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Comment More information. (Score 4, Informative) 135

The summary is terrible. And not just the invalid link.

Here's a more informative link than the one posted by lnunes.

Multiarch is not gonna let you run ARM binaries on an Intel chip or anything like that - nor will it let you run Windows code on Debian. What it will do, however, is let you run x86 compiled binaries on an x64 system. It will also allow for things like mixing armhf and armel code on modern ARM, but for the most part, running 32-bit x86 code on 64-bit x64 (amd64) systems will be the benefit most of us will get.

How will we benefit? You'll be able to run binary-only x86 code on your x64 system. This means Adobe Flash and Skype. Any open source code is fine, because it can be compiled for your own architecture - but for binary-only proprietary software, it may not be available for your architecture.

"But this is already possible" you may be thinking. It is, but it's a nasty kludge at the moment. These packages, when installed on 64-bit systems, depend on 32-bit versions of several system libraries, which are separate packages. There's a series of kludges to make them work, and it's not very flexible.

The heart of multiarch support is a re-designed file system layout which accounts for the architecture of any binaries. So instead of putting some binary libraries in /lib/, it puts it in /lib/amd64/ or /lib/i386/. This is the first step for allowing the same package to be installed for different architectures. Then, dpkg will have to be modified to track packages from more than one architecture on the one system.

Comment Re:So This Means...... (Score 1) 135

Multiarch is not going to delay a Debian release. If it could, it would have done so already. Multiarch has been a release goal in some form for years now, but Lenny and Squeeze (2 last releases) went ahead as normal without it, simply because it wasn't ready.

Debian releases will continue to be approximately 2 years apart.

Debian is experimenting with timed freezes, which means the release schedule should be more predictable (although the time between the freeze and the release will still work according to the "when it's ready" principle).

Comment Re:sleezeball (Score 1) 190

Where do the major OSS licences forbid you making money?

They don't. You're missing the point. He stole source code from open source applications without attributing it or releasing the source, both of which are required by the license in order to use the source. It was therefore a copyright infringement.

He then made money out of this code which he stole.

Comment But you can turn the status bar back on in FF4 (Score 2) 591

I hate to spoil your rant, but you can turn the status bar back on in FF4.

The trick is in knowing that they now call it the "add-on bar".

In the new menu, go to Firefox -> Options -> Add-on bar. Or press Ctrl+/

The URL preview and download status still won't show in the bar like it used to, but if you want that as well, you can still restore that old behaviour with this addon, as recommend by Mozilla's official knowledgebase.

How's that for configurable?

Comment Re:3.0 ? (Score 2) 293

When I said there won't be any major changes, by the way, I meant no more than there are every single new release.

The kernel changes immensely every release, we just don't notice it because the version number change seems so minor, and because it remains so thoroughly backwards-compatible. But each release of Linux includes probably 20,000 patches.

Comment Re:3.0 ? (Score 1) 293

There won't be any major changes. The only reason to do it would be aesthetic.

For the last few years of releases, the first two digits haven't mattered anyway because they haven't changed, and they have no reason to. Linux 2.6.18 and Linux 2.6.20 are two releases apart, and that's all you need to know, so you might as well call them Linux 18 and Linux 20. By that logic we're now on Linux 39.

The problem with this is that they need a fourth number to represent any minor updates to existing versions, eg 2.6.32.28, which starts to look like a mess.

Hence, I'm sure Linus has been itching to drop some of these digits for a while now. What he's proposing here is to go to 3.0, but have the second digit increment every 6 months, not the third. So a minor update to an upcoming stable version would be like 3.0.4 rather than 2.6.40.4

Comment Re:web 101: don't run unknown javascripts (Score 1) 262

It's 2011. Javascript is not optional for the web anymore.

Javascript is also not the problem. It's insecure server-side code that's the problem. XSS is not a Javascript vulnerability, it's a vulnerability with the server side. Javascript is just an actor, not the protagonist. Untrusted Javascript is let onto a server only if the server or its server-side application code is insecure.

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