> This site is maitained in a very simple way. // Emacs does have spellcheckng though, doesn't it.
spellchecking ? ;-)
Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing
151–160 of 293 posts
Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing
#152Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know, GNU is fantastic, and one of my main issues with Linux is that it has so many binary blobs and non-free software that are required for it to run on most machines. And as far as what "most people need", "most people" would do fine with a copy of LibreOffice and Firefox running on Ubuntu or whatnot.
Yeah thats most of my issues with Linux mostly binary blobs and not the fact that my laptop won't wake up from sleep, I have to screw around everytime I plug in a projector. LibreOffice works great as long as I don't have to open any Word docs that use change tracking, or spreadsheets that involve calculations, or god forbid a powerpoint with anything but rudimentary graphics. It's a panacea I don't know why anyone w…
On the other hand I have experienced that the blobs are actually the problem.
For example fglrx fails very often to wake up the graphics card in my notebook. The open source radeon driver never had that problem.
People implementing power saving seem to often complain about buggy ACPI implementations. Is this email legit? Did any action come from it? I don't know. But I wouldn't be surprised. http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/...
fglrx's xrandr support kind of works, but is shaky with the virtual size set to a minimum and if not set high manually needs to restart X every time one wants to set a higher resolution on a secondary screen. The open source radeon driver on the other hand has beautifully working xrandr support. Nvidia's blob... Well, the proprietary twinview doesn't support rotating single screens and when I watch videos of presentations I see mostly people trying to get nvidia-settings to set the correct resolution on the projector.
The microsoft documents you speak of, are these in the proprietary, undocumented, closed formats or the new, questionably standardized, overly complex, formats? I personally think that it is microsoft's intention that you need to buy their product to be fully "compatible" with their document format and that's what they get. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardization_of_Office_Open_...
I don't know about you but the presentations I see around here in the university are mostly with open source intel drivers (which I have not seen failing in that regard yet) and a PDF viewer showing the presentation made with the latex beamer class. I fortunately don't have to give many presentations but for some I do have used LibreOffice Impress and I was quite satisfied. Sure, it was quite buggy some time ago but it has improved much.
I fail to imagine how I would spend 15 minutes "fucking around with my operating system". I simply "ctrl+r" the relevant xrandr command from my shell history (something like "xrandr --output LVDS --preferred --output HDMI-0 --preferred --right-of LVDS --rotate normal") - if you don't like the command line, just use a simple gui like arandr - and start the presentation. That takes a few seconds... Maybe you can elaborate?
What are you saving $300 for? Try listening to a presentation from Richard Stallman. You may have heard of him... He speaks about that topic.
Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing
#154" I do not post on 4chan ." -- RMS
It's actually really interesting he feels the need to point that out. Possibly because the /g/ and /prog/ boards have such a fascination with him (perhaps deservedly). Stallman has famously called /g/ full of "inane comments" [1] - and I remember someone venturing far enough outside of /prog/ to mail another idol, Gerald Sussman, who said that such fandoms were "unscientific and ultimately destructive", which was very funny at the time.
4chan is a simple enough website that (a) it would perform well on his Leemote, and (b) he probably wouldn't be threatened by e.g. non-free javascript, since there basically isn't any. I think it highlights the way 4chan is "heard and not seen" that RMS refers to "accounts", of which of course there are none, and curious again he uses the gender-inspecific "it" as if the account itself has an identity as a person, let alone any identity at all.
Of course, things like this [2] (possibly NSFW) probably have a very strong influence on his opinion of 4chan.
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Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If RMS saw me, he'd probably shoot me on the spot You must be thinking of ESR: http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns/
That is very distasteful. Just because someone is advocating firearms rights doesn't mean he will shoot you if you don't share his opinions.
Am I missing something? I don't even know who the guy is, and I was joking in my comment above. I am a gun nut myself, member of IPSC...
Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
He is an extremist and puts many people off with what he says. That is the point. He doesn't need to change his approach or principles. His actions are still in line with what he says.
Well you're kind of making my argument. There's a misunderstanding. I'm talking about young people. Stallman doesn't need to change his approach or principles but what I'm saying is that I have a feeling that one day all the people like you who "get" it will die and very few if any of today's young people will be on board with his views. They'll probably think Stallman was the father of Open Source and not be able to…
I think your points about young people are right on the money. To be more specific, there is a history to his views. They have evolved over time in reaction to specific events, just like everybody's ideas. People who have not experienced the same events will not understand how his views are shaped without this background being explained. In order to understand how the building is made you need to see the scaffolding. Many times Stallman's(and others) views are presented without the proper narrative in place.
Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing
#157Stallman's critique of software, hardware, and services as tools of social control has only become more relevant over the years. Can you imagine his search records being rifled through by a government investigator? Or his Facebook profile being examined by an employer? No, because they don't exist. Nor can you imagine his computer being locked by a bootloader that only allows "Genuine Windows". He's not concerned abo…
While I certainly agree with RMS's reasons for being so committed to his philosophy, I just don't know if it would still be possible to practice in today's world.
Almost every system out there, free software or otherwise is monetized one way or another, either you pay for the software, or you are the product being sold.
Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing
#158I find it odd that he choses to dump platforms that also support Windows. Manufacturers adding Windows support (realistically the other way around with Linux being supported after the fact) is about giving consumers choice in how their product runs.
I feel this is somewhat core to the FSF movement, a choice for how your computer runs. Why should Stallman criticise a company for allowing someone to pick the OS that best meets their needs? If a person picks Windows over a FOSS aligned OS then there is clearly something wrong in the feature-set or user interface of that FOSS OS.
Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing
#159If you're reading hacker news it probably means you don't share the same rigid commitment to free software as rms and thus his recommendations are virtually useless. I wonder where rms stands on airtravel or using a crosswalk given the non-free software that operates these devices.
He simply does his best. That is all he, or any one can do to follow their ideals.
If that is not good enough and one gives up the second there is a challenge or compromise involved, then there is no humanity left, and generally no point to life. Evolution and education would be dead.
Re: Richard Stallman: How I do my Computing
#160I find it odd that he choses to dump platforms that also support Windows. Manufacturers adding Windows support (realistically the other way around with Linux being supported after the fact) is about giving consumers choice in how their product runs. I feel this is somewhat core to the FSF movement, a choice for how your computer runs. Why should Stallman criticise a company for allowing someone to pick the OS that be…
For better or for worse, the Free Software movement has a strange notion of "choice". They believe that the user is entitled to complete control over their computer, which precludes Windows. To someone like me, that would mean that the user should be free to waive those rights and use Windows anyway, but to the FSF that somehow is an infraction. Who the victim is and who the oppressor in that case, is unclear to me.