Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 15:25 +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote: Out of curiosity, what number of users are you considering real users here? I agree with what you are saying, but you certainly seem to have a much, much higher standard than I (at least) am used to for real use. Millions. -Rob signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
Robert Collins robe...@robertcollins.net writes: On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 15:25 +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote: Out of curiosity, what number of users are you considering real users here? I agree with what you are saying, but you certainly seem to have a much, much higher standard than I (at least) am used to for real use. Millions. *nod* Fair enough. In that case, indeed, I have never worked on software with real users. IIRC, the peak deployment of any software package I worked on[1] was only a few tens of thousands of people, at a some hundreds of different companies around the world. All very experimental. Regards, Daniel Footnotes: [1] ...excluding things like minor contributions to Emacs and similar relatively peripheral bits and pieces. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] sluggish (no pun) cursor
On Tue, Apr 07, 2009 at 12:07:46AM +1000, david wrote: David, I've noticed that the cursor response is getting sluggish - for instance when holding down an arrow key in a text document, the cursor used to fly across the screen, but now it seems to have got elderly and reluctant. Half it's old speed. I've had the same problem since upgrading to Intrepid. I searched Launchpad after upgrading (a few months ago) and found it was a known bug. I can't point you to the bug though because I've just had a look again and now can't find it. I'm hoping it'll be fixed in Jaunty. John -- Every time I have to pipe something into awk I get this mental picture of a big fat seagull with stdin connected at the wrong end. -- Arthur van der Harg -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 16:10 +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote: Robert Collins robe...@robertcollins.net writes: On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 15:25 +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote: Out of curiosity, what number of users are you considering real users here? I agree with what you are saying, but you certainly seem to have a much, much higher standard than I (at least) am used to for real use. Millions. *nod* Fair enough. In that case, indeed, I have never worked on software with real users. IIRC, the peak deployment of any software package I worked on[1] was only a few tens of thousands of people, at a some hundreds of different companies around the world. All very experimental. Hmm discounts all my work. In one company a mere 2,000 employees got to see it. Hey if my software is used by tens of people but the results are seen by millions does that count? Nope I guess not really. I am wandering away depressed that I have squandered my life programming meaningless applications... -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
Daniel Pittman wrote: Out of curiosity, what number of users are you considering real users here? I agree with what you are saying, but you certainly seem to have a much, much higher standard than I (at least) am used to for real use. There's also features that don't add anything to an experiment but are needed for the real world. Accessibility and internationalisation spring to mind for software, packaging and parts availability for electronics. And dare I say documentation? -- Glen Turner -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
quote who=Ken Foskey Hmm discounts all my work. In one company a mere 2,000 employees got to see it. Hey if my software is used by tens of people but the results are seen by millions does that count? Nope I guess not really. I am wandering away depressed that I have squandered my life programming meaningless applications... Not sure it makes too much sense to review your life's work on Daniel's very literal argumentation... :-) - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2010: Wellington, NZ http://www.penguinsvisiting.org.nz/ Mr Hunt also admits he does not like the expression 'diddly squat', though he will not be ruling it to be unparliamentary. - ABC News Online -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
2009/4/7 Ken Foskey fos...@tpg.com.au ... Hmm discounts all my work. In one company a mere 2,000 employees got to see it. Hey if my software is used by tens of people but the results are seen by millions does that count? Nope I guess not really. I am wandering away depressed that I have squandered my life programming meaningless applications... cheer up Ken. Didn't you say you worked on open office? I probably owe you a beer for directly or indirectly allowing me to conduct my affairs almost exclusively in ubuntu for the last several years. :) -- Daniel Bush http://blog.web17.com.au http://github.com/danielbush/sifs/tree/master http://github.com/danielbush -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 18:39 +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote: Not sure it makes too much sense to review your life's work on Daniel's very literal argumentation... :-) My response was to Rob wanting millions of users. My work on OpenOffice is not any better in numbers than my corporate work. I worked with the developer components, work out how, sadly, few users my parts actually had. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
Jeff Waugh j...@perkypants.org writes: quote who=Ken Foskey Hmm discounts all my work. In one company a mere 2,000 employees got to see it. Hey if my software is used by tens of people but the results are seen by millions does that count? Nope I guess not really. I am wandering away depressed that I have squandered my life programming meaningless applications... Not sure it makes too much sense to review your life's work on Daniel's very literal argumentation... :-) Colour me bitter, but the standard that Robert set seems a touch dismissive by placing a bar that almost no software every achieves. Anyway, that aside, I would be interested in your answer to the question about what level of use you consider a real deployment as opposed to experimentation. Your position is sensible and, clearly, reasoned, and I am interested to better understand it; to that end I think that answer would help, especially if you give the little details about why a simple number isn't effective. ;) Regards, Daniel -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 20:27 +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote: Jeff Waugh j...@perkypants.org writes: quote who=Ken Foskey Hmm discounts all my work. In one company a mere 2,000 employees got to see it. Hey if my software is used by tens of people but the results are seen by millions does that count? Nope I guess not really. I am wandering away depressed that I have squandered my life programming meaningless applications... Not sure it makes too much sense to review your life's work on Daniel's very literal argumentation... :-) Colour me bitter, but the standard that Robert set seems a touch dismissive by placing a bar that almost no software every achieves. Nearly everything in Ubuntu's default install reaches that degree of usage, more or less. Sure, most of the software in Ubuntu isn't in the default install. Heck, most of the software I've altered or written is almost certainly several orders of magnitude less used than say 'gdm'. Clearly, you get more feedback as you get more users, and anyone with a product used by thousands of users should be happy with that. But Mainstream software - which for me is software that has crossed the divide and become broadly available in its chosen market rather than being available only if you know about it and ask the right questions - really does have millions of users. And yes, I know I'm discounting niche software packages like urban waste planning software - for such software the entire market is probably only just big enough to meet 'millions of users', if that. I certainly didn't mean to diminish the contribution we make when we contribute to an open source project that *isn't* already used by the vast masses. It is important to realise that the dynamic of talking to all your users and getting good bug reports changes drastically as the user base scales out. With all of those caveats, I *still* wouldn't call a piece of software that 2000 people use as 'mainstream', particularly in a closed environment like in-house software: You've got at most $EMPLOYEES configurations to deal with, and typically internal IS will be trying to keep that down to a single digit count, as every different configuration adds to the support burden. -Rob signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
Daniel Pittman wrote: Jeff Waugh j...@perkypants.org writes: quote who=Ken Foskey Hmm discounts all my work. In one company a mere 2,000 employees got to see it. Hey if my software is used by tens of people but the results are seen by millions does that count? Nope I guess not really. I am wandering away depressed that I have squandered my life programming meaningless applications... Not sure it makes too much sense to review your life's work on Daniel's very literal argumentation... :-) Colour me bitter, but the standard that Robert set seems a touch dismissive by placing a bar that almost no software every achieves. Anyway, that aside, I would be interested in your answer to the question about what level of use you consider a real deployment as opposed to experimentation. I would suggest that a useful metric of mainstream might be when a hardware vendor bundles the software with their hardware. Then last year's eeePC with Open Office and Xandros would parallel if not match the IBM/PC with DOS in the 1980s, and a myriad of PC Clones and a number of WP and Spreadsheet package in the subsequent years. The ultimate accolade of a piece of software - though not necessarily of the code but the functionality would be when it is implemented in the hardware. Marghanita -- Marghanita da Cruz http://www.ramin.com.au Phone: (+61)0414 869202 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Booting (and logout) problem
On Tue, 7 Apr 2009 12:54:07 +1000 Jobst Schmalenbach jo...@barrett.com.au wrote: Hi. Hi, I just upgraded to FC10 and everything works BUT 1 thing. When I look at the first mingetty (CTRL-ALT-F1) session the boot process has not cleanly finished as the last lines of the boot process are still clearly visible and the login screen that SHOULD be there is not there. This is not the case for all the other login screens and X is there too (as I am typing this from a X based mutt session). I normally enable only 2 mingettys in inittab but it looks too that inittab still has started all 6. When I log out then X returns to the first login screen (the unfinished boot process visbile) but does NOT respawn a new X session and the only two things I can do is to use one of the mingetty's to login in and use startx or reboot the machine to get a new X login screen. Anybody knows what this might be? I believe FC now uses upstart (eventd) for its init system now. I don't have FC10 handy so will be using Ubuntu as my guide. Directories and files may be in a different location. To change what getty's are started up go into /etc/event.d and you should find a file for each instance of getty you want started. ie) tty1, tty2, tty3.. Hope this helps you out. Jobst -- Regards Mick Pollard ( lunix ) BOFH Excuse of the day: Undiagnosable Syntax Dump pgp61AGzDVrFz.pgp Description: PGP signature -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Defining Mainsteam
Robert Collins robe...@robertcollins.net writes: On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 20:27 +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote: Jeff Waugh j...@perkypants.org writes: quote who=Ken Foskey Hmm discounts all my work. In one company a mere 2,000 employees got to see it. Hey if my software is used by tens of people but the results are seen by millions does that count? Nope I guess not really. I am wandering away depressed that I have squandered my life programming meaningless applications... Not sure it makes too much sense to review your life's work on Daniel's very literal argumentation... :-) Colour me bitter, but the standard that Robert set seems a touch dismissive by placing a bar that almost no software every achieves. Nearly everything in Ubuntu's default install reaches that degree of usage, more or less. Sure, most of the software in Ubuntu isn't in the default install. Heck, most of the software I've altered or written is almost certainly several orders of magnitude less used than say 'gdm'. Clearly, you get more feedback as you get more users, and anyone with a product used by thousands of users should be happy with that. I absolutely agree with that. But Mainstream software - Oh. My ah-ha! moment. I wasn't talking so much about the line between mainstream and non-mainstream as between no real users and real users. which for me is software that has crossed the divide and become broadly available in its chosen market rather than being available only if you know about it and ask the right questions - really does have millions of users. For the former I can see the argument, even if I think you are at least one and probably two orders of magnitude too high — I though you were talking about the later, and putting anything that hadn't achieved millions of users into the no real users bucket. And yes, I know I'm discounting niche software packages like urban waste planning software - for such software the entire market is probably only just big enough to meet 'millions of users', if that. I certainly didn't mean to diminish the contribution we make when we contribute to an open source project that *isn't* already used by the vast masses. Well, I am also willing to own up to being, perhaps, a little grumpy at present and so inclined to read worse intention into things than was intended — so, thank you for saying that. It is important to realise that the dynamic of talking to all your users and getting good bug reports changes drastically as the user base scales out. Absolutely. Having worked on projects, in core and peripheral roles, that range in size from one user through hundreds, thousands and, occasionally, millions, I absolutely agree with that. With all of those caveats, I *still* wouldn't call a piece of software that 2000 people use as 'mainstream', particularly in a closed environment like in-house software: Neither would I; I would, however, say that it has real users. You've got at most $EMPLOYEES configurations to deal with, and typically internal IS will be trying to keep that down to a single digit count, as every different configuration adds to the support burden. *nod* Having worked on products that were toolkit level, as well as targeting system administrators, and strictly internal things, something strictly in-house is decidedly easier. :) Anyway, sorry if I grabbed the wrong end of the stick in what you were saying; I have a lot less complaint now that I understand what you meant better. Regards, Daniel -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Booting (and logout) problem
I have been looking into these files, over and over again :-( but there is nothing indicating an error. X is running fine and the ONLY thing that isnt working is the logout with X restarting (respawning) and presenting the login box. I can login in again, but the only way to do that is thru console login and then startx. ... still hangs jobst On Tue, Apr 07, 2009 at 02:13:41PM +1000, Ken Foskey (fos...@tpg.com.au) wrote: On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 12:54 +1000, Jobst Schmalenbach wrote: Anybody knows what this might be? Based on Debian but hopefully it wont be too far wrong. Before you start a new X look at the ~/.xsession_errors file and see if anything is there. Look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log, and finally look in /var/log/gdm/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- The computer is your friend. It never argues until Gates squeezed Chilly through the CDROM door! | |0| | Jobst Schmalenbach, jo...@barrett.com.au, General Manager | | |0| Barrett Consulting Group P/L The Meditation Room P/L |0|0|0| +61 3 9532 7677, POBox 277, Caulfield South, 3162, Australia -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Solved! Re: [SLUG] sluggish (no pun) cursor
H.. you are a genius.. works. the rates you gave are apparently maximums for intel x86, and you are right that it must be run as root. My cursor now is back to it's lively old self! Henare Degan wrote: On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 00:07, david da...@kenpro.com.au wrote: I've noticed that the cursor response is getting sluggish - for instance when holding down an arrow key in a text document, the cursor used to fly across the screen, but now it seems to have got elderly and reluctant. Half it's old speed. I've tried all the usual things wd40, incantations to Ubuntu gods and kicking the box, but to no avail. Top shows 97% idle most of the time. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with accessibility option settings. Any suggestions? Hi David, Have you tried resetting the keyboard repeat rate? kbdrate should be the command you're looking for. Sane settings are (apparently) `kbdrate -r 30 -d 250`, and I think you need to run it as root (sorry can't test now). Cheers, h -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Booting (and logout) problem
I solved it and I hope this will help a few people. Its got to do that Fedora (and othe linux??) are moving away from xfs (fontserver). In its place sits a directory called /etc/X11/fontpath.d that contains links to all FONT directories on the system You place a link in there and libXfont will inform X that a new font is available. When the upgrade was done to Fedora 10 somehow not all links were made and X didnt get all the fonts is needed. The problem I had that NOTHING showed up in the logs and X was actually quite happily working and only failed to respawn after LOGOUT. Further some of the messages are now logged to /var/log/kdm.log. The ONLY thing that was a little odd was the weird log message of startkde startkde stopped and not respawning. I then used an application that I had not used after the upgrade and suddenly one line in the .xsession-errors showed up fixed font missing. So I did some research and learned that the /etc/X11/fontpath.d had replaced xfs ... and I made sure that all the fonts of the system were properly linked. Jobst On Tue, Apr 07, 2009 at 12:54:07PM +1000, Jobst Schmalenbach (jo...@barrett.com.au) wrote: Hi. I just upgraded to FC10 and everything works BUT 1 thing. When I look at the first mingetty (CTRL-ALT-F1) session the boot process has not cleanly finished as the last lines of the boot process are still clearly visible and the login screen that SHOULD be there is not there. This is not the case for all the other login screens and X is there too (as I am typing this from a X based mutt session). I normally enable only 2 mingettys in inittab but it looks too that inittab still has started all 6. When I log out then X returns to the first login screen (the unfinished boot process visbile) but does NOT respawn a new X session and the only two things I can do is to use one of the mingetty's to login in and use startx or reboot the machine to get a new X login screen. Anybody knows what this might be? Jobst -- People who fight may lose. People who do not fight have already lost. - Bertolt Brecht | |0| | Jobst Schmalenbach, jo...@barrett.com.au, General Manager | | |0| Barrett Consulting Group P/L The Meditation Room P/L |0|0|0| +61 3 9532 7677, POBox 277, Caulfield South, 3162, Australia -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- Nothing is stationary. Everything wiggles. | |0| | Jobst Schmalenbach, jo...@barrett.com.au, General Manager | | |0| Barrett Consulting Group P/L The Meditation Room P/L |0|0|0| +61 3 9532 7677, POBox 277, Caulfield South, 3162, Australia -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
