Re: [DNG] Icerbergs aren't small just because they're mostly underwater

[KatolaZ]

On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 10:41:38PM +, Rainer Weikusat wrote:

[cut]

> 
> But the loop in
> 
> static char const *get_name(char const *arg0)
> {
> char const *n, *r;
> 
> n = r = arg0;
> while (*r) if (*r++ == '/') n = r;
> return n;
> }
> 
> is not of this type. It contains an init-statement,
^^^

 

Any for-loop has an equivalent while-loop, and vice-versa, meaning
that there is no a "type" of loop that can be expressed in a for and
cannot be expressed in an equivalent while, or vice-versa. 

Your loop above is in all equivalent to:

  for(n=r=arg0; *r; r++)
 if (*r =='/') n=r+1;
  return n;

so I don't understand your statement.  Maybe I misinterpreted the
whole discussion, but really there is no difference whatsoever between
for and while, to the point that some more orthogonal languages have
only one of the two constructs. 

HND

KatolaZ

-- 
[ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ]
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Arnt Karlsen]

On Tue, 26 Jan 2016 22:48:50 +, Simon wrote in message 
<42725396-018e-4453-9f90-31c2877c1...@thehobsons.co.uk>:

> Mitt Green  wrote:
> 
> > They can request a refund before activating the
> > license, but will actually receive a smaller amount of
> > money than they spent, if some at all at all.
> 
> I recall reading how one person, after a fight to get anything, got
> much more ! This isn't the case I was thinking of, but came up while
> searching :
> http://www.techworld.com.au/article/414500/lenovo_ordered_pay_1920_making_french_laptop_buyer_pay_windows_too/
> 
> In the case I was thinking of, the guy got back the cost of a retail
> copy of Windows from the same shop - on the basis that they didn't
> have any lower priced option, and refused to reveal/provide any
> evidence of what the actual cost of the OEM version was. IIRC it was
> something like $195 or $295 !
> 
> So play your cards right, and be prepared to fight your corner rather
> than accept what the shop tells you, and you could get more back than
> you expected.

..sweet. ;o)

..the one problem with Stéphane's approach, is you risk creating 
case law in Microsoft et al's favor by running out of money for
appeals, litigation against these bad boy billionaires is very
expensive because they will appeal anything they don't like 
"just because" they can, and if you do not appeal a bad judgment 
in time, it will be left standing and form part of case law. 

-- 
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt Karlsen
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
  Scenarios always come in sets of three: 
  best case, worst case, and just in case.
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop

[Edward Bartolo]

Hi Everyone,

The purpose of this mail thread is to stimulate discussion about the
subject, as it is becoming increasingly harder to purchase Linux
friendly hardware. I don't know whether the following is paranoia or
fact, but I get an uncomfortable itch when I enter a shop boasting of
having a Microsoft deal or anything similar.

I think, the time has come for Linux users to unite, so that as a
group, they would seek some form of aggreement with hardware
manufactures, so that their OS, would not be erased from existence by
virtue of having no one producing Linux friendly hardware.

Edward

On 27/01/2016, Robert Storey  wrote:
> Simon Hobson 
> To: dng@lists.dyne.org
> Subject: Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop
> Message-ID: <319f6090-0a9b-47d4-84b3-1d1a8b297...@thehobsons.co.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Robert Storey  wrote:
>
>>> Since the Mac doesn't have a ctrl key, the following was a particularly
> relevant post:
>
>> Really ?
>> Mine does, there between the fn and alt keys - standard UK keyboard on a
> MacBook
>> Pro. I think it will be model/keyboard specific. You can always plug in a
> different
>> keyboard.
>
> Hi Simon. You're right, at least newer Macs have a ctrl key. Older ones
> didn't, but it's been many years since I had one. I guess now the cmd key
> is equivalent to the unused "Windows" key I see staring me in the face
> right now.
>
> So maybe I should ask: Have you tried installing Linux on your MacBook? If
> so, how was the experience? Any advice about that? Any nonsense to deal
> with similar to Microsoft's "secure boot"? (if you answered those questions
> already in another post, I"m sorry, I missed it).
>
> Anyway, expensive though it might be, I'd consider a MacBook in the future,
> especially if I could dual-boot it with Linux.
>
> cheers,
> Robert
>
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Re: [DNG] Readable code; making code more easily writable; Emacs, multifiles-apmod; VUE; Code Bubbles; Lisp; Inform 7; HyperCard and HyperTalk - was Re: "Common knowledge?"-question

[Rainer Weikusat]

Apollia  writes:
> Rainer Weikusat  wrote:
>
>> Apollia  writes:

[...]

>>> I often like to use long, descriptive names for functions and
>>> variables,

[...]

>> combined-list-of-files-in-all-source-folders
>>
>> doesn't really communicate more than 'all-files' or even just 'all' (if
>> the files is evident from the context) would.
>
> Thanks for the feedback!  Perhaps as I get more comfortable with
> programming in general I'll stop relying so much on the crutch of overly
> verbose names.  I know I overdo it to some extent.
>
> But another thing I like about long, unique, non-generic names is that
> when doing searches, I can more easily find definitely related pieces
> of code, and avoid finding a lot of unrelated pieces of code which
> just happen to use the same generic variable names like "x" or "all".

[...]

A pretty complicated way to express "I think I'm right and you're
wrong." (supposed to apply to all of the text, it took me a few hours to
think through that), however "So do I.".

[next paragraph is a paraphrase of a part of the kernel CodingStyle
document I consider to be 'generally sensible' in this respect]

On it's own a word (or even a phrase) is meaningless. It's always
supposed to be understood in a certain context. Applied to naming in
programs, this means one should consider using rather short names if
there's a lot of context, eg, for local variables, and longer ones if
they have to stand on their own, eg, public functions or global
variables.

[followed by my own, insignificant opinion]

There should be no reason to do global searches for local names. That's
a bit like cutting up people in order to determine what food they
apparently like. In an expression,

combined-list-of-files-in-all-source-folders

is very unwieldly. Imagine this as

(if
  (<= 
(-
  (* number-of-files-in-all-source-folders
average-number-of-lines-per-file-in-source-folders)
  (* number-of-files-in-all-letter-folders
 average-number-of-lines-per-file-in-letter-folders)))
   'write-some-more-code-in-future
   'reply-to-a-few-letters)

[the first silly contrived example I could come up with]

Almost all of this is letters of names and the code itself is dwarfed by
them. But the names, no matter how expressive, only communicate intent
and not facts. And that's also a lot of text to express very little, ie,
a program written in this way will either end up being of epic
proportions or accomplish very little.
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[DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Edward Bartolo]

Hi All,

Call me paranoid but I am noticing big companies like Microsoft making
it very difficult to buy a computer or laptop without Windows
installed.

Are you experiencing the same difficulty and what do you do when you
need to buy a new machine?

Edward
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[dev1fanboy]

I mostly build my own computers, as far as my laptop goes I went for good specs 
and yes that meant I had to sacrifice and get it preinstalled with windows.

This might be on me, I did notice freedos installations available on slightly 
lower spec laptops. It's one of those cost of freedom issues.

Thinkpads can still be found on ebay if you just need a reasonable work 
computer (they look very solid), and a second user install doesn't really put 
money in microshafts pocket. 

On Tuesday, January 26, 2016 6:46 PM, Edward Bartolo  wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Call me paranoid but I am noticing big companies like Microsoft making
> it very difficult to buy a computer or laptop without Windows
> installed.
> 
> Are you experiencing the same difficulty and what do you do when you
> need to buy a new machine?
> 
> Edward
> ___
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Mitt Green]

We actually have a lot of shops, mostly small, that do their business
in Internet, they offer cheap low-end laptops (well, having 4GB of RAM
is low-end these days).

Dell has own line with Ubuntu pre-installed.

There is also an option to buy one of those Pis, especially Pi Zero,
which is €4/£4/$5.

And, of course, as long as they don't bundle Windows right into the
SSD/HDD (or do they?), assembling own machine is
the best way to get it working.


My £0.02,
Mitt
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Go Linux]

On Tue, 1/26/16, Edward Bartolo  wrote:

 Subject: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.
 To: "dng" 
 Date: Tuesday, January 26, 2016, 12:46 PM
 
Hi All,

Call me paranoid but I am noticing big companies like Microsoft making
it very difficult to buy a computer or laptop without Windows
installed.

Are you experiencing the same difficulty and what do you do when you
need to buy a new machine?

Edward



Both my current boxes are custom builds.  I don't do hardware.  So I research 
what's available, buy it and have the local computer shop put it together at a 
cost of @$20.  Both boxes have gigabyte boards and they have served me well.  
I've never had a lappy so don't know anything about that.
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Mitt Green]

‎I wrote:
>they offer cheap low-end laptops (well, having 4GB of RAM
is low-end these days).

They have Linux pre-installed, forgot to mention.

I've seen maybe a couple only high-end laptops with
Linux, and they are made by Dell.

So, looking through the market, chances are, you'll
see galore, but mostly cheap and too slow to run Windows.‎
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Teodoro Santoni]

2016-01-26 19:46 GMT+01:00, Edward Bartolo :
> Hi All,
>
> Call me paranoid but I am noticing big companies like Microsoft making
> it very difficult to buy a computer or laptop without Windows
> installed.
>
> Are you experiencing the same difficulty and what do you do when you
> need to buy a new machine?

I see corporate pressure mostly on big retail deals,
e.g. the pc you buy at the supermarket. A pc which
is probably going to break in hilarious and mysterious ways in a year.
The big players in selling pcs for the workplace don't care really that
much into coercing you to install Win, as long as you install an equally
spyware-compatible OS like Ubuntu or Fedora.
Some open source education and a lot of smugglers, cheaters and good people
like that in the management group make it easy
for little retailers in Italy to thrive and sell good pcs without any
OS preinstalled.
For personal use I hadn't bought a pc in 8 years IIRC, but a week ago
I had to for work purposes.
For laptops there is some choice even at an affordable price on the net,
without any OS. Check Amazon. If I were you I won't trust so much
known sellers for foss laptops like System76 or Librem, just because
they sell overpriced HW :)
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Re: [DNG] Icerbergs aren't small just because they're mostly underwater

[Rainer Weikusat]

Peter Olson  writes:
>> On January 25, 2016 at 5:54 PM Rainer Weikusat
>>  wrote:
>
>  [...]
>
>> A related but IMHO more interesting set of questions could be:
>> 
>> 1. Should every trivial crap $someone ever implemented since 1978 end up
>>in general purpose library just because $someone happend to have to
>>power to put it into it?
>> 
>> 2. Should people be required to memoize every trivial crap $someone ever
>>implemented since 1978 just because that someone happened to have to
>>power to ...?
>> 
>> 3. Should people who consider themselves Very Superior Entities because
>>the have memoized every trivial crap $someone ever ... and so on, be
>>taken as seriously as they continuously demand?
>
> It must be trivial crap because nobody ever made a programming error parsing
> path names when they rolled their own routines for it.

It's trivial because its about 3 or 4 lines of code, at least for a
reasonable implementation. That's a property of the code and not one of
hypothetical people who could be writing code. Eg, in order to write
code, one has to learn to write first and this is anything but trivial
as it needs years of practice.

> Also: Windows and Mac path names follow different rules.

The (fairly recently introduced) BSD basename library function (whose
semantics are quite different from the semantics of the one I posted)
doesn't deal with anything but UNIX(*) pathnames.

Programs I write as part of my slowly growing set of "tools usable for
starting/ manageing processes" certainly don't have to deal with
"Windows and Mac path names", either.

> Use the libraries.

"Use libraries insofar you consider them useful." And a library
implementation of 'basename' is not something I'd consider useful,
especially when using it portably would require more code than not using
it (the string would need to be copied, including handling errors in
that, and the result would need to be copied, including handling errors
in that, and all the weird special cases someone considered sensible
would need to be dealt with one by one in order to achieve what I wanted
to achieve and even then, there'd be differences).

YMMV.
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Dave Turner]

You buy the laptop with Windows 10 installed, make sure everything works 
then install the distro of your choice.

No dual-booting.
VeryPC in the UK make small eco-friendly desktops that they are happy to 
sell without an OS.

I might get one when the iMac finally breaks.

You could always have a nice hefty server in the loft and go thin-client...

DaveT

On 26/01/16 18:46, Edward Bartolo wrote:

Hi All,

Call me paranoid but I am noticing big companies like Microsoft making
it very difficult to buy a computer or laptop without Windows
installed.

Are you experiencing the same difficulty and what do you do when you
need to buy a new machine?

Edward
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Mitt Green]

‎Dave Turner wrote:
 

>You buy the laptop with Windows 10 installed

When buying a machine with Windows
pre-installed, a customer pays for Windows as well.
They can request a refund before activating the
license, but will actually receive a smaller amount of
money than they spent, if some at all at all.


Mitt
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Scott Reynolds]

Hi.

[My first post to this list]
I recently bought a used Dell laptop that had Windows 7 pre-installed 
and just completely formatted the hard drive and installed Debian 7 on 
it (Before I became aware of this list).  It, Debian 7, recognized all 
of the hardware without any problems.


I haven't tried it with Windows 10.

Scott R.

On 1/26/16 11:46 AM, Edward Bartolo wrote:

Hi All,

Call me paranoid but I am noticing big companies like Microsoft making
it very difficult to buy a computer or laptop without Windows
installed.

Are you experiencing the same difficulty and what do you do when you
need to buy a new machine?

Edward
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Joel Roth]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 07:46:40PM +0100, Edward Bartolo wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Call me paranoid but I am noticing big companies like Microsoft making
> it very difficult to buy a computer or laptop without Windows
> installed.
> 
> Are you experiencing the same difficulty and what do you do when you
> need to buy a new machine?

I generally go through a laborious, and somewhat painful
process to install my own choice of OS.


-- 
Joel Roth
  

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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Hendrik Boom]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 07:46:40PM +0100, Edward Bartolo wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Call me paranoid but I am noticing big companies like Microsoft making
> it very difficult to buy a computer or laptop without Windows
> installed.
> 
> Are you experiencing the same difficulty and what do you do when you
> need to buy a new machine?

The thing to watch out for is whether there are free drivers for *all* 
of the hardware.  I have an old ASUS EEEPC that I use for a laptop.  
Even though all the early EEEPC's came with Linux installed, it tool at 
least a year before they released one that did not require proprietary 
drivers.  And some irony, it came with Windows XP preinstalled.
I just installed Debian and stopped worrying about the Windows, which I 
used once a year or so to buy copy-pretected ebooks (which I promptly 
decrypted so I could still read them into the far future (yes, this 
was legal  in Canada)).

Lat year I doubled its RAM and replaced its approx 160G hard drive with 
a 1T drive with an SSD cache.  It is suddenly much faster as long as I 
don't run Chrome.

I'd be happy doubling the size of the screen, except that it I did that 
it wouldn't fit in my backpack any more, and that's *important*.

I got my hardware and installation info from the Linuxlaptop site.  Is 
that still in operation? 

If I were buying a laprop now, I'd have to do research into what's 
available, check out the availablility of free drivers, make sure I 
can use it without secure boot, try to find out if I can make it work 
with a free BIOS, and so forth.  I probably would consider one of the 
Linux computer vendors, possibly ThinnkPenguin (one I haven't seen 
mentioned here yet).

There was a discussion on soylent news a month or two back about 
getting a free laptop.n There were a lot of alternatives mentioned to 
the obsolete laptops approved by the FSF and to the Librem.

In particular, there were serous questions whether it was possible to 
get a secure computer running free software if you were to use INtel of 
AMD CPUs.

There seem to be viable ARM processors, and I've even heard mention of 
an ARM laptop; I've had no luck tracking it down.  Does anyone else 
know of a source?

Some Chromebooks apparently can be made to install Linux instead 
(though their boot process leaves something to be desired).  But the 
ones with ARM processors all seem to lack adequate size hard drives.

-- hendrik
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Didier Kryn]

Le 26/01/2016 19:18, Hendrik Boom a écrit :

There seem to be viable ARM processors, and I've even heard mention of
an ARM laptop;


I've got a Pi-Top, a laptop built around a Raspberry Pi. It's the 
first model, crowd-funded. I wouldn't recommend it. I had very little 
time to devote to it but noticed the keyboard and the touchpad are of 
poor quality. Another aspect is that it is more a test bench than a true 
laptop. The USB sockets are on the raspberry Pi and not easily 
accessible from outside; you must open a sliding door between the 
keyboard and the lid to reach the Raspberry Pi, a door meant for 
hardware hacking in some sense.


OTOH, it is supposed to have an autonomy of 10h on battery...

Didier

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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Rainer Weikusat]

Hendrik Boom  writes:

[...]

> There seem to be viable ARM processors, and I've even heard mention of 
> an ARM laptop; I've had no luck tracking it down.  Does anyone else 
> know of a source?

Not really a laptop but something I was seriously tempted to buy a
couple of times although I'm decidedly not a gadget-minded person (I
must be the only living being on this planet who has two iPhones I
exclusively use for VPN testing & other work stuff):

http://www.compulab.co.il/utilite-computer/web/home
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop

[Robert Storey]

With desktop computers, it's not too hard to find one with FreeDos
installed by default, or no OS. Linux usually works fine on these machines.

A few years ago I bought a Toshiba Satellite laptop with FreeDos installed
by default, and it was cheap. No money to Microsoft, and Linux worked like
a charm. But I don't know if Toshiba still sells these Windows-free models
now.

With Microsoft screwing things up with SecureBoot, I've wondered if a Mac
might be less risky. I found a good thread about this on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2sm5yk/more_and_more_people_at_my_uni_are_running_linux/

Since the Mac doesn't have a ctrl key, the following was a particularly
relevant post:

> I've mapped the left Cmd key on my MacBook Pro to Ctrl like so:
> xmodmap -e "remove mod4 = Super_L" xmodmap -e "add control = Super_L"
> Put that in the startup script for your X session, and you should be fine!

This little article also seems very relevant to this topic:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/choose-best-laptop-linuxubuntu/

cheers,
Robert
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop

[Didier Kryn]

Le 26/01/2016 23:40, Robert Storey a écrit :
With desktop computers, it's not too hard to find one with FreeDos 
installed by default, or no OS. Linux usually works fine on these 
machines.


I've seen that few years ago on some machines I bought for my job. 
I bet it was Dell Poweredge servers. Dell likes to have its own OS 
installed for maintenance purpose. If you don't care the maintenance, 
you can overwrite it, but why not dual boot? Maybe they offer that on 
laptops. Actually, if you buy a Dell computer "without OS", it certainly 
means "with FreeDOS".


Didier

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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Simon Hobson]

Mitt Green  wrote:

> They can request a refund before activating the
> license, but will actually receive a smaller amount of
> money than they spent, if some at all at all.

I recall reading how one person, after a fight to get anything, got much more !
This isn't the case I was thinking of, but came up while searching :
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/414500/lenovo_ordered_pay_1920_making_french_laptop_buyer_pay_windows_too/

In the case I was thinking of, the guy got back the cost of a retail copy of 
Windows from the same shop - on the basis that they didn't have any lower 
priced option, and refused to reveal/provide any evidence of what the actual 
cost of the OEM version was. IIRC it was something like $195 or $295 !

So play your cards right, and be prepared to fight your corner rather than 
accept what the shop tells you, and you could get more back than you expected.

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Re: [DNG] Icerbergs aren't small just because they're mostly underwater

[Rainer Weikusat]

KatolaZ  writes:
> On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 05:44:11PM -0500, Peter Olson wrote:
>
> [cut]
>
>> 
>> This also brings up the question of whether you should roll your own 
>> get_name or
>> use basename(3) which already does the same thing except in some edge cases.
>>  It's easier for the student to understand the code if it is implemented as
>> get_name, but the student ought to learn about dirname and basename pretty 
>> early
>> in their study.
>
> Apart from students' interest, the Unix phylosophy is all about
> designing simple, orthogonal, robust components and functions that can
> be reused and combined together to accomplish tasks unforseen to their
> initial developer. Unix is not about reinventing the wheel every
> single day. 

There's indeed something whose 'philosophy' is based on assembling complex
constructions from more-or-less unfit-for-purpose components which
happen to be available in order to solve seemingly not-so-difficult problems by
creative ingenuitity but it's not called UNIX(*).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_Machine_%28series%29

[SCNR]
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop

[Simon Hobson]

Robert Storey  wrote:

> Since the Mac doesn't have a ctrl key, the following was a particularly 
> relevant post:

Really ?
Mine does, there between the fn and alt keys - standard UK keyboard on a 
MacBook Pro. I think it will be model/keyboard specific. You can always plug in 
a different keyboard.

Didier Kryn  wrote:

> Dell likes to have its own OS installed for maintenance purpose.

Thats' something to be aware of - a lot of vendors will simply refuse to 
provide any support (and even warranty) unless you can run Windows and/or their 
diagnostics.

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[DNG] Sending mail to <onel...@devuan.org>

[Boruch Baum]

Has anyone experience sending e-mail to the listed contact e-mail for
the project ? I just tried, and got bounced by a
purported "SPF: mechanism" error:

BEGIN ===
corellia.eurodns.com rejected a message that claimed an envelope sender
address of boruch_b...@gmx.com.

corellia.eurodns.com received a message from tupac2.dyne.org
(178.62.188.7) that claimed an envelope sender address of
boruch_b...@gmx.com.

However, the domain gmx.com has declared using SPF that it does not send
mail through tupac2.dyne.org (178.62.188.7). That is why the message was
rejected.
END =

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Re: [DNG] Icerbergs aren't small just because they're mostly underwater

[Peter Olson]

> On January 26, 2016 at 2:30 PM Rainer Weikusat
>  wrote:
> 
> Peter Olson  writes:
> >> On January 25, 2016 at 5:54 PM Rainer Weikusat
> >>  wrote:
> >
> >  [...]
> >
> >> A related but IMHO more interesting set of questions could be:
>
> [..]
>
> > It must be trivial crap because nobody ever made a programming error parsing
> > path names when they rolled their own routines for it.
> 
> It's trivial because its about 3 or 4 lines of code, at least for a
> reasonable implementation. That's a property of the code and not one of
> hypothetical people who could be writing code. Eg, in order to write
> code, one has to learn to write first and this is anything but trivial
> as it needs years of practice.
> 
> > Also: Windows and Mac path names follow different rules.
> 
> The (fairly recently introduced) BSD basename library function (whose
> semantics
>  are quite different
> from the semantics of the one I posted)
> doesn't deal with anything but UNIX(*) pathnames.

How quite different?

I just looked at Windows implementation of basename and note that it avoids the
".ext" of the file.  Thanks, Windows :-)

> Programs I write as part of my slowly growing set of "tools usable for
> starting/ manageing processes" certainly don't have to deal with
> "Windows and Mac path names", either.

I try to avoid non-UNIX(*) environments as well, but if I am serious about free
software I should take portability into account where I can.

> > Use the libraries.
> 
> "Use libraries insofar you consider them useful." And a library
> implementation of 'basename' is not something I'd consider useful,
> especially when using it portably would require more code than not using
> it (the string would need to be copied, including handling errors in
> that, and the result would need to be copied, including handling errors
> in that, and all the weird special cases someone considered sensible
> would need to be dealt with one by one in order to achieve what I wanted
> to achieve and even then, there'd be differences).

This patch illustrates the rathole of compatibility across OS implementations:

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2014-07/msg00012.html

> it (the string would need to be copied, including handling errors in

Living on the edge?  Most parsing of path names occurs at main(), but I hope you
won't run out of memory in the middle of a long job.  After all, alloca always
works :-;

Peter Olson
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Re: [DNG] Experiencing with GtkBuilder

[aitor_czr]

Hi,

On 12/15/15 12:25, aitor_czr wrote:

Hi Rainer,

On 20/11/15 12:11, Rainer Weikusat  wrote:

>aitor_czr   writes:

>> >As i said in ahother thead, i'm experiencing with GtkBuilder.
>> >
>> >The following example runs a widget containig a spinner and four buttons.
>> >
>> >http://gnuinos.org/GtkBuilder   
>> >
>> >1.- The first button shows the spinner.
>> >2.- The second button hides the spinner.
>> >3.- The third button starts the spinner.
>> >4.- The fourth button stops the spinner.
>> >
>> >First and second buttons work (so, the callbacks connecting with the
>> >signal handlers are right), but the other buttons fail.

>"Works for me" (as usual, the dbus invasion could be successfully
>repelled by deinstalling everything which came in the way until dbus
>could be deinstalled itself without affecting any 'real' functionality).

I was wondering why the spinner worked within a chroot jail, but not
outside it. Well, this has to do with the selected gtk theme. I use the
same theme than BunsenLabs. Changing to Adwaita, the spinner works. This
is one of the drawbacks to using Gtk3.


I did some changes in the *.css files of the gtk-theme in gnuinos (a 
customized theme of bunsen) and now the spinner works. The following 
video shows the behavior of the spinner before and after doing the changes:


gnuinos.org/netman-gtk3/spinner.mpg

Cheers,

   Aitor.






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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop.

[Gregory Nowak]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 10:43:40AM -1000, Joel Roth wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 07:46:40PM +0100, Edward Bartolo wrote:
> > Hi All,
> > 
> > Call me paranoid but I am noticing big companies like Microsoft making
> > it very difficult to buy a computer or laptop without Windows
> > installed.
> > 
> > Are you experiencing the same difficulty and what do you do when you
> > need to buy a new machine?
> 
> I generally go through a laborious, and somewhat painful
> process to install my own choice of OS.

I heard that M$ is forcing the laptop makers to enable TPM, and
prevent it from being disabled, else they aren't allowed to install
windows. Having a choice of OS to install is great, but doesn't TPM
mean that GNU/Linux can't be installed because TPM won't recognize its
signature, if it is signed in the first place? So, getting a machine
without windows on it is all well and good, but what about the issue
of disabling TPM, or is that not an issue?

Greg


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Re: [DNG] Icerbergs aren't small just because they're mostly underwater

[Rainer Weikusat]

Peter Olson  writes:

[...]

>> it (the string would need to be copied, including handling errors in
>
> Living on the edge?

The standardized definition of the function requests that unless one is
happy with the original string being changed.
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Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop

[Robert Storey]

Simon Hobson 
To: dng@lists.dyne.org
Subject: Re: [DNG] Purchasing a new computer/laptop
Message-ID: <319f6090-0a9b-47d4-84b3-1d1a8b297...@thehobsons.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Robert Storey  wrote:

>> Since the Mac doesn't have a ctrl key, the following was a particularly
relevant post:

> Really ?
> Mine does, there between the fn and alt keys - standard UK keyboard on a
MacBook
> Pro. I think it will be model/keyboard specific. You can always plug in a
different
> keyboard.

Hi Simon. You're right, at least newer Macs have a ctrl key. Older ones
didn't, but it's been many years since I had one. I guess now the cmd key
is equivalent to the unused "Windows" key I see staring me in the face
right now.

So maybe I should ask: Have you tried installing Linux on your MacBook? If
so, how was the experience? Any advice about that? Any nonsense to deal
with similar to Microsoft's "secure boot"? (if you answered those questions
already in another post, I"m sorry, I missed it).

Anyway, expensive though it might be, I'd consider a MacBook in the future,
especially if I could dual-boot it with Linux.

cheers,
Robert
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[DNG] PC compatibility to non-Microsoft software

[William C Vaughan]

Forgive me. I have been flamed before because of my posts on this mailing
list, but a comment on newer PC's and their non-compatibility with
non-Microsoft software led me to risk this posting. I think that
ultimately, EFF or the GNU folks will need to pursue lobbying for
legislation to prevent hardware companies from imposing restrictions upon
software installs by owners of PC hardware. Cheers, and I hope this doesn't
offend you guys. I enjoy lurking.

Lurker post:

On another forum, a discussion of hardware compatibility to installations
of Free Software ensued, originally in reference to installing Linux on
Macbook Pros. When Apple converted their hardware paradigm from the Power
PC to Intel, there was concern at the corporate level that OSX might be
installed on non-Apple hardware, and that non-Apple system software might
be installed on Macs. So for about a year and a half, from late 2006 to
early 2008, the TPM chip was incorporated into the Apple motherboards. It
prevented installation of non-Apple blessed software, i.e., unlicensed
Windows - collaterally damaged were Linux and other non-Apple OS's. The
machines were only produced for about 18 months. Except for those
particular machines, one can still install Linux on Macs. The converse,
installing OSX on PC hardware, is an alive-and-well hacker cult - hence,
the "hackintosh". A quote from my forum response:

 The newer generations of TPM chips are still around and are incorporated
into some PC's - some can apparently be disabled in firmware, some not. I
have no real proof about Microsoft's intent or on shake-hands agreements
with PC hardware companies, but, along with Secure Boot, it looks like
future PC hardware could be made to be difficult for Linux installations. I
guess we'll see eventually, and hopefully such restrictions placed upon PC
owners' abilities to control the software on their own machines will be
legally prohibited.

-- 
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Re: [DNG] Icerbergs aren't small just because they're mostly underwater (was: "Common knowledge?"-question)

[KatolaZ]

On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 05:44:11PM -0500, Peter Olson wrote:

[cut]

> 
> This also brings up the question of whether you should roll your own get_name 
> or
> use basename(3) which already does the same thing except in some edge cases.
>  It's easier for the student to understand the code if it is implemented as
> get_name, but the student ought to learn about dirname and basename pretty 
> early
> in their study.

Apart from students' interest, the Unix phylosophy is all about
designing simple, orthogonal, robust components and functions that can
be reused and combined together to accomplish tasks unforseen to their
initial developer. Unix is not about reinventing the wheel every
single day. 

HND

KatolaZ

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Re: [DNG] "Common knowledge?"-question

[Rainer Weikusat]

Steve Litt  writes:
> Rainer Weikusat  wrote:
>
>> Can the effect of the following C function
>> 
>> static void print_start(char const *name, char const *what)
>> {

[...]

>> }
>> 
>> be considered obvious or should it rather get an explanation?
>
> Hi Rainer,
>
> Others have pointed out potential coding problems, but I'm just going
> to answer your question about need for comments. In my opinion, the
> preceding function is short enough to document itself *if and only if*
> the function gets a much more descriptive name. Descriptive of what it
> does and how it's used.

The naming is indeed poor. Thank you for pointing this out.
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