

Rick Falkvinge and his "a bit slow full-duplex 100Mbit" Internet Connection - linhat
http://rick.falkvinge.usesthis.com/

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hamidpalo
Avoiding the Microsoft tax, but bought a copy of Windows to run in a VM?

Most universities have full-duplex 100Mbit+, and at those speeds it's not your
connection that's the bottleneck, it's the latency of getting your request to
the server and the server's available bandwidth. I imagine most routers are
smart enough not to completely saturate the pipe with a single user's
connection.

~~~
dlsym
Using Linux as the primary OS is not every time about

> Avoiding the Microsoft tax[...]

For me, it is the multidesktop support and great terminal emulators (like
terminator) which make linux a very good OS, _supporting me_ to get things
done.

[edit: OK - Missed the line about this topic in the original text. _coffee._ ]

~~~
aerique
Isn't Terminator written in Java and cross-platform? ;-)

~~~
dlsym
Oh - I just found that there are two terminators :-)

The one I mean is called gnome-terminator and is written in python:
<http://www.tenshu.net/p/terminator.html> <https://launchpad.net/~gnome-
terminator>

------
munchor
"Unfortunately, GNU/Linux can still not match Windows in the development
department."

I just don't get that.

~~~
shin_lao
It really depends on what you're used to. If you like Visual Studio and are
productive with it, you'll find Linux cumbersome. Visual Studio is very
powerful and dependable.

What I don't understand is the comment about the "Microsoft" tax as he seems
to work on Windows.

~~~
megaman821
The "tax" has nothing to do with using Windows or not, just paying for Windows
(reflected in the increased price of hardware that comes with Windows pre-
installed) when it is not needed. This could be because you already own a copy
or plan on using an alternative OS.

------
dfc
I do not understand how these two quotes fit together logically:

 _"For my primary workstation, I’m using a built-from-parts box optimized for
silence with a couple of graphics cards. That also allows me to evade the
Microsoft Tax"_

 _"Unfortunately, GNU/Linux can still not match Windows in the development
department. I use an emulated Windows box with Visual Studio for that"_

I am not trolling for RMS's affection. I'm thinking my understanding of MS Tax
is not accurate/up-to-date?

~~~
kenny_r
When you buy a computer with Windows on it, you also pay for the OEM license.
When you build one yourself you can run a pirated version of Windows at no
extra cost.

Seeing as he works for the Pirate Party, I don't think it's a stretch to
assume he got his copies of Windows and Visual studio off The Pirate Bay.

~~~
henrikschroder
> Seeing as he works for the Pirate Party, I don't think it's a stretch to
> assume he got his copies of Windows and Visual studio off The Pirate Bay.

Seeing as he is a public spokesperson, it would be insanely stupid of him to
commit a crime that could be used by the copyright industry against him.

~~~
J3L2404
When you say copyright industry you really mean software industry.

------
rb2k_
What does he actually do on those machines?

I have no idea why somebody in the european parliament would want more than 8
GB of RAM. Apparently he runs Visual Studio inside a VM, but I'm not sure why
he does a lot of software development.

~~~
gwern
Maybe he manages his life savings that he put into Bitcoin:
[http://falkvinge.net/2011/05/29/why-im-putting-all-my-
saving...](http://falkvinge.net/2011/05/29/why-im-putting-all-my-savings-into-
bitcoin/)

(One wonders how that worked out for him; I'd find that answer a lot more
interesting than his connection.)

~~~
Falkvinge
About breakeven for the time being, but I also learned a scary lot about how
trading works in the process.

------
bravura
_Ubuntu, a version of Linux, is used throughout as base operating system. ...
some video production tools. (In the Pirate Party, we produce quite a bit of
video.)_

What are good video production tools for Linux?

[Aside: Strange how he slags Linux for development and uses Windows, but uses
Linux for video production.]

~~~
Falkvinge
I use OpenShot and an old copy of After Effects (version 6.5) that works under
WINE.

------
nextparadigms
In Europe 100 Mbit/s speeds are quite common and for pretty low prices.

~~~
lflux
Only Scandinavia really. All my french and spanish friends are really really
jealous of our 100Mb+ connections here in sweden.

~~~
lucb1e
It's becoming more and more common in the Netherlands too. Belgium on the
other hand still has data caps...

~~~
alextingle
Belgium is in the Internet dark ages.

------
villagefool
You only have two eyes, so why so many screens? just flip desktops...

~~~
DanWaterworth
It's quicker to change the direction in which your eyes are looking than it is
to change desktop.

------
pasbesoin
From a U.S. perspective, those servers on the balcony cause me qualms for
multiple reasons.

------
hackermom
When 100 mbit/s isn't fast enough you know it's time to get checked out for
Download's Syndrome.

~~~
arkitaip
I live in Sweden and can tell you that, "My bandwidth is full-duplex 100 Mbit,
which is a bit slow by Swedish standards," isn't really true. Sure, fiber is
common in certain areas but full-duplex 100 mbit? Not many have it because
very few need it. It's far more common to go with your cable provider's offer
of 10/1 or 25/1 mbit because that's fast enough.

~~~
dfc
Can everyone in the neighborhood (assuming they all use same provider) max out
their connections at the same time? AKA Does the upstream provider have that
much bandwidth?

~~~
kalleboo
Definitely not, I mean, even web hosts and colocation centers will oversell
their bandwidth.

That said, I ran a internet radio station + free image host node on my
residential connection and was pushing a few TB/mo up and never got any
complaints. And BitTorrent is obviously quite popular in Sweden so I'm sure
there's a bunch of seeding going on.

