About a year ago, I bought the cheapest computer in the store. (emachines T5062)

It came with Vista Premium. It does have some nice eye-candy over XP, but my CPU idled(i.e. I shut all windows and background apps) at 10%. The damn operating system takes almost 10% of my processing power to do absolutely nothing!

XP is a little better. At least it idles at <1%. I am not perpetually bugged by security issues, and my MingW compiler actually works.

I have high hopes for ReactOS, which is built in lieu of the NT kernel. This means that it will be binarily compatible with XP, NT, and likely windows 7. I don't know if they are making preparations for 64 bit or not.

Currently I'd like to experiment with Linux. I hear it is much more secure, easier on the resources, and much less costly. But I really don't want to hear "all you have to do is recompile the Kernel". I'm not completely retarded, I know what a kernel is. Keep in mind though: I like so many others were raised on windows where everything is done via graphical interface. I have only recently started using command line programs, and I've never actually compiled something manually.

These things said, anyone know where I can get a usable version of linux. How is Linux's compatibility using Wine etc? Where is a good place to learn command line basics? Am I going to be able to run my games like Oblivion, and StarCraft? (yes I still play starcraft)

There are distributions that have a "live CD", meaning you can boot via CD and play around with Linux, and your existing installation is not touched at all. The first ones that come to mind are Knoppix and Ubuntu (and probably another flavour thereof: KUbuntu).

There is no installation required, and if you don't like it, you just throw away the CD.

Most users can get by using only a graphical interface with Linux these days, depending on hardware and the distribution they pick. The stuff you'll do at a command line will probably be copied and pasted from how-to guides online.

Ubuntu? It's fairly easy to use.

Mediocre. Games run slowly, have graphical artifacts, some programs don't work at all.

Well, if you pick Ubuntu I usually recommend to go here: http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Jaunty

When googling, don't search for 'how to do something in Linux', search for 'how to do something in <insert distribution name here>'. Guides 'for Linux' are intended to work on most (or all) distributions, and don't take advantage of the high-level tools available in them. It can be the difference between manually compiling packages for two hours or clicking 'Use Proprietary Drivers'.

But for actual command prompt stuff, here's a comparison to Windows:
ls - dir
mv - move
nano - edit
cp - copy
cd - cd
cd .. - move up one directory
cd $HOME - go to home directory

To run a program in the current directory:
./myprogram - myprogram.exe

To run a program with administrative privileges:
sudo theprogram

You can search for compatible programs on WINE's applicaton database. There are also a few commercial games that run natively on Linux.

Well, cant get any more up front than that. I was actually intending to do a dual boot, since I already have a partition set up solely for programming. It will just end up being a Linux/programming partition. Hey that reminds me! Linux doesnt support NTFS. How would I handle a dual boot, FAT32?

I've been able to access NTFS for years with default distributions. ntfs3g or something.

Thanks guys, I will get right on liberating all my computers from the worst that capitalism has to offer.

I really don't think people should have to pay to have their computers work. OSs should remain open source and monetarily free. So should media players, utilities, and file formats. It is OK to have proprietary software in the interest of making money, but anything else should remain free in the spirit of free knowledge.

Thanks again, I'll be back after washing dishes for seven hours at the local KFC.

Why do they call it KFC? Some guy purporting to be the ceo (president?) apologized to New England with an Australian accent recently and the chicken is now grilled. As to Oses, Linux is fine, but hard to keep up. I went to Fedora 8 (a year ago?) when it was released and they are now on 10 or 11.

I used to have high hopes for it too, years ago.. but it seems they are years behind, all the time

As for linux, I'd do what people above said, get a "Live CD" to get a feel of which one you like. I liked Kubuntu (KDE instead of Gnome as they use in vanilla Ubuntu). It found all my hardware on my crappy Acer laptop

I heard it was because "Fried" is seen as "bad" so they wanted to take the stigma out of their name.

But a lot of the chicken is still fried afaik.

What they're trying to do is basically unrealistic. By the time they have something that can be a solid windows (let's say XP) replacement, MS will have moved on so far that they'll still be waaay behind. I'm sure they'll have their loyal following and all, but I seriously don't expect it to ever even compete with *nix, mustless Windows.

I understand the "F" part, but why the "K"? The head of the company has an Australian accent.

Who needs ReactOS? Use FreeDOS!

They fixed the bug in MinGW that made it not work properly with Vista.

Seriously, a little research? The guy who founded the chain and came up with the "original recipe" chicken originally started selling fried chicken in the 1930s in Kentucky.

That's a great idea, but it will never work. Money makes stuff happen. Why do you think Windows is in a much better market position than Linux?

Money pays for the end user support. One of Linux's largest downfalls. It pays for developer salaries - people have to work for a living, so freebie programmers can't sit around programming all day for their favorite open source project. Etc...

Well BAF, I guess i am a crappy idealist.

Microsoft charges for most tech support unless you purchase a retail copy of the software. Then they charge for any tech support that doesn't directly involve Windows.

As for KFC, we have both grilled and fried chicken. My store was actually one of the test locations for the Indianapolis/Chicago area. The owner was nice enough to fly down from Michigan in his leer-jet to bitch at our store before it went national. Then the managers from our region all flocked in to learn the trade secrets we spent a YEAR perfecting in secret. Oprah can go to hell.

Marketing? (think hundreds of millions here)

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-269032.html

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39167856,00.htm

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39292630,00.htm

FAT32 is a very sub-optimal file system; AFAIK, it maxes out at 30 GB, it has a huge overhead for "large" partitions, it doesn't have journalling (which means that any crash can leave the file system in a transitional state, leading to corrupt data), and it tends to get fragmented badly in no time.

Ubuntu seems to support NTFS. You do need windows to create and format NTFS partitions, though, and since NTFS is basically a closed standard, there are no guarantees about the safety of your data. Also, NTFS has windows-style user permissions built in, so in order to mount an NTFS partition in ubuntu, you need to provide windows credentials (which shouldn't be a problem though).

The other method would be an ext2/ext3 driver for windows. I haven't used any myself, but from what I read, this may be a useable alternative.

Anyhow, with today's hardware, you probably have plenty of disk space to spare to have two data partitions (one for windows, one for linux) and write data back and forth.

One more important hint: Install the dumbest OS first. For an XP / Vista / Linux triple boot configuration, this means XP goes first, then Vista, then Linux. Otherwise, the "dumber" OS will mess up the smarter one's boot configuration (e.g. XP overwriting grub).

That knowledge costs money. Lots of money. A software developer needs to eat, and a software company needs an office with servers and workstations and desks and coffee and snacks and all that. People work hard to produce that knowledge, and they need to be paid for that. Even all those open source developers need an income, and most of them either do commercial work for a living while working on open source projects in their spare time, or the entire project is sponsored by some kind of company that has commercial interests in the otherwise free project (as is the case with, for example, PHP - Zend makes a lot of money offering add-ons, IDEs, educational material and all sorts of support for it). Even Linux itself is partly driven by a number of companies such as RedHat, as well as non-profit organisations (the term "non-profit" does not imply that they don't pay any salaries!), and I doubt it could have become even this large without their support.
Of course people pay money for computers that work: The computer itself isn't free, and most computers come bundled with some kind of OS. You pay for the whole package, computer and OS, and if the combo doesn't work, you can take the thing back to the store and demand they fix it.
In fact, the situation with computers is quite odd. People buy computers, then install a different OS, and complain when it doesn't work. Or they complain that they have to "pay" for the OS. You don't see the same thing with other devices though: An average car today comes with a truckload of microprocessors, and many of them have some kind of firmware installed. Nobody complains about paying for that, and neither does anybody utter the idea that the installed firmware could be replaced by something "better".

Really, I don't see why software in general "should" be free. People make something, they sell (or licence) it. What's wrong about that? Nothing but the fact that other people make similar things and don't charge money for them.
We all know people need to eat. Suppose I offer free food - does that mean the bakery next door is suddenly somehow doing something unethical?

Completely disparate situations. You don't directly deal with the firmware of your car's ICs, or develop software for them. They aren't designed to be general devices, as computers are.

Lotsa capitalists here.
* Releases something for free just to rile them up.

Lots of people are upset about the firmware in their cars.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/05/20/2219236/Right-to-Repair-Law-To-Get-DRM-Out-of-Your-Car?art_pos=1

I will only say that there are a great many operating systems which are free, and apparently still around, even though the developers are not being paid. They don't seem to be of lower quality than commercial OSs, in fact many people would argue that they're higher quality. How can this be?

Their business model relies on convincing people to pay money for something that is freely available. I don't see an honest way to do this. Surely if they are able to stay in business, it could only be by harming their customers?

I have no problems paying money when there is no free alternative. Say, commercial games or movies. But why should I spend money on an operating system, or a word processor, when these things have been freely available for years? I must buy only because the manufacturers of commercial versions engage in dirty tricks to force me to do so. And I must buy them over and over and over again.

By that abuse of reasoning, there's probably not a single honest business in thw world then.

Let me guess... they kidnapped your mother and threatened to gang-rape her unless you bought their OS?

Now you're just being silly... The records of the Borg intimidating, lying, using FUD and other underhanded tactics are legendary and not worth bringing up the thousands of links yet again.

Yes, deliberately. Because anyone who claims that they were forced to buy an OS is either an idiot or a liar.

Kidnapped mothers who are gang-raped still don't force you to do anything... <Ducks and runs>

LennyLen: You have given no arguments other than vitriol and personal attacks. Why do you post here?

Outside of the software world, I simply can't think of any business that sells things which can be had for free. (Other than the pet rock company.) Can you explain your position?

I can go to the city mission and they will give me food. Therefore, by your reasoning, everyone who sells food is dishonest. I can get free sex, so there go all the prostitutes. I was once given a free car, so that takes care of all the car salesmen...

Everything can be had for free somehow, somewhere, which makes everyy business dishonest, by your resoning.

Because people who go around claiming they were forced into things when they weren't really piss me off. Good day.

The "free food" is paid for by guilt laden liberals.

What? No dinner, movie, dancing, flattery? What's your secret?

I was given a free truck once, with the stipulation to NEVER GET CAUGHT BY THE COPS WHILE DRIVING IT ON PUBLIC ROADWAYS!!!

Legally free? And of sufficient quantity, quality, and availability?

He claimed that Tobias giving away food made the bakery dishonest, so apparantly quantity, quality and availaibility don't matter.

Many people argue that they are weird and don't work well enough for them to use, including me.
I stopped using Ubuntu (the best distro I have found so far) because it doesn't support my wifi (I gave up after trying to compile a patched kernel, which gave me tons of compiler errors and didn't really work the way the enclosed documentation promised), doesn't support my audio hardware (the best I could find was a guy who promised that he would write a driver back in 2007, and nobody has heard from him since), fails to run two mission critical applications (and doesn't offer viable alternatives either), cannot adjust my notebook's screen brightness, and a few other minor annoyances.
Windows XP, however, after going through the ridiculous phone activation process ("Press 2 if you promise you have installed the product on no more than 2 machines") downloading all the drivers from the vendor's web site and installing them, works just fine, which kind of makes up for the less appealing visuals and the fact that a few damn useful features are missing.

Anyway, my point is simply that just because some software is free doesn't mean all software has to be, or that charging money for software is suddenly somehow immoral.

There is nothing wrong with charging for software. If there is a free alternative, then people can use that if they choose. No one is forcing anyone to buy anything.

I have decided the issue, this discussion is over.

No its not (I could post to this thread still )

charging for software != open source

Free as in speech, not free as in beer.

Saying that distributing closed source, selling code, anything like that is immoral is fairly stupid. It's your code, your choice. If you (for instance) try to force someone else to do something they'd rather not with their code, that is immoral. I, personally, would say that writing code for (say) Echelon would be immoral, though many would disagree. But saying that a given distribution method is immoral is not really tenable, except in extreme cases^[1].

Wasn't Tobias forced to use windows because his wifi manufacturer (and audio hardware manufacturer) only support windows (in the form of supplying drivers only for that OS)?
What if your university will only allow you to register for X with Internet Explorer? Or only agree to accept papers in the MS Word format?

I'm using windows because a) It came pre-installed on the computer with no convenient way to get a discount for eliminating it (the computer was much cheaper than buying equivalent parts separately, even with the MS tax), and b) the Alltel Wireless HUAWEI antenna has no Linux driver. Granted, I can still use Linux, but I don't due to keeping an eye peeled for the Recent category of allegro.cc.

No, he wasn't forced to. He could have chosen to replace the hardware, or even to have not bothered having a computer at all (humans do not require computers, we choose to have them).

Perhaps it's some people here who need to get gang-raped. Then perhaps they'll understand what it means to be forced to do something.

<edit> missed this:

You still have choices. Go to another university, don't go to one at all. Again, nobody is forcing you to do something. And in any case, you don't need to buy Windows to use IE. You could run a pirated copy on a VM (it can also apparantly be run under Wine, and there is the Mac version, even if it has been discontinued). And OpenOffice can create documents in Word format. Still nobody forcing you to buy a specific OS.

Just because you have other choices doesn't mean you aren't forced. "Sure, you can choose for me to shoot you with this gun OR you can choose to give me your money - it is entirely up to you".
Not going to university for example is not a real choice because you'll probably end up ruining your life.

You're just arguing semantics. Let me ask you this - are you forced to get a job?

Nope. But a job makes life a lot easier.

The only thing everyone's forced to do is to die, and even that has to be done only once.

Wow, you're as full of shit as he is. I can't be bothered arguing with idiots any more.

Are you 16?

No.
I could have done some research before buying said hardware. I didn't, knowing about the risk of not being able to run linux.

Demand that they provide the necessary hardware and software for you. And I haven't heard of any university doing something like this; if anything, they'd demand you use LaTeX and, um, Telnet or something.

Apple is far worse. And at least you can get on the phone with Microsoft if you have to and at least have someone try to help you. Ever try to get help with some obscure problem with Linux? You're either treated like an idiot, ignored, or given totally unrelated answers. And for the record, I've personally found much more useful info and help regarding Microsoft products online than Linux.

And how does marketing happen? As I said - money.

Are you sure about that? I thought you could format from Linux. Anyhow, I've never had to give user credentials with NTFS-3G either. Personally, I would fully recommend NTFS-3G.

Don't forget the people who rice out their car by doing useless crap to 'improve' it that actually makes it worse. I loosely equate those types of people with those who install Linux (and have no reason to do so) then bitch when stuff doesn't work, they hate the OS, blah blah blah.

One word: zealosy.

I can think of a big one - labor. Yes, you could get off your lazy ass, but why, when you can pay someone else to do it for you? Build your own house, do your own car repairs, mow your own lawn, do your own taxes, etc.

Spelling fail aside, is that an explanation for why Linux is good or for why people say it's better than Windows?

The latter presumably, since linux isn't better than Windows. Neither is Windows better than Linux.

Wubi is really easy to set up: installs Ubuntu on your Windows partition and can remove it via Add + Remove programs.
http://wubi-installer.org/

Re the lame marketing wasting your money from MS taxes on PC purchases:

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/28/0321251

This one is much more fun to read:
How to get a windows tax refund

Being forced doesn't necessarily mean you have no other choice. It can mean your choices are limited and typically alternatives are undesirable. For example, if I were to pull a gun on you and your girlfriend and demand that you give me all of your money or I'm going to blow her head off, you have the choice of telling me to fuck off. It probably won't go well for either of you, but you have that freedom. Still, most would say I was forcing you to give me your money because the alternatives were undesirable.

The way computer software/hardware is today, Microsoft Windows typically gets proprietary drivers for most PC hardware (if not right away, then eventually) directly from the manufacturers whereas the open source community is usually tasked with writing their own (often by reverse engineering the hardware because specs are not released). So yeah, the open source community has a struggle on their hands to provide sufficient support for all of the many flavors of hardware available and often your hardware isn't perfectly supported for months or years. Is it really their fault that they're fighting an uphill battle? Is it really to Microsoft's credit that hardware manufacturers need to support their OS in order to reach the mass market? It's no surprise that Apple limits themselves to select hardware. They'd probably face the same support issues as the Linux community if they tried to support it all.

Nobody can argue that Microsoft throw their weight around whenever possible to stay ahead. Some of their products are great, but others are absolute crap; yet people are still mostly forced to buy into them.

Obviously, it isn't dishonest or wrong to sell software. Requiring me to buy that software in order to buy hardware seems a little more gray though, IMHO. The open source model is a much better model. I was taught that it has been around a lot longer than proprietary software. Apparently before Microsoft came along, it was normal to give the software away for free, source included. After all, the hardware isn't much use without it. Nowadays, though, the software to support the hardware is instead written for a proprietary operating system and made proprietary itself, requiring users to buy the proprietary operating system to use the hardware or [probably illegally] reverse engineer it and write their own software for it. There are the exceptional cases where manufacturers hand over the necessary specs to allow the open source community to develop support, but it still isn't the same as providing that support for them.

Consider it this way: if everybody shared software, one company would pay its programmers to write some software that they need and subsequent companies with similar needs could borrow that code and tweak it for their needs, hopefully saving them a ton of time and work. The programmers are all still getting paid for the work they're doing, but they're spending less time reinventing proprietary wheels and more time sharing existing software. Hopefully, the original company can save time and money in the future by also borrowing code from others. I don't know this model can sustain itself without the use of proprietary licensing, but I'd like to think it can. The are some very intelligent people that have been around a long time that seem to know it can.

baf, i agree with you 100%, car ricer analogy is pretty spot on

It's a chicken and egg thing, really. You need windows to use certain hardware, sure. But the other side of the story is that you need compatible hardware to run Linux. You can blame Microsoft, or you can blame (some) hardware vendors, but it doesn't mean anyone is forced either way. It doesn't mean that they are doing anything illegal or immoral either.
I know of one notebook manufacturer who ships all their machines without an OS so basically, customers do have a choice.

Don't get me wrong, I think Open Source / Free Software is a great idea, and the world would probably be a better place if all software were essentially free, but to get there, we would need a different society, something like a mild form of communism (in the non-ideological sense of the word: community-funded work resulting in community-owned products).

What? Morals depend on the person and the society. Under my set of morals charging for software is highly immoral. You all think it's moral because you all think free market is the optimal economic arrangement or something, a belief not everyone shares. Stop making blanket statements about something's morality.

And we're expected to respect your set of morals. So tell me, if someone commits a serious crime, say murder, and then states that under his set of morals murder is not immoral, are we forced to respect his moral views and let him go free? Or, similarly, if someone states that under their set of morals it is immoral to release software for free, must we respect their personal morality?

If I can no longer read files because of changes to proprietary formats,
if I cannot play media because of DRM,
if I cannot use my hardware because proprietary drivers don't exist and the manufacturer won't release the information needed to create an open-source driver,
if I cannot obtain security updates because my OS is wrongly deemed to be an unauthorized copy,
if I am not allowed to install the software that I buy on any PC I choose without having to call for permission,
if the software on my computer calls home without my explicit permission,
if the software on my computer transmits information about my computer without my explicit permission,

I have lost control of my computer and it has been hacked.

OK then:
Assuming ethics that are based on the following:
1. Whoever makes something is the rightful owner
2. Whoever owns something is free to give it away, or sell it at any price they see fit
3. The intellectual rights to a piece of software are something that can be owned
...I don't see how one could argue that charging money for software (or the right to use it) is wrong. And the above 3 statements reflect the ethics of enough people to turn them into laws in virtually all civilized (and so-called civilized) countries.

Im all but a free market evangelist, and I am a strong opponent of a lot of things commercial software makers and other companies often do, but the sole fact that they are charging money for their products (even if horribly overpriced) is not one of them.

Blame those who changed the formats, or better yet, don't save your data in proprietary formats.

Then don't buy DRM-ed media.

Then the hardware doesn't fit the OS. First to blame is you for choosing the wrong combination: Alternatives DO exist.

Call support and complain. Everytime I had to call Microsoft for things like this (e.g. installed for the third time because the first system had died) getting my copy re-enabled was no problem at all.
Or use an OS that doesn't need to be authorized.

You don't buy software, you buy a licence. Nobody forces you to agree with the licence.

If you have a problem with that, then don't use the software. And if your privacy has in fact been violated, then go to court.

None of these points has anything to do with charging money for software.

Again:
- Hardware manufacturers have no legal obligation to release specs or provide drivers for any operating system, and you have no legal right to claim that hardware you buy works with any OS that's not mentioned on the box.
- Software companies, like individuals, have all the right in the world to put restrictions on your use of the product, as long as they are mentioned in the licence agreement between you and the copyright owner.

There's a slight difference between "it's a shame that X doesn't work with Y" and "how dare X not support Y".

But when you have to for school or work, it doesn't leave you much choice if you want to continue to be schooled/employed.

Dunno about you, but I do buy a copy of the software, and not a license regardless of what they say I'm buying. I go to the store, grab a physical copy, and give the clerk some money for the purchase.. I then own the copy. I didn't agree to any license, nor do I have to before using the product in any legal way I want.

Only within the bounds of the law, which is arguable where DRM and similar is concerned. When they start putting unlawful restrictions on software (or make people think there are restrictions where there isn't), that starts becoming immoral, IMO.

I had the Tomb Raider Legend demo a couple of years ago, I read on the intrawebs how they installed the SecureROM DRM for the demo and how to remove it. Now, if it's a demo that anybody can download legally, why do they have to include "anti-piracy" measures with it? I'll not install another new game or demo until it's been out for several months at least to make sure it doesn't do bad stuff to my computer. Is SecuROM bad? These guys seem to think so

http://reclaimyourgame.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56&Itemid=61

DRM on a demo? Why?

Haha, sounds like typical zealot behavior. Waste hours for $50. I'd rather go to work for a couple hours and get $50 the easy way, rather then spend 3 times as long on the phone with people who can't speak english and therefore can't comprehend what I want.

Uhm... but people who use Linux don't have jobs because they think charging money for things is immoral.

They just want the refund so they can go buy some weed.

Oh, I forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me, it makes more sense to me now.

I suppose ML can get away with trolling, since he owns the forum.

I'm just the reporter - you decide.

It's done because there have been known cases where crackers used the demo file to crack the actual game.

One of those just consisted of replacing the exe with the demo exe. So to prevent this, the demos are covered in the same DRM to slow down the crackers a little longer.

Yes, enough people = the number that constitutes the majority of corrupt representatives sitting in the various ruling bodies of those countries to pass these 'ethics' into law. What is lawful is not necessarily ethical or moral. Conversely, what is moral or ethical need not be legal (especially in the current world).

To pragmatists, what is legal the the only thing that matters, of course they are confused by people of higher moral fortitude. Call them zealots a lot they do.

Like, look at this:

It does not occur to this specimen that there are moral stand issues at play, and that the money returned is only of secondary concern.

Also, the irony here is that the money returned doesn't come from Microsoft anyway. Dell most likely just absorbed the $50 loss to make the guy shut up and stop wasting their time.

Yeah? That's precisely one of the points. Bother Dell with this so they offer an unbundled option.

But then MS would get mad at Dell and take away the OEM discount, which would force Dell to charge more than competitors for equivalent computers.

OTOH, it wouldn't be hard to swap in a blank hard drive if they did want to sell an "illegal, naked PC".

http://ctrambler.wordpress.com/2006/04/06/sell-naked-pcs-pc-without-operating-system-or-risk-losing-customer/

You own the physical media, yes.
You don't own the contents, though. You grab the copy (the copy, mind you), you pay, and then, before using the software, there is usually some kind of licence agreement you have to, well, agree with (if only by breaking a seal, clicking a button, or installing the product). If you don't agree, you are entitled for a full refund, provided you can produce proof that you haven't used the copy.

To my knowledge, Dell is one of the competitors that DOES sell naked PCs. You have to ask specifically, they may not offer any model you like (e.g. the cheapest ones), and you may not save significant amounts of money, but they do sell them - even though they do not publicly advertise this fact.
This may also be because people EXPECT an OS to be bundled with a PC, just like they expect a hard drive, a CPU and RAM. Sell a naked PC to an average customer, without warnings in big red flashing letters, and you'll receive truckloads of complaints that the PC doesn't do anything.

Matter of principle vs. pragmatism. Having moved from Germany to the Netherlands, these things have become quite clear (and often amusing) to me. Germans focus on what they are entitled to, Dutch people just want to know how to reach a certain (individual or common) goal.

Again, in the cases I have heard of, schools (universities especially) tend to <em>refuse</em> proprietary formats. Of all the people I know well enough to care about their academic careers, 100% has written their homeworks and theses and such using LaTeX, and in most cases, this was mandated by their univiersities.
As far as work goes, if your employer mandates that you have a PC and use it for work, then they better pay for it - hardware AND software.

Obviously. You cannot mandate that a user needs to murder his/her stepmom before using the product or something like that. However, charging money for limited usage hardly qualifies as "unlawful"; neither does DRM, provided:
- it does not restrict usage of the product any further than the licence agreement states
- it does not put any restrictions on the rest of any system capable of playing / using the affected media
Unfortunately, most DRM solutions I'm aware of don't qualify - most violate either or both of the above.

You own the copy of the contents the moment its paid for. I did not agree to any license before I forked over my cash, and they can't try to push terms on me after the sale. Legally speaking, the moment I buy the copy, I can make a backup copy/ISO, store the original for safe-keeping, then hexedit the ISO to remove any EULA.. (or use Wine, where the EULA tends to not show up, sometimes ). I didn't make any agreement, and modifying a license without the consent of the other party automatically invalidates that license (if it was even valid to begin with).. but I still own the copy, and thus can do with it what I wish.

You can copy Shakespeare out of a book, due to it's being public domain, but you can't sell copies of Spielbergs latest offering even though you bought the paperback. Borland had it right with their "like a book" license.

from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland

Actually you can. First-sale doctrine, and all. You can't sell copies you made, however.. you have to give them away with the original, or destroy them, if you sell your original copy.

However, any modifications you make are your own copyright. Since Shakespeare works tend to survive in multiple, slightly different versions, most publishing houses are able to find sufficient leeway in the exact placement of punctuation that they can produce a print of Shakespeare that you can't duplicate exactly. Similarly, all the layout is covered, so you definitely can't photocopy. Probably best to buy at least a couple of Shakespeares and pick at random anywhere they differ in punctuation.

On the plus side, it's almost certain that even the original portfolio printers just made up their own punctuation, so this isn't as much of an example of business degrading culture as it might seem.

From the Department-of-Redundancy-Department:

I meant my photocopied copies, not additional paperbacks I bought.

Probably not going to happen. The vast majority of their users wouldn't want such a thing, so those who do can either suck it up or screw off and build their own system.

Yes it would - their motherboards have the licensing info stored in them. I'm not sure on the specifics of it, but I do know that you can flash a BIOS to certain motherboards that's been dumped from Dells/other makers systems and get a "free" Windows license. Of course there are ways of solving this, but it's not worth it, as noted above, because very few customers actually give a crap.

But if you want to be a martyr for this pointless cause, go ahead and waste your time to save $50. Personally, I tend to build my systems, but if I were to buy a prebuilt machine, well, it's prebuilt. Why not complain that you can't get it without a CPU?

Even if you do want to run MS junk, wouldn't you rather have a real install CD and avoid the Norton-AOL-Adobe crippleware? Not to mention using all the bits you paid for on your hard drive.

For many things I prefer Linux, but I still need Windows for games and I'm alright with that (for now). However, I hate the crippled Windows installs that come bundled with PCs. They're useless garbage. I'd rather pay for the license myself and have a pure Windows system then have to deal with that shit. And depending on how willing I am to part with $300-400 (might as well go for a fully-fledged Windows OS instead of a restricted one), I'm quite likely to put it off or not do it all together and just install a free Linux distribution.

You own the physical copy, but not the copyright. Hence, you are NOT allowed to do with it whatever you please, especially not copy. If you do not make an agreement with the copyright holder (and buying a physical copy doesn't imply such an agreement for all I know), then you aren't even entitled to copy the software for the intended purpose.

Legal mumbo-jumbo aside, I think copyright by itself is pretty much OK the way it is. It's how some people / companies use it that bothers me.

The agreement with the copyright holder is implicit with the sale of the copy. That's (part of) what copyright law covers. When you buy a product, you are guaranteed certain rights and privileges (among them, the right to disassemble and reverse engineer). And you are allowed to make copies for backup purposes, if it's reasonable to assume the original copy could be damaged or degrade from use.. and I don't know anyone that would argue that for CD/DVDs.

The ideal copyright law should be that you can't provide copies to other people, dissuading them from buying their own from the copyright holder. You should be able to make as many backups as you want, copy your music to your PC or mp3 player, or however else you decide to enjoy what you paid for. The copyright holder should NOT throw up artificial obstacles to get you to buy multiple versions and copies for your own use. Come to think of it, MS wouldn't mind at all if you pay the "Microsoft tax" for a PC with Windows preinstalled, then purchase a shrinkwrapped copy of Windows as well.

Well, after a while of leaving my thread alone, I have installed Ubuntu on my laptop. I am also going to turn my unused partition on my desktop into a nice Ubuntu pad.

That said, I didn't think it would be this easy. I'm running 1024x768 resolution, my audio works, and I have internet connectivity. With XP I had to install drivers for each of these functions! I thought I was paying for 'the windows experience'?

THIS IS JUST AS EASY AS WINDOWS.

In short: I'm about to transform into a Linux junkie.

Without wanting to impute anything against Ubuntu, it's probably a bit unfair to expect XP to have out-of-the-box drivers for your hardware given that the OS is now eight years old and, probably, your machine isn't?

EDIT: I doubt I could be a full-time Linux user as I just don't like most of the desktop software. I'm fine with GIMP and can stomach OpenOffice, but Scribus and Inkscape are really extremely poor for my purposes compared to the Adobe equivalents. And don't even get me started on Blender. I know AC3d is available, which I have a historical fondness for, but it's not what I currently use. And Audacity just winds me up because the sort of things I want to use an audio editor for are clearly just secondary functions of Audacity.

That would depend on if he updated up to and including SP3.

With XP, I had to download and install a couple drivers (all from the same website). With ubuntu, there was no driver at all.

Good point. And I hope he had; I recently reinstalled my father's computer from c.2003 XP disks (possibly SP1, possibly not) and by the time the machine got as far as downloading one of the various Microsoft malicious spyware removal programs, something out there somewhere had already installed a backdoor into the machine. Had I been aware that he connects directly to the wall through a USB modem, I'd have taken along my laptop to act as a firewall for the duration of the XP install and update cycle...

EDIT: I've installed Ubuntu, but only in a virtual machine. An issue I had above and beyond my general dislike of the current Linux productivity applications was that there seemed to be no GUI-building tools as simple as Interface Builder or even ye olde MFC-in-VC6. So I also didn't like the coding opportunities. The central OS did everything you'd want though; I'd be more than happy to have it on a netbook or any machine mostly for browsing and emailing.

Have you tried Glade? I've never used it, but I've heard good things about it.

This experience was a year or two ago, so I'm unable to answer that question directly. However, from the website it looks like Glade isn't integrated with any particular IDE? You need to go into Glade, sketch out your interface and type in all your function names, then write code that includes the same function names declared globally and link to libglade, then explicitly issue a call to load your user interface? And, presumably, scratch your head for absolutely ages if you'd made a typo in one place but not the other.

Actually, I have many computers. I have had to install drivers for video, audio, and networking on all of them. Their ages range from circa 2002 - 2007, and my disk is SP-2. Windows doesn't even try, trust me. Its a real pain in the ass when you HAVE to find a driver for certain hardware. (Especially when the company who made it blatantly refuses to name the built in wifi in your laptop)

Ubuntu won't do anything fancy without a driver, but at least I get 1024x768 resolution. And hell, Allegro ports to Linux just fine! I can take my projecs with me and aside from that all I need is a word processor, and internet!

Perfect school computer.

On that vague topic, how's KOffice doing? I'm one of those people that likes simplified user interfaces that optimise the speed and ease of doing things I'm likely to want to do, hence why I'm not too big a fan of pre-2007 Word or OpenOffice, could KOffice be the open-source suite for me?

Anjuta (which I've never used) has Glade integration, but that page seems to imply it just encapsulates the program and doesn't do any code generation, so it probably doesn't count.

That could be fine. The set up I'm currently most used to, here on OS X, is Xcode + Interface Builder, which are separate programs though they do quite a lot to synchronise with each other during the course of projects. There's no real code generation to do though, since the runtime deals with all that. That said, it does go far beyond any other platform I'm aware of and beyond the abilities of vanilla C.

Eg, to populate a table, you draw out the columns in Interface Builder, put a formatter on them, e.g. to say "this column contains numbers expressed as a two-number percentage", give them a variable name, then later you provide a table delegate class which is asked "give me the class instance for row n" as necessary; the columns are automatically populated by looking up the variable names within the class and converting them to the format you asked for — the class can be of any layout and needn't inherit from any automatically generated class, the variables can be of any standard NS type, whether a string or a number or anything else, they'll be reformatted as requested. You can supply instances of completely different classes for different rows, it doesn't matter. It's called key-value coding in Applespeak, see here if your curiousity is piqued.

I guess if I was having to use a predefined structure or else write code to manually populate each cell of a table then I'd be more worried about integration of the one tool with the other. How do the design patters behind GTK deal with this sort of stuff?

It depends on the manufacturer. XP SP1+ has the drivers for all of those on the machine I run it on.

First of all, I've seen very little Linux installations that work 100% out of the box like that.

Second of all, your laptop was likely made after XP came out, which is why you had to install drivers. I'm sure Linux didn't have your drives back then either. Install Vista or Win 7 (if you have enough RAM) and I bet you you don't have to install any drivers.

Heh, saying Interface Builder is nice is kinda like saying the GIMP is nice.

Sounds marginally better than IB. I like VS, where I can just double click the event I want and type in my code. None of this making controllers, connecting stuff together, blah blah blah.

I haven't had to install any drivers on Windows 7 - the ones that it didnt include it downloaded automatically for me. Come to think of it, I didn't have to install any for Vista either.

As someone else said, it's ridiculous to expect an ancient copy of XP to include new drivers.

Right, but that's because you still don't understand Interface Builder. The point of the connections is that you can connect an action to any off:

• a method you intend to implement in a specific class;

• a method that already exists in any other object in Interface Builder;

• an object such as the first responder, which means that the message will be sent to whichever window or view is currently the first responder.

(EDIT: and probably a bunch of other things I've not thought of)

The fact that you only ever want to do the first of those doesn't justify cutting down the entire editor so that it is the only option.

For example, see BYOB: Build Your Own Browser — by wiring the actions associated with buttons directly to the methods available in a WebView, you can build a basic web browser entirely in Interface Builder with no code whatsoever. EDIT: which isn't to say that the code exists but is hidden from you, it actually doesn't exist. A button stores the name of an object and the method to call when pressed as data, then the Objective-C runtime finds the method at runtime.

I think it's pretty strange that some people say "Ubuntu works perfectly out of the box, while for Windows I need to hunt down a bunch of drivers and it is a pain in the arse...", while other people just as confidently state the opposite. I guess different hardware give different results, but then some of these people go on to claim that the story is the same for multiple computers! In my experience, Windows has always worked out of the box. I haven't tried installing any Linux for a few years now because I got sick of people telling me "it has improved a lot since then, it works as well, if not better, than Windows now" - only for me to find that I still have to futz around with drivers and config files and stuff just to get Flash working or whatever. I'm glad that it works well for some people.

@Karadoc: The difference is that if it doesn't work out-of-the-box, your chances for success are much higher if you use windows - simply because a hardware manufacturer cannot afford to not support windows.

@Karadoc: Funny you should say that; I cant get Flash to work. And the pretty after-effects built into the system won't work until after I hunt down a driver.

Flash worked fine for me on Ubuntu without any messing around on both my desktop and my laptop
Though if you can tell me how to switch graphic modes to "center desktop" (where the screen is permanently in a fixed resolution and any other resolution just causes black pixels to surround it) I'd be ever so grateful