On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:39:45 -0400, gregjohn wrote:

> Ubuntu 8.10 (alpha) gives you an on-screen notification about its
> activation proprietary drivers for graphics AND wifi drivers that it's
> already decided to use. The purist is free at that point to leave the
> room if need be.  *That* I believe is the best approach.

Only if including proprietary code (in contravention with the 
manufacturer's wishes AIUI - and thus in violation of copyright) is OK in 
your book.

> The removal of ath_pci is precisely the reason I left openSUSE for my
> hobby use.

11.0 includes ath5k, which actually (at least for me) worked much better 
than the proprietary ath_pci (madwifi) stuff.  Madwifi was always flaky 
for me.

>  Somehow it was more annoying because I loved SUSE so much I had decided
>  to pay
> for 10.1 CD's as soon as they were available.  It was such a bummer not
> to be able to use the internet.

Have you looked at 11.0?

Jim

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On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:44:20 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> >   (Of course expecting anyone to actually buy it is a bit hopeless
>> >   given
>> > that I must distribute the sources on demand.)
> 
>> Actually, I don't believe it's "on demand", it's that you must
>> distribute sources for any binaries (built from GPL code) you
>> distribute, period.
> 
>   I think the GPL doesn't require you to distribute the source *with*
> the binary, only that you provide the source code by some means, eg.
> separately through a different channel.

Looking at GPLv2, that does seem to be the case.  My read was different 
before.

Jim

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gregjohn escreveu:
> Eero Ahonen <aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid> wrote:
>> Youtube can be used via downloaders. It's not as practical, but possible.
> 
> .... which is the "live in a mud hut, wipe with a leaf" option.

I don't like that analogy.  I prefer a Matrix or Rebels from Star Wars 
one.  Notice they too wear ragged clothes, eat slimy food, sleep on 
crowded dorms, live on the run.  But they enjoy every bit of it, BECAUSE 
THEY ARE FREE!! :D


Come to think of it, they sound like 70's hippies as well... :P

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nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> I don't like that analogy.  I prefer a Matrix or Rebels from Star Wars 
> one.  Notice they too wear ragged clothes, eat slimy food, sleep on 
> crowded dorms, live on the run.  But they enjoy every bit of it, BECAUSE 
> THEY ARE FREE!! :D

  Freedom is just an illusion constructed by humanity to satisfy their
frailty.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Eero Ahonen wrote:
> I'll have to assume that's because no-one has done such downloaders. In
> other words it's not impossible, it's just not done.

	Well, a site like Hulu has a business model relying on making it as
hard as possible to download. Nevertheless, I'll grant that an
application probably does exist or will.

>> 	Flash may have its negative points, but you provide no alternative, nor
>> make a case that alternatives are not needed.
> 
> That's one reason there's so much pure shit in this world. Because
> there's no program that's just the same, we can forget quality and just
> hook up *something*. Then that something becomes practical standard,
> develops to version 9 and still hangs up, has memory leaks, won't
> compile to 64-bit etc. And no, they don't call it beta.

	Well, perhaps the reason is that these aren't problems for most people.
I wasn't even aware of them till you brought them up. I don't have
memory leak issues with my browser or with Flash. But that's perhaps
because I use NoScript and only run a Flash app when I want to. Crashes?
Can't remember the last time Flash resulted in a crash for me.

	As an end user on Linux, Flash sucked for a while. It's been just fine
for a few years now, though. I won't criticize anyone for making it
better, but yes: Of course people will use software that happens not to
give problems to them.

>> 	As it stands, it's much better than its predecessor (Java applets).
> 
> For the part that it's used instead of Java applets, possibly. OTOH,
> also Java has developed forward and I haven't had hangs or memory leaks
> on Java programs nor applets for years now. Java also compiles on 64-bit
> architectures ie. it seems to has more quality than Flash, at least on
> my sight (meaning that someone else might see/have such things, which
> would mean Java also sucks, but even that doesn't make Flash to be
> non-sucking).

	Perhaps Java has improved in recent years. I rarely come across an
applet these days, so I can't tell. However, it was overtaken by Flash
simply because Flash provided a much better experience. Java had an
irritating load up time (which in those days hung the browser - another
problem...). Its interface was crappy. Getting it installed was a
Herculean effort compared to Flash. No real contest. It doesn't really
impress most people that Java may be 10 times faster, and is/was a cool
technology.

-- 
DO NOT REMOVE THIS TAG (UNDER PENALTY OF LAW)


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Eero Ahonen wrote:
>>   Well, if you don't want to use Flash, that's your loss.
> 
> I don't consider it as loss. The extra work using youtube-dl makes is
> nothing compared to hanged browser processes, memory leaks etc.
> 

Watching YouTube on a browser on Linux makes the browser really slow, and
the video has lots of tearing (ie. it's not vsyncing at all), while any
real video player (like VLC, which can play flv) gets the vsync right.

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I wrote:
>> And again, how many distros (I know many won't play
>> MPEG-I's off the bat) will play whatever you
>> have bothered to download?

Eero writes:
> I have no idea, since I haven't tried all distros.
> Will Windows play whatever you have bothered to
> download out-of-the-box?

I've tried two dozen.  It's common for them not to play an MPEG-I out of the
box.



I wrote:
>>  > The removal of ath_pci is precisely the reason I
>> left openSUSE for my hobby use.

Jim wrote:
> 11.0 includes ath5k, which actually (at least for me)
> worked much better than the proprietary ath_pci (madwifi)
> stuff.  Madwifi was always flaky for me.
> ...
> Have you looked at 11.0?

I ran to Distrowatch at your suggestion, but it looks like there's only
installation DVD's available now. I'm saving space on my spare PC for
practicing ubuntu installs.

But **THAT** is the way it should be-- if the purists don't like the proprietary
drivers,  WRITE US SOME NEW ONES!   Hurrah that someone did!  But, I must ask,
why did it take so long, with alll the development that went on otherwise?  It
is an issue of magnitude that I'd think they'd have held up 10.2 until they had
one. I'm deadly serious.  Just cutting off an essential feature is plain stupid.
As the bug report for missing ath_pci shows, it lost SUSE a minumum of two
customers.  A car with no tires.


I wrote:
>> ... which is the "live in a mud hut, wipe with a leaf" option.

nemesis wrote:
> I don't like that analogy.  I prefer a Matrix or Rebels from
> Star Wars one.  Notice they too wear ragged clothes, eat slimy
> food, sleep on crowded dorms, live on the run.  But they enjoy
> every bit of it, BECAUSE THEY ARE FREE!! :D

So you were to develop your own video format system and were thwarted by
proprietary software? I'm trying to imagine how many people would have a
freedom they'd've actually exercised in this case.

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On Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:06:24 -0400, gregjohn wrote:

>> Have you looked at 11.0?
> 
> I ran to Distrowatch at your suggestion, but it looks like there's only
> installation DVD's available now. I'm saving space on my spare PC for
> practicing ubuntu installs.

There are liveCDs for GNOME and KDE4 available from software.opensuse.org.

Jim

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Eero Ahonen wrote:
> Will Windows play whatever you have bothered to download out-of-the-box?

No. A lot, but not FLV, DivX, or Quictime MOV.  You can, of course, put 
in codecs for that that integrates it, as I assume you can in Linux.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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Nicolas Alvarez <nic### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> Watching YouTube on a browser on Linux makes the browser really slow

  Yeah, that must be true for *all* linux systems out there because it
happens to your system.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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