iphitus

well done. 3945 is one of the more disgusting drivers going around.

Along with anything by Dvorak. Most of what he spits out is just extreme bullcrap. And as long as GNU/Linux is as spread and developed by such a wide range of people, there will be no standard linux, and any linux standard will not be globally accepted. Take the LSB for example, completely impractical for a distribution like Arch. As long as distro's vary as they do, no standard will be able to gain complete acceptance, only minority acceptance among a few key players. James

Um, re: software on iPhone..... Apple has said that they have no intention of releasing a SDK or anything for mass consumption, so that anyone can develop on the device. Only Apple, or companies approached by apple will be able to develop software for the iPhone. This means that any addon software, if any, is done completely via apple. Probably like it is done now for iPod gen5.5's. More games are available, apple approved on iTMS. As all approval has to go through apple, it'd be extremely unlikely that any VOIP software is supported, along with a range of other software, as it would most likely be against any agreements apple have with telcos. Third party. Apple are not a third party, and all the software comes via Apple. Thus, the iPhone has no third party application support. I couldn't write an application for an iPhone if i had one, so in my opinion, that's as good as no application support whatsoever. I wonder whether the iPhone will have much success over here. Currently, any 3G data where i live, costs an arm and a leg. Charged by the kb, and 1meg works out to about 15 bucks. 3G is nice, useful sometimes, but freakin expensive. James

He's burnt it correctly, he said that when he mounted the CD, he found the isolinux folder and a sqfs file and other things. This is correct behaviour James

I never said that they were iphitus. What I said was that they've been on a roll - that is a fact. Apple have hardly messed up at all since Jobs returned. If I went far back with any technology I could find you lists of failures. But Apple have not messed up since around 2000. I never said you did. I was just pointing this out none the less. A list of features of one device the iPhone, lined up against an even bigger and better list of features of a cheaper device, a nokia. A ridiculous price tag, and older technology compared to many phones now leading (nokia 6288, moto v3xx and co). Crippled functionality compared to a device with full functionality. These are not sour grapes SoulSe, they are *facts*. The iPhone is far overpriced, and very crippled device. But what we still don't exactly know, is what's so innovative? The touch screen isnt new. Many components of the UI are not new. The actual "innovations" on this phone will only be small UI quirks. The rest are just existing technology and minor improvements on current concepts. As a combination with the other improvements and features, it will make a great device. But the whole thing isnt a complete innovation. The whole touch phone device concept, isnt new either, LG has already done it, see the links a few pages back -- and with a nearly identical UI in parts. What exactly is so innovative? Apple didnt "invent" this touch screen (see LG phone). It's simply a touchscreen with a hardened surface, being able to use and recognise fingers, is done at software level. As for scratchproof and it not looking like a dogs breakfast...... my nano was heavily scratched in a few weeks, yet apple deny it's scratchability -- though they quietly shipped a case with new ones only a few months later..... I wouldnt be surprised if this phone comes with a similar case. Touch screen has a great "cool" factor, but it has drawbacks, and the jury is still out on whether it will actually make a good input form. James oh heck, forget about the iphone...they need to release that sucker. Uh... the best it can do is GPRS, not even EDGE. I want a phone that does HSDPA or at least 3G. It isn't much of a communications platform if GPRS is the limit. Other than that (and the GUI) it does seem to be awesome. the iPhone is only EDGE. It'll be interesting to see what the widgets on the iPhone are capable of. But apple have said bluntly, that they wont be allowing third party applications, and that's a big down side. Even if they are available later, you're locked into buying applications from apple. James

He works for SIPphone - which runs on the N80 - he has a vested interest in running down Apple's phone. I'm a bit disappointed. The people on this board usually use new open source software - or at least try it - before passing judgement on it. Yet there seems to be no problem with writing-off a piece of hardware that isn't even available yet :huh: Beside that, he does bring up valid points. There's enough information on the iPhone, that you can pass the judgements he makes -- factual information about the device that isnt going to change. If someone told me there was a new Xorg coming out without keyboard support, I'd tell them it'll be a piece of crap. The same thing applies here, we have information, and the information is big enough to pass a judgement. You can't deny the functional and factual points that he makes there, no matter how good the interface is on the iPhone, it does not make up the functional and financial deficit. I doubt that Apple, with it's long record of failures will succeed with this one. G4 Cube, Newton, almost being driven into bankrupcy.... Apple isnt a flawless wonderchild. James

http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=229 And that summarises the iPhone and my thoughts on it very tidily.

whatsit need a new graphics card for? arctic: No pci graphics on that HCL. Linux HCL's are stupid and flawed anyway. Either way, pretty much any PCI graphics card out there should work fine. James

angband! otherwise, im a frustrated gamer, never finding a game quite to my liking for one reason or another, and unhappy with the state of games in general. James

Yes. it depends on experience. The desktop is generally stable, but not usable enough for some audiences, and still has some rough edges. Congrats. They're an Intel shop now. Havn't been watching the news? No more PPC's from apple. The point about reliability, isnt so much about what components they use, but their overall build quality, which is excellent. The components they use, are mostly mainstream and in being so are high enough quality anyway. James

Rockbox. I installed rockbox on my ipod 2 months ago, and have not booted back into the apple os since. It's absolutely kickass, does everything twice as well as the apple OS and a heap more. As for battery, there's enough places that have sprung up offering to do replacements for a reasonable amount, often with higher capacity batteries too. I havn't needed to, my ipod's a year old, and the battery still functions at near full capacity. Miraculous :) Not quite. Real manipulated and worked out apple's DRM, allowing them to play apple DRM'ed music in their software. Apple, would have had no choice but to 'fix' that 'hole' in their DRM because of deals with the record companies to sell their music. So it's the record companies behind that. In the last year or two, nokia has changed their charger plug to a smaller one. Pity, but Nokia took the pain away, by including an adaptor -- that lets me use the old standard plug on my new phone! So all those old nokia adaptors I have, still have a use! That, I consider, awesome. That's fightin talk in Nikon circles :D hah. I'm with Gowator on that one. It works for simpler users like them. But not everyone! Take a kid my age, who knows little about computers, and put Linux on their laptop. They will hate it, and i'll list why: * Wireless. Linux' wireless support is there, but heavily encumbered by licensing issues. Tragic really. As a result, the userspace support is taking it's time too, and NetworkManager is the only tool i consider as easy to use as windows'/OSX wireless. * Games. New users want to click and run (Sound familiar?). Although there's linux versions for some, not for everything. The newest titles rarely work out of the box too. * Keeping up with the Jones' MSN, and other programs on windows often update with new features. Everyone else has this, and they wonder why you don't have it on linux. They don't understand, and thus they deem it inferior. * Software. We don't have everything. Still. And sometimes what we have, lacks in features. Last time I checked, Photoshop 7.0 ran in Wine. IIRC, later versions may also now run, and im pretty sure Crossover Office does support the latest. Codeweavers contribute back to wine a fair bit, so it'd be great to support them. end up gettin that lappy here? Not sure whether it specifically says 802.11 firmware, but afaik, for a device to be approved by the FAA, it has to only operate within it's legal frequency. This is done differently, firmware (rt61, rt71, ipw2x00, tiacx, broadcom, others), a binary blob (ipw3945, madwifi), and embedded into the hardware (rt2500, rt2400, many older devices) Manufacturers tend to choose the firmware route, because it's less components, and thus cheaper hardware. As a result, we end up with firmware encumbered drivers and the ensuing mess that is Linux wireless. I summarised a majority of the drivers in this bug here, and you can see some pretty crap legal stuff preventing us from distributing them: http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/1224 James <edit, quote tags killing me :)>

Well, now, you can't. They are aimed at entirely different Markets, as the Apple has no support whatsoever for third party applications. Sorry, but without that, I'd prefer the Windows Mobile device. The others just werent designed to have fingers used on them. Apple most likely didnt create or invent it's touch screen, so that's a moot point. Samsung had it in a mobile phone first anyway... </me waits for anti apple person to comment on faulty ipods> Outside of ipods, apple's hardware is damned robust. And for me, their ipods are pretty robust. I received my nano less than a week after it's release. 1st Gen, black, 4gb. It looks like new, still, except for a few dents on the back metallic side. Pretty impressed that it's survived whatever made those dents. Aye. My Girlfriend's Macbook is damned awesome. One day this will change, and ironically, it's apple that's shown its possible to solidify a unix environment into a coherent desktop. There's a lot of promising things moving at the moment towards that goal, but you are correct, the "Linux desktop" (and I hate that term so much) isnt quite up to scratch compared to OSX. Except for the iPhone. I don't see where it'll find it's market. Not the smartphone market, no third party apps allowed. Not the low/medium or even high cost markets, so expensive i'd classify it as 'boutique' No 3G, which is an increasing part of hte market. Already most handsets here are 3G, and buy the time iPhone is even available in Australia.... it'll be one of the few "dinosaurs" left being sold. My Nokia 6280 was half the price, ~$500AU and the iPhone just under $1000AU - I could get a half decent laptop for that. My phone was available a year ago, and does more than that iPhone does. Mine's been superceded by the 6283 iirc, which has improved functionality for an equivalent cost as mine. iPhone undoubtedly does some things better, and has a "cooler" interface and wifi, but that does not justify a *doubling* of cost. The interface on my phone is just as effective for many things, and also ironically, more familiar. Keypad and dial button, that's what nearly every phone has used since the turn phones. I don't know how apple can justify charging twice the price, for a device that does less, and has bugger all market to aim for. Ditto. Apple's computers and music players rock. The Jury is out on the iPhone till we get our hands on it. James

i think he's saying that K3B won't accept the flacs when trying to burn an audio CD -- K3B doesnt know how to convert them to wav, so it can't burn an audio CD. James

Wine works well for some stuff, doesnt work for others. Warcraft 3 for example, runs flawlessly. James

Bon Echo is the codename. AFAIK, it was the codename for 2.0. Arch's is built without official branding. To gain official branding, all modifications and patches to the browser must be approved by mozilla. Ours aren't -- it's just impractical, and annoyance, and would take too much time, thus delaying releasing a very popular package with potentially important updates. All complaints regarding this should be sent to mozilla :) James

I completely agree. It seems that they could have made a good product and completely screwed it. :sad: The sad thing is, that applies to everything they release. It's all got potential, but so poorly marred with bugs and issues that their products just arent up to scratch. James

The least they could do with the locales, is to ship all 400mb, and then during the install, remove the ones you don't need. Bang. 400mb saved, and the same image used for everyone. That's a pretty disappointing experience, and one I hear frequently about mandriva/mandrake (how many of those were Gowator, im not exactly sure). Their pathetic communication just echos my own experiences in attempting to report bugs and contact mandriva too. James

It's not apples market. They're continuing to launch products aimed at the type of consumers who would buy macs, ipods, etc. My grandmother is not blind, although her sight is poor. She struggles even with a conventional phone, we had to get her a special phone with large buttons that are easy to hit. The compromises required to make a mobile phone marketable for a blind audience, would greatly impact on it's marketability elsewhere. Apple are a business Arctic. And products don't have to be blind friendly to be innovative, though that could make them more innovative. Apple have done a lot in the UI area. I'd say that they've been able to create some very usable interfaces, that use techniques that would be considered innovative, and innovations original to Apple. As an example, the floating window paradigm. That's an apple original. Don't quote Xerox on me. They used a tiled window manager, there was no overlapping and dragging. On paper they seem very similar, but if you've ever used one, the two types of window management vary wildly and have extremely different usage patterns and design challenges. Someone's going to shoot me here and say otherwise, but they most likely havnt used a tiled window manager for any extended period of time. It's just wrong to look at any device as a whole nowadays, and say "it's an innovation/not an innovation". In reality, only parts a device will be innovative, with most of the rest being slight improvements, or much of the same. The iphone as a whole isnt innovative, but some of the UI it employs MAY be -- I havn't used one, so I don't know. Much of Apple's hardware design is what I would call "creative"; not "innovative". The sad thing is, people get the two mixed up or fail to see the difference. Just because something looks different, does not neccesarily mean it's innovative -- though it can be. The iphone at least, is in part, not as original as many think: http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/11/iphone-...rated-at-birth/ http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2006/12/15/t...able-chocolate/ Yeah, Samsung already had one out, with a very similar design and has already won design awards. Cheers! James

not used harddrake in a long time, but it's most likely what harddrake thinks you should use, not what you are using. plenty of reasons. could be you've changed between the old zd1211 driver and the new zd1211rw. I've got a feeling you still are using the new zd1211rw driver, the different naming, and harddrake behaviour are consistent enough. It's included by default in kernels >=2.6.18, and all wireless drivers in the kernel tree that use the ieee80211 wireless stack, have ethX naming by default. To double check, run 'lsmod|grep zd1211' at a command line (without the quotes), and paste the output here. If zd1211rw is listed, then that's what you're using. James

don't complain, seems like us aussies will have to wait till 2008. James

Currently, unless you need the extra address space of a 64 bit system, and you have sufficient ram, there's little reason to really run a linux 64 bit desktop. There are things that the linux 64 bit userspace lacks, such as some codecs, simple flashplayer support, and simple support for other closed source apps. There's no performance difference either, so I really question why anyone would bother using a 64 bit linux on an common desktop. Just to back myself, here's some benchmarks: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=arti...m=616&num=1 The difference is negligable, and in most cases actually swings to 32 bit, although the difference is generally so small it could simply be other variables in the system causing htem. James

make sure the lock switch isnt on?

No, just use the latest CVS snapshot, it includes the new devicescape stack. Been using it here on a rt2500 and it's quite stable and reliable. Though some of the drivers under it aren't as stable. James

Linux does have support... excellent support, mandriva just can't implement anything for crap. Anyway, don't be so negative -- you'll be lucky to get any assistance with post like this. We're just users, go complain to developers and file bugs when things don't work rather than whine here. Everything looks fine, try actually using gtkpod and post the error messages you get, run it from the console if you don't get any.

I'm surprised more havn't left.