That's nice, but its not really news...
by
Nailer
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
There's so many interesting userspace apps slashdot could write about. Unless the kernel has some new feature or fixes a major secutiy hole, I personally don't see how interesting each minor release is. Slashdot isn't freshmeat.
If/. is going to write about apps, why not focus on the new and clever ones - like
* MPlayer allowing us to play WMVs under out OS of choice
* Xine, finally maturing into a solid high quality DVD player
* Partimage providng a useful and open source disk imaging system
* Ximian's setup tools beta making an X config tool that doesn't suck
OI don't have anything against the kernel, but we all know there's always goiung to be a new kernel every couple of weeks. There's so many interesting userspace Open Source projects we could be hearing about.
After all, isn't the point of an OS to run *apps*?
Ack, I wouldn't try running the latest Linux distros on older hardware, as the latest distros are obviously "optimized" for newer hardware. Red Hat 6 should run fine, although there are a number of different paths you could take. I've been using Debian, and it installs on everything from a 386 to an Itanium, and runs smoothly. It's a bit harder to install, but then installing and upgrading software on it is a piece of cake later on, using apt-get.
Another route you could take would be to try FreeBSD, as even the newest versions still run very nicely on old hardware. I recently installed FreeBSD 4.4 on a P75 with 16 MB of RAM, and it has been chugging along, happily playing MP3s via NFS in our living room. I can even be compiling software while playing MP3s, and it plays flawlessly.
The issue you mentioned about Tuxracer going so slow is because the S3 Trio64+ doesn't have OpenGL hardware acceleration (to my knowledge, at least), which means that Tuxracer is going to do all of the OpenGL via software. This equates to incredibly low frame rates, until a better video card is used. Your best bet, if you're really looking into running OpenGL applications, would be 1) buy a better video card, 2) install XFree86 4.1.0 (see xfree86.org), and 3) enjoy.
I'm not sure about the SoundIII drivers you are asking about -- search google for "SoundIII and Linux" and see what comes up.
I'll throw in my own plug, then!
by
jd
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
For those wanting to try the pre-emptible kernel patch, the HP scheduler-plugin, compressed memory hardware, STP, XFS, JFS, Linux on an old VMS box, any one of a number of VME crates, serial-based network controllers, or the various latency clean-ups, then you could always try the FOLK kernel seris. FOLK 2.3.0 is stable (gasp!) and provides more today than the first fifty 2.5.x kernels are likely to.
(And by the time those come out, FOLK will be comparable to Linux 2.7.0 in terms of features & performance.)
-- It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Slashdot Mirror
There's so many interesting userspace apps slashdot could write about. Unless the kernel has some new feature or fixes a major secutiy hole, I personally don't see how interesting each minor release is. Slashdot isn't freshmeat.
/. is going to write about apps, why not focus on the new and clever ones - like
If
* MPlayer allowing us to play WMVs under out OS of choice
* Xine, finally maturing into a solid high quality DVD player
* Partimage providng a useful and open source disk imaging system
* Ximian's setup tools beta making an X config tool that doesn't suck
OI don't have anything against the kernel, but we all know there's always goiung to be a new kernel every couple of weeks. There's so many interesting userspace Open Source projects we could be hearing about.
After all, isn't the point of an OS to run *apps*?
Ack, I wouldn't try running the latest Linux distros on older hardware, as the latest distros are obviously "optimized" for newer hardware. Red Hat 6 should run fine, although there are a number of different paths you could take. I've been using Debian, and it installs on everything from a 386 to an Itanium, and runs smoothly. It's a bit harder to install, but then installing and upgrading software on it is a piece of cake later on, using apt-get.
Another route you could take would be to try FreeBSD, as even the newest versions still run very nicely on old hardware. I recently installed FreeBSD 4.4 on a P75 with 16 MB of RAM, and it has been chugging along, happily playing MP3s via NFS in our living room. I can even be compiling software while playing MP3s, and it plays flawlessly.
The issue you mentioned about Tuxracer going so slow is because the S3 Trio64+ doesn't have OpenGL hardware acceleration (to my knowledge, at least), which means that Tuxracer is going to do all of the OpenGL via software. This equates to incredibly low frame rates, until a better video card is used. Your best bet, if you're really looking into running OpenGL applications, would be 1) buy a better video card, 2) install XFree86 4.1.0 (see xfree86.org), and 3) enjoy.
I'm not sure about the SoundIII drivers you are asking about -- search google for "SoundIII and Linux" and see what comes up.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
(And by the time those come out, FOLK will be comparable to Linux 2.7.0 in terms of features & performance.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)