You've never enabled the extra features in Bash auto-completion have you.

In Bash the tab auto-completion is programmable, with the typical configuration used on Debian it completes command names, file names (to nearest unambiguous match and then shows you the list of matching names), it will display the command line options to commands limited to those which match what you've typed so far, for various commands that take commons lists (like list of available software packages) it will auto-complete those arguments from those lists.

I believe Zsh does similar but also shows short extract from documentation on command line options in addition.

The problem is as a GNU/Linux user you can end up like me and just hit tab whenever the grey matter glitches and you forgot what you were going to type next.

Say you want to install a web server with PHP5....

$ apt-g[tab] completes "apt-get "
$apt-get i[tab] completes the "install" option
$apt-get install libapa[tab] saves typing the "che" (goodness you can get lazy)
$apt-get install libapache2-m[tab] saves typing "od" for mod
$apt-get install libapache2-mod-ph[tab] saves typing the "p5"
$apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5

So I've saved typing 15 characters (if I can count), got everything spelt right first time, and this one command will (I think) get you a webserver and PHP5 installed and ready for development work, of course usually you want to specify which thread model you want for the Apache webserver and probably want some other dev tools but it makes the points that you only need 16 key presses to install a webserver with PHP (no browsing to websites, downloading installers, or finding your original installation CD image to drag IIS off, or patching to get it up to date after running the command (since it'll install the latest versions). Only the command name "apt-get" is a file name.

It has been this way for a long time in Debian (although PHP5 wasn't around all that time), and you have to uncomment a line in one of the config files to enable the enhanced completion otherwise I think it is just filenames (including commands).

I was kind of worried about the opposite. It suggests someone at Microsoft has been doing some serious work making Windows easier to administrate, which might make it more popular amongst the IT literate crowd, and thus more popular generally.

This remote admin will make automaton of admin easier, and also discourage what we (and many others) are guilty of, which is logging in with VNC or remote desktop, and messing about as Administrator because we only have a few boxes. Until we realize actually we have far too many to be doing it all this way.

"That said... a reasonable expectation may not translate into something actionable in a court of law."

IANAL - but UK law explicitly implemented rules to govern consumer agreements where you can't negotiate contract terms. (Unfair terms in consumer contracts regulations) which were based on an EU directive from 1993, which effectively boils down to a reasonableness test (although there are restrictions on fields of reasonableness).

Whilst I don't have a problem boycotting Sony, perhaps such contracts probably needs some sort of proper legal redress in the style of the European directive, as otherwise it would be pretty much impossible to buy/lease any modern software or hardware without agreeing to similarly outrages terms and conditions as were used in this class action.

Their DAR.fm thing is also neat.

I hope this means they'll be able to ramp up the service now, as their support sucks.

That's actually pretty interesting - As it says that about 50% of the users with the packages installed are using it.

Higher than I'd have imagined.

I agree.

I had virgin internet, telephone, and TV for five years in my flat in Edinburgh. I've only ever suffered about one outage a year during that time, and after the first time I learned it was easier and less effort just to turn everything off and try again tomorrow. Definitely easier than fighting their phone "support".

He used proprietary software to get the GNU project up and running. First thing he wrote was an editor, then a compiler using that editor, then tools using that compiler and editor, then more tools using the existing tools, compiler, editor, etc.

> Another thing that bothers me is that the FSF stuff almost comes across as negative, so 3DS is evil, iPad is evil, Kindle is evil, etc. Great, but what hardware is actually ok to buy? Why is there still no hardware database of the good stuff that doesn't limit my rights?

http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw

But Google is distributing proprietary software!

Like all proprietary software distributors, we want them to stop and release free software instead. That's why we take up the argument with them.

You know that Free Software is about freedom and not price, right?

But this is Google's code that its running on MY computer. I should be able to control it.

The code is already in your browser and you can already look at it. That's not the issue.

The issue is that without the essential freedoms to study, modify and distribute copies of the software, users are at a disadvantage to the developer and that's unjust.

Because users aren't able to legally modify, study and distribute it? Plus, it's not in a suitable form for modification.