On Mon, 2007-10-29 at 01:38 -0600, Frank Cox wrote: > On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:29:46 +0800 > Ed Greshko <Ed.Greshko@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > If you depend on proprietary software, then Linux is not for you. Microsoft > > > and/or Apple products are a much better fit for your needs. > > > > Never did care that much for blanket statements. > > > > If I depend on say "Oracle" and since Oracle is proprietary I should not run > > it on Linux? > > You are taking a general statement and applying it to a very specific > circumstance. > > In the particular case cited, Linux may indeed be the answer you seek. > However, in general terms, the solutions that folks like Les are looking for > can be most easily found in places other than Linux. Microsoft and Apple are > the two largest examples of such places. Frank, since when have you become a mind reader? I think you have some notion that you can see clearly into his brain and can speak authoritatively on what he thinks. I know Les very well. He's got some coding chops I'd die for. We both ran into the same wall with the same application and the same identical nVidia 5200 video cards. The nvidia rpms supplied by our 3rd party sites are lacking SOMETHING with regards to openGL. I beat myself up for months, trying to get the app to run correctly. So, Les volunteered out of the blue to figure out what was wrong, from the very goodness of his heart. I love him as a Brother for it. He couldn't get it to work either. We both kept running into openGL problems and the Windows / Mac users had reported no problems at all. Emails flew back and forth between us trying to trouble shoot the damn thing. I don't know about you, but I bristle at the notion that they could make happen so easily what had us completely stumped. So, I raged and swore, determined that Linux, as a community, was not to be relegated to the cheap seats as lusers. So, I finally beat on Lonnie and he told me to install the nVidia package from them. Here's the saddest part of the ordeal. Reading all of this "my-way or the highway" crap put me off from considering using something as EVIL as a proprietary driver. Bad! Bad! No! No! Well, I finally tried it. It worked. I told Les, he tried it, it worked. End of story. I lost a GD pant-load of valuable learning and devel time ...several **months** at least. Les lost quite a bit of his donated personal time too. THAT is where he's coming from, and so do I. I'm trying to develop a 3D educational environment aimed at reducing the recidivism rate of prisoners coming out of prison back to the "Real World". Les has helped out immeasurably. "Polite Society" is not kind to guys and gals getting out. Inside the razor wire when you disrespect someone, predictably you get punched in the face ...*real quick*. Take someone that has lived like that for 5, 10 or 20 years, someone better de-fuse him before he leaves. OR someone on this side of the wire gets hurt to become the next new victim ...to the tune of 70 new victims for every 100 released. You think I give one shit about some evil proprietary driver? Should I when we have 1/4 million inmates being released per year over the next 10 years and I really want this effort to work in an otherwise Open-Source Fashion and keep Gates, Jobs and their ilk off of it? I see the day coming when Linux will have something like CUPS for video and everything will be peaches and cream. Like in the old days, we had the choice of LPR (great for Daisy Wheels and line printers) or the proprietary version of Adobe, if you wanted your nifty laser printer to work at all. Everyone hated that too, back when. Same with OSS, it filled a niche allowing some people (like myself) to make an odd-ball (PAS16) sound card work when the kernel didn't seem to make it happen correctly or at all. I paid my ten bucks to Hannu and was as happy as a clam as the solution was quite cheap and worked beautifully. Back then no one had a problem relaying this information to another in need of it, either. Even at Red Hat. Later on, the problem became fixed and continues to improve all the time. I like that and appreciate the work by the people that make it happen. Alan, remember when the only Windows Machine at Red Hat was the one that made the CD dupes, printed the labels and stuck them on automatically?? It was a collective groan (and well kept secret) for sure, but we lived with it, proprietary and all. It got the job done that needed to be done, and the only alternative was to pay someone 40 grand a year or more to sit on a stool in the old "Red Hat Ready" hardware evaluation area and do it all by hand ...one at a time. Damn skippy, the proprietary solution at the time wasn't so EVIL that it could NOT be tolerated, was it? <wink wink> You know I'm right and I just told the world to make the point. The issue is not that Les or I insist that nVidia be installed on the Dvd (which he has never written) but that when the need arises that folks don't feel all intimidated from giving useful information that may be needed, even if a couple of K-bytes get used on the list to convey the information without mega-bytes of retaliation. I do know that running software openGL is slower than hardware openGL. That is a "truth" ... which is the "Right Thing(tm)". Becoming at least par with the average Windows or Mac user is a good thing, too. Now more people are less afraid to use Linux on the Croquet list after Les and I reported the solution to their developers and their list members. We're discipling Linux, not condemning it. But if my personal need is great enough, then I'll alter my FC install, taint the kernel and be responsible for any problems that arise from it ...if only to make my computer do what I need it to do. Ric -- ================================================ My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say: "There are two Great Sins in the world... ..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity. Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad. Linux user# 44256 Sign up at: http://counter.li.org/ http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/oar http://www.wayward4now.net <---down4now too ================================================
