Comment Re:People Still Use Ubuntu? (Score 1) 320
Vorbis and Theora as both tributes to characters in Terry Pratchett novels.
Submission + - UK election captures the Geek Vote (votegeek.org.uk)
dominux writes: With the UK getting ready for a General Election the political parties are figuring out the importance of the geek vote. As a result of the protests and general backlash against the Digital Economies bill (our DMCA equivalent) that was being shoved through at the last minute the Liberal Democrat party has dropped it's support for the bill and it will now probably fail. Voter initiatives such as Democracy Club and Vote Geek are making this the an election where technology policy makes a difference.
Comment Re:Are we opening a trade route? (Score 1) 190
The moon has about 100x the concentration of Helium3 on earth. Since He3 holds the promise of truly clean fusion power (no radioactive byproducts), it seems pretty likely to be of high value in the next 50 to 100 years.
Comment Re:Ksplice patent (Score 1) 305
If you require someone to chmod +x an installer before running it, the user will chmod +x a trojan just as easily as the installer for an app not in the distribution's repository.
True, but they won't chmod +x FunnyPicture.jpg.exe just to view a picture.
By the time a Windows OS hits its end of life, the hardware is usually in need of replacing anyway due to new applications' higher hardware requirements [wikipedia.org].
Minimum Requirements for Ubuntu 6.06:
256MB RAM
3GB HDD
Minimum Requirements for Ubuntu 9.10:
256MB RAM
4GB HDD
But how is it useful for end users without the service? Patches that change semantics of a struct in the kernel need manual intervention.
This is something that can be provided by mainline kernel devs or your distro's kernel maintainers. KSplice isn't the only one that can do it.
Comment Re:Ksplice patent (Score 2, Informative) 305
True, a downloaded malicious program needs to be chmod +x, just like the installer for any other program that sits outside the package system. But what exactly were you talking about?
The comparison I was making was to downloaded
The only time you need to pay for a Windows OS upgrade is either A. for a new machine or B. for the equivalent to an upgrade from one Ubuntu LTS to the next LTS.
A regular release upgrade in Ubuntu is not equivalent to a ServicePack in Windows. Nor is an LTS release upgrade necessarily equivalent to a regular release upgrade in Windows. But either way, Ubuntu releases will continue to be free, where as you'll eventually run out of SP upgrades on your version of Windows.
Ksplice costs 48 USD per year [ksplice.com] unless you're on Ubuntu, and it isn't available for SuSE or Fedora at all.
KSplice Uptrack is a service that costs money. KSplice itself is open source, and available for free.
Comment Re:Free only if time is worth nothing (Score 2, Informative) 305
So in other words, you're saying preinstalled Windows is free only if your time is worth nothing. Where have I heard that one before?
No, he's saying that the total cost of Windows is greater than the purchase cost of Windows. He's also saying that the total cost of Windows is greater than the total cost of some alternative, one which doesn't have the same problems.
Viruses exist for all operating systems.
True.
ake GNU/Linux on x86 for example: a virus running as a limited user can infect all programs installed into a user's home directory.
Also true, with the caveat that on GNU/Linux, a downloaded virus doesn't automatically have the ability to be run.
If Linux had majority desktop market share, it would have the same virus problem as Windows.
This is a non-sequitur, none of your prior assertions implies this.
Windows has RTM through Service Pack 3; Ubuntu has Hardy Heron through Karmic Koala.
Number of upgrades is meaningless, cost of upgrades, in both time and money, is meaningful.
What operating system doesn't need to reboot for a kernel update?
I'm not sure about other *nixes, but rebooting for a kernel update isn't strictly necessary in Linux if you use KSplice.
Comment Re:I'll give you a clue... (Score 1) 305
If you're writing a virus, do you go after the platform where 95% of users have one or more anti-virus tools installed to thwart your attempts, or the platforms where less than 5% of the users have such?
Comment Re:It's plastic ! (Score 1) 439
Killing the ignition isn't usually recommended because then you lose power steering and power breaking, which makes controlling your care very difficult at high speeds.
Comment Re:Godwin's Law! (Score 1) 439
If I had mod points, you would have them all
Comment Re:It's plastic ! (Score 2, Insightful) 439
Automatic transmissions can be put into Neutral with a small move of the shifter, even while accelerating. This would have the same effect as pressing a clutch in a manual.
Comment Targeting Education (Score 1) 310
What are your plans for getting educational institutions like schools to switch to Ubuntu, the way Microsoft and Apple have historically captured mind share in the past? There is a lot of work being done by volunteers in Edubuntu to make it easy to deploy and manage a school-wide network of workstations, but so far very little support from Canonical in turning that product into an initiative.
Comment Re:Smashing my keyboard! (Score 1) 460
lol, I was going to wait until he did his first re-install so that he'll appreciate the reason for doing it.
Comment Re:Smashing my keyboard! (Score 4, Informative) 460
My 5 year old learned to install Ubuntu just a couple weeks ago. I don't think he understands what the password is for, or why the default option of using the entire hard drive was desired over of the other options, but everything else he could figure out on his own.
Submission + - UbuntuWomen International Women's Day Competition (ubuntu.com)
elkbuntu writes: There's a competition going for Women Ubuntu users to tell the tech community how they discovered Ubuntu. By doing so they can help to raise the visibility of women within the Ubuntu community, celebrate International Women's Day 2010, oh, and win one of 2 cool prize packs.
Comment Re:Silly me (Score 1) 419
Your comment makes no sense at all, please try again sober.
