Linux-Advocacy Digest #759, Volume #28 Wed, 30 Aug 00 20:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: Linux programmers dont live on this planet! (Steve Mading)
Re: Microsoft Linux: what if? (Steve Mading)
Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes (was: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split ...)
Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes (was: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split ...) (T. Max
Devlin)
Re: Cool Idea
Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes (was: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split ...) (T. Max
Devlin)
Re: NETCRAFT: I'm confused (T. Max Devlin)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steve Mading <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Linux programmers dont live on this planet!
Date: 30 Aug 2000 23:31:50 GMT
Glitch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Is there an equivalent in the Windows world to an X server? Just so
: that users coming from a background of Windows (like myself) can grasp
: the idea little better.
The problem is that UNIX (which Linux is a version of) doesn't split
things up along the same boundries as Windows does, so the analogies
are never quite right. But here's an attempt.
X server ---> A program that does all the video, keyboard, and sound
manipulation. It *contains* device drivers for those
things, but it also does all the window drawing primitive
functions (like the GDI), and it does the remote network
stuff so that a program on a remote machine can display
on your own machine. (Like Citrix WinFrame, which I assume
must have gotten the idea from X). The X server does *NOT*
decide the relationship of windows to each other (for
example the fact that this window is on top of that one, or
the fact that this window is an icon while that one is
maximized, or the fact that that window over there is the
one that the keyboard is typing "into".)
X client ---> A program that is running in an X server. i.e. a GUI app.
It is called a client because it communicates its calls
to the server via network packets rather than through a
direct function call. While this system seems weird, it's
what allows X to be remotable. The X server treats local
programs and remote programs the same exact way - it talks
to them through the network. (But it might not physically
end up on the network. A smart OS's TCP/IP implementation
should realize that the data is destined for the same
computer, so it never needs to go out onto the network
card or modem. All of this is invisible to the X server
and client, though. They think they are talking over the
network to each other.)
Xlib ---> An API that handles all the low-level calls, so that a
programmer writing an application never has to deal with
the network code. He just calls APIs in Xlib, which in
turn translate into network communication with the server.
The Xlib is used by the X clients.
X toolkits ---> A more high-level abstraction written on top of Xlib.
Xlib is rather clunky to deal with directly, because it
is so low-level. (It might know how to draw boxes,
fonts, colors, and lines, but not how to take those and
turn then into (for example) a menubar.) There are
several X toolkits available - Gtk, Qt, Athena, Motif,
and several others I'm probably forgetting to mention.
An X toolkit is a library that is used by an X client.
You can usually tell which toolkit a programmer chose
to use by how the program looks on the screen. (Or,
at least you can once you become familiar with them.)
Which toolkit to use is something the programmer chooses,
and you can't plug in a different one as an end-user
(they have different APIs)
X window manager --> This is the hardest thing for a Windows person to
understand, because no analogy exists in Windows.
In X, there is a special X client (application)
called the "window manager". This program doesn't
have it's own window on the screen, but instead it
handles all the interaction between the other windows
on the screen. It is in charge of what the frames
around the windows are like (the title bar, the
resize corners, minimize/maximize button, etc) It
is also in charge of telling the X server which
window is focused (has the keyboard), and what is
the stacking order of the windows (which is on top
and which is on bottom). It is also in charge of
what happens in the root window (background screen).
The window manager decides how windows move and how
they get resized. Basically it does all the
miscelaneous tasks that are outside the
responsibility of any of the individual GUI apps.
One place that this "window manager" feature shows
up is in what happens when an application is hung.
In Windows, when an application is hung, the window
is stuck on the screen. You can't move it, resize it,
minimize it, maximize it, or anything. That's because
in Windows each application is in charge of it's own
movement and resizing, and the application is hung.
In X, a hung application can still be moved, resized,
minimized, or maximized because the window manager is
in charge of that, not the app itself. (although the
app won't redraw correctly when you do this, so it will
still be a big blank area inside the window, but you
can at least get it off to the side out of your way.)
There are a plethora of choices for window managers
in X. Right now the most popular two choices are
Kwm (from the KDE project) and Enlightenment. Other
choices are wm (windowmaker), fvwm (feeble virtual
window manager), olwm (openlook window manager),
motif, twm, and probably others I'm forgetting.
Note that often the window manager is written in one
of the X toolkits (mentioned above), and gets its look
and feel from that toolkit. Kwm is built on Qt.
Gnome wm is built on Gtk. Motif wm is built on Motif,
and so on.
The window manager is a choice that can be changed
by the user. In fact, sometimes it can be changed on
the fly while X is still up.
"the GUI" --> This is a term that is really, really fuzzy in X-windows.
With all the choices of toolkits and window managers, it
becomes hard to define just what counts as "the GUI".
Is the toolkit the GUI? Is the window manager the GUI?
In general though, when you take one X toolkit, a bunch
of X clients written in that toolkit, and a window manager
written in that toolkit, then throw them all together in
one package, you get "a gui". There are several GUI
projects to choose from:
1 - KDE, which comes with Kwm, and the Qt toolkit, and
a lot of apps written in Qt. This is free (of cost).
2 - Gnome, which is usually used with Enlightenment, and
the Gtk toolkit, and a lot of apps written in Gtk. This
is free (of cost).
3 - CDE, which comes with motif wm, the motif toolkit,
and a lot of motif apps. This is mostly used by
commercial Unix companies, and is expensive to purchase
for your own use. You probably won't use it.
4 - Openlook - Used to be used by Sun. Not supported
anymore. Contained olwm, and openlook toolkit.
Note that GUIs can be mixed an matched. If you are running
a mostly KDE system, for example, you can still run some
Gnome apps in it when you want to, and visa versa.
The KDE and Gnome projects, while they are competing for
acceptance, seem (on the surface) to be competing in a
friendly manner. They spend a lot of effort to make sure
that their systems are compatable with each other so you
can run a mix of their apps at the same time, and cut and
paste between them and so on.
KDE is based in Germany, with a lot of European contributors,
and Gnome was based in - well, I'm not sure where it was
*based*, but the main guy working on it is from Mexico, and
it tends to have a lot more U.S. contributors than KDE.
"themes" --> This is pretty much the same thing it is in Windows. You
can download themes that alter the look and feel. The
difference is that in X you pick a theme for the window
manager and a theme for the X toolkit seperately. Or to
put it another way, you theme the insides and the outsides
of the windows independantly of each other.
"pager" --> This is a special type of application that lets the user
flip between desktops (pages) on the screen.
"sticky" --> A window is said to be "sticky" when it stays on the screen
all the time no matter which page (desktop) you switch to.
It is handy to make a window sticky if it is a small window,
like a CD player or a clock.
"iconify" --> Minimize.
"focus" --> This term means "The window where the keyboard typing goes."
Windows would call it the "Active Window". The window
manager indicates which window "has the focus" by changing
its border color, or changing the look of the window's border
in some other way (like changing the shading so the buttons
are "innies" instead of "outies").
Note that, the window with the focus doesn't necessarily
have to be the window on top. Sometimes it is handy to be
looking in one window that's on top, while typing something into
a window that's behind it (like when you are reading a web page
while typing something about about that web page into an e-mail
message to a friend.) There are three main choices for
how to make focus change:
1 - click to focus (like in windows)
2 - focus follows mouse. Whichever window has the mouse
pointer in it is the one that has the focus, even if
you never clicked there.
3 - sloppy focus. Like focus-follows-mouse, but if the
mouse is moved out of a window and onto the background,
the focus stays in the old window until the mouse is
moved into a new window.
The window manager can usually be configured to do whichever of
these you prefer.
Focus is controlled by the window manager (see "window manger"
up above).
"raise" --> This term means to bring a window up to the top (uncover it
all the way). There are a few main ways this can be done,
which way is typically configurable for the window manager:
1 - autoraise on focus. As soon as the window gets the
keyboard focus (see above, "focus"), then it gets
raised to the front too. (This, combined with
a focus setting of "click to focus", emulates the way
Windows does it.)
2 - click to raise - anywhere. Any click anywhere in the
window will raise it to the front.
3 - click to raise - only in the border. Clicking the
interior of a window will not raise it, but clicking
the border frame or titlebar will. This is handy if
you want to be able to click on widgets in a window
without having it come to the front.
Raising is controlled by the window manager (see "window manger"
up above).
My preferred settings are "sloppy focus" with "click border to raise",
but this takes a lot of getting used to.
Well, that's all I could think of for now.
------------------------------
From: Steve Mading <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Microsoft Linux: what if?
Date: 30 Aug 2000 23:39:32 GMT
Stuart Fox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: But of course the GPL has yet to be legally tested...
I often wonder how you could get sufficient evidence to take someone
to court over the GPL. If the've secretly incorporated GPL code
illegally in their own source code without distributing the source,
how do you find out about it? You can't see their source code.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ()
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes (was: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split ...)
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 23:36:53 GMT
On Wed, 30 Aug 2000 19:18:37 -0400, Aaron R. Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Roberto Alsina wrote:
>>
>> "Aaron R. Kulkis" escribió:
>> >
>> > C Lund wrote:
>> > >
>> > > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Aaron R. Kulkis"
>> > > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > > What part of "underpaid" do you not understand?
>> > > > Who are these supposedly underpaid workers?
>> > >
>> > > Hmm... the working poor? I don't know which specific jobs they have. My
>> > > guess it's the ones that pay minimal wage. Or less.
>> >
>> > Please name ONE individual who is:
>> >
>> > A) Working *AT LEAST* 40 hours/week
>> > B) Is living within his means. (*)
>> > and
>> > C) is "trapped" in poverty
>> >
>> > (*) Having children you can't afford is NOT "living within your means"
>>
>> What should someone do if he could, at the time, afford a child
>> and later can't? Suggestions? Infanticide doesn't count as one.
>
>How many non-disabled adults does this apply to?
Anyone that lost a better job to a lesser one.
Despite your detatchment from reality, employment with a particular
company is not guaranteed and for most people the labor market is a
"buyer's market". Also, most people don't have the luxury of remaining
unemployed while searching for an employer that might value their
highly replaceable skills more highly.
--
Finding an alternative should not be like seeking out the holy grail.
That is the whole damn point of capitalism.
|||
/ | \
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes (was: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split ...)
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 19:49:05 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Said david raoul derbes in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
[...]
>According to today's Chicago Tribune, 40% of all college teaching is done
>by part-time faculty.
>
>These guys (and for two years, I was among them) are typically paid between
>$1800-$3900 a course. A typical professor's course load is no more than
>three a semester, and often two. If these part-timers ("adjuct faculty")
>do three a semester, they wind up with a rollicking 18K a year. For the
>same work, professors average 54K.
>
>So, these abused and exploited part-timers fly from one campus to another
>to teach four or five courses every semester, and perhaps earn a living wage.
>They are also attempting to unionize, but curiously, every time a part-timer
>is recognized as a union spokesperson, she or he strangely fails to be
>re-hired (after a period of six to ten years when the contracts came
>in like clockwork.) The Feds are investigating many complaints, but I
>doubt much will change in the short term.
>
>My suspicion is that a bunch of these people will suddenly realize that
>there is a tremendous shortage of high school teachers, and bail. At
>that point, the market will force university bean-counters to recognize
>that they can no longer get away with pretending to pay talent, and the
>salaries paid to part-timers will skyrocket. As, of course, will tuition.
The problem is, there's not a "market" for high-school teachers.
Arrogant so-and-so's say that the solution is to allow there to be one,
but that's not going to solve the problem, I think.
The reason there isn't a market for high-school teachers is because
primary education is not a profit-based venture, and shouldn't be.
There's no system on earth that is less inclined to do the work
efficiently in a transaction-oriented environment. Schooling is an
institution, not a business. The government has the responsibility of
ensuring that *every citizen* has a basic education. I hear a lot of
whining about high taxes and low standards of what's "basic". But if
you turn it into a profit-oriented environment, all you're going to do
is make what is considered 'basic' equal to "the minimum that we can get
away with", and the problem is that the perspective judging the minimum
is the vendor. To say that a parent can take their business elsewhere
is to say that you can deprive a child of a missed opportunity to learn,
and you can't. The perspective of what's "minimum" has got to come from
the intellectuals, I'm afraid, those damned leftist professors of
liberal arts. Or education, which is close.
So the reason that the problem of the itinerate adjunct faculty is that
there's no market for high-school teachers is because there's not much
competition involved in the pay scale of high-school teachers. Because
whether there's a 'market' or not, there is money changing hands, and
you're supposed to be able to get relatively wealthy if you're good at
what you do. So the real reason the itinerate part-timers probably
wouldn't go for whatever high-school positions they can find is that
nobody's willing to pay what a good high-school teacher is worth. You
can earn more money balancing a five course college load, most of the
time, I'd bet. And let's not even mention what a primary school teacher
should get paid if we want to ensure that all primary school teachers
are pretty good at what they do.
>Here we have a fair number of highly educated people (most with Ph.D.'s)
>who are working their asses off, and barely scraping by. True, they don't
>have to do this work, but I think most of us would call it work that
>is worth doing, and in the best interests of the country.
Teachers aren't as motivated by money as business people are; they
literally want to do good work and benefit society, as well as make a
living. That's why academia looks so overwhelmingly liberal from the
outside to conservatives and libertarianites. They don't mesh with the
"greed factor" assumptions that such people make, so they always seem to
be further to the left than most academics think they are.
This isn't meant as an insult to business people. They believe,
correctly, that they are doing good work and benefiting society *by*
making a living, and profit. Where else are we going to get the money
to pay for basic education? But honest business men are no more rare
than good teachers, and most confuse the profit with the "good work"
itself.
>It's hard to imagine these circumstances extending indefinitely into the
>future, that smart, committed people would continue to work for chickenfeed.
>Idealism lasts only until your kid needs new shoes.
Which is precisely why good teachers are eternally underpaid, and why
that fact will maintain the liberal leanings of society despite the
purported rationality of the Archie Bunkers and Aaron Kulkis', as I
described earlier. Because it takes a dedication to *teach*, involving
a desire to improve society *even* if its not very economically
rewarding. Idealism isn't enough to keep bad teachers doing it, and for
good teachers, it isn't idealism, but the reality. They still deserve
new shoes, but their talents will always be under-rewarded. That's the
equivalent of "market forces", I think, in the 'business' of learning
and teaching.
--
T. Max Devlin
-- Such is my recollection of my reconstruction
of events at the time, as I recall. Consider it.
Research assistance gladly accepted. --
====== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ======
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------------------------------
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Cool Idea
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 16:33:06 -0700
Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On Wed, 30 Aug 2000 23:04:51 GMT, The Ghost In The Machine
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >In comp.os.linux.advocacy, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > wrote
> >on Tue, 29 Aug 2000 18:22:54 GMT
> ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >>On 29 Aug 2000 00:50:12 GMT, Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>>On Mon, 28 Aug 2000 18:48:11 -0500, Joe Kiser wrote:
> >>>>X Windows should support moving the mouse awound with the arrow keys
on
> >>>>the keyboard and clicking with the Ctrl/Win/Alt keys. Then I wouldn't
> >>>>have to leave the keyboard.
> >>>
> >>>I believe some window managers support this type of thing. IIRC, you
can
> >>>bind mouse moves to the keyboard in fvwm for example.
> >>>
> >>>In practice, it's best to use the mouse as a mouse, and use things like
> >>>window-cycling bindings and other keybindings if you just want to
switch
> >>>apps or use the "panel"/"taskbar" or whatever.
> >>
> >> It is perfectly viable to control the graphics cursor
> >> with the keyboard. There's really no good reason to
> >> not support that sort of feature.
> >
> >Unless somebody refused to license the patent.... :-) :-)
>
> Atari has prior art from 1985. ;-ppp
>
How many times has prior art been ignored when determining is a patent
should be issued?
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject: Re: [OT] Bush v. Gore on taxes (was: Re: Would a M$ Voluntary Split ...)
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 19:54:37 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Said Aaron R. Kulkis in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
>david raoul derbes wrote:
>>
>> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>> Eric Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, ZnU
>> ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >
>> >> > http://www.bush2000.com/Issues.asp
>> >>
>> >> Quoting from there:
>> >>
>> >> "Under current tax law, low-income workers often pay the highest
>> >> marginal rates. For example, a single waitress supporting two children
>> >> on an income of $22,000 faces a higher marginal tax rate than a lawyer
>> >> making $220,000."
>> >>
>> >> Sounds good. But:
>> >>
>> >> http://www.democrats.org/news/actualities/ac082300.html
>> >>
>> >> "George W. Bush gives 60 percent of his tax cuts to the wealthiest 10
>> >> percent of Americans‹those with the highest incomes who need it the
>> >> least. But working families that could use the extra dollars, whether
>> >> the waitress mom or the cop on your street, would benefit the least. A
>> >> waitress earning $22,000/year, for example, does not even pay income
>> >> tax, but gets a tax refund. According to CNN, she would only gain about
>> >> $114 under the Bush plan, while a $220,000 a year lawyer would get more
>> >> than $7,000 in tax breaks, thanks to Bush."
>> >>
>> >> Somebody is lying. CNN seems to think it's Bush.
>> >
>> >You're saying the government should actually *give* money to people who
>> >currently pay no taxes??? If they currently pay no taxes, it's kind of
>> >hard for them to get tax relief, don't you think?
>> >
>> >Of *course* the absolute dollar amounts saved by the wealthy are higher,
>> >but that's only because they're paying a hell of a lot more in absolute
>> >terms in the first place.
>>
>> First off, are you really so certain that "the dollar amounts.. [paid]
>> by the wealthy are a hell of a lot more"?
>>
>> A fair number of pretty wealthy Americans pay *no tax whatsoever* in this
>> country. There are all manner of tax shelters and dodges that wealthy
>> people can avail themselves of, which poor people have no chance of.
>
>This is why the income tax should be abolished in favor of a sales tax.
>
>It's open, honest, and there's no chance for evasion...which means that
>EVERYBODY has an interest in keeping the tax rate as low as possible.
>
>It would also mean that most of the millions of accountants across the
>country could be reassigned to more productive tasks.
Sorry, it's just not worth it anymore. *PLONK*
--
T. Max Devlin
-- Such is my recollection of my reconstruction
of events at the time, as I recall. Consider it.
Research assistance gladly accepted. --
====== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ======
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======= Over 80,000 Newsgroups = 16 Different Servers! ======
------------------------------
From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: NETCRAFT: I'm confused
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 20:06:54 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Said Mig in comp.os.linux.advocacy;
>Nico Coetzee wrote:
>> Every now and then some M$ preacher refers to netcraft for this or that
>> stat. Well, am I the only one that find it strange that Apache is the
>> only platform currently with a obvious positive trendline? Even the M$
>> line has a downward curve since just before 2000.
>>
>> And Linux remain the dominant OS platform, no matter how you look at it.
>>
>> Don't you people find this funny?
>
>Lets use som real facts about big sites.
>
>The official list for week 33 here is
>
>1) www.jubii.dk users 2.2 mio server Microsoft IIS NT
>2) www.forum.dk 0.7 mio Microsoft IIS NT
>3) www.sol.dk 0.7 mio Apache Solaris
>4) www.opasia.dk 0.8 mio Enterprise Solaris
>5) www.krak.dk 0.5 mio Microsoft IIS on NT
>6) www.tv2.dk 0,5 mio Apache Linux
>7) www.degulesider.dk 0.3 mio Apache Solaris
>8) www.denblaaavis.dk 0.1 mio Microsoft ISS NT
>9) www.netlogin.dk 0.4 mio unknown
>10) www.sportal.dk 0.1 mio Domino in AIX
>
>Domains are sorted by the number of read pages. The numbers are from 1.5mio
>to 15 mio per week.
>
>It looks as IIS and NT are doing quite well on big sites :-)
>
>Yes i know that IIS sites tend to have more machines (take a look for
>yourself at the NT topsites) but they are nevertheless doing very well.
>
>Cheers
I would presume that all of these together are in very small proportion
to the number of .com pages which are read. It looks as though
Microsoft has been pretty active in your country. The 'real facts' are
that Linux is sweeping through the web at the server end. If consumers
and content could entirely dump the need for Active Server Page
mumbo-jumbo and other Microsoft interventions, *nobody* would be using
IIS.
--
T. Max Devlin
-- Such is my recollection of my reconstruction
of events at the time, as I recall. Consider it.
Research assistance gladly accepted. --
====== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News ======
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
======= Over 80,000 Newsgroups = 16 Different Servers! ======
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