Unix: July 2005 Archives

I've finally managed to install Fedora Core 4. The guys at XINE have released a version that's compatible with GCC4, as have XdTV, so I'm good to go.
I had to use gxine instead of xine-ui, and I've compiled ROX-Filer using the GCC3.2 compiler from the compat RPMs, but apart from that everything's going just swimmingly, thank-you-very-much.
Having a fast Internet connection has made doing a minimal install, then 'yuming' the packages I need pretty quick too. Lovely.

Yay! we now have a 'phat' 2Mb/s ADSL connection. Four times faster than before. We had to relocate the router to the kitchen (where the phone line comes in), to get a noise-free connection to support the faster speed, but it turns out that it was worth it anyway, as the portable phone no longer knocks off the data connection when it rings; a result, I'm almost certain you'll agree.
Shame it's still only 288kb/s upstream, though...

Not strictly Linux related, but I'll mention it here anyway...
I'm building a website for a mate who runs a company that builds exterior decking. It'll be ever so slightly more visually appealing than this here collection of pages, but that's to be expected.
The HTML is plain old HTML 4.01 Transitional, using the old style colour and layout tags, just like all the pages on here. CSS and XHTML zealots can go tell someone who cares - I'm well aware of the advantages of it, but it's not worth the bother for the type of site I'm building. The client knows a bit of HTML, and wants to maintain the site himself, so the simpler the better, really.
I'll link the production site from the home page when it's done, to boost his pagerank a bit (my front page has a pagerank of three, don't you know - not bad for a site with no content), and to let you see what I reckon looks good in a website.

The European Parliament has chucked out the patent directive. Yay!
Also, we got the 2012 Olympics. Yay!
However, bombs going off in London. Boo!

Yay! The European Parliament has comprehensively buried the Patent Directive. This is most excellent for two reasons:
 1) It means software will remain un-patentable across Europe. For the reasons why this is good, please see this page.
 2) The Parliament has shown the Commission that the democratically elected Parliament is in charge.
No. 2 may require some further explanation. The European Commission in conjunction with Ireland (which held the presidency at the time) proposed the directive, which was then amended by the Parliament to specifically exclude software patents. The (unelected) Commission then ignored the Parliament's amendments and amended the directive in such a way as to make the legislation closer to unlimited patentability.
At least the Parliament had the balls to not take any crap from the Commission, and chuck this out.