Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> In my experience, only certain people have this problem.

People who fiddle around with it without knowing what they're doing, yes. I 
think if Linux was as widely deployed as Windows, it would be just as much a 
target for viri and scammers.

I.e., I think Windows is much less vulnerable now especially with UAC turned 
on by default, and what protects Linux is more that it isn't popular enough 
to be valuable to the current virus writers that do it for money.

Of course, Linux probably has fewer holes in the default distros than 
Windows does.  But it's not like there have never been holes in Unix-based 
OSes that, say, brought down the internet.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> When Myst first came out on a CD, I remember thinking "so much for pirated 
> games", since there was no possible way to copy an entire 670M CD.

  There was one point in history when I had the opinion that if a game takes
more than 4 floppy disks (that would be about 5.5 MB), it's way too large.

  Nowadays I'm wondering why there aren't multi-DVD games yet in the market.

> Does anyone remember thinking "32 bits will soon be rather limiting for a 
> single file to fit within" before it was obvious?

  There was indeed a time when a file of over 4 gigabytes was absolutely
unthinkable. This was the time when a 350-megabyte hard drive was huge,
and average desktop computers had 4 megabytes of RAM (which costed
significantly more than the 2 GB of RAM which is standard nowadays).

  Rather curiously, we are nowadays in the same situation with respect to
64-bit computers. Hard drives are about 500 GB, RAMs are about 2-4 GB on
average, which is about the same ratio as above. And again, a file of
2^64 bytes feels basically unthinkable (although slightly less so due to
the past experience).

  I'm wondering if 15 years from now we will be using files of that size.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> > (It's also popular for embedded applications, but 
> > that presumably is due to its extreme portability and configurability 
> > more than anything else...)

> It is only popular for embedded operations as Linux, not Unix. Before Linux, 
> nobody used Unix for embedded applications. Now it's popular for embedded 
> applications purely because it's free. It's actually quite a PITA to use on 
> embedded devices.

  Thinking about it, are there *any* other viable free (as in no-cost)
operating systems for embedded systems, other than Linux and NetBSD?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Zeger Knaepen <zeg### [at] povplacecom> wrote:
> I like them, actually! too bad you lost the midi-file (it was a midi-file, 
> right?)

  Yes. Made those with Cakewalk, using my good old SoundBlaster Awe32
(ah, the memories). Too bad I can't even install that card anymore in
my current PC.

  It's funny. Everything else in my computer hardware has gone clearly
forward *except* sound hardware. I'm unable to produce those kinds of
sounds anymore with my current computer (well, at least on hardware;
I suppose there are probably software solutions which produce even
better sounds, but probably none of them free).

  As for the midi files, they might be somewhere if I searched for them
(I have an old HD somwhere which should contain backups of backups of my
old computer, where I made those midis). OTOH, without my Awe32 and its
soundbanks I wouldn't be able to replicate those pieces in the same way
anyways, so there wouldn't be much point.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message news:4b243adc@news.povray.org...
> Zeger Knaepen <zeg### [at] povplacecom> wrote:
>> I like them, actually! too bad you lost the midi-file (it was a midi-file,
>> right?)
>
>  Yes. Made those with Cakewalk, using my good old SoundBlaster Awe32
> (ah, the memories). Too bad I can't even install that card anymore in
> my current PC.
>
>  It's funny. Everything else in my computer hardware has gone clearly
> forward *except* sound hardware.

I agree 100%! 4 years ago I could by an extremely good soundcard for 110Euro, 
and even better, it had a built-in motherboard!! ok ok, I'm talking about those 
Abit NF7S (or something like that) motherboards with SoundStorm onboard sound. 
Latencies of less than 10ms, without using ASIO.  Even my 300Euro Creative X-Fi 
Platinum (or whatever) doesn't come close to that
too bad they don't make those soundchips anymore

> I'm unable to produce those kinds of
> sounds anymore with my current computer (well, at least on hardware;
> I suppose there are probably software solutions which produce even
> better sounds, but probably none of them free).

Don't be too sure of that, there are a couple free and good-sounding 
midi-players out there... can't remember the name for sure, but "midig" pops 
into my head...

I think it's this: 
http://freemusicsoftware.net/en/plugins/instruments/midig_2_03_software_wavetable_synthesizer-195.html

>  As for the midi files, they might be somewhere if I searched for them
> (I have an old HD somwhere which should contain backups of backups of my
> old computer, where I made those midis). OTOH, without my Awe32 and its
> soundbanks I wouldn't be able to replicate those pieces in the same way
> anyways, so there wouldn't be much point.

If you want to reproduce them in the same way, just play the mp3 :) I would much 
rather run it through something like Reason :)

cu!
-- 
#macro G(b,e)b+(e-b)*C/50#end#macro _(b,e,k,l)#local C=0;#while(C<50)
sphere{G(b,e)+3*z.1pigment{rgb G(k,l)}finish{ambient 1}}#local C=C+1;
#end#end _(y-x,y,x,x+y)_(y,-x-y,x+y,y)_(-x-y,-y,y,y+z)_(-y,y,y+z,x+y)
_(0x+y.5+y/2x)_(0x-y.5+y/2x)            // ZK http://www.povplace.com

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Darren New wrote:
> Thus, _this_ word will probably show as _italic_ on your screen, if you're
> using something that does things like make *this* word bold.

_This_ shows underlined in KNode.

I believe /this/ is italics...

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Darren New wrote:
> It's also the case that even a small company can make a difference in
> Microsoft's stuff. Like the company that did the first defrag program for
> NT designed the APIs for that and told MS how to write it.

Then they bought the company?

Or did they just make their own defragmenter and put it in the OS to ensure 
other companies selling defragmenters go out of business? :P

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> One somewhat annoying thing is that most distros will automatically
> install multiple gigabytes of "stuff", most of which I have no interest
> in. Sure, you could *try* to uninstall it all, but you still have to
> wait for it to install in the first place. *Some* distros give you a
> "minimal text install" option or similar, and if so I usually start from
> there. However...

You should try Ubuntu Server, or maybe Debian, instead of the desktop 
Ubuntu. Or maybe you can tell Ubuntu not to install all the mess, I don't 
remember.

Ubuntu Desktop comes with all sorts of graphical programs that you may or 
may not need. It's better to install yourself what you know you will need.

> I don't have any specific, repeatable examples. But, from memory, I once
> had a KDE desktop, and I just wanted to install gnumeric (because
> KSpread was rubbish). Watch as the dependency resolver decides I need to
> download and install every GNOME library known to man - including the
> GNOME sound system (something beginning with e?)

Well sure. If you install a GNOME app in KDE, that will happen :) Instead of 
complaining, you should be glad all those packages get downloaded and 
installed *automatically*.

> Also... Debian's dselect thing is a horrid, horrid tool! >_<

dselect still exists? I thought that was deprecated a few ice ages ago?

Try aptitude.

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On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:07:18 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> You just happen to know that there's a program for doing this and it's
> called LAME. If you didn't already know that, I estimate it would take a
> while to figure it out.

zypper se mp3

Gave me a nice list of mp3-related programs on my openSUSE system.

Scan the list, and I see "LAME - Lame Ain't an Mp3 Encoder"

I wonder what that does:

zypper if lame

Oh, look, it's "an education tool to be used for learning about MP3 
encoding.  LAME is an educational tool to be used for learning about MP3 
encoding.  The goal of the LAME project is to use the open source model 
to improve the psycho acoustics, noise shaping and speed of MP3.  Another 
goal of the LAME project is to use these improvements for the basis of a  
patent free audio compression codec for the GNU project."

In other words, an encoder.

So add another 20 seconds to figure all that out. ;-)

Jim

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On 12/12/09 12:42, Warp wrote:
>    Which is sad, really. If a regular user who only checks his email, surfs
> the web from time to time and maybe writes some letters, could be a lot
> better off with Linux than with Windows. He wouldn't get the myriads of
> adware/spyware, browser toolbars, email viruses, etc, the system would not
> get congested with time due to every single legitimate and illegitimate
> piece of software installing tons of useless (and sometimes harmful) stuff
> everywhere, and the computer would overall be somewhat safer from regular

	They have that already. It's called Mac OS.<G>

> attempts at hacking (eg. by email worms, rootkits, etc). It would be cheaper
> too.

	Sadly, not cheaper. But in a sense, it shouldn't be. By making an OS 
really easy and friendly to use - and somewhat robust, you're really 
adding value. People want to pay extra to get that.


-- 
----> If you cut here, you'll ruin your monitor. <----

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