Originally posted by lbcoder
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An Open Letter To Tech Review Sites
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Originally posted by Kano View PostWell the prepared iso has got one huge problem: the kernel is too new to install fglrx drivers. So you can only test with intel onboard or try installing nvidia drivers. fglrx will fail till an updated driver is available. So the usefullness is restricted. Better provide extra images with different kernels till ati manages to create a new fglrx for 2.6.31. Of course i have got my own selection of iso images with PTS with any kernel which is neededMichael Larabel
https://www.michaellarabel.com/
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Originally posted by nanonyme View PostLinux is really only free if you build your own computer or buy one with no OS installed, otherwise the vendor probably did compatibility testing and makes you pay for it. (does an average user want to buy a computer without an OS? no)
You do, of course, bring up an interesting point; shipping computers without OS.... if the average user was interested in and knew how simple it was to install a common Linux distro, they wouldn't care if it shipped with no OS. And this, of course, leads to a new level of conspiracy theories; WHY IS msevil such a PITA to install and set up? Might it be because they WANT the average user to be afraid of installing an OS? To build a market for pre-installed OS? To force hardware vendors to preinstall THEIR MScrapOS? Because the average user will just use *what it came with*? This is, of course, illegal anti-competitive behavior. Also difficult to prove.
It would be nice to see some freedom-FORCING legislation rather than the more common freedom-BLOCKING legislation (i.e. DMCA)... I would like to see something along the lines of "general purpose computing equipment must not ship with any software included or preinstalled", and "vendors of general purpose computing equipment must not distribute or recommend software of any kind under penalty of being tortured to death".
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Originally posted by lbcoder View PostThis is a very self-serving article. It is designed to promote this site's testing software. Quite frankly, I am absolutely sick of the poorly executed performance tests -- they don't ever illustrate anything significant and just get in the way of the actual important articles, like updates on the status of the R6/700 open source 3d initiative.
As you said, we should spread the word about Linux. That means we should tell people to test and use it. That's exactly what this article does. But it wasn't aimed at you. It was aimed at other testing publications just like Phoronix. And they should read it.
Originally posted by lbcoder View Post...and just get in the way of the actual important articles, like updates on the status of the R6/700 open source 3d initiative.
Best regards,
Jonatas Esteves
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Originally posted by lbcoder View Postand the third is grasping at straws since it takes NO resources (last I checked, Linux was free and would run on the same hardware as msevil).
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We're actually in the process of building something similar
We've just recently built a proof-of-concept site called 'isitopen' which allows users to submit and rate devices to determine how 'open' they are (i.e. source-code available, proprietary plug-connection, etc.)
Originally we had planned to try and make it a community-driven review site, with wiki-style functionality in order to allow our users write specific reviews regarding Linux-hardware, but things evolved away from that.
We're currently trying to get some feedback to see if anyone is interested in this type of website, and where we should go from here.
Are people mostly interested in performance benchmarks? What other benchmarks or data would you be interested in?
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Originally posted by lbcoder View PostThis is a very self-serving article. It is designed to promote this site's testing software. Quite frankly, I am absolutely sick of the poorly executed performance tests -- they don't ever illustrate anything significant and just get in the way of the actual important articles, like updates on the status of the R6/700 open source 3d initiative.
Something I would like to see, and I think you might have been getting at this a little bit, is more explanations of real-world impact of some of the benchmarks instead of only a really concise summary at the end. It is easy for someone like me to infer real-world relevance, but definitely won't be for everyone; Actually, it would even make going through the benchmarks easier for me as well.
Originally posted by lbcoder View PostOf those 3 excuses, the second one is meaningless, and the third is grasping at straws since it takes NO resources (last I checked, Linux was free and would run on the same hardware as msevil). The first excuse is the frightening one that it is important to overcome...
As for the first, while I agree that the learning curve in terms of initial troubleshooting and setup is much diminished, I don't think that's what Michael was referring to. There is still a shift in the interface paradigm that presupposes a certain level of familiarity with the system in order to be able to use it in an effective and (more importantly) flexible way.
There are already people out there spreading the word that Linux hardware compatibility issues are mostly resolved, and that with a small amount of effort and desire, people can now easily revolutionize the way they can use their computers. However, the point of this article is just something entirely different, addressed at a different audience. This is an appeal to publications that have a good deal of influence over the technology-informed public in terms of presenting them with important and relevant information, and it's saying that Linux is ready to be included in that category (and people want it to be). So it's necessary to address the concerns these publications have about making a move like this; the letter is saying "the existing knowledge base makes the learning curve easier, our established and tested benchmarking tools can help you provide useful data, and the combination of those two is going to greatly decrease the impact it will have on your resources. This is now a practical thing for you to try out, and we think you should, because it will benefit both your readership and the Linux/open-source community at large."
Originally posted by lbcoder View PostAnd this, of course, leads to a new level of conspiracy theories; WHY IS msevil such a PITA to install and set up? Might it be because they WANT the average user to be afraid of installing an OS? To build a market for pre-installed OS?
Another factor is that the various teams at Microsoft, at least until the point of Vista, had always been disconnected because they thought it more efficient to work that way. So by the time end-user installations became a concern, it would have taken too much effort for them to coordinate all the teams to carry that out together, and it would have required a number of other structural changes/fixes in their code, which they consider wasting resources. For the first time with Vista (I'm fairly sure about this, but not 100%), they tried to get the teams to work together more to try and produce cohesive results. I presume that since it was the first such attempt, it's probably why Vista came out as poorly as it did, and why it was delayed, etc. Unfortunately (for the open source community), they seem to be getting their act together a lot more for the much-hyped Windows 7.
Originally posted by lbcoder View PostIt would be nice to see some freedom-FORCING legislation rather than the more common freedom-BLOCKING legislation
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