Comments on: Linux Being Hacky is a Good Thing http://popey.com/blog/2010/01/20/linux-being-hacky-is-a-good-thing/ DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM!! Tue, 22 May 2012 14:58:37 +0100 hourly 1 By: popey http://popey.com/blog/2010/01/20/linux-being-hacky-is-a-good-thing/comment-page-1/#comment-1883 popey Tue, 26 Jan 2010 09:17:12 +0000 http://popey.com/blog/?p=435#comment-1883 Oh get over yourself. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bloated "bloat·ed adj. 1. Much bigger than desired: a bloated bureaucracy; a bloated budget. ..." http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=228&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=uk&lang=en&product=1119598 Basic driver: 70MB Full feature driver: 507MB That's bloated. Oh get over yourself.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bloated

“bloat·ed adj.
1. Much bigger than desired: a bloated bureaucracy; a bloated budget.
…”
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=228&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=uk&lang=en&product=1119598

Basic driver: 70MB
Full feature driver: 507MB

That’s bloated.

]]> By: Martin http://popey.com/blog/2010/01/20/linux-being-hacky-is-a-good-thing/comment-page-1/#comment-1881 Martin Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:59:51 +0000 http://popey.com/blog/?p=435#comment-1881 Hi Popey, Good point, well made. I couldn't agree more. I have the following devices dotted around the house, all run a flavour of Linux: NSLU2, Dell T7400, Dell Inspiron 1545, Homebrew HTPC, iPAQ 3970, Dell Mini 9, Dell Latitude D400, Compaq Deskpro, PlayStation 3 and a Toshiba Libretto. That little lot covers: ARM to Pentium MMX through to dual quad core Xeon CPUs. 32mb of RAM to 32GB of RAM. IDE, SATA, USB storage, SSD and RAID. Not forgetting the numerous wired and wireless NIC's, the video cards, the audio cards, the video capture/turner cards and so on. In all, some 14 years of computing evolution. Now the installation of Linux on to some of those devices is painful. The PS3, Toshiba Libratto and iPAQ for example. Yet, it is possible to run Linux on them all the same. The fact I can still get use from my Toshiba Libretto, 13 years after I bought, is pretty amazing. More so when you consider the only supported operating system for that device, Windows 95, has its support dropped by Microsoft 8 years ago. Linux, supports all those platforms. Yes, you might have to hack things here and there but Windows (any version) can't run on all those devices. I agree that Windows (some versions) can run on the more main stream laptops and desktops above, but you'll have to download your own body weight in drivers first. Yet with Ubuntu a single CD (CD people, not DVD) is all I need to get running with a complete desktop OS, including office suite, and all the drivers I can eat. Linux is user friendly. It's just a matter of how friendly and with which friends ;-) Regards, Martin. Hi Popey,

Good point, well made. I couldn’t agree more.

I have the following devices dotted around the house, all run a flavour of Linux: NSLU2, Dell T7400, Dell Inspiron 1545, Homebrew HTPC, iPAQ 3970, Dell Mini 9, Dell Latitude D400, Compaq Deskpro, PlayStation 3 and a Toshiba Libretto.

That little lot covers: ARM to Pentium MMX through to dual quad core Xeon CPUs. 32mb of RAM to 32GB of RAM. IDE, SATA, USB storage, SSD and RAID. Not forgetting the numerous wired and wireless NIC’s, the video cards, the audio cards, the video capture/turner cards and so on. In all, some 14 years of computing evolution.

Now the installation of Linux on to some of those devices is painful. The PS3, Toshiba Libratto and iPAQ for example. Yet, it is possible to run Linux on them all the same. The fact I can still get use from my Toshiba Libretto, 13 years after I bought, is pretty amazing. More so when you consider the only supported operating system for that device, Windows 95, has its support dropped by Microsoft 8 years ago.

Linux, supports all those platforms. Yes, you might have to hack things here and there but Windows (any version) can’t run on all those devices. I agree that Windows (some versions) can run on the more main stream laptops and desktops above, but you’ll have to download your own body weight in drivers first. Yet with Ubuntu a single CD (CD people, not DVD) is all I need to get running with a complete desktop OS, including office suite, and all the drivers I can eat.

Linux is user friendly. It’s just a matter of how friendly and with which friends ;-)

Regards, Martin.

]]> By: anonym http://popey.com/blog/2010/01/20/linux-being-hacky-is-a-good-thing/comment-page-1/#comment-1879 anonym Tue, 26 Jan 2010 04:19:38 +0000 http://popey.com/blog/?p=435#comment-1879 I always stop reading as soon as someone puts in the word "bloated" where it does not add anything, afraid that the point couldn't be made without an insult. But I thought I'd let you know. The sentence was much better without it, clearer and just as valid. Doesn't matter if it's true, it just sounds childish and sounds like that's the real problem, when it isn't. Bloated is at the bottom of the problem with windows drivers. I always stop reading as soon as someone puts in the word “bloated” where it does not add anything, afraid that the point couldn’t be made without an insult. But I thought I’d let you know. The sentence was much better without it, clearer and just as valid. Doesn’t matter if it’s true, it just sounds childish and sounds like that’s the real problem, when it isn’t. Bloated is at the bottom of the problem with windows drivers.

]]> By: Michael Wlach http://popey.com/blog/2010/01/20/linux-being-hacky-is-a-good-thing/comment-page-1/#comment-1763 Michael Wlach Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:03:18 +0000 http://popey.com/blog/?p=435#comment-1763 Hi Alan, thanks for the reply. Funnily enough when I was having fun and games with the Viglen I came across your site and contemplated contacting you for assistance but with the IT motto of RTFM I did the bloke thing and eventually figured it out. Now I know I did have a rant about Linux's usability, my reasoning was quite simple... As someone who used to routinely mess around with Linux back in the days of RedHat 5.2 (!) and was then used to compiling driver support, kernels etc., I had expected that the user experience would have significantly advanced from those early days. Now with the "right" hardware installing Linux <i>can</i> be a breeze, but on the Viglen it's all no pain no gain as the happless user wades through enless forums, faq's and How-To's in search of the holy grail. Hopefully my exploits will help those in getting this quite neat solution up and running with slightly less pain then I went through. My next challenge is to build in nzb support through installing SABnzbd onto the same box. Anyway just to clear up any misconceptions that I'm am pro Microsoft and that they can do no wrong I digress... File sharing in Windows is complete pants since they changed the way Windows Vista handles Administrative shares. I pity any Admin that has to work in a Vista environment and needs access to the administrative shares... welcome to a world of hurt! Lol! Also you are right about the floppy requirements for driver support during Windows installations, it's crazy in this modern USB world that we have to still rely on a floppy disc (which is why I always keep one handy just in case). By the way I think I've fixed the comments issue on WordPress so hopefully it should work fine now. Regards, Michael Wlach Hi Alan,

thanks for the reply. Funnily enough when I was having fun and games with the Viglen I came across your site and contemplated contacting you for assistance but with the IT motto of RTFM I did the bloke thing and eventually figured it out.

Now I know I did have a rant about Linux’s usability, my reasoning was quite simple… As someone who used to routinely mess around with Linux back in the days of RedHat 5.2 (!) and was then used to compiling driver support, kernels etc., I had expected that the user experience would have significantly advanced from those early days. Now with the “right” hardware installing Linux can be a breeze, but on the Viglen it’s all no pain no gain as the happless user wades through enless forums, faq’s and How-To’s in search of the holy grail.

Hopefully my exploits will help those in getting this quite neat solution up and running with slightly less pain then I went through. My next challenge is to build in nzb support through installing SABnzbd onto the same box.

Anyway just to clear up any misconceptions that I’m am pro Microsoft and that they can do no wrong I digress… File sharing in Windows is complete pants since they changed the way Windows Vista handles Administrative shares. I pity any Admin that has to work in a Vista environment and needs access to the administrative shares… welcome to a world of hurt! Lol!

Also you are right about the floppy requirements for driver support during Windows installations, it’s crazy in this modern USB world that we have to still rely on a floppy disc (which is why I always keep one handy just in case).

By the way I think I’ve fixed the comments issue on WordPress so hopefully it should work fine now.

Regards,

Michael Wlach

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