Slashdot Mirror

You don't know of enough tech sites to claim that "almost every tech site" banded together on something. No one does.

While this suit appears to be just about the Windows trademark, it smells like MSFT is defending the Windows-compatible O/S turf. Other than OS/2, there's yet to be a fully binary-compatible Windows knock-off. That it took a company with IBM's resources to do it is significant. (Although I did just find this: "REAL/32 is a sophisticated, 32-bit, real-time, multi-tasking, multi-user DOS/Windows compatible operating system.")

This brings to mind one of the antitrust lawsuits against IBM, brought by DOJ in 1969 to challenge the monopoly IBM had on the mainframe hardware and software market. IBM was bundling its operating software with the hardware, and would not make it available as separate product. This was intended to prevent rival hardware manufacturers (scroll down a bit) from getting into the IBM-compatible mainframe business.

IBM's business model was classic lock-in. If the software were available to all comers, there'd be no more reason to buy big iron from IBM, except of course FUD ("nobody ever got fired for buying IBM...")

So, although it looks on the surface like a trademark dispute, my gut sez MSFT is out to keep Lindows off the desktop.

I find it interesting that in their Assessment of Various SCM Systems there is no mention of BitKeeper, Arch, or Subversion, all of which have been brought up here in the past.

Does anyone know how they compare? It seems to me as though this space is becoming increasingly crowded. Choice is a good thing, I just fear that it might be at the cost of being able to easily communicate code between developers.

As far as I know is that they get the software and hardware at very discounted prices, particularly from SGI, Alias/Wavefront and Pixar. With Pixar it seems that one of the conditions for Lucas to sell it to Jobs was to have early access to Pixar's technology, mainly PRMan (and I could guess also RAT now). From SGI they get early access to hardware thanks to their JEDI agreement (Joint Environment for Digital Imaging), I think it's JEDI III at the moment. According to some rumors is that part of the agreement is that ILM doesn't mention other platforms. They get the gear and give feedback to SGI along braging rights. From Alias/Wavefront they are also among the beta testers for all new versions. But in the end they wouldn't give it away as an incentive. Even if it was free if it didn't fit their pipeline it would be pointless.

There are plenty of articles detailing Linux increasing use in VFX. Here are a some:

Linux Helps Bring Titanic to Life
The Little Engine That Could
Penguin Power
Linux Invades Hollywood
VESTECH 2000
Linux takes Hollywood by storm
Linux goes to the movies
Nixed for Linux
DreamWorks Feature Linux and Animation
Industry of Change: Linux Storms Hollywood

As far as I know is that they get the software and hardware at very discounted prices, particularly from SGI, Alias/Wavefront and Pixar. With Pixar it seems that one of the conditions for Lucas to sell it to Jobs was to have early access to Pixar's technology, mainly PRMan (and I could guess also RAT now). From SGI they get early access to hardware thanks to their JEDI agreement (Joint Environment for Digital Imaging), I think it's JEDI III at the moment. According to some rumors is that part of the agreement is that ILM doesn't mention other platforms. They get the gear and give feedback to SGI along braging rights. From Alias/Wavefront they are also among the beta testers for all new versions. But in the end they wouldn't give it away as an incentive. Even if it was free if it didn't fit their pipeline it would be pointless.

There are plenty of articles detailing Linux increasing use in VFX. Here are a some:

Linux Helps Bring Titanic to Life
The Little Engine That Could
Penguin Power
Linux Invades Hollywood
VESTECH 2000
Linux takes Hollywood by storm
Linux goes to the movies
Nixed for Linux
DreamWorks Feature Linux and Animation
Industry of Change: Linux Storms Hollywood

As far as I know is that they get the software and hardware at very discounted prices, particularly from SGI, Alias/Wavefront and Pixar. With Pixar it seems that one of the conditions for Lucas to sell it to Jobs was to have early access to Pixar's technology, mainly PRMan (and I could guess also RAT now). From SGI they get early access to hardware thanks to their JEDI agreement (Joint Environment for Digital Imaging), I think it's JEDI III at the moment. According to some rumors is that part of the agreement is that ILM doesn't mention other platforms. They get the gear and give feedback to SGI along braging rights. From Alias/Wavefront they are also among the beta testers for all new versions. But in the end they wouldn't give it away as an incentive. Even if it was free if it didn't fit their pipeline it would be pointless.

There are plenty of articles detailing Linux increasing use in VFX. Here are a some:

Linux Helps Bring Titanic to Life
The Little Engine That Could
Penguin Power
Linux Invades Hollywood
VESTECH 2000
Linux takes Hollywood by storm
Linux goes to the movies
Nixed for Linux
DreamWorks Feature Linux and Animation
Industry of Change: Linux Storms Hollywood

(Note: The actual text of the Adobe V. Softman decision seems to have been remove the CA courts site. If anyone know where it is, please post a link.

Note that whether a license exists or not is irrelevent.
It's the nature of the transaction that determines whether it's a sale or not.

My only gripe with LJ articles is that, even if you put them in print mode, they still run off the end of my paper when I print them.

My only gripe with LJ articles is that, even if you put them in print mode, they still run off the end of my paper when I print them.

The Internet's greatest impact has been on the the voice it gives the public. Business is just using it as a tool, people use it to invoke change in the systems that regulate their lives.

That's pretty arguable. I mean, name one major social change that has happened as a result of the Internet. Sure, we're communicating faster, but has it actually provided a clear social change?

And why isn't faster communications a clear social change? Would you have cried out "name one major social change as a result of telephones!" if you were around in the early 1900s?

These days I can bank online, buy food online, pay rent online, communicate in almost-real-time with overseas relatives, find communities in my local area with similar hobbies/interests, or buy and sell things with people I've never met. How is this anything other than a social change?

Government services are increasingly online. The government is nothing more than the organised administrators of society. If the Internet is helping the government then it is directly helping society as well.

Linux is built by online communities that wouldn't exist without the Internet, and Linux is definitely helping poorer countries that wouldn't have had any options without free software. This is leading to real social changes by giving poor schools access to "expensive" software.

The physically disabled can work from home. Poorer countries with intelligent citizens can now compete directly with foreign superpowers.

The Internet is to the 21st century what the phone was to the 20th century. Initially only in the hands of the rich, then in the hands of the middle class, then in the hands of everybody and taken for granted. Sure, most of the improvements are evolutionary instead of revolutionary. The Internet has improved existing practises: there are Internet equivalents for postal mail, telephones, television, radio, and community halls. But isn't this enough? Isn't a gradual improvement enough to be called a "clear social change"? I say it is.

Actually, there seem to be a variant of gcc that supports altivec

Anyone know where this clown stands on SSCA?. I am sure Eisner or Hollings would love him.

OK, so a general boycott won't get very far, but there is one way to hit them where it hurts. The major studios all use Linux, most of all in their special effects renderfarms. How about getting all Linux sysadmins to boycott the studios, and specifically the places that need us the most like Dreamworks and Pixar? How about if we post a list of all people and companies providing Linux service and support to the studios so we know who else to boycott? I'm sure the studios are familiar with blacklists. I believe their expression is "You'll never work in this town again!"

Yup. March 2002. The comparison is online here.

After reading this article, about how Hollywood studios use Linux to create their movies, one can clearly see that they are going mad indeed.
When will they learn that you can't eat the cake and keep it at the same time.

Gnome's gnotices also has an article about designing and debugging corba application, using the great application ethereal as an example.

When I met him, he was claiming that the desktop market had already been penetrated. I wonder why the switch in ideology.. Go figure.

At this mangled URL, you can see some "dismal" comments from very high up at Red Hat. Mr. Tiemann is CTO, and he has been issuing the "dismal line" (re: desktop markeshare) for at least several weeks now. What makes this really interesting is what Tiemann said early on.

When you consider the economic context, it's about the same message as before but more dismal (like the world around it).

BTW, this is my first uncowardly post. ::::taking deep bow:::: ;-) hehehe

Ask and ye shall receive. Go here for an article from the January 2002 Linux Journal that explains how to use VNC to do exactly what you want.

A snippet from the article:
This two-part series presents a novel way to set up a VNC-based X Window System desktop for your Linux system. By the end of this two-part series, you'll have a configuration that allows users to log in to their X-Window desktop (running GNOME, KDE or other preferred window manager environment) via a display manager (like GDM, KDM or XDM). More importantly, the user will have secure access to the same desktop in the same state from the workstation console and anywhere else on a network.

Now I'm confused!

I've been using CVS for years and read with great interest the recent Linux Journal article about the Subversion project to created a CVS replacement that is better than CVS.

Then I see a Slashdot story about arch.

Now, my FearLessLeader starts using Bitkeeper.

Should I move from CVS and, if so, which is best?

Oh yeah, ClearCASE does have one nice feature in common with arch that CVS lacks: it does treat directories and files as elements separate from their names, so you can rename things and even remove files from directories without actually losing the element and its associated revision history.

This is something that Subversion also addresses, which is why the Linux Journal article is very interesting.

The mix of systems isn't necessarily a bad thing since each system was (ostensibly) chosen for its particular task. I was unable to find any information on the systems running avionics or which OS the attitude control system that went belly-up was running. I'm curious - any project managers out there know the answer?

Some of these systems are Russian in design, which has hampered my search since I don't grok the language. The Russians have long experience with putting stuff up that works forever - be nice to know what sort of hardware/software they use. Their systems are home-grown on the ISS - except for a few boxen for Russian crew. BTW, all PC-type boxes on the ISS are ThinkPads with an odd terminal or two floating around for good measure.

Anyone interested in picking apart the station would benefit greatly from International Space Station Evolution Data Book (PDF), which can also be viewed in it's google-rendered HTML format.

Ken

Yeah, yeah, yeah... Here's some Python links for you:

The official site. Downloads & Tutorials
An article by ESR praising python
A couple small intros to Python
An interesting look at Python from a LISPers point of view
Zope, Python-based web application server platfrom
Pygame : A Python interface to the SDL game library

Not so off-topic: I submitted this story a couple of days, and it was rejected a few monutes later, why? There is a editorial position of slashdot or it is the personal taste of the "editor du jour"?

See http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=3575 for another Linux Journal article on setting up a firewall with various features including port forwarding. This article predates the 2.4 kernel, so it's not relevant to iptables, but if you're running a 2.0 or 2.2 kernel, you should find an example there.

I just ran across it today when setting up a network. (You would think I would have remembered, considering that I wrote the article.)

Actually, my new copy of Linux Journal came in the mail today. Doc Searls interviews Google's Director of Marketing in one of his columns. In it, he asks if Google makes money, and she says that they are in fact profitable. She goes on to say that their revenue is split 50/50 from ad sales and technology licensing (like with Yahoo and such). She said that have 130-odd customers for their search technology, and European and Asian sales offices opening soon. Customers pay for the bandwidth and servers. Actual customers who buy an actual product. A novel business model, wouldn't you say?

Anyway, since she was interviewed before the magazine went to press, I'd be comfortable in saying that Google has been profitable for at least 45 days.

-B

I actually wrote something up that was recently posted online at the linux journal site: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=4715 Since I wrote it over a year ago, some of the links are a bit out of date, but the general principles are still good.

.. is recommended. It's a medium-low level view of the entire kernel, following the source code but making it more readable. If you've taken an Operating Systems or Unix class you should be fine.

Linux Journal reviewed it.

- j

This Linux Journal article gives a really quick introduction into writing kernel modules.

It doesn't go into all that much detail, but I found it a good starting point for messing around on my linux machine at home.

Hth =)

A am clueless why moderators keep spending points in this. but the facts:
-She (a "cow is a she?") posted as Anonymos Coward. So it was no karma whore. However it would have been better to mirror it and post a link.
-kernelTrap is /.'ed now(badly!)
-Why waste moderation points points on this? Moderate the trolls down. Moderate gems up, leave the rest, don't push an agenda.
-Read the article first before moderation,(if the moderator did this you would have found out is was /.'ed.)

Some interviews i filtered: (if i say post links i should support this)

1999 linux weekly
1999 from c't (german)
june 2000, linux journal
Nov 2000 linux.ei
and a /.
aug 99 /.

WHile you're post doesn't say what kind of distribution you are looking for, it may be easier to sell you boss on a commercial solution that sells specialized distributions. does just that, I have never used their products, there are some reviews out there, linux journal has a review of the web server, Linux Mag loved The Web Server, Thick Book has a review of The Firewall (run through google to avoid PDF), as does Linux World.

Hope this helps you sell a linux solution

Cisco in 1998 was managing 50 print servers and about 1600 printers world-wide. About 10,000 Unix and Windows clients.

Linux Journal Article

I didn't know about Hexley, the Darwin mascot, but what the Hell is this grey picture in the article?

Actually, this dream machine shares a lot in common with the "Ultimate Linux Box" as described by Eric Raymond here back in November. I must admit that Raymonds selections appeal to me a whole lot more. You couldn't possibly get me to give up Antec cases and Tyan motherboards. They are like Mom's Apple pie and ice cream. You've known they are so good for so long why even consider anything else.

A regular Linux Journal columnist, Marcel Gagné writes about system administration using a French Chef theme. He has written a book: Linux System Administration: A User's Guide. Look for it at Barnes and Noble

Why develop in Python?

Here's why.

Well, the undergrads in this article think MS is great compared to Linux. We even hashed it out on /. right here. Inexperienced folk aren't immediately thinking bad things about MS. That MS is EVIL EVIL SCUM would be a surprise to them.

I work for a government central IT agency. A couple years ago, there was a requirement for a shared infrastructure between all of the K-12 schools in our jurisdiction.

We came up with what we thought was a really great Linux solution based on K-12 Admin.

After submitting our proposal to the education types, they were all for it.
A few weeks later, Apple sent some slick marketing representatives to talk to our clients and much to our disbelief, the schools bought into it. Today, they are running an expensive, proprietary Macintosh solution, and I find it grimly amusing that it isn't meeting their expectations.

I guess what my point is, is that teachers have a similar attitude to other highly paid professionals like lawyers or doctors. They think they always know best. To them, if you're not an educator, you're an idiot. This makes it difficult to sell them on anything that doesn't have strong marketing hype, flashing colors and smooth talking sales reps. The unfortunate thing is, in most educational environments, these are the people who have the final say as to what products are used.

This movement is gaining ground. Here's a ton of sites:

Start with Why Use Open Source Software In Schools to answer your (and your superior's!) questions. Note that Microsoft is trying to keep a stranglehold on this and their salesmen are playing dirty; but we as free software activists have one thing they can not have: integrity. Teach the truth about Open Source, explain that this is the true American way, show how we need to use it in education to teach kids the right way to do things (and to share with neighbors) to make a productive world, and we'll go at it. Academia can't afford to lose itself in proprietary software; as this site explains, with free software we've got a chance for a blossoming in academia.

The K12 Linux in Schools Project

A good example is St. John's School in the UK (attention, USA education boards!)

Open Source and Education tells you how to do it, what you need to know.

Linux in Higher Education: Open Source, Open Minds, Social Justice is an important article in Linux Journal about this.

K12 Linux Terminal Server Project for Schools is just one of the things you can do.

K-12 Linux, another good site about this.

A good technical primer on Linux in Education

If you use free software in schools you will also need free documentation and training materials. Here is a list of the best of it.

(Pls mod this up guys, I'm posting anon...)

previously on slashdot -- search the page for "slow".

Yes, that is an issue with dynamic typing but that comes with the complexity of your app. Today's programs are far too complex to write in assembly, but assembly can be much faster. Static typing doesn't make things faster, that's just an implementation issue.

In Objective-C's case, only the first time you send a message to another object takes some extra lookup time. From then on, it's cached. It's just like using a virtual table. Object Oriented programming was NEVER designed for speed. That's the tradeoff. If you try to make a balancing act of that of speed vs. OO, you're missing the point and wasting your time. If you need the speed, write the back-end in C (but not C++).

As ESR has said in his Python introduction piece (I think it was in there, sorry if I'm misquoting), most programs nowadays don't even need compiled speed. 90% of the stuff joe user does is I/O bound, not CPU bound. Of course you can be a really sloppy programmer and waste the CPU, but that's not the language's fault :)

In fact, there was an article in Linux Journal about using these cards with Linux.

I have been getting Linux Journal for about 6 months ... been pretty happy with it .. not everything is great .. but pretty much every issue has something really good ... I have been collecting them to get to all those things .. and the stack is getting much to large ...

Linux can natively be configured to enforce disk quotas and (with more difficulty) manage network bandwidth without any special virtual server software. Also the native unix process scheduling algorithm does reduce the priority of CPU bound tasks. The getrlimit(2) system call can be used to set various limits per process (not per virtual server unless the virtual server runs as one process I guess.) I know of no way to specifically limit disk bandwidth on Linux.

Freeware such as s_context and user mode linux provide no control over how much resources one virtual server gets over another besides disk usage. Other limited resources like CPU, disk and network bandwidth (RAM?) are shared just like they would be shared by separate processes under a single Linux system.

FreeVSD is not a virtual server, but a collection of scripts, binaries and multiple copies of hard-linked read-only filesystems for the common system environment. It is has the best chance for winning the total performance award but has no extra features for resource limits between systems.

True virtual machines. (E.g., vmware) provide very good isolation, but this leads to little sharing of excess unused resources between virtual servers I believe. They also have poorer performance in general because so much emulation is done.

The commercial, proprietary Private Server product from Ensim seems good from the marketing blurbs which say that they have "their own guaranteed share of the servers resources, including CPU, memory and bandwidth". I wonder what the performance penalty for this is and how much does it cost? Can anyone comment?

>There's so many interesting userspace Open Source projects we could be hearing about

almost afraid to ask, but...

have you tried submitting something? It's not like there is a finite limit to the number of articles that can be posted each day and an article on a new kernel version means there is one less article that can be posted on something else, no?

Kernel releases are news. Not earth-shattering news, but events that generate interest around here (for the most part, YMMV obviously).

>why not focus on the new and clever ones

Someone has to write something up and post it somewhere that can be slashdotted. It's not like /. developes its own content in the form of essays, editorials or the like. Think you need to go somewhere like linux journal for stuff more like that.

Here is the article, it mainly deals with Dreamworks Animation, but also touches on PDI. There is also Daniel Wexler's page, who is the main rendering guy at PDI:

Presently MP3 is the de-facto near-CD-quality audio format. I initially believed Vorbis would fade into obscurity as PNG has, requiring special plug-ins to view. However, the opposite seems to be true. A survey at raw42 revealed that 80.3% of users prefer Ogg Vorbis over MP3 (5.2%). I've beginnning to change my views too, considering that Fraunhofer owns the rights to MP3.

All of these worms made use of security flaws in the systems they attacked, and if there hadn?t been security vulnerabilities in Windows®, Linux, and Solaris®

For that matter, Linux® is also a registered trademark.

My favorite part, though, is "This is a true statement...." It's true in the same sense that "Hitler, Mahatma Ghandi, and Mother Teresa were collectively responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews" is a true statement.