Linked by Eugenia Loli on Thu 26th Apr 2007 01:19 UTC, submitted by muszek
Ubuntu Open Week is a series of IRC meetings of people behind the distribution and the community. Mark Shuttleworth answered various questions on Tuesday and Wednesday. The interview covers many issues, including: GPL v3, proprietary software, Microsoft's $3 project, Launchpad, non-free stuff in Ubuntu, April 19th siege of ubuntu.com, Canonical vs. Ubuntu Foundation, becoming F/OSS contributor. Full logs are available on Ubuntu wiki. Ubuntu News has a digest with the most interesting pieces. Also, another interview with Mark is here and four interesting Ubuntu articles are here, here, here and here.
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Member since:2005-12-21
Member since:2006-05-09
But I dunno if Visual Studio express can run on XP Starter with the long list of constraints it comes!
If the machine has no Internet connectivity... where do I suppose that I am going to download the VisualStudioExpress? in a Windows XP full machine? in a Linux box?
Edited 2007-04-26 05:07
Member since:2007-01-18
So is SharpDevelop (http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/). It's not a bad little IDE (doesn't work on Linux, but then neither does VisualStudio).
Member since:2007-01-18
Let me say that I disagree with you that C++ is a good starter language, but I will concede that somebody going after a degree in CS will have to learn it. However, if a degree in CS is what you are going after then Linux or BSD would be the best place to learn. Basically for all the reason you've stated. Many IDE's, available source code to reference, and a wealth support from the community.
Linux and BSD are also good places to start or get into if you have any interest in computer technology regardless whether or not you are seeking a degree.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.More News »
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Member since:
2005-10-20
I really liked his honest answer to 3$ Windows Offer.
A Free Linux distribution is a lot more than a basic restricted version of a Windows OS.
For starters, OpenOffice/Koffice will have PowerPoint equivalent Presentation software.
I believe students would like to explore things on their own and Linux presents them with that opportunity. They can customize their installed software.
Programming is an essential part of most computer science courses.
C++ servers as a good language to start with and Linux offers great IDE like Kdevelop and ofcourse the command line gcc/g++ tools.
Whereas Visual Studio still costs a bomb.
Lastly as Mark said, source code is a great place to learn, not just about one software, but also about good programming practices. Exposure to source code opens a whole new world.
I can understand that a normal Office going person in Bank or govt office might be content with a OS and normal word/excel, but for a student opensource is the home.
Lets not forget, Linus Torvalds used opensource Minix as the basic of his Masters thesis --- Linux.
Edited 2007-04-26 03:53