During my 8 years of Linux on and off usage I have tried more distros than I have chocolate bars. Each one of my previous encounters meant that I had to spend at least 2 days configuring before I have a desktop that I was somewhat comfortable with. With Ubuntu Feisty Fawn's latest test beta --for the first time ever-- this was not the case. I was up and running with all the niceties I wanted within 2 hours.
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Member since:2006-10-08
"Command Line is arcane and becoming un-necessary, "
In oppisite to any GUI solution, the command line is fully programmable. Complex operations can be solved using the command line, commands can be combined in many ways. GUIs only offer what its inventor / designer has thought of. Furthermore, the oppisite, i. e. operations without any complexity, are usually easier to be solved using a CLI.
Have read / written a manual today? You need to describe pictures (or show them, using much space on the paper), instruct the user how to click (left, middle, right, double, with dragging etc.) on what little pictures, and train them to recognize similar functions with different icons. Sometimes, believe me, it's easier to tell some newbie just to open Konsole and input a few words. (BTW, using the CLI is usually called "writing" in Germany.) Hell, he even can copy & paste the commands! But he cannot copy & paste mouse clicks.
I had this trouble with my uncle wanting to initialize a new hard disk with KDE. He didn't get it, allthough he tried two hours. So I told him to enter "newfs -U /dev/ad2" in Konsole and the work was done. Because I don't know his "pictures" (how the GUI looks like), I could not tell him where he would have found the proper GUI tool for this operation. Please get me right, I'm sure KDE has such a tool, but I'm not a living KDE manual. That's complicated to explain to newbies if they get confused because you as a professional don't know where the icons on *their* system are located and how they look like and what they do.
Allthough I agree that the many good GUI solutions on Linux (KDE, Gnome, XFCE etc.) will gain them more and more usage share (and my oh holy "market share"), CLI still is a *must have* for professional system administrators and operators. If everything fails, /bin/sh is still there to help you. :-)
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.
"The Verge has learned that HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC's overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One. It's not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession." I really hope HTC pulls it together.
"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Member since:
2007-03-05
Yes, there's a switch happening.
It's now 2007, and Operating Systems (all of them) are maturing and refining themselves to the point where almost any average user can install and use them with little problem.
DOS is dead, Command Line is arcane and becoming un-necessary,
and Ease-of-Use is now paramount if you want any kinda market share.
Yes..the vote is being split, and even I am fooling around with Linux(Ubuntu!) SUCCESSFULLY,
after much dabbling and returning to Windoze: that says a LOT.
Look for more switching as Ubuntu refines itself, and as Freespire gets advanced.
Linux is on the brink of Arriving - it's about bloody time, dontcha think?