things you can do:Do NOT research Microsoft security technologies. Instead, just point solely to Windows 95 and UAC as examples of poor security on WindowsTell them that they can install thousands, no millions, of apps with a s...
|
| |
|
| Gnome's getting old and fat |
| 2008-06-10 23:15:00 |
Fantastic news! Looks like one Gnome developer is disenchanted. Boo hoo. Are you guys as happy as I am?His post kinda rambles, but let me sum it up for you. Yada yada... Gnome devs have finished all the easy parts of creating a desktop... blah blah... We've copied all the metaphors from other OSes... blah blah ... they've got all the basic pieces which we can now repeatedly break from release to release ... gibberish ... Evolution's still broken ... yada yada ... There's nothing left to do ... nobody has any vision.Yep there's nothing left to do. Uh huh. No vision. No useful problems to solve.Wait. I can think of a few.How about coming up with a development process that makes sure things don't break every release? Difficult? yea, no shit.How 'bout making it possible for ISV's to ship sof...
|
| |
|
| How to write a Gnome Application |
| 2008-06-06 18:54:00 |
By popular demand, a guide to writing a Gnome app:Find some reasonable app from another platform (Windows, Mac, KDE, whatever, but preferably, Mac). Bonus points if there are already 3 other gtk-based alternatives who don't want to integrate with Gnome.You MUST have a g somewhere in the gname. Extra credit if you can make it a "gn". If you can use "gnu" or "gno" or "gna" you're are gnawesome, and your app is already worth using. Make sure the name of your app bears no relevance to what it actually does. Also, NEVER document if the g is pronounced with the hard-g sound.Use at least two object frameworks. Three is even better. I mean the "O" in Gnome stands for object, after all. Take your pick from Corba/Orbit/Bonobo/D-bus. Make sure at least one of them works over the network, but make sur...
|
| |
|
| Rants heard 'round the community, ver 4 |
| 2008-06-06 13:44:00 |
Check it. I'm already up to version 4. That's more mature than most open source projects. Take that uncle-fuckers.Anyways. So obviously, the problems with Linux are that the OEMs don't really support it, right? I mean if you get a Dell that's preconfigured with Linux, then it's a totally awesome experience right? Sure it is.This account of disaster makes me so very happy. All you peeps out there who thought, "Oh if Dell would take the same shitty software and ship it on their machines then all our problems will magically go away!". I hope you all bought Dells. I hope you are all suffering like this guy.The even sadder part is, he thinks upgrading to Hardy is going to fix his problems. It's like watching a guy stab himself. You want to help him, but you know he can only learn on his own.
...
|
| |
|
| Swap! Swap! Swap! |
| 2008-06-06 13:21:00 |
You know, hating on things is like life itself. Sometimes it's hard to go on, hard to find motivation. Beating a dead horse gets tiring, however much the horse deserves it.But then occasionally, you find something that gives you the strength to labor on.For the lazy, it's a "tip" on how to use your spare VRAM as swap space.I'll spare you the details, but I'll leave you with just the intro for some shitnuggets of wisdom on why anyone would want to do this:Everybody considers today's graphic cards to be meant only for gamers. After all, why would one need a fast GPU in a server? Today's graphic cards contain a lot of very fast RAM, typically between 64 and 512 MB. With Linux, it's possible to use it as swap space, or even as RAM disk!Oh really? Sweet. Does this mean I can use my four PCIe x1...
|
| |
|
| How to write a KDE application |
| 2008-06-05 19:37:00 |
It's quite simple, really.Find semi-successful open source appConvince yourself that writing C++ is the ultimate form of masturbation, and that learning Qt is better than spending time with your girlfriend, because it's so beautifulRemind yourself why MOC doesn't suck.Take the name of the app, sed /[cg]/k/, check that you didn't end up with three k's in a row. If there are no k's, stick a k on the front.Think of every user-facing function your app could provideForeach function: create an abstraction layer that supports at least 3 other backends poorlyForeach function: create toolbar buttonForeach function: create menu itemMake sure it has split windows and tabbing and support for KParts. If you can't figure out a UI, just mimic a Windows one.Make sure it uses Phonon, and KAddressBook. And ...
|
| |
|
| Hippie Hardware |
| 2008-06-05 12:13:00 |
Enter OpenGraphics. Saviours of the new, free world.Their goal? Well, they've seen that unpaid, volunteer developers can band together to create buggy, inconsistent software that's really cheap, so they want to apply those same great principles to hardware. Because you know, if it works for software, it must work for hardware.But you know what guys and gals? I think I'm going to have to break with you all and claim that this is a great idea! I mean, it could totally work. I mean, open source software works because it's really easy to build software, and you can just copy someone else's and with little effort make modifications and produce your own version. Same for hardware right? It's really easy to build hardw... ohm umm. wait. Hmm, do I have any frien...
|
| |
|
| The registry is dead! Long live... the registry!? |
| 2008-06-05 00:23:00 |
I remember a few years back, people hated the Windows registry. Even long time Windows users have had a love/hate relationship with it. Surely open source could come up with something better. I mean, all those Linux boys were going on about how text files were more robust and easier to edit and yadda yadda.But hmm, what actually happened? Every open source app decided to make it's own dot-file or dot-directory. You ended up with home directories full of dot-entries. Ever try looking at your home directory through a samba share from windows? Good luck actually finding your files. Then some brilliant mind came along and said, oh it'd be nice to have a uniform api to store hierarchical configuration data. Then every app could store configuration in a standa...
|
| |
|
| |
 |
|
| |
| |
|
 |
