Re: [tlug] refurbished Thinkpad X60 with Coreboot & Linux

[Attila Kinali <attila@example.com>]

Moin,

On Tue, 24 Dec 2013 11:59:42 +0900
"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com> wrote:

> Benjamin Tayehanpour writes:

>  > As long as one stays away from the very cheapest garbage around
>  > (looking at you, Epson),
> 
> "Cheap garbage" *should* work.  Some of us can afford to buy better
> stuff, but our students and friends who work for NPOs can't.  And I've
> actually been quite happy with our Epson EP-804A (~16000 three years
> ago IIRC) -- but I drive it with a Mac.  (Which is one reason why I
> don't recommend 100% free software systems to the above-mentioned
> "clients" any more.  Software freedom is an important property of the
> ecosystem, but it's not the only freedom that matters.  Freedom from
> driver hassles you don't want is another one.)

~10 years after the big linux hype (and having done the very same mistake
more often than i'd like to admit), i still find it curious how many people
promote the use of OSS and OSS only completely disregarding the needs
of people. Yes, having everything under your control is nice, but having
something that works for you without a day or two of tinkering with 
the innards of your computer is much better. Besides, how many people
know how to code? Can read C, C++, Java or Python? It doesn't matter
whether you potentially could fix a bug in your favorite program if
you don't have the knowledge (and to be frank, most people care so
little that they probably go back to pen and paper before learning
how to program).

On the other hand, the user friendlyness of Linux is pretty bad, still.
To stay on topic: i have an old HP laser printer. Nice little thing with
everything you'd want and decent drivers, etc pp.
But if i want to print a PDF (IMHO the easiest format for printing
out there, right after PS) it's still a 50% chance of failure. It always
works on windows, but on linux, i struggle every day to get my documents
printed correctly. In the 8th Year of the Linux Desktop, why can't
printing just work?
Or take networking: The Strong Point of unix-like systems. How long did
it take until WLan configuration was a seamless and easy as on Windows
and MacOS?
Fileservers anyone?

</rant>

> Aside: In my case, luxury is thanks to your taxes -- write to your
> Diet member if you have one.  Academics waste *so* much of their grant
> money on the "use it or lose it" principle. 

I always found this principle funny, and very disturbing at the same time.
IMHO it's a big waste of money and resources. But i don't see how to
overcome the problems of letting people keep the money they didn't use
from their grants.

> It's not that I don't want the money.  I do.  But I want to be able to
> spend it, eg, by supporting grad students directly (so I can fire the
> bitches if they go do arbeit instead of studying :-).

lol.. you know, that students in german speaking countries refer to
studying as "Arbeit"? :-)


>  > Furthermore, it's more common with printers connecting directly to
>  > the network. GNU/Linux's got that corner covered a long time.
> 
> Not at all.  Protocols for pushing data across wires (or lack of them)
> are not the problem.  It's that the manufacturers don't want to reveal
> the actual command set for their hardware: they consider that
> proprietary information.

Or a bit more modern example: x264 makes quite a bit of money after
they switched to a dual license. Rumor has it that certain key people
do not need to work anymore. And all because companies do not want the
world know how they interface with the hardware or which proprietary
protocol they wrapped around h.264 to make it look more fancy.


			Attila Kinali

-- 
1.) Write everything down.
2.) Reduce to the essential.
3.) Stop and question.
		-- The Habits of Highly Boring People, Chris Sauve