Silliness So what are you doing RIGHT NOW? - Page 1535

happy_terd · 10-02-2010, 02:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Exer

I wouldn't say that a wall of books actually impresses me, but it would leave me with a better lasting impression than say an equal size shelf full of porn.

The same with the BMW. Might not be impressive simply for the model of the car, but a well taken care of auto is much better than seeing a beater that is held together with metal twine and has a collection of stickers with wonderful sayings such as "Am I a member of the NRA? Beep at me and find out."

devilsadvocate · 10-02-2010, 02:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

Sitting with the development on a box with Fedora. Why can't it be Debian based

For me the Fedora dist goes something like this

Fedora has gotten out of hand over the last few versions.

I started using Linux with Fedora Core 3, when we were warned that beginners shouldn't start with Fedora because it was so cutting-edge. Now stuff just doesn't work in general. Then again Red Hat doesn't make any money on it and they're losing the desktop battle (that they swear they weren't having) with Ubuntu, so why go to the trouble?

MrPLD · 10-02-2010, 03:06 AM

I was with Slackware since 1995... but a few years ago I switched over to Ubuntu and quite honestly I'm glad I did. Elitism be damned, sometimes you just want to get your work done and be able to install apps with a click (or in my case, a simple CLI entry

).

I do have to say, Ubuntu-server really impressed me; I was anticipating a bit of a bloated beast but they actually have made it very nice (running our WWW server now on an Atom box using VirtualBox and yet it still runs slick

).

Paul ( a long-time OpenSource developer )

devilsadvocate · 10-02-2010, 03:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Well "no longer relevant" and "out of date" don't mean precisely the same thing.

How could it be? Technology advances. The state of the art system is what's sitting on an engineer's test bench. What you buy is obsolete before you take it home from the store.

Software and programming are likewise. I have a few computer texts that are relatively timeless, but most date very quickly.
______
Dennis

"Old" is relative; old computer texts can date from the '70s and be about assembly language (hex code is hex code), whereas old literature can date back hundreds of years. Borland C++ programming books were around in the early '90s (almost a lifetime ago for many programmers around today) and while I don't think they'd be a first choice for someone learning C++ for the first time, they could be for someone who's broke and gets stuff from Goodwill. They'll end up learning substantially the same thing as someone in the local community college studying the same thing.

Pretty much anything UNIX-based (especially Linux) is similar; you'll understand the basics if the book is a day old or a decade. The only people who would look askance at you for using sed are those who have never used a terminal window and provincial BSD snobs who use something different entirely.

Hell, anything that was taught using Win XP would qualify and that heap is pushing 10 years old itself.

MrPLD · 10-02-2010, 03:20 AM

I just turfed out a few hundred kilos of old books that weren't relevant due to aging. Of course, I also still have a lot of books that will never age (algorithms & complexity, DB design, Computer graphics principles & practice ... etc ). Things like "Lotus 1-2-3 reference" otoh were turfed out

kennyc · 10-02-2010, 07:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Well "no longer relevant" and "out of date" don't mean precisely the same thing.

How could it be? Technology advances. The state of the art system is what's sitting on an engineer's test bench. What you buy is obsolete before you take it home from the store.

Software and programming are likewise. I have a few computer texts that are relatively timeless, but most date very quickly.
______
Dennis

recluse · 10-02-2010, 12:03 PM

Just sitting here, wondering how my favorite artist is doing.

devilsadvocate · 10-02-2010, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrPLD

I was with Slackware since 1995... but a few years ago I switched over to Ubuntu and quite honestly I'm glad I did. Elitism be damned, sometimes you just want to get your work done and be able to install apps with a click (or in my case, a simple CLI entry

).

I do have to say, Ubuntu-server really impressed me; I was anticipating a bit of a bloated beast but they actually have made it very nice (running our WWW server now on an Atom box using VirtualBox and yet it still runs slick

).

Paul ( a long-time OpenSource developer )

I did an Ubuntu build on a 1st-gen netbook Atom Z520 and the dreaded Poulsbo chipset; in fact said chipset was the reason I used Ubuntu, since they were one of only 2 distros which had drivers for it. Instead of using the Netbook Remix (which is an insult IMO) I got the -minimal install. It was very similar to what I'm used to in Arch; CLI (until I put Enlightenment on it), ncurses installer, just-what-I-need-and-nothing-I-don't. It worked well until a version upgrade broke the chipset support, but I put equal blame for that on both Ubuntu and Intel who shouldn't have released the POS to begin with. Instead of calling it "Alternative Minimal", they could call it "Ubuntu Pro" and get some CLI gurus in their userbase; they could clearly use the help in the forums.

happy_terd · 10-02-2010, 01:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by recluse

Just sitting here, wondering how my favorite artist is doing.

I'm fine.

phenomshel · 10-02-2010, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

ummmm......okay......

new topic, what's for dinner....

I'm going for the fried okra tonight Shel.

No idea what's for dinner, but fried okra sounds fantastic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by recluse

I'm kinda glad you're monogamous too, Shel!

I'm really glad I don't touch people at all!

Okra is the vegetable filled with snot, right?

LOL!! Yes, lots of people think that. But if you slice it, bread it with cornmeal and fry it, a lot of the "snot" factor goes away and leaves one very delicious veggie.

Crusader · 10-02-2010, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Really... a house full of books doesn't impress me any more than a BMW in the driveway.

BOb

The 'impress people bit' was a joke. I definitely don't care whether my book collection impresses people or not. They are for my enjoyment and not to be used as decorations (which some magazines advocate!).

DMcCunney · 10-02-2010, 02:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by devilsadvocate

I did an Ubuntu build on a 1st-gen netbook Atom Z520 and the dreaded Poulsbo chipset; in fact said chipset was the reason I used Ubuntu, since they were one of only 2 distros which had drivers for it. Instead of using the Netbook Remix (which is an insult IMO) I got the -minimal install. It was very similar to what I'm used to in Arch; CLI (until I put Enlightenment on it), ncurses installer, just-what-I-need-and-nothing-I-don't. It worked well until a version upgrade broke the chipset support, but I put equal blame for that on both Ubuntu and Intel who shouldn't have released the POS to begin with. Instead of calling it "Alternative Minimal", they could call it "Ubuntu Pro" and get some CLI gurus in their userbase; they could clearly use the help in the forums.

I did a MinimalCD install of Ubuntu on my old Fujitsu Lifebook p2110.

The Lifebook was a gift from a friend who had upgraded to a newer, faster machine. She loved the Lifebook, and wanted to see it go to a good home instead of being thrown out, but commented it was "slow slow slow". Well, no surprise: it came from Fujistu with a 30GB UBMA4 HD, 867mhz Crusoe processor, a whopping 256MB of RAM (of which the Crusoe grabs 16MB off the top for code morphing"), and WinXP Pro SP2. You grew old and gray waiting for anything to work.

It looked like a good candidate for Linux, so I swapped in a 40GB HD from my SO's dead laptop, repartitioned, and installed Win2K Pro, Puppy Linux, Xubuntu, and FreeDOS.

Win2K Pro seemed a better fit for a 256MB machine, but I was overly optimistic. It's almost as slow once up, and takes much longer to boot. Puppy Linux is sprightly enough, since it was intended for lower end kit, but has an assortment of quirks, such as being explicitly single user as always running as root. FreeDOS is an open source MS-DOS clone, and runs nicely. Xubuntu was a disappointment. It installed as handily as the regular version, but was snail slow. Posters on the Ubuntu forums suggested too much Gnome had crept in and it was no longer really lightweight, and that Ubuntu had a steadily advancing idea of what "low end" was. The recommended an install from the MinimalCD.

I wanted to redo the Puppy install anyway, to go to an ext4 file system, so I wiped the Puppy and Ubuntu slices and reinstalled. Ubuntu from the MinimalCD gave me a bare bones CLI installation, and I could use apt-get to selectively install the parts I wanted. Xfce4 was fine as GUI, and installing it brought along the rest of X-Windows as a dependency. It's not quite as sprightly as Puppy, but is at least usable. Large apps like Open Office or Firefox are still slow, but the problem there seems to be disk I/O, and will be present regardless.

I'm tempted to replace Win2K with Win98SE and KernelEX, which will let me run an assortment of NT/2K/XP apps under 98. The problem is that I haven't found a way to tell Win98 "Install to this partition." It wants to take over and wipe the whole drive. I could do that, then repartition with GPartEd and re-install Puppy, Ubuntu, and FreeDOS, but I'm not quite up to going through the effort. (The machine does not have a floppy drive, so booting from a floppy boot disk isn't possible.)
______
Dennis

happy_terd · 10-02-2010, 03:32 PM

Chores at the moment. BAH

kennyc · 10-02-2010, 04:20 PM

HURRY UP!

recluse · 10-02-2010, 04:44 PM

Go easy on him, kenny.

He's still lugging around all that extra weight he picked up during the pregnancy!

And it's hard to do chores in pumps!

10-02-2010, 03:06 AM	#23013
MrPLD Author's pet-geek Posts: 933 Karma: 1040670 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: North Queensland, Australia Device: Kindle 3 Wifi, Onyx Boox M96	I was with Slackware since 1995... but a few years ago I switched over to Ubuntu and quite honestly I'm glad I did. Elitism be damned, sometimes you just want to get your work done and be able to install apps with a click (or in my case, a simple CLI entry ). I do have to say, Ubuntu-server really impressed me; I was anticipating a bit of a bloated beast but they actually have made it very nice (running our WWW server now on an Atom box using VirtualBox and yet it still runs slick ). Paul ( a long-time OpenSource developer )

10-02-2010, 03:20 AM	#23015
MrPLD Author's pet-geek Posts: 933 Karma: 1040670 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: North Queensland, Australia Device: Kindle 3 Wifi, Onyx Boox M96	I just turfed out a few hundred kilos of old books that weren't relevant due to aging. Of course, I also still have a lot of books that will never age (algorithms & complexity, DB design, Computer graphics principles & practice ... etc ). Things like "Lotus 1-2-3 reference" otoh were turfed out

10-02-2010, 12:03 PM	#23017
recluse Banned Posts: 3,724 Karma: 535488 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: the Mortuary Device: Kindle 2	Just sitting here, wondering how my favorite artist is doing.

10-02-2010, 03:32 PM	#23023
happy_terd Banned Posts: 13,045 Karma: 10105011 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Finally made it to Walmart. Device: PRS 420	Chores at the moment. BAH

10-02-2010, 04:20 PM	#23024
kennyc The Dank Side of the Moon Posts: 35,907 Karma: 119230421 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Denver, CO Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire	HURRY UP!

10-02-2010, 04:44 PM	#23025
recluse Banned Posts: 3,724 Karma: 535488 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: the Mortuary Device: Kindle 2	Go easy on him, kenny. He's still lugging around all that extra weight he picked up during the pregnancy! And it's hard to do chores in pumps!