_pi

"We teach you how to learn" was repeated over and over again in my engineering department at my university. I always thought it was an excuse and justification that allowed them to save face and make it ok that what was being taught was going to be useless in the "real world"

That's a horrible argument that defines your disdain for learning.

Learning is a job, if it wasn't so damn hard and stressful everyone would be a quantum physicist. Teenage kids need to accept the realities of life.

Apple also overhauled most of the *NIX kernel and made proprietary graphical tools and closed off the supported hardware. All of which contribute to the ease of use and keep the solidity.

>It could also allow for *nix users to have something like RDP, which is one of the _very_ few things I actually admire about windows.

I HATE RDP. X.org was created to be net capable, you can do full desktop and window forwarding, we don't need this functionality it exists! (Especially because X.org window forwarding doesn't take screenshots)

Then you install packages the wrong way.

IE, yum install mysql* ruby* gem* will get you everything

> And compiling your own is trivial in Arch, a ~10-line description file vs the nightmare that is rpmbuild.

Now you're just trolling.

>I can't believe that you've actually used Arch. I had one server here that hadn't been updated in over a year, and `pacman -Syu` worked perfectly, no breakage at all.

Desktop packages are way more finicky, obviously you didn't use it when they switched from devfs to udev (Between 0.7 and 0.8 releases, I've used it on-n-off for 5+ mo at a time since 0.4) as other major infrastructure overhauls like the PAM overhaul 3. Then again it wasn't cool to use arch at that time.

Since Judd Left the team the releases have gotten a bit lazier, they used to come out every 4 months now it's every year if that.

>As for development, its much better than debian- or redhat-based distros, because you don't ever have to install any -dev (or is it -devel?) packages, or go hunt down someone else's repo, because the version of a package you're using is obsolete and missing a feature you need, and won't be updated in mainline for another 4 months, if they even do it then.

Enjoy working on something moderately complex then, when it automatically updates it for you it'll fuck up your entire code base, so this happens several times a year and you're fucked. So unless you want to do maintenance as you're trying to actually code something rolling release isn't for you unless you like pulling hair. Not only that but culling of features happens much more than addition.

Also your lack of understanding of -dev packages shows you've never really used other distros, SuSE, Fedora, and Debian support group installations of packages such as development packages, development tools, IDE's etc, as well as wildcards in their package managers. So that's a very very moot point.

Not only that but SUSE which is designed with the programmer in mind has several different repos which contain different versions and the most up to date versions of packages.

Oh and by the way, that whole ROlling vs Staged release thing only shows a difference when major architecture is overhauled the lines in reality between those two release styles are blurring, especially with the expansion of OSS and people who work with it. Example: FC11 has kde 4.3 in updates-testing (not rawhide), it originally shipped with 4.2.2, and right now 4.2.4-rsomething is stable. Also Arch isn't as bleeding edge as it lets on some updates have been withheld for months because the developers are too lazy to recompile stuff.

Oh and if you don't have a package you do what you do in Arch, you either make a spec file for it and compile it yourself or go to 3rd party repos (Arch has like 1 actual 3rd party repo I think, unlike the 5-6 for Fedora).

Having been there and back again I laugh at the elitism on this page now.

"Arch doesn't offer such a facility as it goes against TheArchWay. SUSE, therefore, is widely regarded as more appropriate for less-experienced users, or those who want a more GUI-driven environment, autoconfiguration and expected functionality out of the box. "

Such an elegant way of saying SUSE IS 4 teh noobz and i use arch kuz i'm hardcore.

Having been there and back again I find myself on FC, because it's stable. I know that I can update the fucking thing whenever, or not even update for a year and it won't fuck up my install. Unlike Arch which if you don't update for 1-3 month's you're guaranteed a fuckup because you missed 2 critical updates and there's no way to get them unless you feel like manually finding the actual packages and installing them.

That page misses an important aspect, Arch sucks for stability, programming, and people who hate typing pacman -Syu every damn day. Arguably stability and programming are finer points for the SUSE distro because, it's got a plethora of development packages which are installable at various versions (yast/zypper is a bit of a bitch about this though), as well as the fact that SUSE handles concurrent versions way better than Arch.

"Fedora has a scheduled release cycle. Arch is a rolling-release system. The Arch design approach is geared more toward lightweight elegance and minimalism rather than automation/autoconfiguration."

I also love this perl of wisdom, no it's not. I can get a minimal FC11 install, or I can install CentOS and get the same damn minimalism and elegance and lightweightness. How do you judge how lightweight a distro is? I can remove every component from fedora and suse. I don't need their gui tools installed, nor do I need their commandline-ncurses tools installed. If Fedora decided to support kmod then it'd have more modular packages than Arch, so what is this mythical lightweightness? Is Gentoo more light weight than Arch? Or Is the opposite true, because Gentoo's ebuild directory can span anywhere from 700mb (generous) to 2 gb.

Here's the bottom line, most OS comparison is FUD. In most distros moving the ease of use up just makes the window of use bigger (a more inclusive user base, ie people who only use the gui or people who only use the cli or a mix).

Also I enjoyed the fact that Arch pretty much says, we break patent law freely because we don't have a backing company who one can get money out of with a lawsuit:

"Fedora famously doesn't attempt to support the MP3 media format due to perceived patent issues. Arch is more lenient in its disposition toward MP3 and other media."

Maybe I'm jaded from all the "ZOMG ARCH LINUX" crap on /r/linux, but Arch isn't as 'teh awesome' as people make it out to be. In fact when you use x64-bit distro all the speed ups (some more than others) that Arch used to tout with i686 packages disappear.

They are politicians, nonanswers are part of the game.

Yeah except that's annoying to your actual users who were drawn to the basic service in the first place.

Facebook Lite: What Facebook actually was 4-5 years ago.

I'd argue that the bulk of data which is valuable is on the enterprise. However you do have a point.

This is what MS has been doing for years, no one uses MS products for a stable quickly recoverable environment. Not Google, GE, or any other big company. MS thrives on small to medium businesses because of it's dominance in the market, and it's ability to offer every product a business would need. They make their products so easy a monkey could set them up, but so profitable that only MS employees can manage them efficiently with inhouse tools.

Most diffs do that. The Diff that ships with gvim on Windows has this option on by default and I couldn't find where to turn it off because it was severely screwing up what I was diffing.

Well said, however no government is perfect. That being said....

The US has incredibly powerful teachers unions as well. The teacher's union is so powerful it's still technically on the Homeland Security list of terrorist organizations.

Yet we don't have healthcare.

Not only that there's a reason why IT and (real) Doctors aren't the most popular jobs (or majors) unlike Business and Psychology, it's because they're the #2 and #1 (respectively) most stressful occupations according to Forbes.

Depends what you'd call "hooks". In terms of the Windows API there are some really cool really useful dynamic features in the toolkit, but they're obviously borderline virus/malware type functions. (IE read the text of the entire window if you have a WID).

Stuff like that is standard to any toolkit. However what you may be talking about is that bullshit they call the Windows directory and Windows Protective Service where it doesn't let you modify it directly but it's easily modified programmatically.

If anything has a complete lack of drivers, it's OS X or default rolled Windows. Linux supports more drivers in terms of legacy and current hardware out of the box, unlike Vista and XP which culled legacy hardware support, and don't have as many drivers as linux in terms of out of the box support.

So I must agree it's a horrible argument.

>"Open source software is free if your time is worth nothing."

While I agree with your original point, that it's the freedom in terms of control. This argument is completely invalid because it's like saying "Windows sucks because 4 year olds can't administer it effectively thus it takes longer". If you're going into OSS you need OSS specialized and trained staff, someone who has only worked with Windows Server isn't going to be able to effectively manage OSS, OSes because it's obviously logically different. (Difference is if they've used a commercial UNIX which is quite close to Linux you just have to modify some habits and learn package management for your distro).

In short the problem is the lack of preparation that goes into going Open Source in a company, such as getting the IT staff familiar enough with the tech.

Example of Windows vs. Linux -- Setting up FTP, allowing user logins disabling anon. (Using CentOS as distro)

CentOS:

  yum groupinstall "FTP Server"
  vi /etc/vsftp/vsftpd.conf
  
  anonymous_enable = no
  local_enable = yes

  chkconfig vsftpd 345
  service vsftpd on

Windows:

  Open Server Role Manager
  Go Through Server Role Wizard to Select FTP server role
  Go into IIS options.
  Go through multiple prompts, properties screens and wizards to finally enable local login and disable anonymous.

In short:

I can remember every step of the install on Linux, on Windows I have to be looking at the damn screen. Yet I've spent as many years on Windows Server as on Linux. However because I know exactly what commands on the commandline do and it's an easier interface to remember off the top of my head than a GUI, I can do it faster IF (very big if) I have all the knowledge I need.

Not only that but the "vendor lock in" is so inherent to Windows, people don't realize their core data (how their server is set up) is almost impossible to get at and export without the use of third-party full backup tools. Unlike Linux in Windows I can't clone /etc/ or some parts of /etc and stick it on a different server running the same version of the OS and expect it to be a drop in replacement.

>Apple has enjoyed the fact less companies target OSX and, assuming the same competent to incompetent developer ratio for both platforms (something risky in itself, because the barriers of entry for Windows are much lower), it would be no surprise if there were less buggy programs for OSX.

You can't say there's less buggy programs because it's hard to break through. You can say there's less buggy programs because there's less programs in general, which is a much more rational assumption considering you assumed that there's the same ratio for competent to incompetent developers thus making about the same ratio of buggy to polished programs.

However I don't see how Apple's Kernel really is "locked down", I interpret that as a forced cull of functionality for safety or in terms of things like DRM. The only thing I'd consider is the lockdown of the hardware because of forced lack of choice.

Thank you Microsoft.

I think he was talking more about hardware.

Hurts sales. Intel is actually at bit of a slump now because people aren't upgrading hardware like they used to.

"wielded the patent and lobbying swords against its enemies"

What about the cease and dissist letters and attempted suit of people who named their products closely to Apples? Remember the iPod fiasco where they tried to use that sword and try to cut out the heart of a coin counter company?

Hmm, that's weird, I get much higher speeds in vsftp what protocol and settings are you using?

You have no idea, I recently got into a car accident (look at my history for the story of that). And for all of our "socialist policies" in the US that republicans owuld want you to believe, we're grossly libertarian.

Long story short: Accident happened, cop came out and wrote me a ticket based on the fact that he had to come out, and pretty much told me that. Then today I got a bill from the fire department/EMS for them having to come out. In total these bills/tickets are about 1K in cost. So you'd think there isn't a fire-fighters tax but there is....

Not exactly, there's private healthcare in Canada, and in France, but the government provides free Healthcare. So they don't hold a monopoly unless it's legally enforced.

Akamai's services are almost too tightly integrate-able with sharepoint. Not only that I wouldn't call the support premier ;-)

Austria for example, and Germany. They have social services that are built in and aren't nearly as bloated as the US government.

However I don't agree with that analogy in this day and age where countries offer services countries should be seen as corporate entities.

Very weird support call. I finally said listen I think it's a problem with Sharepoint, and they forwarded me to Akamai, however they answered the phone as MS, but the CallerID showed Akamai Technologies.

If you've ever dealed with MS Business Support they have sections for every single product and some products are segmented by parts.

Except no one knows how to rip and replace in this case. There are governments out there that are less complicated but offer more to their constituents than the US government does. And no one in the US government wants to give up power or funding.

That's very interesting. Why is auto-generated XML hard to diff?

OOXML is text based now. So Office 2007 should be text capable. Sharepoint is generally horrible with that I agree, but I think it uses the default MS word mechanism to do that which stores changes with the file at the end.... kind-of a bad idea.

Also fun fact: Sharepoint agreeably sucks more than any other MS product but it's not actually written by MS, but a large part of it is written/owned/supported by Akamai Technologies