Slashdot Mirror

CyberLeader writes: "Discover Magazine has an article in both their print and online editions by musician and virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier in which he conducts a thought experiment on the logical consequences over the current content control battles. A chilling excerpt: 'By 2005, every stream of sound had to present the right documentation to a pair of headphones or speakers- or the music couldn't be played. Before long people were hoarding old analog speakers. In 2006, the recording industry persuaded eBay to refuse to list them.'"

MaggieL -- KB3DXS writes: "The amateur radio satellite Phase 3D (now officially AMSAT-Oscar 40 ) was launched [Wednesday] night on an Ariane 5 rocket. It is now safely in its intended original orbit. AO-40 is the culmination of a ten-year long project to orbit a sophisticated, highly programmable communications platform for amateur radio use. Over the next 270 days engines on board the satellite will gradually place it in its intended final orbit. I received some of the initial transmissions from the satellite this morning at my station ... this is *way* cool. Amateur radio is still thriving, despite fears among the old-school hams who think that the Internet has killed ham radio." Added to which, as btbuzzard advises, you can now get your very own personal communications satellite carried by a device which would have been a lot scarier launching 10 or so years ago.

CyberLeader writes "Apparently CDNow has patented the ability to create a custom CD over the Web." Insert appropriate sarcastic comment here. And I've actually patented respiration, so if everyone could send me a small royalty fee whenever they breathe, that'd be great.

Slain asks: "I've searched the internet looking for information about migrating from BSD to Linux. I have not found anything on the subject. Is it something that is just not done? What if you wanted to switch for cost reasons? Is it not done because you are already running a flavor of UNIX so why switch? I have a BSD box which is used as the primary internet mail server for the company. It has about 700+ users and grows about 20+ a week. Why do we want to migrate? The reason are as follows: newer hardware, user maintenance and we want to reduce services to the users (eg. make them POP only accounts). Anyone out there have any suggestions?

iKON writes "Moreton Bay has ported linux to Motorola's ColdFire processer. " You can visit the porting projects page here for more information too.

Kevin Way is having trouble getting his Diamond Monster 3D to work properly under Linux. It's kind of a strange situation. Hit the link below to read his description and see if you can't help. The following is from slashdot reader Kevin Way

I just purchased a Diamond Monster 3D (original), and promptly downloaded the latest glide drivers from ftp.3dfx.com, recompiled the test programs and found myself staring at the message

_GlideInitEnvironment: glide2x.dll expected Voodoo Graphics, none detected

despite the fact that detect shows

bus slot vendId  devId   baseAddr0   cmd     description
--- ---- ------  ------  ----------  ------  -----------
 00  00  0x8086  0x04a3  0x00000000  0x0146  Intel Co:430NX/LX(Neptune/Mercury
 00  02  0x8086  0x0484  0x00000000  0x000f  Intel Co:old style non-VGAdevice
 00  13  0x1095  0x0640  0x00000000  0x0000  CMD TECH:IDE Controller
 00  14  0x5333  0x5631  0x08000000  0x0003  S3 INC.:VGA-compatibledisplay co
 00  15  0x121a  0x0001  0xff000008  0x0002  3DFX INT:video multimediaadapter

and /proc/pci shows
 Bus  0, device  15, function  0:
    Multimedia video controller: 3Dfx Voodoo (rev 2).
      Fast devsel.  Fast back-to-back capable.
      Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xff000000.

How do I get rid of this error, and get glide to work?

Kevin Way is having trouble getting his Diamond Monster 3D to work properly under Linux. It's kind of a strange situation. Hit the link below to read his description and see if you can't help. The following is from slashdot reader Kevin Way

I just purchased a Diamond Monster 3D (original), and promptly downloaded the latest glide drivers from ftp.3dfx.com, recompiled the test programs and found myself staring at the message

_GlideInitEnvironment: glide2x.dll expected Voodoo Graphics, none detected

despite the fact that detect shows

bus slot vendId  devId   baseAddr0   cmd     description
--- ---- ------  ------  ----------  ------  -----------
 00  00  0x8086  0x04a3  0x00000000  0x0146  Intel Co:430NX/LX(Neptune/Mercury
 00  02  0x8086  0x0484  0x00000000  0x000f  Intel Co:old style non-VGAdevice
 00  13  0x1095  0x0640  0x00000000  0x0000  CMD TECH:IDE Controller
 00  14  0x5333  0x5631  0x08000000  0x0003  S3 INC.:VGA-compatibledisplay co
 00  15  0x121a  0x0001  0xff000008  0x0002  3DFX INT:video multimediaadapter

and /proc/pci shows
 Bus  0, device  15, function  0:
    Multimedia video controller: 3Dfx Voodoo (rev 2).
      Fast devsel.  Fast back-to-back capable.
      Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xff000000.

How do I get rid of this error, and get glide to work?

What I have here is a few examples on how best to help evangelize Linux. First off is the now fairly well known Unreal petition has apparently been noticed, as The Official Site has mentioned it (although I haven't been able to connect to the server so I can't confirm it). Thanks to Reset for letting us know. Shalon Wood plans to do something similiar for Might and Magic VI, email him if you're interested. Finally Steven Tieu wrote in to say that he has a petition online you can sign if you are interested in a port of a port of SoftWindows. Sign these things only if you're willing to put your money behind it- this is commercial software, but I'm sure more ports is something most of us want to see (except the truly hardcore free folks)

Jason S writes "I've set up a sort of Unreal on Linux advocacy site. I think if enough people show interest a port could happen. Out of the box, Unreal supports glide which is also available for Linux. An Unreal port for Linux would be a Very Cool Thing (tm) for Epic to do. " Personally, the only 2 games that are out that I want to play are Unreal and StarCraft. They aren't worth rebooting for, but I'd buy 'em if I didn't have to reboot. What Jason has done is a Good Way to do advocacy. If 10,000 geeks are willing to sign their names to a petition saying that they would pay for a Linux port, a company has to think seriously about it.

Jason S writes "I've set up a sort of Unreal on Linux advocacy site. I think if enough people show interest a port could happen. Out of the box, Unreal supports glide which is also available for Linux. An Unreal port for Linux would be a Very Cool Thing (tm) for Epic to do. " Personally, the only 2 games that are out that I want to play are Unreal and StarCraft. They aren't worth rebooting for, but I'd buy 'em if I didn't have to reboot. What Jason has done is a Good Way to do advocacy. If 10,000 geeks are willing to sign their names to a petition saying that they would pay for a Linux port, a company has to think seriously about it.