The secret is in the short distance from the keyboard to the letters on the screen. This demographic needs to see the key to press, and to see the key appear on the screen.

I'm in Beersheba, Israel. We're in the Middle East, but we are a technology center. In the two national computer chains, all the affordable motherboards use a LAN which is not supported in any contemporary Linux distro:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/927782

This is representative of the market in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. I don't know about South and Central America. I understand from the replies here that North America currently has budget motherboards using supported NICs, or at least did when most people posting here last built a system. Note that these boards started becoming ubiquitous here at about summertime, and they now saturate the market.

We agree on every point, but I would like to clarify two:

1) Derivative works are great, but as a supplement to and not a replacement for original works.

2) The goal of copyright reform should be to produce the greatest benefit to society, but there is no way possible for it to benefit society if it does not benefit authors, i.e. produce incentive (financial) for the creation of new works.

I have recently ordered a PCI-E NIC to put away for when I'll need it, but they are not generally available here. I really could not find one. I did find a USB ethernet adaptor that required a 2.4 kernel and would not work on anything newer, but I intend to find a newer one and keep it in my toolbox as well.

But that does not address the issue of no contemporary budget motherboard today being supported / supporting any contemporary Linux distro. Sure there are workarounds and fixes, but the real problem needs to be addressed.

Thank you for a sane anecdote, as opposed to the raving that some OS-religious people have been spewing!

The company happens to be in the terrific situation of not being in a rush to push this out, and the users want something better than what they have. I agree that "at all costs" is not the way to move a company to Linux desktops. In this case, it really is win-win for both the company and the users to migrate some of the workforce who request it to KDE.

I guess you are right, this is sort of a side-project, but it is a company-sponsored side project which will likely save more money than it costs, and the cost is so minimal that it really isn't an issue (nor the goal) either way.

Also, they keep the solar panels covering the thing off the ground. Solar panels don't last long when used as a wheel.

It also benefits society to encourage people to create new works of art, and not to simple repackage currently-existing material generation after generation (derivative works). Nobody but the composer or author is investing the time (and money for food and rent and kids' expenses) while the work is being created, except in the rare cases of already-established artists. And even in the case of the already-established artist, how do you think that they because established.

Creating art is an investment. Denying a return on that investment would prevent art from being created.

Did you take a loss on the work you did 8 years ago as an investment in its future value?

Why would a single entity pay a composer up front for the months or years it takes to create a symphony, when as soon as the work is release it has no financial value anymore? The composer or author works unpaid for long periods time as an investment for future earnings. I agree that it shouldn't be 70+ years, but a decade or even the author's lifetime really is reasonable. Extending that to a corporation's lifetime, or to heirs, it excessive to the point of being offensive.

I have to say that as ambient music for working, the tracks on your homepage are terrific. I understand them to have been written for film scores, also a form of ambient music. I actually had to pause Beethoven's 9th to listen to them and I figured that I would bail out after a track or three to get back to my precious. But I'm now up to the 12th track (Interstellar Travel) and thoroughly enjoying it. They are more dramatic (remind me of Wagner) than I usually listen to, but they are not excessively dramatic like most Western film scores. I think that one would call that 'tasteful'.

I hope to be nearby in Tromso in a few months, are the films playing outside of Finland?

I'm posting because there currently is no budget motherboard available that a simple user can purchase which will work with a contemporary Linux distro without downloading X, compiling Y, installing Z, etc. out of the box. You and I can work around this no problem, but the problem exists for the majority of users.

Do you not see that as a problem?

It looks like the bug has already been filed:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/927782

At the time, I was hoping to never have to touch it again! But now half a year later I see that all the motherboards are using that NIC. I was quiet when I should have moved then, so now I'm paying for it.

I will file an issue on the Canonical issue tracker about it, as I should have done months ago. Thanks.

Of all the words of affection and derision that I've been called, I've yet to be called that! I love it, but the woman who transposed the last two consonants of my name has got you beat! Yes, she called me a donut.

Ya gavaru pa ruski yazig (chuchut). Ya znayu shto eta blyad.

That looks to be the same ethernet controller as on the problematic Asus board, actually. I was therefore avoiding that NIC and any motherboard that ships with it. Which distro are you on? Debian-based?