Re: [Haifux] Open Source Games or the Lack of Them
On Friday, 18 בSeptember 2009 16:50:38 Shlomi Fish wrote: > Since a typical game nowadays costs a lot of money to develop, and requires > the collaboration of many people, it seems unlikely that we will see many > open-source games that are up-to-par with commercial offerings. Rubbish. I can still remember when people thought that writing small utilities (e.g: a shell) is OK, but a real COMPILER? Out of the question... OK, maybe a compiler yes, but a KERNEL? Nah... Surely, a full desktop is out of reach of a community effort... H these are all the easy ones. GAMES are the ultimate obstacle. No chance to tackle it. We are doomed :-O Shana Tova and may the source be with you. P.S: Shlomi, you've started debating by cross-posting to 3-4 large mailing lists. Cut it out! If you cannot choose the "right" mailing list for a post, just skip it until you do. -- Oron Peled Voice: +972-4-8228492 o...@actcom.co.il http://users.actcom.co.il/~oron "A billion flies _can_ be wrong - I'd rather eat lamb chops than shit." -- Linus Torvalds on lkml ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Free SMS solution?
Hi and Shana Tova Sara, On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 9:24 AM, sara fink wrote: > Nadav solution of sms via orange doesn't work anymore due to captcha that > orange put. Yup, noticed that. > There is a solution to send sms via icq protocol, but to israeli numbers. > There are plenty of sites that send free sms via web interface. I tried it using the ICQ method, but all I get is: ERROR: failed to find icq_ln in login form... I think thats happend due to the fact that icq are doing some redirection and don't allow SMS via the web > Just search google for free sms web. > > There are also a couple of firefox extensions but i haven't checked them > yet. I also need to send these days sms abroad and will check them. Thanks, but I'm looking for a solution that I can stick in the US server (without firefox) and use/write a simple bash script to send messages in case something happens to my server. Thanks, Hetz -- Skepticism is the lazy person's default position. my blog (hebrew): http://benhamo.org ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: [Haifux] Open Source Games or the Lack of Them
Hi Oron! On Saturday 19 September 2009 10:54:41 Oron Peled wrote: > On Friday, 18 בSeptember 2009 16:50:38 Shlomi Fish wrote: > P.S: Shlomi, you've started debating by cross-posting to 3-4 large > mailing lists. > Cut it out! If you cannot choose the "right" mailing list for a > post, just skip it until you do. > Sorry about that. The reason I posted it there was because that's where I posted my original "Welcome to Linux vs. Welcome to FOSS" message. I've now sent it only to Linux-IL. > > Since a typical game nowadays costs a lot of money to develop, and > > requires the collaboration of many people, it seems unlikely that we will > > see many open-source games that are up-to-par with commercial offerings. > > Rubbish. > > I can still remember when people thought that writing small utilities (e.g: > a shell) is OK, but a real COMPILER? Out of the question... > > OK, maybe a compiler yes, but a KERNEL? Nah... > > Surely, a full desktop is out of reach of a community effort... > > H these are all the easy ones. GAMES are the ultimate obstacle. > No chance to tackle it. We are doomed :-O > Heh. :-) Well, I can see several problems with what you said. The first is that you're assuming that just because it was proven wrong in the past, then it will be proven wrong again. This is like saying "We now have air travel, and some space travel, etc. so we are going to have time machines and starships too because nothing is impossible." However, some tasks may prove to be out of reach, and some tasks were proven to be impossible: * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems So such past induction may not hold. As noted in http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FiveWorlds.html the economics of games is governed by different rules than standard "shrinkwrap" software. And as RMS notes, there is less of an ethical incentive to demand that games be completely open-source (art, plots and everything), and he tends to be very uncompromising about the freedom of software. (Though some people are even worse than him.) I'd like to see more marketplace games available for Linux, regardless of whatever efforts FOSS game developers can do. So we need to ask ourselves - what can we do to improve this situation, and how can we convince more game makers to make their engines open-source (which means people could run the games on any architecture, platform and operating system) while still allowing them to limit the open-source nature of the art and plots. "Reality to be conquered must be obeyed." > Shana Tova and may the source be with you. > Shanah Tovah! May valgrind be happy with your C programs, may your Perl programs pass strict and warnings, and may your JavaScript code work... eventually. Cheers, Shlomi Fish -- - Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ The Case for File Swapping - http://shlom.in/file-swap Chuck Norris read the entire English Wikipedia in 24 hours. Twice. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Welcome-to-Linux/Welcome-to-FOSS Planning - what we'd like to have
Hi all! Well, as you may have noticed, there wasn't a general consensus on whether "Welcome-to-Linux" (= W2L) or "Welcome-to-FOSS" (= W2FOSS) were better. However, looking at the schedule at: http://welcome.linux.org.il/2008/timetable.html it seems very old-fashioned and rehearsed. We can just keep the slides and refer people to them. As the Telux/TelFOSS "benevolent dictator"[1], I think we'll do something which is kind-of in between. What I think is that we need at first is a two part series. The first installment (not necessarily the first one to be given) will be a showcase of lots of FOSS (Linux, but also portable software) awesomeness-factor: graphics, features, usability, some free games[2], Amarok, kaffeine/totem, etc. We should remember that using a laptop (with Linux or otherwise) and having an Internet there are mutually exclusive, unless we can get Eddie to somehow give us the necessary Tel Aviv Uni INET privileges. The second installment will be about the FOSS philosophy, ideology and its practical implications. The summary of it that I have so far is: <<< Welcome-to-Linux / Welcome-to-FOSS abstract --- * Introduction: - What is Free Software/Open Source: - source code - analogy to wikipedia. (?) - Edit/View source. - The FSF Free Software Definition - FOSS != Public Domain - copyleft. - some restrictions. - share-alike - permissive licences (BSDL, X11L, etc.) - do what you want with them? - mostly - * Examples of open source software: - Firefox. - OpenOffice.org - Linux. - what is an operating system. - A free kernel. - The GNU/Linux run-time. - lots of names - X11 (X.Org), KDE, GNOME, OpenSSH. - don't be alarmed. - Other similar OSes (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD). - Many distributions. - all packaging the same FOSS components (with some modifications). - Different glue, behaviour and features. - Different bugs. - Our recommended distributions: - Fedora - Mandriva - Ubuntu - links to pages with information about them - material of previous presentations. - * Advantages of open-source: - May not cost money. - gratis/costless/free-as-in-free-beer. - freely distributable - Note: it's ok to sell it! - Story of Stallman selling tapes of GNU software to people who could not download them from the Internet. - Can be modified and enhanced: - study the source to learn how the program works. - for enlightenement. - to compensate for lacking documentation. - - fix bugs. - add new features. - refactoring. - fork - Use the Internet for collaboration - Bazaar model of development. - Refer to the Cathedral and the Bazaar series. - Not anti-commercial / anti-business. - Many valid business models. - Examples (?) - Lots of profitable companies. - As opposed to tangible goods (e.g: hammers, cars, food), software once developed, can be mass-produced at zero cost. - Many developers develop FOSS for fun - Many developers get paid to develop it. >>> It could use some work, but I hope you get my drift, and suggestions will be welcome. After these two presentation (whose order I'm still not sure about but I'm leaning to make the first one the first.) we can have a presentation for developers covering the various options for FOSS development (not only C or even only Java) and maybe then have some Haifux-like "Staying-in-FOSS" presentations. These seems more hip, more modern and less resource consuming than having a 5-installments long series just about Linux. I also see that Haifux will have a Welcome-to-Linux series this year, and would like to commend them for it. Thoughts anyone? Regards, Shlomi Fish [1] - not "for life", though. I welcome spin-offs of Telux, coups, etc. [2] - Yes, I know that they are not up-to-par with commercial offerings, (see the other thread) but many open-source games can still be impressive: PySolFC, Extreme Tux Racer, etc. These can provide a large glitz factor too. -- - Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ Parody on "The Fountainhead" - http://shlom.in/towtf Chuck Norris read the entire English Wikipedia in 24 hours. Twice. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Administering Drupal
What's the definition of LTS (Long Term Support) if Ubuntu don't provide security patches for that release? It sounds like Ubuntu just slapped this label on random releases without any backing. That's different from what I've seen from RHEL/CENTOS. -Amos On 9/18/09, Geoff Shang wrote: > Hello, > > I find myself in the position of overseeing a Drupal installation on > Ubuntu Server. We're running the 8.04LTS version of Ubuntu with the > intention of staying with it until the next LTS release (next year?). > > The problem I have is that Drupal 6 is not packaged for 8.04. I got > around this by installing Drupal 6.10 from Ubuntu 9.04, but even this has > pending security updates. So I'm considering updating to the version from > the yet-to-be-released Ubuntu 9.10. > > But this raises a problem. It's possible to update Drupal from within > Drupal. Given this, it begs the question - should I use the package > system to provide a Drupal installation or should I just install the main > upstream package asis and use its own updating capabilities to keep it > updated? > > I can see complications ahead if I don't make a firm decision one way or > the other, so I'd like the advice of anyone who has had to deal with this > sort of thing. > > I don't know much about Drupal and I don't particularly plan to. I've > been asked to install it so that content people can do their thing with > it, and that people in charge of specific sites on the machine can admin > their bit of it. Am I naive in thinking I can keep my distance from this? > > Geoff. > > > ___ > Linux-il mailing list > Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il > http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il > -- Sent from my mobile device ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: hosted machine and load average
+1 for collecd (lack of familiarity with munin not withstanding). It helped me to identify a home grown c++ program going into a busy spin first time it happened after weeks of working flowlessly. Monit is also excellent to try to keep things cool (prevention). For this specific scenario, I'd check whether sendmail is configured to use one queue runner in a loop or does it use the default (on some systems) to spawn a new queue runner every few minutes. Also - switch to postfix. -Amos On 9/18/09, Ohad Levy wrote: > I would use collectd instead, it has a much better resolution and scales up > (which munin doesnt). > > my 2cents, > Ohad > > On 9/18/09, Shachar Shemesh wrote: >> >> Hetz Ben Hamo wrote: >> >> So my question: What do you do in case you have the same scenario? >> what steps do you take to prevent things like that from happening? >> >>I would focus less on prevention, and more on diagnostics. I usually >> use munin (you can see a live example at http://www.hamakor.org.il/munin). >> It's great in that it gives you complete history of almost all relevant >> parameters, and you can (farily easily) add your own. >> >> As for the specific problem you are describing, assuming it repeats >> itself, >> it really depends. For example, if you look at the munin history and see >> the >> load average slowly ascending, then I would run ps and check for runaway >> zombies or processes. If the load average jumps suddenly, I would run cron >> with something that logs the top ten active processes. >> >> Shachar >> >> -- >> Shachar Shemesh >> Lingnu Open Source Consulting Ltd. >> http://www.lingnu.com >> >> >> ___ >> Linux-il mailing list >> Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il >> http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il >> >> > ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
