Slashdot Mirror

utopicillusion writes "The register reports : "More cash flowed into Transmeta in the second quarter than it spent, the company said late last week as a teaser for its upcoming results announcement." This is about after a month that CNN predicted that Transmeta was going under. "

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article at LinuxDevices there's a new fanless digital entertainment center reference design based on Linux and the MythTV open source DVR (digital video recorder) software. The 'Royal Linux Media Center' runs ESG's Royal Linux OS on a Transmeta development board based on its Efficeon chip. Linux has been increasingly popular in DVRs and PVRs, with examples including TiVo (of course), HP's recently unveiled Linux media hub, i3's Mood box, Interact-TV's Telly, Siemens' Speedstream, VWB's MediaReady 4000, Amino's AmiNet500, Sharp's Galileo, Dream-Multimedia-Tv's Dreambox, NEC's AX10, and Sony's CoCoon, to name a few."

chill writes "C-Net is reporting that CPU upstart Transmeta, once the employer of Linus Torvalds and maker of 'Code Morphing' processors, is contemplating leaving the chip manufacturing business. Already their IP licensing revenue exceeds that of their microprocessor sales, though both are dwarfed by their recurring quarterly losses."

yerdaddie writes "The just-released Transmeta TM8800 has been integrated into a new ultraportable from Sharp. The smaller 90nm variety clocks and performs better than the older 130nm TM86XX Efficeons. It also seems the Orion Multisystems personal clusters discussed earlier on slashdot will be built around this processor variant. Hopefully Transmeta will be releasing a developer kit soon for eager hardware hackers."

yerdaddie writes "The just-released Transmeta TM8800 has been integrated into a new ultraportable from Sharp. The smaller 90nm variety clocks and performs better than the older 130nm TM86XX Efficeons. It also seems the Orion Multisystems personal clusters discussed earlier on slashdot will be built around this processor variant. Hopefully Transmeta will be releasing a developer kit soon for eager hardware hackers."

billstewart writes "Transmeta announced their new 5900 and 5700 CPUs. They're 50% smaller than the 5800, intended for low-power, low-heat, high-speed applications, and contain an integrated Northbridge. They're sampling now, production in January 2004, and expect to have a mini-ITX board out in 1Q04. The core chip is a 128-bit VLIW hidden by x86 emulation (as opposed to their new Efficeon, which is 256-bit VLIW.) The difference between the 5900 and 5700 seems to be L2 cache size. There are several other stories on Google News."

gManZboy writes "Dave Ditzel, CTO and Founder of Transmeta (you remember Transmeta? weren't they supposed to kick some Intel booty?) sits down and speaks with Alpha and StrongARM chip designer Dan Dobberpuhl about the history of CPUs, where they're heading, and how the heck we'll keep up Moore's Law (if we can)."

mrseigen writes "The processor that Chinese firms have been working on as a response to foreign equipment and software is now available for pre-order. The Inquirer did an article here, and the company website is here. The chip will supposedly ship with Midori Linux."

jonmason00 writes "Just checked the Transmeta webpage, and discovered that they are now offering a Crusoe TM5800 System Development Kit. It's a bit expensive ($995) and you gotta register before you can buy one, but they need your support." How about an Astro development kit instead? :)

jonmason00 writes "Just checked the Transmeta webpage, and discovered that they are now offering a Crusoe TM5800 System Development Kit. It's a bit expensive ($995) and you gotta register before you can buy one, but they need your support." How about an Astro development kit instead? :)

AVee writes "Cnet has an article about Hp-Compaq announcing there will be a new Compaq Evo tablet PC powered by a 1GHz version of Transmeta's Crusoe TM5800 later this year. There is another article at cnn.com."

AVee writes "Cnet has an article about Hp-Compaq announcing there will be a new Compaq Evo tablet PC powered by a 1GHz version of Transmeta's Crusoe TM5800 later this year. There is another article at cnn.com."

IAmBlakeM writes "Looks like a new PC design has been released by the guys at PaceBlade. Reviewed at Anandtech, the new PaceBlade, touted as a 3in1 PC, features a Transmeta Crusoe TM5600 CPU at 600Mhz, up to 256MB of RAM, a 12.1" XGA LCD that can do 1024x768, and an "any key". Always nice to see some new designs and technology throwing curves at the norms."

A reader writes: "There's story about RLX Technologies shrinking their "blades" server on Linuxgram." Knowing how much we pay for our "floor space" at the colo, the notion of having multiple blade machines is pretty cool - and shrinking this to a 1U form factor with 6 blade of the Transmeta Crusoe 5800 line of chip is pretty cool.

Reader samjam sent in an interesting piece about his dream handheld PC, sort of a cross between a subnotebook and a wireless web pad, with the kitchen sink thrown in. Mmmmm, light-emitting polymers. I can't decide if this kind of thing is right around the corner or just a fantasy - after all, normal notebook computers sell, and at a nice high premium - and web pads are less than successful - why would anyone spend the money to develop a device like this? samjam writes: "My dream handheld is not available though some things come close. The technology is becoming available.

Though it may take a few months, here is what I would put together if I had the chance. Including Bluetooth, IButtons, solar panels and light emitting polymer screens...

For links to other linux handhelds, try linuxdevices.com.

My ideal handheld is the size of an A4 pad of paper, so I have to hold it on my left forearm with the fingers of my left hand curled over the end. A4 gives me plenty of screen space for watching real TV, reading real books, writing real emails, browsing real web pages and doing some real showing off.

The front cover is a solar panel, but I can't decide if the cells should be on the inside or the outside to help charge it while I use it or while I'm not using it. Hard one that.

The screen is not heavy-breakable LCD but LEP (brief technical primer, more on Google) or perhaps Xerox Electronic Paper seemingly available under the name Gyricon, pictures here and slight details here.

The choice of processor doesn't bother me much; I'd like to think there are many versions available of my handheld by many manufacturers (to drive the price down) and so many processors will be available but let's pretend the first release will run on a Transmeta just to keep excitement running high.

60 GB or so should be plenty of disk space, 2.5" IDE to keep weight down.

Input via stylus or sticky finger of course, with support for Graffiti, as used on the Palm and many others, also Quickwriting as featured on Slashdot as well as regular handwriting recognition (take your pick) and other pluggable input modules with popup keyboard for those times when you just can't manage to input a tilde (~) or backtick (`) properly.

Connectivity will be provided via a multitide of USB ports (where real keyboards can be plugged), Bluetooth (useless link) in action (good link), wireless ethernet as well as perhaps as many as 4 PCMCIA slots for things that change a lot like GPRS adaptors &c, or radio and TV tuner cards. Yeah! Why not add some Compact Flash while I'm at it? And boring 100 base T ethernet.

In fact I'm going to use the mobile phone card, along with my sound system to make the whole thing into a mobile phone for voice, not just data access. Talking of phones, the built in web cam can be used for video conferencing with (for example) Gnophone.

Better stick some firewire ports on there, too, for good measure, along with a few IRDA ports pointing in a few different directions for those more subversive inter-classroom networks as well as controlling my grannies telly to show off. And talking to my old non-bluetooth mobile which I can't afford to upgrade cos I spent it all on my handheld.

It will have integrated Ibutton support for security and authentification, maybe even built into the BIOS.

What more do I need? Oh yes, an Operating System. Pick your own.

I shall be running Linux with Ximian Gnome because it looks cool (and Bill Gates was nearly right, eye candy counts for a lot if only not to distract you by means of ugliness). I will be running redhat because I find up2date (or redhat channels of RedCarpet) invaluable effort-free way to remove those exploits, and I will finally get round to playing with Rebol.

The first thing I will need to develop is some network scavenging software to grab internet connectivity where it can for syncing imap folders and news, updating "offline web pages" [yikes! MS concept there]. Code to hi-jack available SMTP relays (*cough*). Does this smell a bit like Jini or something like it? I'll need to register my changing location for Gnophone so callers can find me. Perhaps the first thing for company visitors in the future will be to checkin their Ideal Handheld to the company network.

I will load all my favourite books into it as well as the entire classical Mormon works, copies of conference talks Doctrines of Salvation, Journal of Discourses etc, along with the Bible, Book of Mormon, and all of Project Gutenberg.

What will you do with yours? Have I missed any gizmos out? Or gadgets even?"

_Upsilon_ writes "Transmeta announced today that they have released under the GPL their mobile linux as "Midori Linux". It is an x86 compatible version of Linux for internet appliances, residential gateway appliances, wireless web pads, and home audio components." They've got SourceForge project setup for discussion and usage. As well, the download page is ready - the current version is 1.0.0-beta1. And be careful not to drink too much of the distro.

_Upsilon_ writes "Transmeta announced today that they have released under the GPL their mobile linux as "Midori Linux". It is an x86 compatible version of Linux for internet appliances, residential gateway appliances, wireless web pads, and home audio components." They've got SourceForge project setup for discussion and usage. As well, the download page is ready - the current version is 1.0.0-beta1. And be careful not to drink too much of the distro.

rxmd writes "Heise has an article on Transmeta's Crusoe processor being used as a x86-compatible server CPU by companies such as rebel.com and RLX (read their press release on the project), supporting Linux as well as other "established operating systems". Basically, it's about the Crusoe's lower power consumption and temperatures enabling server manufacturers to put more processing power into the same amount of space than with Intel or AMD cpus. Interesting that a CPU designed for mobile applications should find its way into the server market."

rxmd writes "Heise has an article on Transmeta's Crusoe processor being used as a x86-compatible server CPU by companies such as rebel.com and RLX (read their press release on the project), supporting Linux as well as other "established operating systems". Basically, it's about the Crusoe's lower power consumption and temperatures enabling server manufacturers to put more processing power into the same amount of space than with Intel or AMD cpus. Interesting that a CPU designed for mobile applications should find its way into the server market."

sheckard writes: "News.com reports that IBM has suspended a project geared toward releasing a ThinkPad notebook with a Crusoe processor. This could be a very bad thing for Transmeta, since their IPO is rapidly approaching." The Transmeta IPO is supposed to be on the sixth of November - IBM has been doing work on examining it, but have decided to put off plans for it for the time being.

axis-techno-geek writes: "It seems that Intel now is trying to fight back against Transmeta with their new chips. Intel plans to have their new speed-step Pentium III's out in about a year (which in computer time means about 18 months :)."

VF/VT Hunter was first with the news. Could you gush about a product announcement for us, Mr. Hunter? "Oh hell yes :) This link over at C|Net details Sony's plan to release a Transmeta-powered notebook by year's end. I KNEW I should wait! What's better, it will include a built-in digital camera. Add standard USB and iLink (aka Firewire) support which seem to be prevalent on most Sonys, plus Sony's reputation for making the coolest looking gizmo's, and I think I've found my next big purchase. It just better not come with a Winmodem." But since it's not a full-sized laptop, should we assume it will be full-featured? Update: 08/15 11:15 AM by michael : The Picturebook line of Vaios doesn't sell very well - it's too small to be useful as a "real" laptop. If only Sony were smart enough to put this chip in their regular Vaios, they wouldn't be able to keep them on the shelves.

I'm here at Ottawa Linux Symposium, and I took the Quickies to the crowd and let them pick some of today's Quickies. Hope you like them. CitizenC told us to check out The Kama Sutra of Winnie the Pooh. Scary. alpha264 wrote in about a pegboard computer." Darkness Productions told us that Spaz Labs was back." Phrogman shared a huge collection of Space Images now available on Spaceref.com. kbolton told us to look at streaming anime for free. scampbell said that Yamaha Paper Craft has updated their rare-animal paper sculpture collection to include the Yellow-eyed Penguin. _endgame mentioned that voting has begun for the Freenet Logo." An anonymous coward wrote in about the Men of Sieg Hall calendar. I included that one for Telsa. cdlu wrote (from about ten feet away) about this thing that creates much annoyance from the console. MURL said that Christopher Lee has been cast in the role of a charismatic separatist in Episode II. And finally, I just wanted to mention that Dave Taylor from that company stopped by just to make sure that he wasn't mentioned in the Quickies. Teehee.

theGEEK writes "Rebel.com will be making Netwinders with the crusoe chip from Transmeta. In related news, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM and NEC will all be showing off notebooks using the Crusoe today."

Robrt writes: "According to this news.com article, the first Crusoe based products will be released at PC Expo. The article doesn't give much other information. " They comment that they're not sure if we'll see laptops or webpads, but we might see something. I'd love one of those webpads with the Lucent wireless, and say, 8-12 hours of battery life.

rak3 writes "Transmeta has received $88 million in investments from AOL, Gateway, Compaq, and Sony among others. Now where's my Sony Vaio with Crusoe inside :) " Wow - pretty cool - congrats to Transmeta.

The german technical magazine C'T recently visited Transmeta's office in Santa Clara. Transmeta's roster is impressive, including not only Linus but also Robert Collins and Christian Ludloff both well known for their work on finding undocumented instructions and registers. Transmeta's LongRun technology (reducing CPU power by varying frequency and voltage) only works with APM, and without it the TM5400's net consumption is 5W at 43 degres Celsius and 600Mhz. At 700Mhz the TM5400's performance is slightly under that of a 500Mhz PIII. The TM5400 will be the first processor to use IBM's new CMOS8S copper process. In the interview David Ditzel denies having used Elbrus technology in Crusoe. For non german speakers, there's always Babelfish.

MacOS Rumors is running a blurb that Apple is exploring porting Darwin to other processors (including Transmeta's Crusoe processor) due to frustration with availability of high speed Motorola G4 processors. An interesting though, a Mac without a Motorola chip... Of course, it's just a rumor at this point... (update: I've got it confirmed from "anonymous sources" that this is true)

Andy Armstrong has written us a pretty interesting, but somewhat technical piece of Just in Time, computer generated assembly language, profiling, and more. Its a pretty interesting little bit that ought to give you a lot to talk about.

The following was written by Slashdot Reader Andy Armstrong

Transmeta Code Morphing != Code Morphing The recent Transmeta announcment crystalised something I've been thinking about for a while. It's my belief that it should be possible to make a compiler generate much better code in the general case than someone writing hand coded assembler. Furthermore it should be possible for a JIT (Just In Time) compiler to produce better code than a conventional one time compiler.

Why should a compiler be better than an experienced assembler programmer? Well,

1. the compiler can know the target processor intimately (cycle times, impact of instruction ordering, etc.)
2. the compiler gets to re-write the entire program each time it sees it.

The second point is critical: any programmer writing an assy. language program of any significant size will write the code to be maintainable. Of course, it makes sense to do things like defining standard entry and exit sequences to routines, keep a few registers spare (in those architectures that have more than a few) and other practices that lead to maintainable code, but the compiler doesn't have to maintain the code it writes. It gets to write the whole thing from scratch every time. This means that functions can be inlined (and repeated code sequences turned into functions). Loops can be unrolled then rolled back up at the next compile when the programmer has decided that space is more important than speed.

If you know you're not going to have to maintain a bit of code you can do some pretty scary things to get it to perform better. A compiler can potentially do that all the time.

Why should JIT be better than one time? This should be clear to anyone who's followed the Transmeta story. A key element of their code morphing technology is that they insert instrumentation into the code they generate, effectively profiling as it runs so that the compiler can decide which bits to optimize the next time it sees the code. It's well known that the coverage graph for a typical programme looks extremely spiky - the most frequently executed code may get hit thousands or millions of times more than it's neighbours. It follows that it really isn't worth optimizing the stuff that only accounts for a millionth of the code's execution time.

This brings me to my point: is there really any reason why a Java / JIT combination shouldn't result in code that executes as quickly as the equivalents in other languages?

You might suggest that garbage collection must slow things down, but I'm convinced that, done right, garbage collection can actually improve performance. malloc()/free() require the memory manager to think about the heap for every call, but new() can be implemented as a stack (m = memlimit; memlimit += size; return m) and the garbage collector gets to do all its memory management in one chunk - it can take an overview of the memory landscape rather than trying to keep things fairly optimal each time memory is released as free() must.

You could argue that the OO nature of Java means that it must dynamically allocate objects that would be static in a program written in C or assembler. That's true, but (assuming calls to new() are cheap, which I believe they can be) this really isn't a problem. Current processors don't take a huge performance hit when working with objects who's address is not known at compile time; in fact in many architectures it makes no difference at all.

So while it might seem profoundly counter-intuitive can anyone actually give me a good reason why Java + JIT should be slower than Good Programmer^tm + Assembler?

pb writes "Infoworld reports that Intel is slashing prices on its mobile chips. Gee, this wouldn't have anything to do with Transmeta, would it?"

Scooter writes "News.com is reporting that Diamond Multimedia has announced a Web-Pad product based on Transmeta's 3120 processor. The report also mentions that NEC, and possibly a dozen other companies are investigating similar possibilities. It's nice to see things taking shape for Crusoe so quickly. " For more details on the chip itself, check out our recent story.S3 has also announced development work that will be done with Transmeta. They are working on a "Linux-based Internet appliance".

Almost everybody in the world wrote in with something like "Transmeta's big Crusoe announcement is today, and it'll be Webcast live on ZDTV starting at 9 a.m. PST." Later, after all the hoopla is over, we'll have a follow-up story on the proceedings as viewed through the eyes of several people who are there.

pq writes "CNET, via The NYTimes has this coverage of Linus and his remarks at Comdex. iMacs, Transmeta, Open Source, the 2.4 kernel, Mindcraft, Mozilla, Linux Everywhere(tm) - this has it all. " Also following the keynote, Transmeta's webpage announced Crusoe (we mentioned that last night).

KrisJon writes "Redherring has some info on Transmeta's pending announcement of its product line." It comments about Torvald's keynote today (and it says he won't spill the beans, but that The Transmeta Website should update and actually contain content tonight). Update by RM: as of 9 p.m. EST there was new content on Transmeta's Web site. Not much, but more than it had before. Read the HTML for the secret message.

Scipius writes "German tech-mag c't reports that Transmeta's new processor will likely be released on the 19th of January 2000. It also reveals the apparent code name: Crusoe." The article's in German, of course. But we'll take a juicy Transmeta rumor - and that's all this is - in any language. Babelfish time!

Wonko42 writes "In his address at Internet World '99, Linus Torvalds threw some harsh words at Microsoft and Sun, criticizing Microsoft's thoughts of opening portions of Windows source and making his feelings known about Sun's restrictive new community license. He also spoke some about the future of commercial software, and dodged lots of Transmeta questions. "

Jim Trocki writes "MCI/Worldcom's frame relay network has been hosed for at least 8 days now. Read the story. This is the recorded message that is heard on Worldcom's tech support line: 'In accordance with our plan to repair the instability in one of our frame relay network platforms, we have taken our domestic frame relay platform out of service for a 24 hour period, from noon Saturday to noon Sunday Eastern standard time. As a result, your frame relay service will not be available for traffic.' " Here is the MCI Worldcom web page on the situation. The news.com article says that this outage might cut into their profits. It seems this is quite a severe outage...

davec wrote to us with the text of an e-mail from Linus [click below]. The point of the message is that someone is/was spamming in Linus' name, having him endorse the Java client for Seti@Home, you've got a fake e-mail.

"Here's a copy of an e-mail from Linus.

X-Authentication-Warning: penguin.transmeta.com: torvalds owned process doing -bs
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 00:31:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
To: Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu>
Subject: Fake emails from "Linus"
X-Loop: majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu
X-Orcpt: rfc822;linux-kernel-outgoing-dig
X-UIDL: e42dadffdd3e89d559b44840e4ccea2a
Just a heads-up: somebody is sending out fake emails that claim to be from me, and that have me endorsing the Java client for Seti@Home.

The reason I know somebody is faking emails is that I got a bounce from one of them.

If somebody on the kernel list gets a message that claims to be from "Linus Torvalds " with a subject line of "Seti@Home user interface", it is fake.

I'd like to see the full headers from such a message, to see if it shows where it is really originating from: the bounced message does not contain the original headers..

I assume it is a mass-posting trying to market Seti@Home or the particular client in question, and I'm not all that amused.

Linus

PS. Although I have to admit that the first line brought a grin: "Being the awesome Linux stud that I am.." "

H. Peter Anvin writes "The Linux Kernel Archives Mirror System is now available for use! A number of sites across the world have graciously offered to help distribute the Linux Kernel using a common file structure and site-naming scheme. These sites have agreed to mirror the /pub/linux and /pub/software trees (i.e. the original software distributed from our site) from ftp.kernel.org in its entirety. To get connected to a mirror site near you, connect to: "ftp://ftp.xx.kernel.org/pub/linux" where "xx" is your two-letter country code. Note that not all sites archive both .gz and .bz2 format files, and that currently not all countries have both FTP and HTTP support. For more information, including the list of countries currently supported by the Linux Kernel Archives Mirror System and how to register a mirror, please see that page. In addition, a list of the individual mirror sites should be available online sometime next week. To all the sites that have offered their time, disk space and bandwidth, I want to give a huge "Thank you!", and to everyone else, I hope you will find this service useful."

H. Peter Anvin writes "I would like to set up an "official mirror" system for kernel.org. "Official" means a set of mirrors that are willing to:

1. Have a contact person on file;
2. Allow public access;
3. Update their mirror via rsync or FTP at least daily (privileged access will be provided to participating hosts);
4. Mirror all of /pub/linux and /pub/software (either .gz or .bz2 files may be excluded at your option);
5. Participate in a uniform URL (via roundrobin CNAME DNS) scheme. The exact spec for the uniform URL is not set in stone at this point, but probably will be in the next few days.

If you are interested in participating, please subscribe to the mirrors@linux.kernel.org mailing list; the goal is to have this system operational by the time the 2.2 kernel hits the wire. "

Microsoft is not going to wait for the outcome of its trial with the DOJ before attacking Linux. The battle scene is France, where Microsoft's new (expendable?) regional director Marc Chardon has just issued an open letter to his clients. Click below to read the translation of the Linux-section (it's in French) and some commentary. The new director of Microsoft France (MF) has just issued an open letter to his clients. Most of the letter says essentially "We're right. Critics aren't. Millions of people use our products." and other fascinating insights. However it does contain two interesting revelations: Microsoft's OS is an integral part of your PC, and Linux is of very limited interest to anyone but fringe groups (students and researchers).

As previously reported, it is illegal in the EU to tie the sale of a product with another in the EU. However Microsoft France (MF) argues that because a computer can be argued non-functional without an operating system (or a hard-drive), what is being sold is a single product, not two. A little later, MF's director contradicts himself by stating that "assemblers" (basically small computing shops that will assemble a computer from standard components according to your desires) will sell you a computer without an OS -- is that a broken computer? Indeed, since the same letter claims there are more OS's for PCs than any other computer, we must be dealing with a product tied to another precisely because no other OS is sold (according to the letter) with a computer.

Further down, you'll see a whole section devoted to Linux. While today Microsoft's lawyers declared Linux to be developed by a single person, MF's director claims it to be a movement. I've translated the rest of what he had to say about Linux since it's interesting...

"It would seem that Linux does not satisfy the requirements of most companies, let alone the general public.

Linux presents limits that will slow down its widespread distribution, particularly in companies and the general public

In terms of the system's stability, Linux has problems of general coordination, and one feels strongly the lack of a project leader. Linus Torvald ( S: Microsoft can't spell!) left university last year to join a Californian company. The development of Linux has since considerably slowed down. Similarly, the maintenance of Linux' functionality depends on the mobilization of its teams. Thus, certain of its functions have not been updated in the last two years.

The installation of Linux is delicate. For optimal system performance, each version must be tuned on each computer at each installation, by a competent computer-technician. Setting it up and its administration are therefore not within the reach of a computer-technician used to more friendly operating systems, let alone basic users. Using Linux is complex, its programs generally take text commands.

Finally most Linux application software has limited functionality. Word processors rarely have functionality common on today's PC or Macintosh: dynamic spelling correction, graphic input of tables, integration of imported graphics. Most Linux word processors bear more resemblance to Microsoft Write written in 1985.

Linux' advantages of zero-cost and open source are not relevant criteria for most users.

The zero-cost of Linux is a non decisive advantage: the cost of an OS is minor in comparison to the other costs of a company. The price of the OS is only one of the elements of computers in companies. Putting a traditional OS into place costs many times the price of the OS itself, and the same goes for the creation of an application program and its maintenance. So, by installing Linux, one saves the cost of the OS, but one increases the cost of installation, and one takes risks for the maintenance of the applications and the system itself.

If certain people consider the permanent availability of source code to be an absolute guaranty of independence from software editors, we fail to see the benefit for a company or a person to have access to the source of his OS.

However, the distribution of the OS source code is very useful for students and researchers, to understand the inner-workings of the OS and eventually to change it. Linux will therefore probably stay for a long time a good subject of study for computer-scientist, rather than an OS destined for widespread distribution. "

I must apologize for any mistakes in my translation. Use babelfish to get an alternative translation. I'm open to any corrections. update! Linux Weekly News has just published a de-babelfished translation of the whole letter.

S: This letter obviously contains many "inaccuracies":

If I buy a car, is the fuel a separate product or not? What about electricity? Computers are non-functional without it. I hope the EU lawyers will notice this wriggling.

His attacks on Linus stating that Linux development has slowed down are not credible with the inflow of new developers and the number of ports now in the standard kernel. The letter very much ignores the fact that Transmeta lets Linus hack on Linux during office hours and has other employees that contribute, underplays Red Hat employing kernel developers, and completely ignores the current tidal surge of major corporations towards Linux: Intel, Compaq, Oracle, Sun, to name but a few.

Anyone who has had to install Windows from scratch, as I do every 3-6 months when it has corrupted its hard-drive beyond repair at work, knows that installing Windows is a royal pain. It takes over an hour, requires minding (yes... I'm just here to click OK)... Linux takes me 20 minutes on an 100 Mhz system. The only argument here is: when Windows is pre-installed (i.e. when you buy your machine) it's easier than it is to install Linux. Duh!

I, and many others don't view GUI's as necessarily friendly. Until they are a substitute for true understanding, I prefer to have control over my system and to be able to repair it. The usual answer for Windows to reinstall everything, and then try eliminating various components until you've found the "culprit". The same applies for source code. Funny that the latest C'T has devoted 19 pages to "Hacks & Bugs & Workarounds: Large Projects with Word, and how one survives them". To me, and many others, this is an unacceptable hit on my productivity.

Indeed, the whole notion that Linux is too hard for the average user is nonsense to me. I gave my mother a Linux box -- I'm living 8 timezones away so I cannot help her fix an unreliable OS. She cannot rely on computer-savvy neighbours either, since she's in a very rural area. But, with Linux as her first computer, she is happy using it laying ridicule on Microsoft's claims about the difficulties that the average layman will experience.

Complaints about Word processors are unfair since most Windows word-processors are also not very advanced. Percentage-wise (if you count all the free, shareware, and old ones), I expect Windows/DOS have a worse ratio. Only a few products provide the features Marc discusses. Similarly, on Linux, we have WordPerfect 7 (hey Corel, port WordPerfect 8!), Applixware, and StarOffice (which I sometimes use), Angoss, Dtop, and Axene's Xclamation, On the free front we have Emacs which is also used by a very large number of people under NT and which will soon have a WYSIWYG interface, Thot, EZ, Papyrus, Cicero, Doc, Maxwell, and new promising upstarts such as Glue. And let's not forget TeX: I and my fellow PhD students wrote their theses in it because it copes well with 700 page documents. Most academic papers must be written, and many books are written in it. It also accepts any graphics as encapsulated postscript. TeX is still the only format which is guaranteed to come out looking the same on any computer, and still looks better to me and many others than the output of any other product. As to dynamic spell-checking, I turn it off: I think, I write, I reread, I spell-check. Dynamic spell-checking just breaks the flow of my thoughts.

The attack on zero-cost software is a pretty obvious diversion, and tries to draw the reader's attention away from the fact people use Linux because of its stability and features rather than its cost.

Finally, Microsoft's attempt to make academics and students irrelevant is interesting, since they are the ones pushing Linux, but also very dangerous. France values intelligence and high education more than most other societies, as Marc Chardon's own CV shows.

So what do you think of all this?

I'd like to thank A Dark Elf, Jacky Liu, and Linux Weekly News Daily for some of the material I used here.

The Register is claiming that Transmeta hired quite a few of the original 615 engineers. The 615 was to be an x86 killer by IBM: a PowerPC including x86 compatibility logic. However, the project alledgedly died due to too much complexity, and too much die area (cost). In the current CPU market there are two alternatives: cheap (small die area, low power consumption) or very high performance (few applications need more CPU power). Let's hope that if the 615 team is in Transmeta, they do not repeat past mistakes.

This year's Microprocessor Forum looks like it's going to be rather interesting. Two new x86 vendors will be presenting their latest work: Rise and Transmeta. Rise is attacking the x86 market with low power designs, somewhat like IDT did with Centaur, (although their efforts appear to be waining). Transmeta will be presenting a RISC chip that can read x86 instructions.

It's definately been a hot topic lately, no doubt about it. But Daniel Quinlan wrote in to send us a press release from the LSB stating that the Debian/Red Hat standards project (LCS) will be working with the LSB. Daniel has also been named as Bruce Perens replacement as the head of LSB. Besides having an @transmeta.com email address, Daniel has been the head of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. I'm really glad to see this come together. Anyway, I've attached the announcement- click below if you want to read it.

Additional Vendors Participate in Growing LSB Effort

LCS founders join the LSB project

We are happy to announce that the founders of the Linux Compatibility Standards (LCS) Project, a collaboration of Debian and Red Hat, will work on Linux standards as part of the LSB effort. Now that the LSB Project combines the original focus of the LSB with the goals of the LCS, the LCS founders see no need for any separate standardization effort.

LSB elects new chair and forms 3 technical sub-projects

After Bruce Perens departed on August 10th, it was necessary to find a new chair for the LSB organization. It was felt by several vendors that such a chair should be impartial and thus not from any Linux vendor. The new chair of the LSB Steering Committee is Daniel Quinlan (head of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard).

Originally, the focus of the LSB project was to produce a Linux reference platform that would define a standard Linux. Any program that ran successfully on the reference platform could be expected to run on all compliant Linux systems. An LSB written standard and test suite were secondary goals.

As discussion of how to develop the reference platform continued, it became obvious that without active work on a written standard and a test suite, that the LSB project wouldn't be successful in achieving its goals. Therefore, the LSB project has now reorganized into three technical sub-committee projects of equal importance, each with a prominent technical lead.

• LSB written standard Technical lead: Stuart Anderson (Metro Link, Inc.)
• LSB test suite Technical lead: Dale Scheetz (Debian)
• LSB sample implementation Technical lead: Ralf Flaxa (Caldera)

These three groups will work together to develop a base standard for the Linux operating system as follows:

• The test suite must match the written standard.
• A conformant distribution (such as the sample implementation) must pass the test suite and follow the written standard.
• Conformant applications should run on the any distribution that passes the test suite.

And when the above is not true, then something needs to be fixed. If it can't be figured out by the technical groups, then the steering committee will arbitrate.

Finally, the sample implementation will be composed entirely of free software and the test suite will be as free as the LSB can make it without rendering the test suite meaningless.

New LSB web site

There is now a web site for the LSB project: http://www.linuxbase.org/

About the Linux Standard Base

The Linux Standard Base (LSB) is developing a set of standards that will increase compatibility among Linux distributions and enable software applications to run on any compliant Linux system. The LSB will also help coordinate efforts to recruit software vendors to port and write products for Linux.

We have also created several open mailing lists (for more information, please see the LSB web site). The public "at large" are encouraged to subscribe to these lists, with a request that non-committee members "lurk" quietly.

The list of individuals and organizations participating in the LSB effort or endorsing the LSB includes:

• Alan Cox, Building Number Three
• Caldera, Inc.
• Enhanced Software Technologies, Inc.
• Eric S. Raymond, open-source evangelist, and author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"
• Evan Leibovitch, Chair of 86open Project
• Jon A. Hall, Executive Director, Linux International
• Linux Hardware Solutions, Inc.
• Metro Link, Inc.
• Pacific HiTech (TurboLinux)
• Phil Hughes, Director Linux International, Publisher of Linux Journal
• Red Hat Software, Inc.
• S.u.S.E. GmbH
• Software in the Public Interest
• The Debian Project
• VA Research

(For the growing list of participants, please check www.linuxbase.org.)

Contact Information

For further information, please send email to press@linuxbase.org or visit the Linux Standard Base home page at Linuxbase.org.

Kristian Köhntopp wrote in to tell us that Salon Magazine has an article on TransMeta. Read here, about the company that employs Linus, has a web server (but no content), is funded by Paul Allen, and produces nothing that anybody can discern. Neato.

Despite initial expectations that set-top boxes and PCs would converge, the trend towards RISC chips such as MIPS continues. An oft cited reason for this is the lower power requirements of RISC solutions, which might give low power x86 manufacturers such as Centaur, Transmeta (?), and Cyrix for their MediaGX chips an advantage. Perhaps however, it is not x86 that is being fled, but domination by Microsoft that is being avoided. After all, set-top boxes are a cost, not a revenue to content-selling cable operators: do they really want to upgrade their infrastructure each time Microsoft comes up with a new version of Windows? A winner in this market will be Cygnus solutions, sellers of GnuPro tools to the embedded market, and thus Free Software Standards.

As AMD and Intel report disappointing earnings, the price of computers continues its downwards spiral. Intel certainly did not anticipate the success of the sub-$1000 category, but AMD and Cyrix have failed to capitalize on the opportunity. The problem is that a bitter war of attrition will hurt the smaller players just entering the field. But then, perhaps they will address the lack of new features to excite one enough to buy a new PC. Or perhaps, they will find a solution to the root cause of high computer cost: bloatware.

Simon Janes wrote in with the following update on Transmeta, the mysterious company that nobody really knows exactly what they are doing, but the names of the people involved are amazing. Simon writes "Alexander Wolfe's "Wintel Watch" column ' Hot x86 chips for '98 and beyond' for EETIMES asserts that Transmeta is possibly working on a x86 alternative for low-power, multimedia, or network computing, or all of the above.

Wolfe is not ignorant of Transmeta's recent hire of Linus Torvalds and easily sees Linus's importance in the Unix community, giving Transmeta "a big leg up in any effort to design a processor tuned to handle real-world networked applications."