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Domain: linuxhacker.org

Stories and comments across the archive that link to linuxhacker.org.

Comments · 8

  1. Re:Get the PUPPY? I AM the PUPPY! by ScrappyLaptop · · Score: 1 · on Breathing Life Into Older Computers
    Hmmm...slightly OT, but how about BSD running on a Mac SE/30 from 1989? Forget those fancy double-digit clock speeds, I'm talking 16Mhz, and only _mostly_ 32-bit. Of course, the 128MB of ram might be cheating a bit. On the x86 side, somewhere around here I have a '486-33Mhz laptop printserver running Freesco off of a floppy on maybe 8, maybe 16Megs. It's headless, so I literally haven't touched it in years -if I remember right, the LCD was destroyed and I initially had it hooked up to a KVM for configuration. Somewhere on my network (I've long since forgotton the IP) it's little webserver is still waiting patiently to serve up the single admin page. The fantastic thing about OSS is that you can tailor the software to the hardware available and get the job done. Maybe you've heard how in the almost-prehistoric days of computing (think: Levy's book), folks would "bum" lines off of a fifty line program or function and get all giddy about it? Well, perl isn't the only place you can have that sort of fun nowadays. You have the luxury of doing that with entire operating systems! It's actually _fun_ to fit a usable if single purpose system into hardware that uses less power than a table lamp; you get the satisfaction of knowing that it really cannot get any more efficient and you've just saved some extra toxins from going into the landfill.

    If you want the ultimate in Linux minimalism, try go to http://linuxhacker.org/ (and don't forget the Jailbait distro: 16MB of compact-flash/DOC goodness) or http://www.linuxdevices.com/ for info on running on hardware so tiny it'll make your head spin.

  2. Re:go EPSON by jbn-o · · Score: 2, Informative · on Searching for a Decent Scanner?

    I have an Epson Perfection 1260 flatbed scanner and it works perfectly, right out of the box under GNU/Linux. The only tricky part had to do with Epson's programming that resides inside the scanner--old SANE software would do something with the stepper motor that it would burn itself out if you scanned above 200DPI or so (if you kill your Epson Perfection 1260, it can be fixed). I figured that it's silly to call this a SANE bug because no device should allow any series of commands to burn itself out. I mention this only in the unlikely event that you plan to use the scanner on an old free software system (circa Red Hat GNU/Linux 9). If you're running some free software system that is more recent, ignore this caveat.

    SANE's motor settings (since version 1.0.10) have been changed to not do what this scanner cannot handle correctly, and now you can use this scanner at whatever resolution it will support, plug and play.

  3. The open source alternative by geirt · · Score: 3 · on Trolltech Developing Qt That Doesn't Need X
    Microwindows/NanoGUI is an Open Source project aimed at bringing the features of modern graphical windowing environments to smaller devices and platforms. NanoGUI allows applications to be built and tested on the Linux desktop, as well as cross-compiled for the target device.

    Both share a common graphics engine. Nano-GUI is based on an X-like protocol called Nano-X. Microwindows sports an interface similar to the ECMA APIW spec with some advancements.

  4. Take a look at LinuxCE by Christopher+B.+Brown · · Score: 2 · on Windows CE going Open Source?
    Take a look at the LinuxCE site; this site is exploring the notion of supporting Linux on WinCE palmtop computers.

    Love it or hate it, the fairly hefty memory requirements of WinCE over PalmOS have the merit that the machines are more powerful than the PalmComputing brethren. This makes it vastly more likely that WinCE computers might be able to run Linux and actually have storage space left to hold utilities.

    Supporting X, or even NanoGUI, would be rather challenging; it would be more feasible to try to provide the basic "Text Mode Console."

    It wouldn't be something to run ApplixWare on, but it could be a nice way of Coding On The Road...

  5. Re:Berlin and X. by orabidoo · · Score: 3 · on Interview with Berlin core developers
    The main question is: is Berlin asynchronous enough? I've read talks by J. Gettys in linux-kernel (J. Gettys is one of the original designers of the X Window system), and he makes a very good point: that people who talk about replacing X haven't understood well enough what X's real problems are. One good thing about the X protocol is that it's fairly asynchronous: you send off your request but you don't wait for a reply to return from your library call, for most X calls. Still, a number of calls are synchronous, and they are one of X's biggest bottlenecks. CORBA is a much more general protocol than X11's, and with that comes overhead; CORBA's smallest possible message is several times bigger than X11's smallest possible message. I don't know if CORBA has async capabilities, but I'd be surprised if it had them to the level that X11 does (let alone more). All of this goes together to point to a protocol *less* suited to remote use than X11, rather than more.

    From what I see, the Berlin people are planning to counter this by making the protocol higher level, including toolkit-level stuff (menus, buttons, any kind of low level widgets) in the server. This is probably a move in the right direction (at least, having the *option* to do that; there's always a case for supporitng plain X 'draw rectangle' functionality for things like themable apps), but I don't think it's nearly as important as streamlining the basic protocol.

    In this interview, they also sounded ilke they didn't know what to say about embedded systems, which is very disturbing. Makes me think that they haven't really thought about making their system scalable on the lightweight end. This is IMO one of the bigger points that a new-generation GUI needs to address.

    For the moment, my bet is on X11 for mainstream stuff, and NanoGUI for embedded use.

  6. X Alternatives by Martin+Hock · · Score: 2 · on Is X The Future?
    I agree that X is a little cruddy. It is too thoroughly networked, so there's a fair amount of overhead in performing local operations. It also takes up a lot of RAM. Oh, and it has too much heritage behind it; it really was meant for black and white display, and color hacks atop it make code that supports multiple display depths a massive mess. Luckily toolkits can get rid of most of this pain, but still, if these toolkits could be ported to a new X, that would be neat.

    There are two X alternatives that I can think of besides the Berlin mentioned. One of them is The Y Window System, by the Hungry Programmers (specifically Christoph Toshok), which isn't very far along and as far as I can tell hasn't been worked on in a while (since about February 1998). It promotes the use of a single fixed depth, which I think is a bad idea. It does have some good ideas though, like a somewhat separate memory architecture. Download here.

    The other one, NanoGUI, was originally developed by Alan Cox. It was designed with a lightweight memory footprint in mind. I'm not sure if it supports networked display, though, but I believe they're going to at least port VNC. It's being used on the new Linux7k project, which is attempting to create a usable Linux system for the Psion 5 series palmtop (it uses an ARM7 processor). It seems to be undergoing active development. Download here.

    So I hope that's a good starting point.

  7. X Alternatives by Martin+Hock · · Score: 2 · on Is X The Future?
    I agree that X is a little cruddy. It is too thoroughly networked, so there's a fair amount of overhead in performing local operations. It also takes up a lot of RAM. Oh, and it has too much heritage behind it; it really was meant for black and white display, and color hacks atop it make code that supports multiple display depths a massive mess. Luckily toolkits can get rid of most of this pain, but still, if these toolkits could be ported to a new X, that would be neat.

    There are two X alternatives that I can think of besides the Berlin mentioned. One of them is The Y Window System, by the Hungry Programmers (specifically Christoph Toshok), which isn't very far along and as far as I can tell hasn't been worked on in a while (since about February 1998). It promotes the use of a single fixed depth, which I think is a bad idea. It does have some good ideas though, like a somewhat separate memory architecture. Download here.

    The other one, NanoGUI, was originally developed by Alan Cox. It was designed with a lightweight memory footprint in mind. I'm not sure if it supports networked display, though, but I believe they're going to at least port VNC. It's being used on the new Linux7k project, which is attempting to create a usable Linux system for the Psion 5 series palmtop (it uses an ARM7 processor). It seems to be undergoing active development. Download here.

    So I hope that's a good starting point.

  8. Getting pretty far behind Linux Daily News. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Mozilla at One: An article by Frank Hecker

    LinuxToday is even faster- they usually post an article within half an hour of you mailing it to them.
    You should try LinuxHacker though. It has the headlines from all the best news sites on one page, which saves a lot of time.