Let me paint a scenario for you:

New super infoprmation highway (In the name of security of course) needs a central authenitication server. Your machine must comply (Linux included) if you plan to be on this network. You machine must be equiped with Palladium if you want to authenticate. All software an communication is encrypted via Palladium as per United Nation orders.

Of course Palladium will have its backdoor for government people such as the NSA or CIA.

You want to share a file? Must have Palladium and be encrypted by Palladium to even get it on the net - meaning it must be approved by some software or music company before you can do anything with it!

What I describe above is a loose ended version with holes, but trust me, they can make you comply. Don't comply, well, you can't be one in the club of course! :)

Are Orweillian future is near.

-S

:nope: :nope: :nope: :nope: :nope:

Yes indeed 1984 is here and why? Because people are going around in bliss and will not recognise what's going on. By the way everyone in the UK listen up we’re are now the number one society in the western world under surveillance. Another 1984 for you and it’s going to get a lot worst, Yes your PC is a great thing but other computers are being used against you. Brave new world don’t make me laugh please. :nope:

You can forget the name Palladium. It got a lot of bad press, and was mostly abandoned (only the name was abandoned, obviously). The same technology now has different names, such as NGSCB and TPM.

Microsoft can get stuffed. Now where did i put my Linux redhat v1.0

:lol:

Tin foil hats and cans of Raid anybody?

A few words for those who never had used Linux before.

Linux is a operating system very different to Windows.

Windows is monolithic and Linux modular.
This is the reason why there are so many Linux distros.
Each distro has a different flavor, this means they are composed by different modules (pieces of software).


In Linux security is priority #1, so install something, if you are a newbie, is tricky and sometimes a pain in the neck.

About the hardware:

Because Linux is Open Source, the vendors resist to liberate the source code of their drivers.
To install a piece of software with closed code is not an option --> nobody knows what has been programmed there. :stare:
And because of this, sometimes is a pain to get hardware to work.
Obviously always there is a way to get them work.

To be specific:
Only Nvidia has Linux drivers, and the releases are frequent. :up:
For ATI, Linux does not care.

Printers:
Choose Hewlett Packard or Epson (but not the cheaper models)

Wireless:
Linux will not recognize your PCI card, you must configure it manually with an emulator called ndiswrapper and two files that you must copy from your Windows driver.
For experienced users only, sorry. :88)

Wired:
No problems at all. And if you own a wired router, better.

RAID hard drives:
The last release of SUSE with kernel 2.6 has troubles with them at the installation.
But with Ubuntu everything is smooth.

It's important to remember that A) There are more nations than just USA, UK, EU, etc.. B) Those other nations manufacture all of the electronics that we use. C) Most of them will probably not conform to something that destroys their own internal ability to utilise those electronics.

So we're pretty safe from any sweeping changes microsoft wants to force on anyone. Think you're going to get chinese motherboard manufacturers to force hardware license checking into their designs? Maybe for American hardware only, no one else is going to comply though.

All somewhat true. The lack of ATI drivers however used to be true. NVidia doesn't release many driver revs and neither does ATI for Linux. I have both manufacturers running on Gentoo and not perfectly happy with either, but satisfied would be closer to the point. Upon closer examination however, do you really need all these driver revs? I have yet to have an error in game on anything from UT to Doom 3 resulting from driver screwups.

For those interesting in a FAQ on ATI, here it is - http://www.ati.com/products/catalyst/linux.html

Why is everyone complaining about ATI on this subject? Simple, the drivers remain proprietary. Why you ask? Simple, to make them opensource would reveal to NVidia certain ways the ATI cards operate. I understand both camps on this one - The OpenSource guys want to be able to program for ATI to make it great on the Linux platform. ATI however wants to guard its secrets from NVidia (And I'm sure likewise).

Anyway - Linux drivers can be downloaded to Gentoo via emerge or you can pick them up here via a browser - https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...e&folderID=300

Notice - those drivers are of 5/24/06 (2 days old as of this post!) - very recent. So to tell me that ATI doesn't have recent driver revs is a bit of a misnomer.

-S

:o :o :o

All partially correct. The problem comes with the USA. The US typically can dictate what does or does not happen because you really don't want to lose your trade agreements with them over something many leaders would probably consider petty.

What was the last numbers? The US manufactures 1/3rd of all Gross World Product and consumes 2/3rds of it right off the bat? That may be getting old since I think China is enchroaching on those numbers, but the consuming side however may have actually increased! Basically, make your product to US standards unless you plan on producing for a niche market. The moral of the story is, you probably have no choice since the EU seems to follow suite.

-S

You gonna buy ATI yet? :P

I use to have Linux Mandrake 9 as a dual boot with winxp, using KDE interface. I like linux but it aint gamer friendly. :-?

No way!!!
Only Nvidia is Open Source friendly. :yep:

So is ATI. NVidia still keeps their drivers locked up just as much as ATI, so how is that any different?

-S