Getting people to say nice things about Microsoft (at least Intel is trying)

[Claude Jones]

On Fri January 26 2007, Ric Moore wrote:
> Let us all know how it goes, they came onto the scene with a pile of
> press and then seemed to fade out there for awhile. The LSB has a pile
> of great aims and goals that could bring about a serious threat to the
> Windoze World. I personally believe Fedora and RH will bring these
> improvements into a state of being. I'm looking forward to it. Ric

A little more on Freespire. I got Alpha 3 up this eve. There's not a whole lot 
to say. It's very early beta still - it took a bit of chicanery to get in - 
had to Ctl-Alt-F2, enter root  w/ no password, get a prompt, type 'passwd', 
enter a password twice, then Ctl-Alt-F7 back to the log in screen, put in 
root as user and the new password I'd just created. It didn't properly detect 
my NVidia capabilities and only offered 1024X768 with no options to go 
higher; tried a WM file from CNN's site, and I could get past the WM version 
dialog, but the pop-up window just kept endless cycling connecting messages 
without playing the video; tried a flash site and Flash9 is installed and 
running; tried Java but it wasn't installed; there seemed to be no package 
manager offered so I went to the terminal and ran 'apt-get update' and 
then 'apt install synaptic' and that worked - poked around there for awhile 
but couldn't find the win32 codecs. 
The menus are barebones - just a few programs installed with a heavy emphasis 
on KDE - the look is nice and slick - it did, by the way, offer to set up 
user accounts along the way, and upon reading the faq, it is the case that 
Freespire will default to using traditional Linux user accounts and running 
as root will NOT be encouraged.

So, that's a short report - nothing really jumped off the page. Presumably, 
when it gets up and running, it will have access to the full 20,000+ packages 
in the CNR repos. 

I find it curious, these attempts to 'dumb down' KDE. If you want to keep the 
underlying power of Linux away from neophytes who click on any button they 
can find, it seems to me that Gnome is tilted in that direction already - 
maybe it's a wrong impression. Everytime I open a Gnome desktop, I find it an 
exercise in frustration - the menu items aren't there, if you don't know the 
command, you're stuck because there's no way to find it without going to 
searches and google and such tactics. My impression is that the command-line 
folks like that aspect of Gnome - they can do everything they like to do, 
because it's all there, but no one else can do much but run the basic 
productivity software to use the computer - am I all wrong on this? KDE 
strikes me  as going to the other end of scale, with very large lists of 
stuff on the menu, and every GUI tool for every command that's been made is 
offered up - now listen up all you guys and gals, this is not about 
criticizing one or the other, or challenging anyone's sacred beefsteak, it's 
just a personal observation I'm seeking to confirm. But, why take the KDE 
desktop manager as your default if you intend to strip all the stuff out of 
it? That's the Freespire approach, and as I recall, also Xandros - I also 
remember pressures on Warren over at MEPIS to go in the same direction - I 
just don't understand it. 


And finally, there's this just come in over the wire:
(it's a subscription service that offers free downloadable video clips, mostly 
news releases from Corporations, with a license to use the clips with very 
few restrictions - the following is an announcement from Intel)

Not since the late 1960s have computer chips seen as dramatic an improvement 
as Intel's new 45 nanometer (nm) transistors, Intel Co-founder Gordon Moore 
says. As part of this new technology breakthrough, Intel has announced it 
will use two new materials to build the insulating walls and switching gates 
of its 45nm transistors. Hundreds of millions of these microscopic 
transistors – or switches – will be inside the next generation Intel Core 2 
Duo, Intel Core 2 Quad and Xeon families of multi-core processors. The 
company also said it has five early-version products up and running – the 
first of 15 45nm processor products planned from Intel. The early versions of 
the new chip will be targeted at different computer market segments including 
Windows Vista, Mac OS X, Windows XP and Linux operating systems. 

This came in via my NewsMarket Alerts subscription and is accompanied by a 
downloadable video. It's interesting that they explicity mention that one of 
the first versions of the new chip will be targetted at Linux. 
-- 
Claude Jones
Brunswick, MD, USA