Linux -- I don't get it
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Can anyone tell me what all the fuss is about over this OS? My experience ( with several distributions ) is that the installs are unreliable and more often than not simply don't work. The tools are archaic and arcane, and the GUIs over this OS are dog slow and much buggier than any MS product I've ever used. I guess some bean counters somewhere may be drooling over the 'low cost' of this OS when compared to other commercial OS products, but from where I stand this OS is not a developer friendly environment. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the cathedral of the bazaar has made an os that is bizarre and outside of simple intellectual curiousity and a nice collection of code I really don't see how MS can feel threatened all Linux. So, what am I missing here? I just don't get it..... Just trying to keep the forces of entropy at bay
I agree with a lot of what's been said in the replies... there are some areas where Linux is great, others where it needs work. Most modern Linuxes install pretty well, and detect most of my (ancient) hardware with no problems. Pros: 1. Great on the server. I've even been able to set up a web server running off of a home computer using Ret Hat Linux and Apache, and it worked pretty well. 2. Flexible. You aren't forced into one GUI, or even a GUI at all. There are usually many ways to get any one task done. And you get all the source code. 3. Cheap. Cons: 1. High learning curve. 2. I'm still looking for a decent web browser. Netscape 6 is okay, but it just doesn't cut it. 3. Some fonts (especially on websites) look like crap. 4. Lack of commercial applications. This is improving, but there are still a lot of basic apps out there that don't run on Linux. Granted, I am running RedHat 6.1, and KDE 1.1 or something. And this is at home - I don't do much C++ development there. I hear KDE 2.0 and the latest XFree86 are better. Winning isn't everything, but then, losing is nothing.
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XFree is not a problem. KDE is. And Gnome is no better. They need ONE good windows manager and ONE good desktop environment to make on desktop. I vote pro drink :beer:
This isn't precisely accurate. There may be problems with KDE and Gnome that some other window manager would do right, but X *does* have some overhead associated with the fact that it's a client/server based API that will prevent it from ever being as fast as a native GUI library. What I think is disputable is whether or not the overhead is that noticable. I'm running KDE on a Pentium 250 MHz machine, and though it's a little slower then Win2K on the same machine, the difference isn't notable enough to warrant any complaints. With today's faster machines I'd expect this to be even less of a notable problem. William E. Kempf
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William E. Kempf wrote: Get over the learning curve, though, and as a programmer I think you'd come to appreciate Linux a lot. Linux is the Power User's dream. For Joe Blow User, though, Linux is generally a very bad idea. Unfortunatelly, most of us have Joe Blow User customers. I vote pro drink :beer:
This is true, and for many applications this means you'll need to develop on another OS. However, there are many applications which you can more efficiently develop on a *nix system, and then simply recompile over on the target platform. William E. Kempf
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This isn't precisely accurate. There may be problems with KDE and Gnome that some other window manager would do right, but X *does* have some overhead associated with the fact that it's a client/server based API that will prevent it from ever being as fast as a native GUI library. What I think is disputable is whether or not the overhead is that noticable. I'm running KDE on a Pentium 250 MHz machine, and though it's a little slower then Win2K on the same machine, the difference isn't notable enough to warrant any complaints. With today's faster machines I'd expect this to be even less of a notable problem. William E. Kempf
I wasn't talking about the overhead. The "look and feel" of KDE and Gnome, and its overall usability is far from desired IMHO. They should learn from Mac OS X, if not from Windows. And, I repeat, they need ONE desktop enironment. Everything else just makes things more complicated, which is not acceptable for an average user. Not to mention here that I cannot imagine my father compiling the kernel. He is an architect and uses computers mostly for writing and e-mail. Why should he even know that such thing (kernel) exists? I vote pro drink :beer:
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I agree with a lot of what's been said in the replies... there are some areas where Linux is great, others where it needs work. Most modern Linuxes install pretty well, and detect most of my (ancient) hardware with no problems. Pros: 1. Great on the server. I've even been able to set up a web server running off of a home computer using Ret Hat Linux and Apache, and it worked pretty well. 2. Flexible. You aren't forced into one GUI, or even a GUI at all. There are usually many ways to get any one task done. And you get all the source code. 3. Cheap. Cons: 1. High learning curve. 2. I'm still looking for a decent web browser. Netscape 6 is okay, but it just doesn't cut it. 3. Some fonts (especially on websites) look like crap. 4. Lack of commercial applications. This is improving, but there are still a lot of basic apps out there that don't run on Linux. Granted, I am running RedHat 6.1, and KDE 1.1 or something. And this is at home - I don't do much C++ development there. I hear KDE 2.0 and the latest XFree86 are better. Winning isn't everything, but then, losing is nothing.
Navin wrote: 2. I'm still looking for a decent web browser. Netscape 6 is okay, but it just doesn't cut it. I agree with you here, I enjoy Linux for some things but Netscape doesn't do it for me. The lack of what I consider to be a "good" web browser has really crimped my style. Have you tried the newest Opera for Linux? I have been meaning to try the newest one. The Linux version of Opera lags behind the Windows one in feature set but they have been getting steadily better. I have not looked at the Linux version in a while though. The only Linux I have running right now is my firewall at home and it shure as heck doesn't have a GUI installed! :) Jason Jystad Cito Technologies www.citotech.net Sonork ID 100.9918 >-------------------------------------------------< Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every program can be reduced to one instruction that doesn't work. >-------------------------------------------------<
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Navin wrote: 2. I'm still looking for a decent web browser. Netscape 6 is okay, but it just doesn't cut it. I agree with you here, I enjoy Linux for some things but Netscape doesn't do it for me. The lack of what I consider to be a "good" web browser has really crimped my style. Have you tried the newest Opera for Linux? I have been meaning to try the newest one. The Linux version of Opera lags behind the Windows one in feature set but they have been getting steadily better. I have not looked at the Linux version in a while though. The only Linux I have running right now is my firewall at home and it shure as heck doesn't have a GUI installed! :) Jason Jystad Cito Technologies www.citotech.net Sonork ID 100.9918 >-------------------------------------------------< Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every program can be reduced to one instruction that doesn't work. >-------------------------------------------------<
Jason Jystad wrote: Have you tried the newest Opera for Linux? Yes I have. It doesn't have native Java support - I have to monkey around and install the right VM or plug-in I think. But it is decent, and I have been using it more and more. One nice feature they have is the ability to magnify the screen (say, 150%). Some pages render pretty strangely in this mode, but it at least that can solve the small font problems that plauge my whole system. Jason Jystad wrote: The only Linux I have running right now is my firewall at home and it shure as heck doesn't have a GUI installed! That's an advantage of Linux that I forgot to mention. I am also running a Linux firewall/router... using Linux Router Project, and old P-60 from college days with 2 network cards and a floppy (no hard drive.) Works great. :cool: Winning isn't everything, but then, losing is nothing.
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Jason Jystad wrote: Have you tried the newest Opera for Linux? Yes I have. It doesn't have native Java support - I have to monkey around and install the right VM or plug-in I think. But it is decent, and I have been using it more and more. One nice feature they have is the ability to magnify the screen (say, 150%). Some pages render pretty strangely in this mode, but it at least that can solve the small font problems that plauge my whole system. Jason Jystad wrote: The only Linux I have running right now is my firewall at home and it shure as heck doesn't have a GUI installed! That's an advantage of Linux that I forgot to mention. I am also running a Linux firewall/router... using Linux Router Project, and old P-60 from college days with 2 network cards and a floppy (no hard drive.) Works great. :cool: Winning isn't everything, but then, losing is nothing.
Navin wrote: using Linux Router Project, and old P-60 Yeah, I thought about using them. At the moment I am just using Mandrake, I went in a scripted up a firewall script and hardend it myself. You might want to take a look at the LEAF variant of LRP, it looks pretty neat and I am thinking about switching off to it myself when I get the time. I have been playing with the Dachstein release. It is super simple to set up and yet still offers a full feature set. Jason Jystad Cito Technologies www.citotech.net Sonork ID 100.9918 >-------------------------------------------------< Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every program can be reduced to one instruction that doesn't work. >-------------------------------------------------<
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I agree with a lot of what's been said in the replies... there are some areas where Linux is great, others where it needs work. Most modern Linuxes install pretty well, and detect most of my (ancient) hardware with no problems. Pros: 1. Great on the server. I've even been able to set up a web server running off of a home computer using Ret Hat Linux and Apache, and it worked pretty well. 2. Flexible. You aren't forced into one GUI, or even a GUI at all. There are usually many ways to get any one task done. And you get all the source code. 3. Cheap. Cons: 1. High learning curve. 2. I'm still looking for a decent web browser. Netscape 6 is okay, but it just doesn't cut it. 3. Some fonts (especially on websites) look like crap. 4. Lack of commercial applications. This is improving, but there are still a lot of basic apps out there that don't run on Linux. Granted, I am running RedHat 6.1, and KDE 1.1 or something. And this is at home - I don't do much C++ development there. I hear KDE 2.0 and the latest XFree86 are better. Winning isn't everything, but then, losing is nothing.
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Try Lycoris. The install for me was flawless, and the UI, though slower, is enough like Windows to make you feel comfortable... at least for a few hours. The tools may be archaic and arcane, but they pack more power then a 10 megaton bomb! There's a reason so many *nix tools have been ported to Windows (nmake, for instance, is a MS port of make). Saying that the Linux (or any Unix variant) OS isn't developer friendly is simply wrong. The tools available on Unix are all designed specifically for the developer and, once learned, provide a very large amount of power and productivity. There are three things that make these tools unatractive to Windows users, however: 1) For the most part they are command line tools. This is actually a good thing, because it allows the tools to be chained together in shell scripts to do things never envisioned before, but us Windows folks generally prefer to point and click. 2) Cryptic command names. Despite what I just said in (1), us Windows folks aren't totally adverse to going to the command line when it allows us to do something more efficiently... but we like the command we use to make sense. For instance, after a lot of thought you can figure out what 'ls' means, but you can do so only after knowing what the command does. And can anyone figure out what 'vi' means? 3) Lack of consistent interfaces. Every thing seems to have been developed in a vacuum. There's no consistent way to "configure" the tools/applications. You generally have to figure out the name of some "configuration file", where it's supposed to be located (and in some cases the tool allows it to be located in multiple places!), and what the format of the file is. Us Windows folks are used to nearly everything being in the Registry, and found in well known locations, and if not there in an easy to read/modify INI file alongside the executable. Get over the learning curve, though, and as a programmer I think you'd come to appreciate Linux a lot. Linux is the Power User's dream. For Joe Blow User, though, Linux is generally a very bad idea. William E. Kempf
William E. Kempf wrote: And can anyone figure out what 'vi' means? I think it might be "visual interface", but I'm not sure. I think that alludes to the fact that it's a visual/full-screen front-end to the ed editor. But I could just be talking out my ass... J
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Can anyone tell me what all the fuss is about over this OS? My experience ( with several distributions ) is that the installs are unreliable and more often than not simply don't work. The tools are archaic and arcane, and the GUIs over this OS are dog slow and much buggier than any MS product I've ever used. I guess some bean counters somewhere may be drooling over the 'low cost' of this OS when compared to other commercial OS products, but from where I stand this OS is not a developer friendly environment. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the cathedral of the bazaar has made an os that is bizarre and outside of simple intellectual curiousity and a nice collection of code I really don't see how MS can feel threatened all Linux. So, what am I missing here? I just don't get it..... Just trying to keep the forces of entropy at bay
From your post I think you're forgetting the fundamental difference between linux and windows: linux doesn't have a gui built into it. I believe this gives it many advantages in speed, development, etc, but these advantages quickly go away when you throw a gui on it. What I don't understand is why anyone would run a gui over linux.
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Can anyone tell me what all the fuss is about over this OS? My experience ( with several distributions ) is that the installs are unreliable and more often than not simply don't work. The tools are archaic and arcane, and the GUIs over this OS are dog slow and much buggier than any MS product I've ever used. I guess some bean counters somewhere may be drooling over the 'low cost' of this OS when compared to other commercial OS products, but from where I stand this OS is not a developer friendly environment. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the cathedral of the bazaar has made an os that is bizarre and outside of simple intellectual curiousity and a nice collection of code I really don't see how MS can feel threatened all Linux. So, what am I missing here? I just don't get it..... Just trying to keep the forces of entropy at bay
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From your post I think you're forgetting the fundamental difference between linux and windows: linux doesn't have a gui built into it. I believe this gives it many advantages in speed, development, etc, but these advantages quickly go away when you throw a gui on it. What I don't understand is why anyone would run a gui over linux.
There are reasons why a GUI is better then a command line interface: 1) Ease of learning/use. 2) Much faster to do one shot actions (compare the 5 clicks required to add a file to a project and recompile in an IDE to the tedium of typing commands and modifying the makefile to do the same from the command line). There are reasons why a command line interface is better than a GUI: 1) The raw power of combining numerous tasks into a single command through scripting/shell programming. 2) Much faster to do repetitive actions (compare how easy it is to modify a file in some repetitive manner through the various command line tools available in *nix environments, especially if they are added to a script to turn them into a single command, to doing the same through an IDE, either by hand or by recording keystrokes/etc. in order to create a "macro" to automate the task... if you can!). After years of development I can't imagine working in an environment that doesn't provide *both* interfaces. Luckily *nix has X and Windows has a command line (though some tools have to be ported from *nix to make the command line really useful). William E. Kempf
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There are reasons why a GUI is better then a command line interface: 1) Ease of learning/use. 2) Much faster to do one shot actions (compare the 5 clicks required to add a file to a project and recompile in an IDE to the tedium of typing commands and modifying the makefile to do the same from the command line). There are reasons why a command line interface is better than a GUI: 1) The raw power of combining numerous tasks into a single command through scripting/shell programming. 2) Much faster to do repetitive actions (compare how easy it is to modify a file in some repetitive manner through the various command line tools available in *nix environments, especially if they are added to a script to turn them into a single command, to doing the same through an IDE, either by hand or by recording keystrokes/etc. in order to create a "macro" to automate the task... if you can!). After years of development I can't imagine working in an environment that doesn't provide *both* interfaces. Luckily *nix has X and Windows has a command line (though some tools have to be ported from *nix to make the command line really useful). William E. Kempf
William E. Kempf wrote: though some tools have to be ported from *nix to make the command line really useful it's been a while since i've used it, but the MKS shell is great. it has all of the big unix tools (ls, cat, etc. all the way to things i'll probably never use, like yacc). last time i looked though it had become expensive. still, if you need a ksh or bash replacement on windows, mksh is pretty good. -c
Smaller Animals Software, Inc. You're the icing - on the cake - on the table - at my wake. Modest Mouse
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William E. Kempf wrote: though some tools have to be ported from *nix to make the command line really useful it's been a while since i've used it, but the MKS shell is great. it has all of the big unix tools (ls, cat, etc. all the way to things i'll probably never use, like yacc). last time i looked though it had become expensive. still, if you need a ksh or bash replacement on windows, mksh is pretty good. -c
Smaller Animals Software, Inc. You're the icing - on the cake - on the table - at my wake. Modest Mouse
There are numerous free alternatives. The most popular is Cygwin. There's also U/Win. Or if you don't need a complete package but just individual tools there are zillions of Win32 ports of nearly anything you can find on *nix systems. Sometimes with a "nicer" Windows interface. For example, Putty is a port of ssh that includes a GUI dialog for defining connection options. William E. Kempf
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Can anyone tell me what all the fuss is about over this OS? My experience ( with several distributions ) is that the installs are unreliable and more often than not simply don't work. The tools are archaic and arcane, and the GUIs over this OS are dog slow and much buggier than any MS product I've ever used. I guess some bean counters somewhere may be drooling over the 'low cost' of this OS when compared to other commercial OS products, but from where I stand this OS is not a developer friendly environment. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the cathedral of the bazaar has made an os that is bizarre and outside of simple intellectual curiousity and a nice collection of code I really don't see how MS can feel threatened all Linux. So, what am I missing here? I just don't get it..... Just trying to keep the forces of entropy at bay
To me linux is a great alternative to Windows provided u dont wanna do anything complicated. Ive got countless problems withe my linux due to its over complicated design. When it comes down to the nitty gritty, linux is for people who have a deep down knowlage of OS workings. For us mere mortals who like pushbuttons and start menus, setting up a computer in linux without bugs is like trying to put an elephant together without knowing what one is. Plus the online help systems for most linux distributions suck. I HATE generic answers. If yer gonna make a help system you should explain EVERYTHING!!!!! Not just how to open a folder! My two pence. .NET or not .NET? MFC is the question......
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If it replaced XFree, instead of just being a Window Manager, it probably wouldn't be received very well at all by any *nix users. The beauty of X is that it's network ready (I can run a program on one machine, with the program's display appearing on another machine, similar to Terminal Services but even more powerful). William E. Kempf
And this I think is a big problem for *nix. X is really, really, really awful. Try writing an X server sometime. The idea is great, but it wasn't exactly fully spec'd before implementing, and it's not aged gracefully. Most stuff these days *should* be done on the local terminal, and therefore local speed should be the top priority in the window system design, not networkability. For network access, termsrv (with the latest client) actually works pretty well, and it's a lot easier to tunnel thru a gateway/firewall/ssh since it's simply a single incoming socket for the server. Jim Wuerch www.miwasoft.com Quote from my readme files: "This is BETA software, and as such may completely destroy your computer, change the alignment of the planets and invert the structure of the universe."
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Try Lycoris. The install for me was flawless, and the UI, though slower, is enough like Windows to make you feel comfortable... at least for a few hours. The tools may be archaic and arcane, but they pack more power then a 10 megaton bomb! There's a reason so many *nix tools have been ported to Windows (nmake, for instance, is a MS port of make). Saying that the Linux (or any Unix variant) OS isn't developer friendly is simply wrong. The tools available on Unix are all designed specifically for the developer and, once learned, provide a very large amount of power and productivity. There are three things that make these tools unatractive to Windows users, however: 1) For the most part they are command line tools. This is actually a good thing, because it allows the tools to be chained together in shell scripts to do things never envisioned before, but us Windows folks generally prefer to point and click. 2) Cryptic command names. Despite what I just said in (1), us Windows folks aren't totally adverse to going to the command line when it allows us to do something more efficiently... but we like the command we use to make sense. For instance, after a lot of thought you can figure out what 'ls' means, but you can do so only after knowing what the command does. And can anyone figure out what 'vi' means? 3) Lack of consistent interfaces. Every thing seems to have been developed in a vacuum. There's no consistent way to "configure" the tools/applications. You generally have to figure out the name of some "configuration file", where it's supposed to be located (and in some cases the tool allows it to be located in multiple places!), and what the format of the file is. Us Windows folks are used to nearly everything being in the Registry, and found in well known locations, and if not there in an easy to read/modify INI file alongside the executable. Get over the learning curve, though, and as a programmer I think you'd come to appreciate Linux a lot. Linux is the Power User's dream. For Joe Blow User, though, Linux is generally a very bad idea. William E. Kempf
While I agree, that many *nix commands and tools are powerful, they just aren't in the same class as a good VC setup, with someone of similar proficiency. It takes quite a bit more effort to configure emacs/gcc/gdb(or ddd, or whatever the hell debugger you use) to work like VC. I have this argument often where I work. There simply is *no* better environment for development than what MS provides with VC. Need help on a class, or anything else? Press F1, and all the docs you need are right there. The debugger is fully integrated with the editor. And, most importantly, there are lots of 3rd party tools, and I think that if a developer is going to spend time learning something, these tools are well worth it... for example, I have Visual Assist (I simply can't code without it any more, it's that good), WorkspaceWhiz(ctags stuff), CvsIn, BoundsChecker(and TrueTime, and TrueCoverage). There are similar tools for emacs, and gcc, but they don't work together like in VC. Command line build (using msdev command) in VC6 is very usable, much more than VC5, so I can do my windows builds via command line too. I also find that a lot of the unix power users here don't know a darn thing about the windows command shell in 2k. Once they sit in front of the windows machine, they stop using their beloved command line, and then complain about lack of power tools. From a die hard windows command-line user. :) (oh yah, ya think ls would have some way to do something like dir /s without using find or some other command....) Jim Wuerch www.miwasoft.com Quote from my readme files: "This is BETA software, and as such may completely destroy your computer, change the alignment of the planets and invert the structure of the universe."
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Can anyone tell me what all the fuss is about over this OS? My experience ( with several distributions ) is that the installs are unreliable and more often than not simply don't work. The tools are archaic and arcane, and the GUIs over this OS are dog slow and much buggier than any MS product I've ever used. I guess some bean counters somewhere may be drooling over the 'low cost' of this OS when compared to other commercial OS products, but from where I stand this OS is not a developer friendly environment. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the cathedral of the bazaar has made an os that is bizarre and outside of simple intellectual curiousity and a nice collection of code I really don't see how MS can feel threatened all Linux. So, what am I missing here? I just don't get it..... Just trying to keep the forces of entropy at bay
I don't really want to suggest this really, but I think it's time we made a Linux forum so we can keep discussion about it out of the lounge and into it's own dedicated discussion area. Maybe Chris could even go so far as to set up a cron (sorry, whatever the equivalent of it is in Win), and just occasionally grep (or "find", whatever) messages containing the word "linux" and send those threads to the Linux group. :suss: - Jason Do you have a Pulse? SonorkID: 100.611 Jason
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I don't really want to suggest this really, but I think it's time we made a Linux forum so we can keep discussion about it out of the lounge and into it's own dedicated discussion area. Maybe Chris could even go so far as to set up a cron (sorry, whatever the equivalent of it is in Win), and just occasionally grep (or "find", whatever) messages containing the word "linux" and send those threads to the Linux group. :suss: - Jason Do you have a Pulse? SonorkID: 100.611 Jason
I think Chris should set up filters for the word "Linux" like he has done for "go4t" and "v1nyl" :-) Regardz Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin Logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who :jig: :jig: :jig:
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I wasn't talking about the overhead. The "look and feel" of KDE and Gnome, and its overall usability is far from desired IMHO. They should learn from Mac OS X, if not from Windows. And, I repeat, they need ONE desktop enironment. Everything else just makes things more complicated, which is not acceptable for an average user. Not to mention here that I cannot imagine my father compiling the kernel. He is an architect and uses computers mostly for writing and e-mail. Why should he even know that such thing (kernel) exists? I vote pro drink :beer:
Nemanja This might surprise you but in my office there are some people who having used gnome/kde found it hard using win98 :-) Nish p.s. Mine is a primarily linux based company...
My miniputt high is now 29 I do not think I can improve on that My temperament won't hold www.busterboy.org