Before everyone jumps down my throat, yeah, I know I'm terrible about remaining loyal to one and only one open source operating system. I've got no excuses. It's just that when you read all the reviews (and everything else, including podcasts) on Distrowatch like a Neocon scanning their 'clean break' manifesto (i.e., like a nutball) then something has to give.
In this case, it was the Fedora 7 install on the test machine; though it is a superb Linux distro, the fact that Revisor still isn't fully working left me wanting to sow my wild open source oats elsewhere.
That location (if you missed yesterday's diary) would be on the fertile fields of PC-BSD 1.3, the newly released implementation combining KDE and FreeBSD in a single, easily installable package.
After having failed to install FreeBSD 6.2 through a test installer, I was prepared to give you when I came across a nice review for PC-BSD. Though FreeBSD is Unix-like and not a Linux distribution, it does use the BaSH shell and so should not be completely foreign if you are used to Linux.
If you are a Windows or Mac OS X user trying out open source for the first time, then it is an ideal way to get your feet wet without ever using the command line, installing all necessary applications in a set of easy to download installer for each item. You can rescue an old system gathering dust (minimum of 512M ram) and put it to productive use.
When KDE 4 comes out this fall, you will have a low-cost alternative to Mac OS X that is easy and fun to use; and Mac users should cut me some slack--yes, they are wonderful machines, and yes, they retain their value, but for entry level stuff there's nothing cheaper than an old box you have lying around combined with this very powerful, secure, open source system. Well worth a try (hint, hint, Turkana). I'll detail further as I have more of a chance to play around with it.
In other open source news, the mafiaa just can't buy a clue, and finally a judge has put the slapdown on their efforts to intimidate everyone by using their specious threats; it seems the rule of law does exist at least some of the time.
More bad news for Microsoft (is there any other kind of late?): they have to actually follow some of the terms of their convicted monopolist settlement, and not exclude others from using search engines on XP, Vista, etc. And you won't be able to use Vista in a virtual environment because of not having paid the Microsoft tax security (???!?). Yep, security has always been their finest feature.
And what does the new Ma Bell have to say about their filtering of content for Hollywood? Well, it seems that all those scary pirates have been costing them billions (not clear where they got that number, though I have a guess):
"Somebody running a server in their basement on our network and uploading illegal copies movies raises the costs for everybody else and jams the network in ways we’re not compensated for," said Mr. Cicconi, whose company is also one of the world’s largest providers of Internet-based corporate communications services.
What is it with those bloggers copyright infringers Pirates!!!!!! and their basements? Perhaps the DHS should look into it. Sounds kind of terroristically-related, doesn't it? It turns out that they are not going to block websites per se, but block certain content preemptively, and we all know that preemptive strikes are the best kind of strikes, outside of bowling.
Decide there's a threat, make it big and scary!!!!, then shape the facts to attack that threat; hmmm...where have I heard that before? The bonus is that they only get richer, and Americans still get to stay on dial-up, slipping precariously behind the rest of the world in internet connectivity. Hurray for Hollywood!!! Just your average riches to mind-blowingly extreme riches story. Ya gotta love it. The fact that they are going to be offering their own content is a complete coincidence.
Well, have to cut it short; going to head over to the pbi directory and install some new applications on my new PC-BSD install.
Ugh. And now Google is getting in on the game. They want to block certain sites.