Slashdot Mirror

They bring very little value to the back end. A typical distributed app is not a rich UI client that needs lots of Windows APIs to play DRM'd movies, so Windows has no advantage there. It's a C, C++, or Fortan (mixed, even) job running MPI over some specialized interconnect hardware.

You also need a good parallel file system which I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that CIFS is probably not the optimal choice - any real system will probably be using a dedicated filer.

However, their strong suit in this space are tools like IDEs. If they can convince folks that using Windows as a front-end to development, then they can make some good inroads.

Right now the supercomputing folks are starting to get interested in Eclipse, and they're trying to head that off, not to mention small ISV's like us.

'nuff said

However, our method is the reverse of yours. You can download all the binaries whenever you want, any time, all the time. Transfer interrputed? Go ahead, download again. Downloaded it, but lost it? Download again. Got corrupted? Download again. These are the real things, not crippled evaluation versions.

What we do is liberally give out demo licenses via email, that expires after a short time. Provided you're not an asshole, you can renew your demo licenses.

Of course, the downside to this it could be cracked and warez'd out. I don't know the company stance and don't pretend to speak for it, but I don't care. Piracy is part of doing business in software, and the less you piss off your customers, IMHO, the better. So, while I don't like people pirating our software, I'm still against the recent stupid-ass (c'mon, you all know the words!) laws that seem to have festered recently in this area.

Perhaps this works better, I don't know why. Maybe it's psychological: people download the binary first and then feel they need to try it out to justify the time spent. Or something like that.

However, our method is the reverse of yours. You can download all the binaries whenever you want, any time, all the time. Transfer interrputed? Go ahead, download again. Downloaded it, but lost it? Download again. Got corrupted? Download again. These are the real things, not crippled evaluation versions.

What we do is liberally give out demo licenses via email, that expires after a short time. Provided you're not an asshole, you can renew your demo licenses.

Of course, the downside to this it could be cracked and warez'd out. I don't know the company stance and don't pretend to speak for it, but I don't care. Piracy is part of doing business in software, and the less you piss off your customers, IMHO, the better. So, while I don't like people pirating our software, I'm still against the recent stupid-ass (c'mon, you all know the words!) laws that seem to have festered recently in this area.

Perhaps this works better, I don't know why. Maybe it's psychological: people download the binary first and then feel they need to try it out to justify the time spent. Or something like that.

A few months later, TotalView was released for Linux x86. Guess which is one of our biggest sellers?

I went to SC2000 (the supercomputing tradeshow) last year. Almost everybody I talked was running MPI on Linux on PCs. Linux has made huge inroads in the scientific community working on ahem, clusters, of Linux boxes. It's actually quite amazing, consider the Linux market in this segment was close to nil a few years ago. Something about cash-strapped institutions not having to pay high OS licensing fees...

Anyway, it goes to show you that even though there is a free alternative (gdb/ddd) you can sell tools for Linux if you do things the free things can't, or do it better.

I've found that most people who work on free software in their spare time are honest, fair, humble, self-motivated, and usually pretty good programmers too.

So, here's what I think: when I'm giving interviews, open source is a plus on their resume. It is good indicator that they love programming and are self-motivated. However, just because a person does open source development doesn't guarantee anything.

I think you got a bad egg. Why not try hiring some lower-profile developers?

To the OP: people aren't neatly categorized into "open source" and "propietary". I write propietary code for hire, but also write open source code for fun. Sure, you might have the RMS/Bill dichotomoy, but many of us fall in the middle somewhere!

I'm a member of the customer services department at Etnus, so I'm interested in helping you get TotalView working. You didn't give any information about your system, so it's a little hard to troubleshoot your problem. But I'll take a stab anyway.

Since you are posting to Slashdot I'd say that the likelihood is good that you are on top of the latest releases of all things related to Linux, and that you are comfortable dealing with libraries.

The latest versions of libbfd changed in a way that breaks functionality that TotalView relies on. If this is indeed what is happening in your case then the fix is simple. The fix is just to include the library that TotalView expects to find. Grab libbfd-2.9.5.0.22.so out of binutils-2.9.5.0.22-6.

You can install it in /usr/lib/libbfd-2.9.5.0.22.so or you can place it anywhere you want and just update the symbolic link libbfd-2.9.1.0.15.so.0 in /usr/toolworks/totalview.4.1.0-2/linux-x86/shlib/ to point at your libbfd-2.9.5.0.22.so.

Our release package will be changed to include a working libbfd sometime in the next week.

Please feel free to contact us at support@etnus.com about this or any other problem.

binutils and libbfd are licensed under the GPL.

Cheers,

Chris Gottbrath, Etnus

I'm a member of the customer services department at Etnus, so I'm interested in helping you get TotalView working. You didn't give any information about your system, so it's a little hard to troubleshoot your problem. But I'll take a stab anyway.

Since you are posting to Slashdot I'd say that the likelihood is good that you are on top of the latest releases of all things related to Linux, and that you are comfortable dealing with libraries.

The latest versions of libbfd changed in a way that breaks functionality that TotalView relies on. If this is indeed what is happening in your case then the fix is simple. The fix is just to include the library that TotalView expects to find. Grab libbfd-2.9.5.0.22.so out of binutils-2.9.5.0.22-6.

You can install it in /usr/lib/libbfd-2.9.5.0.22.so or you can place it anywhere you want and just update the symbolic link libbfd-2.9.1.0.15.so.0 in /usr/toolworks/totalview.4.1.0-2/linux-x86/shlib/ to point at your libbfd-2.9.5.0.22.so.

Our release package will be changed to include a working libbfd sometime in the next week.

Please feel free to contact us at support@etnus.com about this or any other problem.

binutils and libbfd are licensed under the GPL.

Cheers,

Chris Gottbrath, Etnus

I'm a member of the customer services department at Etnus, so I'm interested in helping you get TotalView working. You didn't give any information about your system, so it's a little hard to troubleshoot your problem. But I'll take a stab anyway.

Since you are posting to Slashdot I'd say that the likelihood is good that you are on top of the latest releases of all things related to Linux, and that you are comfortable dealing with libraries.

The latest versions of libbfd changed in a way that breaks functionality that TotalView relies on. If this is indeed what is happening in your case then the fix is simple. The fix is just to include the library that TotalView expects to find. Grab libbfd-2.9.5.0.22.so out of binutils-2.9.5.0.22-6.

You can install it in /usr/lib/libbfd-2.9.5.0.22.so or you can place it anywhere you want and just update the symbolic link libbfd-2.9.1.0.15.so.0 in /usr/toolworks/totalview.4.1.0-2/linux-x86/shlib/ to point at your libbfd-2.9.5.0.22.so.

Our release package will be changed to include a working libbfd sometime in the next week.

Please feel free to contact us at support@etnus.com about this or any other problem.

binutils and libbfd are licensed under the GPL.

Cheers,

Chris Gottbrath, Etnus

It's a parallel debugger, which means that it has built-in support for manipulating groups of objects, as if they were one: threads in a proceses, processes in a group, groups in a cluster, and so on. This means you don't need 20 windows to control a 20-thread app; we roll up an aggregated view into one window, commands work on the entire batch.

And yes, we support Linux, as well as almost every other Unix out there. You can snag a free demo license and download the bits from our website. And for those of you who like printf(), you can add them on-the-fly without recompiling. That saves time.

Disclosure: I am a developer on TotalView, but I do "eat my own dog food"- we use it every day on itself.

It's a parallel debugger, which means that it has built-in support for manipulating groups of objects, as if they were one: threads in a proceses, processes in a group, groups in a cluster, and so on. This means you don't need 20 windows to control a 20-thread app; we roll up an aggregated view into one window, commands work on the entire batch.

And yes, we support Linux, as well as almost every other Unix out there. You can snag a free demo license and download the bits from our website. And for those of you who like printf(), you can add them on-the-fly without recompiling. That saves time.

Disclosure: I am a developer on TotalView, but I do "eat my own dog food"- we use it every day on itself.

It's a parallel debugger, which means that it has built-in support for manipulating groups of objects, as if they were one: threads in a proceses, processes in a group, groups in a cluster, and so on. This means you don't need 20 windows to control a 20-thread app; we roll up an aggregated view into one window, commands work on the entire batch.

And yes, we support Linux, as well as almost every other Unix out there. You can snag a free demo license and download the bits from our website. And for those of you who like printf(), you can add them on-the-fly without recompiling. That saves time.

Disclosure: I am a developer on TotalView, but I do "eat my own dog food"- we use it every day on itself.

It's a parallel debugger, which means that it has built-in support for manipulating groups of objects, as if they were one: threads in a proceses, processes in a group, groups in a cluster, and so on. This means you don't need 20 windows to control a 20-thread app; we roll up an aggregated view into one window, commands work on the entire batch.

And yes, we support Linux, as well as almost every other Unix out there. You can snag a free demo license and download the bits from our website. And for those of you who like printf(), you can add them on-the-fly without recompiling. That saves time.

Disclosure: I am a developer on TotalView, but I do "eat my own dog food"- we use it every day on itself.

Well, I do parallel F90 development, and the only debugger worth the name that I've come across is Totalview from Etnus. Supports C++ on Linux and the tech support's pretty good. Free trial version too.