Slashdot Mirror

What about Qt? Qt is about the same age and maturity as Linux, with Qtopia having been out there for far longer than iPhone, Android, or OpenMoko. As of August 2006, "there are more than four million Qtopia-based mobile phones in the market including mobile phones from Motorola, ZTE and Cellon" (from the press release announcing the Greenphone).

Qt is old as dirt by today's standards, being one of the most stable and robust frameworks out there, including its embedded platform (which implements its own windowing system to compete with X11 or Windows). The main "problem" with it is that it was never pimped out like Sun's Java was, so nobody has ever heard of it.

OpenMoko, written with Linux, GNU, and GTK+ on X11, has its telephony portions mostly written from scratch. It's so horribly immature that the Qtopia telephony software has been back-ported to Qt/X11 and now ships standard on OpenMoko devices. Truly a testament to Qt's robustness.

With Qt 4.4, Trolltech (now Nokia) put Apple's WebKit into the Qt framework (directly!), so making a webkit-based browser in Qt is a pretty trivial pursuit, as is rendering HTML and JavaScript in any standard app. Nobody seems to realize that this puts Qt/Embedded that much further ahead. Prepare to be stunned as Qt/Embedded quickly dominates the arena that everybody currently assumes is in contention between Google Android and Apple iPhone.

Oh, and Qt/Embedded is GPL'd software. Everything is open, your privacy can be assured, and YOU have control of your own phone. The way it should be. Just try and get that from Google or Apple. Hah!

They are a hugely popular supplier of mobo components like usb or network ports.

At least their I/O ports are just metal and plastic (with an occasional LED or two). They either work or they don't. Anything with active components, on the other hand, needs to be designed and built by people with a clue.

BTW, google searching for "foxconn" yields the text "Motherboard manufacturer, certified by ATi." - which to ATi, means: Purchasing products with the "Graphics By ATI - Certified logo" means that ATI has certified and tested for product quality, reliability and stability, tested to ensure a good customer experience. . With ATi owned by AMD, and AMD firmly committed to Linux, Foxconn may find themselves in a bit of a bind here.

Nor does putting OO under LGPLv3 protect those downstream, since Sun cannot give away any patent rights that MSFT has.

So a significant effect of adopting the LGPLv3 seems to be that downstream users will now find it impossible to protect themselves by entering into NOVL-style deals with MSFT, because a major purpose of the patent provisions of GPLv3/LGPLv3 was to outlaw such arrangements, even though MSFT-NOVL itself was grandfathered in.

Extending this line of thought -- how does using v3 for OO affect its interaction with Linux? Torvalds does not intend to move to v3, so now there is the possiblity of an OO under v3 operating with Linux on v2. This raises all the problems of coupling incompatible licenses (FSF: "When we say that GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible, it means there is no legal way to combine code under GPLv2 with code under GPLv3 in a single program"). Not impossible, but perhaps troublesome.

A cynic might think that Sun wants the downstream users to be precluded from working with either MSFT or Linux -- perhaps forced to move to Solaris.

I don't see things that way. If their objective is to be the consumer-facing OS of the future, people are voting with their pocket books that they want their computing to be mobile. It doesn't have to be a closed appliance, it can be open and extensible like Android is.

Microsoft, Apple, Google, and several Linux groups all have mobile strategies in the works. If it wants to be relevant, Haiku will need one too.

Yeah, because there haven't been 386, 486, and other systems on a chip and Via doesn't have a 1-watt processor anywhere to be found. This is not the first 1-chip chipset for all of the x86 line. That's bullshit. An SoC is even more integrated than just having the chipset as one chip. Somebody never read the old Computer Shopper before it slimmed down. SoC solutions for x86-compatible systems have been around more than a decade. The summary is bad, because TFA does not say this is a first for the x86 line.

You're right that even low-powered x86 chips like the C7 and the Geode line are generally no match for ARM and XScale. MIPS I'm not as familiar with for power usage purposes. It'd be nice if that question was answered, but I'm afraid it'd be summarized incorrectly too.

2005 article on anx86 SoC
another 2005 article about a different x86 SoC
2004 product page for an already obsolete x86 SoC
Linux Devices list of x86 SoC solutions, some dated to 2000
2000 Register article about the year since Cyrix released an x86 SoC
Chipslist page showing availability of AMD processor with 80188 features plus DMA, watchdog timer, serial ports, and I/O pins in 1995
article on the National Semiconductor Geode (the owners of that line before AMD bought it) thin client system-on-chip

And the best proof of all: an archive of a 1996 story on the AMD Elan,which featured a 386, ISA bus, serial UART, memory controller, power management, and PLL hardware ON ONE CHIP

And what would the price point be to eliminate lost sales of hardware? $500? $1000?

Well, do the math yourself, instead of pulling numbers out of your ass.

Because I don't have or know the numbers I could run them, however I did include some number do to the math. Maybe you didn't read what I said but I did say "If OS X is licensed at a high price what OEM would license it? With a starting price of $2500 for a Mac Pro if a license were sold for $250 10 clones would need to be sold to make up for the lost sale of 1 Mac Pro, actually it would be more like 8 or 9 because of the saving in the cost of the hardware."

Because when clones start crashing Apple will start to look bad, "Macs aren't any more stable than Windows PCs".

No, because they would be PCs. Thus, Apple would still have a reputation for making very good hardware -- hardware that OS X runs best on

Just as PCs of whatever brand are still PCs, a Mac clone of whatever make is still a Mac clone. I still recall people blaming IBM for using the S100 bus when everyone else was too.

At the very least, they should be setting up video drivers. For that matter, they should be licensing some of the legal Linux versions of various codecs...

I though Ubuntu included legal codecs, however even if they don't they could still use Linspire which does have legal codecs. Actually here's a paragraph on what someone thinks Linspire should do:

Linspire Needs to Drop OS, Focus Exclusively On CNR"

"Published: Tuesday, September 11 2007 @ 8:07 PM CDT"
Contributed by: Tommy

"You have an opportunity here to keep to Linspire's original goal here, Larry. Make CNR the pivot factor that brings restricted codecs and software to Linux in an elective format through CNR. Purists will be appeased, since the distro itself is left alone by default and casual users will have the choice to expand on their Linux installation the way they see fit with CNR at the controls."

I'd be curious to know if an OEM has gotten this right, but I kind of doubt it. Most I've seen go to the other extreme -- they practically build their own distro, and everything still doesn't work out of the box.

The Linux PC I got used Linspire and included all the drivers needed to run out of the box. The PC was designed to run Linspire. Unfortunately the OEM dropped Linux from the lineup. But you're right, besides OEMs installing Linux they need to make sure it works right. Maybe I don't look at it like OEMs but the way I look at it is that if you're going to do something get it right if you're going to sale it, at least put some effort into it instead of slapping things together. And make it user friendly.

You have a point with that beowulf cluster, there is slightly more to it than a simple joke though. What this incident really proves is, that a race car with a penguin painted on the side does not perform as well as a race car designed by a beowulf cluster of linux machines. (And this is probably not the only one, it was just the first I found).

3) On the issue of ignoring patent claims, the working group has at least rough consensus that the patent claims should not be ignored. Additionally, there is at least rough consensus that the participants of the working group cannot accurately describe the specific claims of the patent application. This stems from the fact that the patent application is not publicly available. Given this, it is the opinion of the co-chairs that MARID should not undertake work on alternate algorithms reasonably thought to be covered by the patent application. We do feel that future changes regarding the patent claim or its associated license could significantly change the consensus of the working group, and at such a time it would be appropriate to consider new work of this type.

IBM has been very clear that they want to see open source software as prior art, and they've created an open source only pool of patent licensing for many of their patents. It's true that they've not been as forward as OSDL, EFF and others about the need to allow open source development to use patents, but where they're attempting to move the process is clearly well along the way to that goal, and one could argue that by partnering with OSDL on this, they've tacitly endorsed that long-term outcome, even if their rhetoric has not specifically gone that far.

Seems in retrospect this lawsuit was one of the best things that the execs there could have done (for themselves, considering their bonuses and stock over the past few years); as well as being the best $86 million Microsoft ever spent for keeping Linux away from many companies with this FUD until they got a chance to launch Longhorn.

I'm wondering where the inq got the current number for the MS BOM. The last one I saw is detailed here: http://www.linuxelectrons.com/News/Hardware/200511 24115105551

Anyone know if there is a more up to date one somewhere?

There should be a considerable performance improvement if the core's are on the same chip die, since communication doesn't have to
go through the motherboard.

According to the technical articles on the Clovertown CPU's, each CPU is built from two separate cores, each with 4 MBytes of cache
memory (8 MBytes total).

Some details at LinuxElectrons

Another discussion here:


Multiplying the number of cores brings distinct advantages. First, it cuts down overall energy consumption for equivalent levels of performance. If the recent Core Duo chips released for notebooks from Intel had only one core, the chips would consume far more power, he said.

Integrating processor cores into the same piece of silicon or same processor package also increases performance by reducing the data pathways

"To go from core to core can be a matter of nanoseconds," Rattner said. "As soon as you move cores together you get an automatic improvement in available bandwidth."

Not that I know of. Last year someone got paid $2500 for five vulnerabilities he found. And remember there are 71 "potential" security vulnerabilities. I'm sure there are plenty of false positives in there.

Sure portable Wearable Computing would be nice too.
Even a cellphone access would be nice.
Perhaps soon I can buy a 803.11g cellphone.

But we are talking about the last mile here.
You join the last mile net by putting a $5 router at home.
And you get access to all the other routers.

As for me I will just plug in my old 486 with two nic's in,
that I use to gateway my LAN. Or you can just plug your desk top
in directly. You see the WRT54G has a 4 port hub built in. It
also has the 5 null modem port, But you will not need that.

I could not find a port side picture, but I did find a block diagram
of the wrt54gl.
Its the same format as the wrt54gs I got for my Dad.

I did not see what the bandwidth was, but in the Old
Google rumors talked about being able to buy into
faster bandwidth for a nominal fee.

As I have said before You all can can put a tower
on my land if you provide me with an Internet feed.

I heard that video game consoles being loss leaders was an urban legend, perhaps due to faulty analysis.

This article is an ad for iSuppli Corp and their teardown services. Having read their similar analysis of the XBox 360 and iMac Core Duo, I'm underwhelmed with everything that's come out of them. There's a lot of estimates based on the general going rate for buying things, but I don't see any reason to believe iSuppli has real insight into the part pricing scale a company like Toshiba receives on their purchases. For all we know, Intel is selling them CPUs "at a loss" relative to the going rate for some business purpose none of us have insight into. There's all kinds of deals like that going on behind the scenes of flashy tech stuff, where products are sometimes paid for out of company's advertising budgets rather than their operating ones. What you can be sure of is that none of those companies are worried about keeping iSuppli up to date on how that effects retail pricing.

Unfortunately for us in North America, these notebooks are currently only available in Europe. Evesham Quest Series (scroll down) look amazing but quite pricey.

There's also a German company Wortmann that makes a much more affordable notebook at around 1000 Euros. Looks like we're holding our breath for a few months or calling up friends and relatives abroud to get them for now.

Well, I think there are experts who claim Linux violates our intellectual property.
But to the degree that that's the case,
of course we owe it to our shareholders to have a strategy.
And when there is something interesting to say,
you'll be the first to hear it.

But, I persevered, and learned alot along the way. However, I don't think that people like my parents (in their 60's and 70's), or my musician friends, or many of my coworkers (IT security) have the time or interest into finding out such things.
You might be right, but I don't agree with the premise that people don't want to learn something new because Windows is easier. If anything, my own personal experience has shown people are fed up with the viruses/hard crashes etc. are are willing to try/learn something new. But again, thats my own experience, not yours.


I have 3 Linux distros installed at home, every knoppix version since 3.4, and almost every box set of Suse and RH that came out on the shelf. I've seen fewer and fewer, if any, box sets at retail stores (CompUSA, Staples, Circuit City, Best Buy), far away from copies of XP, usually right along side of the "Learn to speak German!" sets, and even less compatible software, save for StarOffice, and some arcane firewall software.

Are the Linux boxes less stocked because they are selling or not selling? My Best Buy and CompUSA are well stocked. Does that mean they are selling or not selling? Here is a link for you:
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20060314 113237843

Enjoy,

do you think it will last? Is Windows picking up momentum or is Unix losing momentum?

No mention is made regarding possible contributing factors:

• MS Windows servers may be more expensive -> more money spent
• MS Windows servers may be less efficient -> more money spent
• It may be faster/cheaper/easier to just knuckle under and get a server with MS Windows and then install something else (e.g. Linux) -> more money spent

I wonder what the real reason this report was published. Maybe there's a minimum daily quota of MS articles to drown out stuff like Linux on the Intel-based Macs or articles on Vista on Linux. Or maybe it's the trouble MS is having with the EC, that they'd like to hide in a cloud of smoke.

Mike Nash made a snide remark that "I should also note that in contrast to the existing AES implementations that have not been through an evaluation, we plan to get our implementation evaluated to meet FIPS guidelines and requirements." Might have been true when he said it, but it's no longer true. OpenSSL completed its FIPS 140-2 approval earlier this month. See http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20060122 164238268 for an article about it; the approval (certificate #626) should be posted at http://csrc.nist.gov/cryptval/140-1/1401val2006.ht m before too long.

but it was rejected as all my submissions are,

http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20051205 195525114

Take a look at the reverse engineering project here,

http://linux-bcom4301.sourceforge.net/

It looks like the fifth patent NTP was suing RIM over has been overturned by the USPTO: http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20051221 150546394

The article seems upbeat about patent reform coming, but I doubt it. I think the prevalence of Blackberrys in D.C. probably had more to do with this being overturned.

I don't have a HT-capable proc (AMD Athlon XP 1700), so I don't know anything from personal experience.

I decided to check out how PostgreSQL did with HT.

The first link (1) was suggesting to someone--who was having performance problems under FreeBSD--to turn off HT. Of course, that may not be related to PostgreSQL itself, but rather FreeBSD. I really don't know.

The next thing I found showed some mixed results with ext2 under Linux (2). Somethings showed gain with HT, but not others.

Another link (3) commented that HT with Java requires special consideration when coding.

I didn't come up with anything useful under PostgreSQL, so I checked out Linux.

According to Linux Electrons, Linux performance can drop without proper setup.

Nonsense.

MS was loosing the trademark case in the U.S. regarding the term 'Windows'
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20040211 055425570

The Judge clear said no amount of marketing would change the fact that Windows was a generic term:

The Court flatly rejected Microsoft's arguments today that the jury should consider the meaning of the term "windows" in its current day usage, ruling rather that the jury should focus on the timeframe prior to the release of Microsoft's Windows products, which is 1983-1985. The Court also ruled that once a word is declared generic it would continue to be generic, informing Microsoft that no amount of marketing around a generic word changes the generic state of the word. To view Honorable Judge Coughenour's ruling, visit http://www.lindows.com/genericness

Here's a little more:
Judge Coughenour ruled that the jury will be instructed "to consider whether the Windows mark was generic during the period before Microsoft Windows 1.0 entered the marketplace in November 1985." At the same time, the Court ruled that it will not instruct the jury to consider the current meaning if the jury finds "windows" was a generic term prior to November 1985.

Frankly, if anyone really wanted to go to the wall, I suspect MS would loose the trademark on the terms 'Windows', 'Word', 'Money', 'Project', and possibly even 'Internet Explorer'.

Lindows gave up because they couldn't defend themselves in all of the jursidictions that Microsoft filed. MS was filing cases all over the world.

But here, at home, in the U.S., the courts were ruling against MS, and rightly so. The idea you could trademark a foreign word, 'Windows', in, say, Japan, makes some sense. The idea that you could trademark the word, 'Word', or 'Windows', in the U.S. is absurd, and the only reason that it holds any weight at all is because Microsoft has a ridiculously huge pile of money.

If I tried to trademark the term 'WhiteWolf's Doors', as a piece of software, people would laugh me out of the room.

Is that why they're in use in most of the new HP Proliants? http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20050427 19320516

No, you will likely be moderated down because you are extremely wrong. For those too lazy to click, IBM is #1 with 34% marketshare, Oracle is second at about 33% and Microsoft is a distant third at 20%.

While looking for more information on this, I found this article, which is interesting, too.

http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20031110 073608244

Another good reason to use open source is that a company's infrastructure vendor can reduce its own development costs by using Linux, and pass the savings onto their customers in terms of better and lower costing products - which in turn affects their customer's TCO.

This seems to be happening in the retail POS industry.

Linux Has No Fear This news does nothing to Linux at the moment. Probably never will. If anything, some Mac applications may spill over into Linux, like, Adobe Photoshop. Some Linux applications may spill over onto the Mac, such as engineering design software (EDA, CAD, etc). If you remove emotions and OS religion from the equation, this could be a win-win for Apple and Linux. Linux is more compatible with an Intel Mac than Windows will ever be. Porting applications between Mac and Linux should be easier than porting to Apple's xcode then to OS X. If a Linux user wants the Mac look and feel, there is an Aqua clone for KDE.

Linux to Apple, No Fear

I need something that's stable, easy to install/maintain, and closely tracks RHEL3.0. Any words of wisdom?
As a hardware design engineer myself and having moved from Sun/Sparc to x86/Linux about four years ago, be very careful. For example, some of the tools used by Synopsys are native to Linux and some use a Windows emulator (gui tools). The Windows emulator is usually tied closely to the kernel and may appear to operate on a new kernel but fail during heavy duty use. glibc is also important. I've had synthesis compiles fail hours after running but work flawlessly on the recommended platform. LinuxElectrons has news on Linux EDA.

For the first time on a product carrying the SGI brand, the new Altix system also can be installed with an optional water-cooled door, which provides system cooling capabilities in addition to the Altix system's existing air-cooled architecture. Already in use at NASA, the water-cooled door option is ideal for environments in which high-density systems are deployed in close proximity to other large-scale equipment.

What is Spim?

Some 42% of America's 134 million online adults use instant messaging and almost a third of those instant message users have gotten "spim" - or unsolicited commercial instant messages. That translates into nearly 17 million adults who have gotten the instant-message version of spam.

Not surprising. The business software alliance which is funded by proprietary closed-source software companies wants proprietary standards instead of open standards. They also want proprietary closed-source software instead of open-standard open-source software.

If open standards and open source software were to become prevalent, how would they shake down companies?

Articles I've read say that it will be released in November. But it does sound nice :) Here are some of the articles: vnunet tectonic linuxelectrons

Actually, PBS has been ahead of the curve on digital broadcasting here in the U.S. It was the first network to do a national broadcast of a program fully produced and aired in hi-def. It was also the first to offer a 24/7 network of HD programming. In addition, it has worked to develop applications for interactive TV, and has worked to build various advanced broadcasting technologies. PBS.org is the most-visited .org Web domain in the world. So in a nutshell you're, like, wrong. PBS has decades of leadership in broadcast technology. But I know everyone loves to knock it, so go right ahead.

they even used the word "paradigm" !

http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20040907 120917901

I mean, just look at those numbers!

According to one of the posts in the article, there is no such product called "Open Office" (4th post down as of 9/15/2004 6:00 GMT). The product mentioned in the agreement (legally speaking) may or may not refer to OpenOffice.org, which is what the news story is referencing. Why can a news story get it wrong and not a legal contract? Because legalese is all about semantics. News stories don't have to be to have a Slashdot discussion.

The post in question states:

Because of trademark issues, OpenOffice.org must insist that all public communications refer to the project and software as "OpenOffice.org" or "OpenOffice.org 1.0," and not "OpenOffice" or "Open Office."

Did Sun's legal department pull one over on MSFT's legal department? Was it a mistake? Was Oo.o defined earlier and then said "referred to herein as 'Open Office'"? Was the agreement between Sun and Microsoft dated before the official communication of Oo.o? I don't know, but it appears to be pretty clever, and raises some intriguing questions.

One way or the other, this won't stop me from deploying Oo.o. It's an excellent product, and saves $400 per PC (nearly 40% of the cost of a complete system).

GFS was well-liked at supercomputing centers I have worked with until Sistina dropped the GPL license in favor of proprietary. They did this very suddenly and without warning. It pissed off a lot of potential users and the open source community. It has since fallen out of favor.

This move by Red Hat gives new life (and resources) to GFS beyond the OpenGFS Project that has also been continuing to work on the code.

Another recent development in this area is HP's decision to productize Lustre. Lustre is perhaps the most prominent and promising HPC filesystem.

SGI also announced a major deal last week involving Luster:

The new file system is expected to sustain write rates in excess of 8GB/sec and demonstrate single client write rates of more than 600MB/sec. To achieve this performance, the new file system will leverage Lustre, an open source, object-oriented file system with development lead by Cluster File System Inc., with funding from DOE. Lustre currently is used on four of the top five supercomputers, including the PNNL cluster based on 1,900 Intel® Itanium® 2 processors.

Three days ago I was modded down to Troll simply for posting this list of Miscrosoft's DRM subscribers. The topic was convergence, how devices are all going to work together, so it seemed important to point out that MS DRM is already widely adopted.

Supporters of Microsoft DRM .

* Content companies America Online Inc., The Disney Co. and OD2
* Service providers CinemaNow Inc., Movielink LLC, MusicNow LLC, Napster LLC, VirginMega France and Yacast
* Consumer electronic device manufacturers Archos SA, Creative, Dell Inc., Digital 5 Inc., iRiver International, PRISMIQ Inc., PURE Digital, Rio, Samsung Electronics Company Ltd., SimpleDevices Inc. and 2Wire Inc.
* Chip makers BridgeCo AG, Equator Technologies Inc., Imagination Technologies, Micronas, Motorola Inc., Sigma Designs Inc. and SigmaTel Inc.
* HP

Three days ago I was modded down to Troll simply for posting this list of Miscrosoft's DRM subscribers. The topic was convergence, how devices are all going to work together, so it seemed important to point out that MS DRM is already widely adopted.

Supporters of Microsoft DRM .

* Content companies America Online Inc., The Disney Co. and OD2
* Service providers CinemaNow Inc., Movielink LLC, MusicNow LLC, Napster LLC, VirginMega France and Yacast
* Consumer electronic device manufacturers Archos SA, Creative, Dell Inc., Digital 5 Inc., iRiver International, PRISMIQ Inc., PURE Digital, Rio, Samsung Electronics Company Ltd., SimpleDevices Inc. and 2Wire Inc.
* Chip makers BridgeCo AG, Equator Technologies Inc., Imagination Technologies, Micronas, Motorola Inc., Sigma Designs Inc. and SigmaTel Inc.
* HP

STM recently announced that they are entering the production phase for PRAM, or phase-change memory. This is important because PRAM is nonvolatile and has the potential to be written and read much faster than flash. There will come a day when DRAM will go away and we'll be left with extremely fast and simple NVRAM for main memory and possibly even archival storage. It'd be really great if there was only ONE memory in a system. At this point, most high-performance CPUs are mostly cache memory anyway.

Did you dig beyond the press release and look at the system requirements for this product?

Last time I checked, linux doesn't fall under any of these: Operating Systems: Microsoft Windows 98SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP.

The Linux player is for embedded systems - similar those alluded to in the interview. This press release specifically mentions Set-top boxes and other OEM solutions. Once again, these are not products that a consumer can buy and run on their home linux system.

I was able to use the nVidia drivers under 32-bit Fedora by compiling a plain 2.6.6rc2 kernel (using /usr/src/lin*/configs/kernel*.config copied to .config as a starting point) and using the minion.de patches (hmm, might not have been necessary for 32-bit...). For 64-bit FC2T3, no kernel recompilation is required but the minion.de patch definitely is. UT2004 ran under both (UT needs patching to keep it from segfaulting at random but that's a separate issue that I haven't tackled yet). More here.

FC2 Test 2 had problems, but Test 3 appears to be pretty solid.

I'd like to see nVidia release updated drivers regardless. They'll have to soon, what with the GeForce 6800 series launch.

"Spider measures just 2.8" x 1.9", smaller than a credit card."

"The Spider comes in two flavors: a low-power version (the P501) based on IBM's 400-MHz 440GP; and a high-performance version (the P502) based on IBM's 800-MHz PowerPC 440GX. Both modules come standard with two Ethernet ports (10/100 Base-TX for the P501; Gigabit Ethernet for the P502), which makes them easy to connect to other Spider modules, external packet switches and other systems equipped with Ethernet ports."

Remember, you read it here first.

NASA has been evaluating it...

On a related note, they use NVIDIA/Linux setups to view the Mars Rover data.

Article

return. Loss of radio contact cannot be attributed to this by fluke accident as was the case back in 1997. Oh no, it's a bona fide "tiny computerised brain" screw-up. The latest in a long history of failures, the Linux operating system has flushed half of a US$820 million project out of the crapper hole on the side of the space shuttle. It seems that somebody came up with the bright idea of running the Mars rover on an Apple Macintosh "Supercomputer" controlled by Linux.

Oh, I suppose that that extra license fee for an actual quality operating system would have broken that $410M dollar budget. There's no way they could have afforded an embedded operating system that isn't cheap communist software. They could have gone with QNX RTOS, VxWorks or any number of other quality and time-tested real-time operating systems for the Mars rover, from a reputable company. But NOOOOO, they went with bullshit free-as-in-fix-everything-yourself Linux. Some long-haired balding fat Linux zealot, sucking up oodles of tax money with his blob-like presence in the NASA "engineering corps", with a certain penchant for cheap software, came up with the brilliant idea of running embedded Linux on an Apple Macintosh of all things. Of all the idiotic things that have happened under the current administration, this by far makes me most ashamed.

Speak from your mouth and not from Uranus. Your first link shows only that they're not getting science data back from the rover due to an unknown glitch, even though it's still responding. Never mind the fact that the rover is in fact running VxWorks, which you apparently didn't bother to research. Have a look. It is running your prized "quality, time-tested RTOS" after all. It's simply in a failure state.

As for the second link, they're using Linux with NVidia drivers for the visualization of the data. That happens on Earth, a planet you may not be familiar with. As for the rest of your supposed point, it's being run on a PowerPC embedded system, which is radiation hardened and quite a bit different from your average Mac. PowerPC chips are commonly used in embedded systems, due to their reasonable power requirements, price, standardization and reliability.

I can hardly believe that I'm dignifying this rubbish with a response, but I'd hate to see people fall for your drivel... Go home, troll.

return. Loss of radio contact cannot be attributed to this by fluke accident as was the case back in 1997. Oh no, it's a bona fide "tiny computerised brain" screw-up. The latest in a long history of failures, the Linux operating system has flushed half of a US$820 million project out of the crapper hole on the side of the space shuttle. It seems that somebody came up with the bright idea of running the Mars rover on an Apple Macintosh "Supercomputer" controlled by Linux.

Oh, I suppose that that extra license fee for an actual quality operating system would have broken that $410M dollar budget. There's no way they could have afforded an embedded operating system that isn't cheap communist software. They could have gone with QNX RTOS, VxWorks or any number of other quality and time-tested real-time operating systems for the Mars rover, from a reputable company. But NOOOOO, they went with bullshit free-as-in-fix-everything-yourself Linux. Some long-haired balding fat Linux zealot, sucking up oodles of tax money with his blob-like presence in the NASA "engineering corps", with a certain penchant for cheap software, came up with the brilliant idea of running embedded Linux on an Apple Macintosh of all things. Of all the idiotic things that have happened under the current administration, this by far makes me most ashamed.

Loss of radio contact cannot be attributed to this by fluke accident as was the case back in 1997. Oh no, it's a bona fide "tiny computerised brain" screw-up. The latest in a long history of failures, the Linux operating system has flushed half of a US$820 million project out of the crapper hole on the side of the space shuttle. It seems that somebody came up with the bright idea of running the Mars rover on an Apple Macintosh "Supercomputer" controlled by Linux.

Oh, I suppose that that extra license fee for an actual quality operating system would have broken that $410M dollar budget. There's no way they could have afforded an embedded operating system that isn't cheap communist software. They could have gone with QNX RTOS, VxWorks or any number of other quality and time-tested real-time operating systems for the Mars rover, from a reputable company. But NOOOOO, they went with bullshit free-as-in-fix-everything-yourself Linux. Some long-haired balding fat Linux zealot, sucking up oodles of tax money with his blob-like presence in the NASA "engineering corps", with a certain penchant for cheap software, came up with the brilliant idea of running embedded Linux on an Apple Macintosh of all things. Of all the idiotic things that have happened under the current administration, this by far makes me most ashamed.