Posts by Chemist 2677 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Mar 2010
"but stray away from the mighty brown distro and you're in for a painful time."
Absolute nonsense - never had a problem for years (~2000) using OpenSuse on lots of different hardware.
3G dongle, wifi, webcams USB headset, bluetooth, usb-serial convertors, epson scanner/printer, 3 lasers, vdpau graphics acceleration all worked - no fuss, no bother
"Some of that is down to old-school (out of date) thinking on the part of synthetic and medicinal chemists"
Well I know what you mean but after 38 years of hoping that we'd be able to model reality sufficiently well to do most drug discovery in a computer I think we are still far from it.
The reasons are too many and varied for this forum but include :
1) The conformational flexibility of small molecules
2) The structural complexities of target molecules even when the structure is 'known' *
3) Even with a good structure to work with the reality is often far more complex with the target protein being actually in a different state or set of states in the physiological condition so that 'docking' of drug targets to the target is rendered useless.
4) Even if a set of algorithms could 'solve' 1 & 2 ALL the other criteria necessary for a safe, useful drug in terms of adsorption, metabolism, toxicity still need to be met - most drug leads fail here
* - the gold standard for structure determination is x-ray but this is done in the 'solid' state usually at low temperatures and that masks the kinetic and water effects seen in 'real ' situations.
I've seen vast advances in the area of computing being applies to medicinal chemistry but even in my own field of protein modeling there is still a LONG way to go.
Why would I manually upgrade a kernel when the update mechanism will do it and the kernel modules for me - what would be the point ? I've never had a problem upgrading kernels probably for that reason and I never claimed that I (randomly ?) upgraded kernels manually - those days are over.
Drivers are NOT compiled into the kernel generally - they are loaded as modules when required and have been for years - look in /lib/modules/{kernel-version}/kernel/drivers/
I only research NEW and expensive hardware - everything else on 7 machines of wildly varying types and ages just works - I'm sorry if that fact upsets you.
I build all my own except laptops and they always work.
It IS the fault of the manufacturers - they don't release the necessary details in many cases which means supporting new hardware is a thankless task performed by some extremely talented and hard-working individuals who I thank daily and if it takes a while for a new driver I'm prepared to wait.
"because you've not upgraded the Kernel when you know there will have been a problem."
I don't chose to upgrade I let the update mechanisms update when necessary I don't really understand what your point is ?.
As for none-working hardware if manufacturers chose not to provide drivers or give the necessary info then so be it . I'd always do a little research before spending any serious money.
On the contrary - 1 laptop, 1 netbook and 1 desktop running on wireless without ANY problems at all - the others are ethernet anyway. 1 3G dongle, 1 Epson scanner/printer, 3 serial-USB convertors, 1 Samsung laser - again NO problems. 2 built-in bluetooth and 1 USB bluetooth - no problems. 4 webcams - no problems
2 have Nvidia graphics again no problems - one running vdpau hardware acceleration which is needed really to playback 1080p/50 video
All are on OpenSuse 11.4 but in any case I've not had any serious problems for years
I've used Linux for years ( almost the beginning) on lots of hardware often with Nvidia hardware and I've NEVER had a problem when updating kernels. I've sometimes had to wait a while fort he newest hardware to be supported but that's often specific to a distro. On other occasions it was down to individual programs - so I bought a Canon D550 when it was new and had to wait ~10 days for RAW support !
From the Microchip website
MPLAB® X IDE is a software program that runs on a PC (Windows®, Mac OS®, Linux®)
I've never had to "mess" with compilers just to run an application and Linux is all I use. From my 17 year experience of Linux, both at home and in research in a big pharma Linux has been a valuable desktop for years. Indeed at work, ~8 years ago, I only used Linux and Unix desktops as the extremely expensive protein modeling software programs were ONLY available for them.
"regular folks and IT managers people think its so bad"
Strange then that we had several hundred installs in a major pharma that I worked for that were necessary because only Linux or Unix ran the necessary software and was stable enough to run for days on end at 100% cpu ( this is dual Xeon workstations I'm talking about - long before multiple cores )
"Ordinary " consumers will need to be able to buy PCs with Linux installed before it stands a chance there
"I expect somebody knows how to get Libre Office to print an address on an envelope and not across it."
Certainly I've never had any problems printing envelopes from Libre Office (although my Samsung laser, excellent in other ways, does tend to put a crease in the envelope)
Apart from any other considerations Linux on the desktop is only going to happen in appreciable numbers amongst non-technical or enthusiasts WHEN pre-loaded machines are readily available AND that's NOT going to happen due to pressure from Microsoft via discounts.
That said I use nothing else for all my computing ( 1 laptop, 1 netbook, 3 workstations and 1 server) and can do everything I want from editing 1080p/50 video, RAW photo manipulation, programming in a variety of languages, scientific modeling, pcb design and drafting and the usual browsing, writing and spreadsheets.
A similar kind of approach has been used with antibodies to tumours with attached 'lethal' payloads. It's more specific and can 'auto-locate' all the tumour cells - but it's very expensive to generate the pure antibody and attach the payload. This approach looks a lot cheaper ( I wish) and even if not as specific might be a lot better than conventional treatment with cytotoxic agents.
in Practical Electronics or Wireless World where they jokes that there were a range of peripherals coming along like parallel ports, serial ports, memory expansion and space shuttles - I think MOS had some connection with Rockwell who were the main contractor for the shuttle.
"to productionise hydrogen in safer ways and wean us off our carbo"
Producing it safely is not the problem - getting the energy to produce it is.
Whatever way you make it needs energy - 2H2+O2 -> water +~~600kJ/mol So you need at least that and indeed a lot more to produce hydrogen gas. So >1MJ to produce about 70 litres of hydrogen gas.
Distribution and storage are also problems
Lots of areas of science and technology use Unix/Linux and can't move anyway ( even if they wanted to ) as the software they use has never been ported to Windows. I went on secondment in ~2004 to a department that used SGIs and had done for years and they had started moving to Linux in ~2000 as the cost saving/performance SGI > PC was considerable - the saving in moving to Linux was less relevant as much of the specialist software used was VERY expensive.
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