Slashdot Mirror

Chris wrote in to send us a link to a techweb story about Linux 2.2 . As I'm sure many of you know- its right around the corner. Linus plans a Pre 2.2 series of kernels for final squashing, but apparently 2.1.129 is a stones throw away from solid. It ought to be here before christmas if you believe in release dates.

CDA II has been blocked until at least December 4th by a federal judge: the Justice Department has been issued with a temporary restraining order preventing them from inforcing the Child Online Protection Act (aka CDA II).

Linux Magazin has an in in depth review of Infomix SE by a German University Professor, and IX, the professional German IT magzine, has a review of Oracle 8.05 under Linux. Indeed, IX's main theme this month is Linux Multimedia. In related news C'T reviews Caldera OpenLinux, while Caldera announces a new line of servers: the VBS line. update: O. was kind to tell me of the english translation of C'T's Caldera review.

Toshiba and Sony will present papers at the ISSCC about what Techweb believes will be the CPU of the next Playstation. Interestingly this design places more processing demands on the CPU, a growing trend throughout the low-cost industry. Cyrix' MediaGX parts reduce cost by providing on-board video and audio, where most of the complexity is put in software, with hardware assist only where it is justified. Transmeta's patent and EPIC similarly reduce hardware complexity by moving it into software.

CRN has an article about Linus which is rather glowing: Linus has his head screwed on right. Bob Young's comment "He's a fundamentally secure human being" probably explains to a large extent Linux' success. Sounds like we should all start eating oatmeal!

While Merced is on track for 2000, it's role will be limited to that of a launch vehicle for IA-64. Indeed, the next generation x86 (Foster) will deliver similar performance to native IA-64 code on Merced for most apps. Only apps requiring 64 bit addressing would benefit from Merced. However this picture will change in late 2001 with McKinley which should be twice as fast. In 2003, a derivative of McKinley in 0.13 micron may be cheap enough to ship for high-end PCs. A big headache for Intel will be how to convince software developers to migrate. S: My personal opinion is that the next really large leap in computing requirements will be driven by Artificial Intelligence software, for tasks such as natural language processing and integrating knowledge into a model of the world... but within 5 years? What do you think will be the next CPU-power sink? Games? In related news, ST's new PC on a chip will run Linux.

Found on Linux Today: A British company will soon be launching an MP3 player running on a 220 MHz StrongARM and Linux. Because it is technically a PC, it may be able to avoid a lawsuit with the RIAA (unlike Diamond Multimedia). It's the size of your car radio, has a 2.1Gb hard disk (35 hours of music), and should allow you to login to it!

CMiYC writes " ZDnet has a helpdesk for bugs in software (specifically Windows and Office)... It lists there are like 100 well-known bugs in WinNT alone. I think some of the bugs listed are unbelievable. For a office 98 (on the mac) it says "Wby does my hard drive run constantly as I type." Microsoft reports this will happen if you use True Type fonts that CAME WITH office 98." S: It seems surprising that the media are providing support in this way, given that Microsoft is widely reported as providing corporate support, unlike Linux which is claimed to rely on third-party support. update! In response to recent criticism by slashdot.org, Microsoft will anounce tomorrow free fast 24x7 support for resellers, a practice common in the Linux world. This is only ever so slightly tongue-in-cheek. It looks like they're feeling the heat. Note the support is still only given by "senior support engineers" and not the people who wrote the code.

Linux' support of EDA is improving as Avant! Corp. prepares to port its Polaris Verilog simulator and Design Acceleration Inc.'s recent port of SignalScan (a debugging environment), Verilog simulation is marching toward the forefront of the Linux EDA movement. Other vendors, such as Fintronic USA are reporting a sudden upsurge in demand for Linux versions of their products. Other vendors such as Novas Software are rethinking their plans given Engineers' preference for Linux. One of the main interests appears to be simulation farms on PCs running Linux which fits better than NT into Unix networks. Indeed even Wellspring whose "decision to drop Linux support" was big news last week revealed that this decision was taken over 2 years ago.

Paul Martin writes "I imagine lots of people will submit this story about GNOME (and a little KDE): I think it's worth including for two other reasons, though: Firstly, a new type of FUD ("Linux is just a server OS"); secondly, the apparently random mention of Inprise/Borland at the end. Do techweb know something we don't? "

In a recent interview RMS has credited Red Hat for becoming more Free Software friendly However Linus' decision to allow non-free drivers to be loaded into the Linux kernel worries him. Finally he points out that it is not essential that corporations to adopt Linux: they are no more important than individuals. Ed: Before you flame him (i.e. don't) consider that users and programmers are concerned mainly about improving the product, while corporations also think in terms of control (increasing profit by any means, proprietary information included).

Centaur has changed its plans for the WinChip 2+. Instead of only integrating a North Bridge, it will also (probably) integrate a graphics chip licensed from a third party... creating a new competitor in the market Cyrix is targeting with its MediaGX and MXi solutions. Ed: Licensing a third party graphics solution makes sense -- all the chipset makers are integrating a baseline graphics solution obsoleting all but the very best of graphics chip manufacturers. IDT has a wide choice of companies that would like to survive.

Kanoot wrote in to send us a link to a techweb article that talks about Satellites getting ready for a meteor shower. Says that opinion is divided- this could either be no big deal, or it could knock down communications all over the world.

Bob Young gave an interview to techweb in which he states that the Intel deal with Red Hat is not intended to give Red Hat a heads start over other Linux distributors. Ed: It would be great if Red Hat convinces Intel to make pre-announcement technology information available to the whole Linux development community. Rather like Cygnus, it appears that Red Hat does not depend on loans. This is good, and hopefully their prudent strategy will mean that if they IPO they'll keep 51% of their stock so that they cannot be bought out (and killed).

A whole ton of people wrote it to let us know about an article in TechWeb about John Sidgmore's opinion on MCI WorldCom supporting Linux. Ed: While the FUD in this article is quite thick, it's important to realize that six months ago executives from a company as large as MCI WorldCom wouldn't have even stopped to consider supporting Linux. Even though this article isn't positive is still shows that things have come a long way.

A whole ton of people wrote it to let us know about an article in TechWeb about John Sidgmore's opinion on MCI WorldCom supporting Linux. Ed: While the FUD in this article is quite thick, it's important to realize that six months ago executives from a company as large as MCI WorldCom wouldn't have even stopped to consider supporting Linux. Even though this article isn't positive is still shows that things have come a long way.

DigitalDaedalus wrote in to send us a link to a techweb story about rumors that Intel might bid on 3com. 3com is hot these days- ever since they acquired USR. Now the strange thing is that this would mean Intel could own the Pilot. Doesn't that thing have a Motorolla CPU?

mrorange (aka Patrick Berry) writes "The iMac, which only sold for 15 days in August, may set a record for monthly PC sales. The final count isn't tallied yet, but the only thing that is close, according to the article, is a Compaq machine that sold last Christmas." I finally saw one a few days ago (I don't go outside much). I still want one, but until Linux is good to go on it, I don't really know what I'd do with it beyond run an X-Server on it :)

Andy Andrews sent us this story about Corel's uphill battle for survival. Basically, Office 2000 is going to be a major threat for Corel, because of their dependence on their Office suite for cashflow. Hopefully they have shifted direction enough that they will be able to survive the trial ahead.

Steven M. writes "Intel will be releasing Celeron's with a new 390 pin layout it's calling PPGA or Plastic Pin Grid Array. It seems according to Intel that they've been recieving complaints that Slot 1 is too expensive, especially for those trying to make sub-$1000 computers. "

Geoff writes "This is an interesting catcher-upper type article on recent nano advances. Particularly relevant to geeks such as ourselves is how such technology may be used to build networks, high capacity storage devices, and even chips. There's also a link to a much more detailed paper at NASA."

Harry McKee sent us a good story about a new handheld maker that is going to try and undercut the Pilot. Here's the good news-cheaper price, same processor, and no WinCEing to be done. It will be using a different scripting language, called DaVinci. For more info from the company, Royal, check this story out. And well, hopefully this forces Pilot prices down.

The Redherring is carrying an explosive article about Microsoft's secret memos which discuss how to kill DR-DOS, and in general how to leverage the Windows monopoly. Funily enough, that's the sort of behaviour the Sherman Act prohibits. In related news, a group of people who just don't get it have banded together into the TAAC, an organisation of VARs that claims the DOJ is stiffling innovation. ("s/Innovation/bug count/" ????) David Hart and El contributed the second link, while Adam Radulovic, John Lazzaro, Sunil Gupta, David Price, Matt Francis, David Hart, Phillip Brown, toebee, and I found the first link.

Alex Prestin sent us this link which talks about how indepedent tests have shown that the G3 is actually only 10-30% faster then the equiv.-mhz PII. It goes on to say that it is actually slower in some cases. I have actually been really impressed with the G3 speeds - anyone else have any informatiom about this? It should be noted, of course, that the system tested have uneven graphics capabilities-the G3 vs the PII is clearly at a disadvantage. That will make a difference in the big picture, and probably accounts for much of this change.

The fun just keeps rolling in with the iMac stuff so I guess I'll just keep posting it. The major notable is that LinuxPPC.org has a page up for the iMac/Linux porting effort. As we all know, the messy stuff is the USB support. Robert Petty sent us this link where you can read about the iMac mystery slot. Tom Drabenstott sent us a link comparing windows and Macs at various every day tasks. Finally Sean Harding sent us a link to a page dedicated to documenting the iMac firmware.

Continuing the stream of good press on Linux, Techweb is carrying an article about the benefits of Linux. Thanks to talon for pointing this one out.

Continuing the stream of good press on Linux, Techweb is carrying an article about the benefits of Linux. Thanks to talon for pointing this one out.

talon writes "advanced Micro Devices is expected to announce next week a 350-MHz version of the K6-2 CPU, which the company said it plans to position as an alternative to higher-end Pentium II processors. "

wayne sumter sent us a link to an interesting article about journalism on the net. This one talks about Harry Knowles of Aint it Cool News (the only non computer site I visit every day) as well as Matt Drudge and others. It's interesting stuff, but maybe just to me :)

Cyrix has disclosed some news on the "Jalapeno" P2 killer No release date is available, nor is any mention made of the chip itself on their homepage, but expect to hear more at the Microprocessor Forum. Where Cyrix is differentiating itself from the rest of the pack is its emphasis on the system performance (no need to put a Porsche engine into a Trabant). With complete control over the whole system (graphics core integrated), they should be able to squeeze more out of their motherboards. But then Intel has also joined them on the integration war-path. In other news, more companies have announced what their current research into SOI has achieved. Many are targetting the embedded world. For instance, Sharp has a 15mW SOI 50Mhz ARM chip. Thanks, Scott Lewis.

Microsoft is integrating IE with Office. Slashdot reader Steve writes "Now, with IE being integrated with the Windows OS, and IE being integrated with Office, can the integration of the OS/IE/Office all into one be far behind? Note this paragraph from the story: '"IE 5.0 will look the same as Word, and you can edit Word docs in IE 5.0," said a source familiar with the company's plans. "When you look at it, its integration with Office is incredible."' I just thought this was rather interesting from the "integration" and "bundling" issue standpoint. Plus, it's pretty big news if they actually ever do integrate them all together. Just think, NT Server complete with Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Web Browser/etc. Just what every company needs on their enterprise class server! "

Slashdot reader Erik Hovland pointed us to the following (old) article which is amusing in that it shows Microsoft knows it has a problem... Reboots. I know the feeling having rebooted my '95 machine at work 6 times today, and spent half of Thursday reformatting/reinstalling... a Harddisk because '95 had killed itself and would not reinstall on a disk scandisk could not fix. Funny that I've never had to reinstall any other OS. And, err..., here's the article. Sorry about that... too tired I guess.

Linux Weekly News is becoming quite a competitor ;->. They report on an article in Computer Reseller News that talks about Gnome and KDE. But what interests me in it, is that an official from IBM said that it is likely IBM will pledge its support to Linux

India's built itself a new supercomputer, the Param 10 000, for $12.5 million. It'll be the main node of a fast network allowing research labs, academic institutions and companies to use it. There's no clear data as to the computational power it will first reach, but it could reach 1000 gigaflops... How large a Beowolf cluster would be needed to reach that?

Alex Prestin writes "Some now-defunct chip maker is claiming Intel infringed on a patent they own for doing RISC->CISC translation. It's well known that the P6 and PII are really just RISC cores with translators on them for CISC, as are most "CISC" chips nowadays. Seems the particular method of conversion is what is being contested though. They're suing for half a billion dollars."

mag3 was the first of a large crowd to warn us that IBM's plans to give away its PKI source code in order to ignite its e-business initiative and e-commerce in general. In itself this is nothing new: reference code usually accompanies a proposed standard. But it does mean that some IBM management understands the role of open source can play in the market.

John Murray sent us this techweb article about ISPs being threatened with legal action. Typically they just give out user information rather than go to court. I'm curious how prevalent this is. Has anyone experienced it? Does this matter? Should we care?

In what may prove a significant blow to low cost x86 manufacturers and embedded processor developers such as MIPS, Intel has been working on a ARM 110 and media DSP combination, code named StrongArm 1500. This is also good for Corel Computer's Netwinder. In related news, the price of copper manufacturing is higher than expected. A good round up of the last two weeks events can be read at C'T.

Ripley writes "Techweb has a story about the announcement of crack.dot's plight and the overwhelming positive response it generated (/. is not mentioned)." I don't know who the folks are who helped, but I'm happy to see that you did.

While everyone else is moving ahead at breakneck speed to integrate the new copper technology Intel has declared that they will be taking a more conservative stance, not looking towards using it until 2001-2. They remain convinced that they can boost the chip speed by using conventional aluminum.

nurb writes "It seems the recording industry is taking note of MPEG audio layer 3, and they don't like what they see. Calling portable MP3 players a "hybrid of personal use and piracy" seems a bit extreme to me. "

Well, with all the hoopla concerning the EU approval of the Worldcom and MCI it appears that Britain's Cable and Wireless may buy the MCI network. While talks are still going on, the bid may be upwards of 2 billion US. Bloody bargain, if they ask me. Which they aren't, but...

Simon Janes and Brett James wrote about IBM's claim that it vehemently disputes Microsoft's claims of having the biggest capacity server. IBM said its own online database of U.S. patents dwarfs Microsoft's TerraServer. IBM's patent site, includes drawings and descriptions of all U.S. patents since 1971 and is 1.5 Tbytes compressed and 15 Tbytes uncompressed.

Simon Janes writes "Sun is getting into the multimedia market with a PicoJava-core chip which appears to be what this columnist thinks Transmeta is also working on. "

work-deprived writes "Apparently, Steve Jobs has announced that Rhapsody will be available in the fall as a server under the name of Mac OS X Server. It will only be shipped for G3 processors, but promises better memory management, more reliable protected mode, and better performance [sic]. It will also include 100% native PowerPC code. I wonder if that will be a factor in its war with Wintel. Full story ". It makes me wonder if it will cost more, and if Apple is playing the "NT angle", letting servers get the "best", while consumers are stuck with what's left...

Lonnold Hendrickson wrote in to send us a like to a CMPNet article on the Amiga's Comeback Attempts. The Amiga is like the Energizer bunny. Still going. Thump Thump Thump. I'd love to see a comeback though I'm not counting on it.

Occasionally I run across a news article that seems very, very funny to me. This one compares Disney's and China's net control practices. You probably have a good guess at what the results are.

Frey Sigurjonsson sent us this Techweb story about the Avalon Beowulf cluster. By now we all know that this is the machine that scored in the top 500 super computers list. This is just a nice mainstream article about the about the 68 computer cluster that achieved 19.2 GFlops for a mere $150,000.

Kevin writes "An Ohio federal judge ruled late last week that U.S. government restrictions on exporting encryption software were legal, saying data-scrambling source code was not entitled to strong free-speech protections. "

EugeneL sent us a link to a techweb article where you can read about Sun's New Workstations. Obviously I can't afford one, but I bet that Ultra 450 would make one amazing Gimp Workstation.