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New Kernel 2.4 Development Branch (-mjc)
Ivo writes: "kerneltrap is reporting: Michael Cohen announced to the lkml his intention to begin a new 2.4 development tree. The first release of his -mjc branch includes a number of performance enhancing patches, including Robert Love's preemptible kernel patch, Rick van Riel's reverse mapping patch and George Anzinger's real time scheduler patch. Michael says of this patch, "I feel that there's need for a rapidly developing '-ac [like]' tree, and so, here we go. Feel free to test it""
but i'm afraid it will really confuse a lot of people out there . . . we have the 2.2 kernel tree, 2.4 kernel tree and 2.5 kernel tree already. now throwing in 2.4-mjc? yes extra performance enhancing stuff will be cool, but man are a lot of people going to be confused . . .
Isn`t 2.5 where the "fast paced" development is supposed to take place? anyway, i`m all for performance enhancing patches.. i run some fairly old hardware here for money saving purposes. The kpreempt patch seems to work well on x86, but it would be nice to see it ported to the alpha.. Is -mjc going to keep up with the performance related patches added to 2.5, and backport them?
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
So how much gain in performance (or apparent performance) should one expect after applying this combined patch? Are the performance gains only applicable under special circumstances? Are they focused more on desktop apps than server?
Sure, but what if you have a G400 and want 3D acceleration? Bad luck, it (currently) doesn't work without CVS XF86.
What if you want to hear something on your rear speakers with an emu10k1? Bad luck, it isn't supported.
In fact, the drivers for "desktop" hardware like soundcards, 3d accelerators and such are HORRIBLE in FreeBSD when comparing with Linux. FreeBSD may be the better server OS, but it surely is an inferior desktop OS.
So please stop with this "awww.. Linux is sooo shitty when compared to the almighty FreeBSD" crap.
-- The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
the reason linux takes a while to parse /proc for top is because everything in /proc is a file, which is 'the Unix way'. im sure top is a lot faster in *BSD since its a system (binary) call. if you want a solid release, just stick with RedHat 7.2 or Debian Potato. those distro's are well-tested
Nothing is wrong with fragmentation. It might be amusing and good to see 3 Linux's on the scene. Hope the reasons for splitting would be more.. friendly than not. After all, has anyone really criticized the existance of 5 BSDs? Net,Open,Free,BSD/OS and Darwin. At least binary compatability would remain, no?
:)
Ok, so maybe I'm just being devil's advocate.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I'm glad you like FreeBSD, but you essentially get that with any distribution as long as you stick with the kernel/apps they include.
Debian, for instance, lets you apt-get to what WORKS.
But hey, I don't need XFS when I have EXT3, and I didn't really need EXT3 to begin with, it's just nice to have.
FreeBSD is a distribution. It has a kernel and native apps. Thats essentially what you get with ANY Linux distrib. If you go off course with FreeBSD, you encounter the same problem that you do with Linux.
--
CodeRed, the lower user #. No relation to SirCam.
Wouldn't this be percieved as the "fragmenting" of Linux? I thought the newest stuff was to be included in the 2.5.x series ?
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
Okay, someone applied some patches to 2.4 and named the result after himself. This is front pages slashdot news, why?
Read what the maintainer says on the slashdot article:
"I feel that there's need for a rapidly developing '-ac [like]' tree, and so, here we go." --Michael
The -ac tree has moved on to the 2.5 world. He feels the need that -ac filled in the 2.4 world is still there, so he's doing something about it. This really isn't any more fragmentation than there was beforehand.
The -ac tree existed as a 2.4 (and 2.2 before it, and 2.0 before that) testbed (sort of a development kernel in the stable kernel code) that saw a decent bit of testing from developers. People could submit patches to Alan, and they had a much better chance of getting included. After they'd been tested for a few versions, and cleaned up some, and whatnot, the patch would go to Linus for inclusion in 2.4. Michael is offering his services to do the same job now that -ac has moved on to 2.5.
Zapman
Gee, I'd hate to see good design get in the way of tradition. And Linux is incredibly standards compliant. Take system-independent includes for example: in Linux, they are placed in include/linux. Why? Well, presumably so you can't make portable code that works on a non-Linux platform. But I'm sure you already knew that.
Is your company running tools written by ma
But of course: because it isn't supported in FreeBSD it OBVIOUSLY isn't needed and unimportant. Who in their right mind would use them anyway, right? Must be some Linux weenies who should use Windows anyway.
-- The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
to put it simply... what do most desktop systems get used for??? games... games need performance...
everyone is used to the fact that with windows you have to reboot atleast once a day, and so Linux's stability isnt much of a "selling point" for desktop users...
Linux out performs Windows systems as it is, but with a special "high-performace" Linux kernel, it will help to bring Linux to the attention of not just desktop users, but also games companies, which will, in turn bring more users and gamers into our lovely community...
i say this is excelent... people are starting to realise that desktop users want performance... the desire for stability is lesser for desktop users than server admins.... and this will help to encourage them to try Linux...
Sure, the free sound drivers could be better (remember, though, that OSS from 4-Front is available for FreeBSD, so this isn't a monumental issue), 3D support isn't fantastic, and quality SMP support isn't going to hit FreeBSD until probably version 5.0.
Regardless, your comment about FreeBSD being an inferior desktop OS is simply, undeniably, completely wrong. The same open source and free software available for Linux (with VERY few exceptions) is available for FreeBSD. If you're a gamer then 3D and sound may be an issue for you, but call a spade a spade, "desktop box" != "game box". When I think of desktop machines, I think of productivity, machines that help you get lots of important stuff done easily and quickly. When I think of game machines I think of Playstation 2s. Sorry, but I would rather spend $300 on a PS2 than dedicate my $2,000 PC to gaming (the PS2 would probably run better anyway).
Yes, I am another Linux --> FreeBSD convert. My machine does run better with FreeBSD, Mozilla actually works efficiently even with debugging stuff compiled in, and I get LOTS less zombie processes and frozen apps, etc. now that I've switched over. And yes, my Linux machine at work runs the exact same software and window manager as my machine at home (except for Mozilla, of course).
Both OSes have their plusses and minuses. Linux is more ubiquitous, but I still think FreeBSD has eeked ahead in some areas. Not all -- Linux will be in the lead for quite some time, I'm sure -- but some.
Rather than poo poo FreeBSD based on game stuff, why not try it as an actual desktop OS?
Oh, you don't need it, it's just nice to have? Tell that to my boss. I do occasional consulting for a small law firm where I installed Debian as a fileserver for the Windows clients. Great idea, right? Wrong. Since the stupid office people just hit the "reset" button whenever they percieve that something's wrong (it isn't), then ext2 gets a little more fragmented and broken each time. Until it all came to a head this past week and ext2 was such a mess that everything on the system was unstable. Which meant I had to transfer EVERYTHING over to a spare Windows 98 machine while I sorted out the whole mess. You know what I would have had to do in FreeBSD? I would have had to just turn on Soft Updates. No screaming and pulling hair, just messing with a config file or two.
Is your company running tools written by ma
I agree that it's confusing - but I believe that this issue is one of the strengths of open source. Or look at it this way: corporations are going to need People-Who-Know-What-They're-Doing-(TM) if they want to use open source *nix anyway, and such things as kernel forks don't have any impact on that.
yes, we have no bananas
sorry, but if you dont have physical security, then you have NO security at all. someone could have just put a dos boot floppy and fdisk'ed anything on the hard drive.
"I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "
Let's try changing a couple of words there and see how it sounds:
But of course: because WinModems aren't supported in Linux they OBVIOUSLY aren't needed and unimportant.
This is exactly the kind of crap I got when I tried to get my modem to work under Linux. "Your hardware sucks! It's not Linux's fault! Go get some real hardware!"
Is your company running tools written by ma
Everyone knows Linux is the organized chaos. Anyway, this model of managing seems to be working pretty well. At least until now.
I think that, although it's always great to have many people working in parallel, it's not good to create more and more fragmentation (we already see this fragmentation in the dozens distributions out there). There'll be confusion and problems syncing the codes. Sometimes I think we're adopting an model that *WAS* great, but IMHO is not the best for the future of linux.
You don't understand. This is a small lawfirm where everyone knows everyone. Someone isn't just going to go in a erase everything, even if they knew how to, there are about 6 or 7 people there whom I all know. They don't have a dedicated server room where they can keep everything locked up. I can't just tell them to not touch it, because as soon as I do, my client (the boss there, who thinks he knows a lot about computers) starts screaming about how he needs to be able to reboot it when it crashes. The most logical step is to keep them from doing any harm through trying to reboot it, and thus the journaled file system. But I suppose it's easy to hide behind some percieved fault of the user than it is to admit that Linux has its faults.
Is your company running tools written by ma
FreeBSD is a distribution - Wrong
It has a kernel and native apps - Right
FreeBSD is an entire OS. Linux is a kernel.
I've tried FreeBSD for 3 months. So I'm only talking about things, that I've personally encountered. I've emailed the drm-kmod maintainer regarding DRI support with a G400 and got the response, that you currently need CVS XF86. I've asked about the rear channel on -QUESTIONS, and got the response, that it isn't supported.
I wasn't bashing FreeBSD as a whole and just pointed out some flaws. There is enough stuff that FreeBSD got 'right', but after my experience with it, I find these "Linux is crap" unjustified.
-- The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
I just thought I should mention that it should be Rik van Riel, not Rick.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
Hell, why not just have them all write an OS from scratch for every machine? That would be the best way, and the people would have to know what they're doing, right?
The point is, people would rather do something the easy way and save time. Especially in this case where you don't even lose anything in quality by switching.
Is your company running tools written by ma
I'm glad you're happy with BSD, but really you could have had the same thing by ignoring the various development trees and optional components and sticking with a distribution you like. The nice people at Debian, Red Hat, Mandrake, etc. will happily test everything for you and make sure it works. Each of the Linux distributions fulfills the same role for the end user as one of the BSDs.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
In FreeBSD, if the file system was dead you would have had to do exactly the same thing.
In Linux, to convert an ext2 partition to ext3 you only have to do tune2fs -j. If you're running a kernel that doesn't support ext3 you need to upgrade to a new one of course, but that's really nothing too major, an apt-get install will sort that out for you.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
I won't use a winmodem under Windows, so I'm not inclined to care if it works on the OS I use.
I basically went through the same crap to get it working for my firewall. Recompiling kernel on freebsd was not any easier. If you use what works without having to mess with it.. it will be fine. One thing, if you like BSD you might want to try Debian. It's a bit older but everything seems to always work. I use it at work and we have finally standardized all our servers to debian in our server farm (14 machines). Anyway, freebsd is ok.. but I believe that the it being a better server than a linux machine is a myth. The reality is it's probably a little less tempting to mess with so it doesn't have to many problems generally.
Without solid java support FreeBSD is unfortunately disqualified as even an option for me.
I think the development model behind the *BSD's is one of the major plus points over Linux.
Having a group of people control the direction the system takes, and able to commit to the CVS tree, comment on other changes etc, and having every change to the system for the past decade documented goes a long way towards a clean well balanced system, something having a single hacker deciding on everything doesn't provide.
The system of having -RELEASE, -STABLE and -CURRENT branches also makes for well defined areas where new bleeding edge stuff can be put in and tested far away from development systems (-CURRENT), but where changes can be (if possible) merged back into the stable-but-being-changed-carefully branch (-STABLE), and where users who want to stick to known good configs can just hold onto -RELEASE.
The Linux model, on the other hand, relies on two branches - release (even numbers) and development (odd), where the development branches tend to disappear completely when they're most needed (damn our new VM system sucks, quick, put a new one in!).
Maybe once Linux gains the maturity of the BSD's it will have a development model which is more, um, stable.
Why of course, everything done in Linux is done first and foremost to spite BSD users and not for any other reason whatsoever. I thought everyone knew that already.
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Glad you let us all know, this is such valuable information.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
All I'm saying is that if a corporation is going to use *nix, they're going to have to have people who know *nix to operate it - and for these *nixHacks a kernel fork will be a non-event: they should know what is necessary to run the required environment. There are plenty of forks *there*, but you don't have to use them. OTOH, they might also be just what you are looking for - best of both worlds.
As for the easy way and saving time/money: I agree, and that is really the problem, not so much the forks. There are plenty of MSCAs out there, but as for *nixHacks - how should HR go about separating the wheat from the chaff? How can they be sure that if their *nixAdmin leaves, they will be able to find a replacement?
yes, we have no bananas
Your hardware sucks! It's not Linux's fault! Go get some real hardware!
Hey, I hate to have to point it out to you, but if you're using a Winmodem, you *are* using crap hardware. Honestly, they are pimples on the wart that is PC hardware.
Don't get me wrong, I'm using a PC (Athalon-based, so I don't feel too bad) to type this, my servers are 486's and up, and my sexxy IBM Thinkpad has an Linux-unsupported mini-pci winmodem. *I know* exactly how crap they are.
So please, deal with it. Be pragmatic; use what works for you. If you really need to use shite hardware, then be prepared to put up with the inevitable pain that comes along with it. Use the OS that best suits your needs, but don't bitch an moan about software that people write for free, when you're obviously not capable of doing anything about it, even if it was legally possible to support such festeringly putrid hardware.
Will someone please mod this post, and the parent down?
Geeze.
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
....just another reason it will be hard to achieve standardization within the Linux community.
Which is why you should have used ext3.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
I knew it had to happen one day! First the PalmOS has the -mj branch, and now linux does, too. True, we have the -ac branch and palm doesn't, but I'm still waiting for the Palm -cs branch to be ported over to linux.
Ok , so some guy doesn't like the kernel and thinks he can improve it even more. Worthy aspiration
but doesn't he realise that fragmentation in the kernel (never mind the distributions) is just going
to lead to incompatabilities, confusing and ultimately users deserting linux in droves?
Don't believe me? Well I for one have recently switched to FreeBSD as I just got sick and tired
of supposedly Linux applications only running on this or that distribution with this or that library. Lifes too short.
Linus needs to nip this in the bud before it just becomes a disaster.
I'm glad you're happy with BSD, but really you could have had the same thing by ignoring the various development trees and optional components and sticking with a distribution you like.
This is, of course, crap.
Here's a real-world example. The story began early last year. I had a spare PC with USB at the office, so I thought I'd put a couple of Keyspan USB-Serial adapters on it, load Red Hat 7.1, and use it as a console server for our SGI Origins.
Standard Pentium III PC-- no unsupported parts in it. GeForce2 graphics card, but I had no intention of installing X anyway, so minimal support is all that's required. The Keyspan USA-49W serial adapter is, according to the source tree, to Red Hat, and to Keyspan, supported completely under Linux 2.4. I felt pretty safe.
I don't enjoy messing with Linux, but I do prefer XFS to EFS for several reasons, so I thought I'd try SGI's modified Red Hat 7.1 installer that supports XFS. It installed a 2.4.3 (I think) kernel, which wasn't too far behind at that time. I'd used that installer before, so I felt safe with that, too.
I installed the OS, then I put the Keyspans on. They didn't work. Why not? Despite the fact that the Keyspan driver had been installed as a module with the Red Hat default install, it had been compiled with no firmware in it. So I had to load the sources, load the compiler, and recompile the kernel modules to add Keyspan firmware support.
Then I installed the new module and found that one of my Keyspans was working, but not the other. Turns out whichever one was plugged in first worked, but the subsequent ones wouldn't. Driver problem.
Frustrated, I gave up for the weekend and didn't touch the system again for several months.
Earlier this fall, I happened upon a mention of this bug being fixed in the Keyspan driver. Cool. So I downloaded the latest Keyspan driver source and put it on my machine and rebuilt modules. Only the new Keyspan sources wouldn't even compile. I'm sorry that I don't remember the error, but it had to do with the layout of a struct. The 2.4.3 source tree had a different struct than the Keyspan driver expected.
(An aside: it has always been my understanding that minor version changes must not introduce incompatibilities. I mean, that's what 2.5 is for, right? To have a data structure that's laid out one way in 2.4.3 and another, incompatible way in 2.4.9 strikes me as just wrong. End of aside.)
By that time, I thought I understood my problem. I would dump Red Hat with XFS and install vanilla Red Hat 7.1, then install the latest kernel sources and compiler, then install the new Keyspan sources, then compile the module, then it'd work.
Well, it didn't quite work that way, either. What with one thing and another, I was unable to get a working kernel.
Again, I gave up for a few months.
Then SGI released their modified Red Hat 7.2 installer, with a 2.4.9 kernel, so I decided to try just one more time. Install Red Hat 7.2 with XFS, install the sources, install the compiler, install the new Keyspan sources, make the module.
Success.
So I got my system working the way I want it to work, and I'm now very happy with it. But it took me three long weekends, spaced out over several months, and three start-over-from-scratch attempts.
I'm frustrated that Red Hat decided to include the firmwareless version of the Keyspan driver, since it would have been so much simpler to just compile the firmware into the module so it would work out of the box. I'm disappointed that the person who maintains the Keyspan driver was unable to QA his work sufficiently to prevent the only-one-adapter bug from hitting the streets. And I'm mad that a driver module should compile cleanly only under 2.4.9 or later, but not earlier versions. That's not the right way to maintain an OS.
Sorry for the overlong post, but your contention that the distributions are out-of-the-box solutions is just plain wrong.
They both work fine for me under Windows and they are both unsupported in Linux. What's the difference again?
Is your company running tools written by ma
This isn't meant to be a flame, but more of a wondering-if-you're-here-to-troll-or-not kind of thing, so please don't take this to heart or anything.
RTM. Seriously. The -ac trees and -mjc trees have their purpose well-documented. For example, if you search the lkml for 'Cohen', his post about the branch comes up, and (in it and a follow-up) he makes it clear what he's doing: bringing a bunch of patches together so you don't have to worry about all of that stuff and can just go to one place. He also states that he wants to keep his branch as close to the stable branch as possible.
About what to do when there's a bug - just save your config (.config - it's in the docs - you did read those, right?) and download/recompile while you're eating dinner or sleeping, copy the new one into place, add a couple of lines into lilo.conf, run lilo, and reboot. Simple as that.
If you're just looking for simplicity and not losing much time, don't upgrade to XFS or worry about which VM you want, but it seems like you want all the exotic new stuff to be already completed, stabilized, and integrated into the kernel. Without having to look at the different branches to see if they've already got it in place. Good luck, you'll need it.
Believe it or not, FreeBSD is also imperfect - it has bugs from time to time (which you said you didn't like about Linux), and (unlikely) security holes (which Linux has also). The fixing process is the same. As long as you just stuck with a stable branch and didn't go for the not-yet-accepted stuff.
And for the rest of the post, that fits the guidelines for troll pretty well (A does this thing better/a different way than B, so A is better than B, etc).
Anyway, please don't take any of this personally, I just get annoyed easily by a lot of stuff like this.
As far as solid Java support, FreeBSD does support Java, as reported in this Slashdot article.
In my experience, Java on BSD doesn't scale. It core dumps often under load and performance isn't that great compared to linux (especially with IBM JVM). Linux api layer is not a smart thing to use on a production box imho... especially when my sleeping habits are at risk.
I haven't seen any real influence from the Stalin er *cough* Stallman side to negate the good experiences with the software. Most of my debian boxes are headless and on a high speed connection. Their package manager is a dream. (yes, I personally like it better than the bsd ports system.. and after figuring out the horid dselect tool find it strangely simple).
I agree though, for all the stalman might do for the world... he is enough to make me want to disassociate myself with the linux community as a whole.
Anyway, I am glad that bsd works well for ya.. I have used it in the past and never really had any problems with it other than lack of java support. I do enjoy hacking around on my wifes g4 w/OSX and will probably put osx on a ibook we have sitting on the shelf seldom used.
Cheers... happy new year.
FreeBSD has both native java and is one of the easiest systems for configuring nat/firewall.
Read the man pages - it's really not difficult.
I've gone the other way. I started with FreeBSD, and eventually became disillusioned with the slow pace of development, and low quality of the releases.
Linux was like a breath of fresh air. If I stick with certain distro, I can enjoy stability (in the unchanging sense, not crashing), or I can opt to enjoy the faster paced improvements in other distros.
I used to be a FreeBSD fan, but Linux is now the boss... sorry to pee on the bonfire.
That's why I got rid of Linux. They couldn't get their act together and get this done. FreeBSD already has a great VM and SoftUpdates, stable and working in production systems. The devleopment process is clearly labeled by "-RELEASE" (meaning "it's safe to use in production systems and has been throughly reviewed"), "-STABLE" (meaning that it should work fine, but it is rapidly changing and there could always be bugs that pop up) and "-CURRENT" (meaning "Use at your own risk"). Linux doesn't have any "stable" branch of development. They claim to be stable on even numbers, and have development on odds, but this simply isn't the case. Every new release of 2.4 is constantly changing and they even dropped a new VM in in a stable branch. So what the hell is the difference between 2.4 and 2.5 again? At least BSD get's reviewed before they're willing to portray it as "stable", the kind of honesty you won't find in the Linux community. With Linux, you have people just dropping new stuff in all over the place, and it results in really stupid things like total file corruption in a 2.4 stable release.
Is your company running tools written by ma
Great! I'm glad you found an OS that makes you productive and happy. However, those things which you list do not make *BSD a better OS. They make it a different OS. *BSD appeals to a different type of user, imo. Ignoring the masses on both sides and looking at the core userbase that is. Some of us like having flexibility and choice, and we don't mind putting in the time to know all about our system. When that's the case little things like a lot of kernel versions just aren't a big deal.
Linux is not for everybody. Neither is *BSD. Each person has to decide for themselves which system fits their needs and then use it. All this OS bigotry is just ridiculous.
I'm all for proselytizing, and cheering the benefits. The problem (for me at least) comes in when people have this underlying tone of trying to declare one OS better than the other. Isn't it enough that you use it? (speaking generally here, not specifically to the previous poster) Or do you need the masses to agree with you before your choice can be validated?
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
You're complaining that you have to upgrade the kernel to run XFS?
Uhm, excuse me, but what the fuck?
At least linux gives you the option of running with XFS, because last I checked that feature wasn't available in freebsd land. Next you'll be complaining that you can't have the NSA's enhanced security features without rebooting your 200 day uptimed computers. Sorry FreeBSDers, there are some things more important than uptime.
Because winmodems *are* shitty, and comapred to ATIs or NVidias, G400 look pretty damm poor. ;)
In any case, the reason Winmodems "work fine" under Windows is because the manufacturers have released drivers for them. In almost every case, they will not release the specs for the hardware interface because they want to protect their IP (god knows why, they're only winmodems). Some manufacturers (Lucent, IBM[0]) have released Linux drivers for their weird-arse modems, and they also "work fine". Again, I'm talking from experience here[1].
Now, it so happens that, IIRC, G400s do work under Linux, and AFAIK, work as well as you can expect for a G400. FreeBSD support is under question here, but if support is in CVS, it will get released soon enough. Still, the fact that G400s work under Linux has nothing to do with vendor-supplied drivers, it's because people cared enough to write the driver for it. The reason you don't see this happening with Winmodems is because of the afore-mentioned suckage; people don't care about winmodems, so they're not going to bother writing drivers for them. It's much easier to buy a real modem in the first place.
So, if you really care about winmodems, please, feel free to write a driver (the Linux/BSD source is there, so is gcc and emacs).
Mike.
[0] - actually, IBM's mwaves are pretty good, they're diametrically(sp?) opposed to winmodems, but they're still sucky for being proprietry.
[1] - my old TP had a Lucent winmodem.
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
Ah yes. FreeBSD, where they tell you to 'cvsup' and 'make world' to fix just about any problem that you encounter (yes, even the RELEASE version). And instead of the Linux 'kernel of the week' you get the 'FreeBSD cvs of the hour'. No thanks. FreeBSD just changes too fast for my taste.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
Sorry, but I would rather spend $300 on a PS2 than dedicate my $2,000 PC to gaming (the PS2 would probably run better anyway).
I seriously doubt that.
If you want to establish whether a named poster is a troll, an easy tip is to take a quick look through their posting history. In SumDeusExMachina's case, one will see that he/she/it mainly wades into /. discussions and posts trollish comments, and, in fact, often expresses inconsistent viewpoints in comments attached to different stories. Hence, one might conclude that he is, indeed, a troll.
/. newbie). If he actually has "troll" in his name he's more likely to be a pathetic crapflooder than a troll.
Another tip is to look at the UID of the named poster - the higher the UID, the more likely it is he's an extant troll (although he may well simply be a
You can have the most fun hunting down astroturfing accounts - generally look for reasonable sounding posts that are damning anything that MS opposes (including, but not limited, to linux) with faint praise (I like xyz but...), and the tend to use "clever" email addresses/usernames so that they can identify eachother - such as giving an email of "influencers.org", or "fifther" (for fifth columnist), since they're trying to socially engineer and polarise opinions of the linux crowd (it's easier for MS to fight us if we're all concentrated on one issue, not when we're buzzing about like a swarm of bees arguing about 1000s of different things).
So basically, you want the developers to hold your hand and clearly label the releases for you. -shrug- Then you probably made a good choice. I sure as heck hope we don't see that kind of baloney in the linux tree. While I will agree that some of the stuff that went on in the 2.4 tree was absurd and should not have happened, it's a learning exp (hopefully) and we move on. Linux is a different culture than *BSD, and it sounds like *BSD's fits you better. So use it, and quit bellyaching about linux. Little that you have mentioned here is a problem for the core linux userbase, and those few good points you mentioned we can only hope the lesson has been learned moving forward.
Which one you choose is all about who you are, what you have, and what you plan to do with it.
If you are a beginning unix user and have no clue about hardware and software in general, you're probably better off choosing linux. That way you can use a friendly, brainless distribution, and chances are your hardware will be supported no matter how wierd it is.
If you are somewhat clueful, then you're probably better off with freebsd, *assuming* that you have fully supported hardware. This may not have been the case a few years ago when the desktop was still pretty primitive, but these days the desktop is just as good as linux and unlike linux freebsd comes with a ports tree, which is awesome.
Oh, and you're blaming BSD?
Give me one good OS where Java runs smoothly as baby ass skin.
Just an FYI, depending on your thinkpad model, the mwave thinkpad modem is supported under linux. It worked fine on my 600E.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
Exactly what I was thinking.
FYI: They rewrote the VM in 2.4.9.
Novell Netware
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
ipnat, ipf, and various other tools of that nature have modules installed by default.
/dev/snd it'll load sound drivers until it finds one that works and goes with it. devfs will do some of that, and the rc.conf options also do some of it (in 4.3 or so it does for ipnat).
/etc/rc.conf
/etc/rc.conf
Looking forward to the day when kernel modules are a 'load on use' resource. That is, if you try to access
echo 'ipnat_enable="YES"' >>
The above should load the ipnat kernel module and get you on your way at the next reboot.
NOTE: The above statement depends on ipfilter running, so:
echo 'ipfilter_enable="YES"' >>
may be required as well depending on current configuration.
Rod Taylor
SO .. i'm curious as to what the major differences are between the different kernel trees.
1. Are they just added compatibility tweaks
2. more usability features - for us less inclined "LINUX" users.
To achieve 3d acceleration for the G400 on FreeBSD one needs to install XF86 from the ports tree (or the package -- as they're generated from the ports tree).
Next install the graphics/drm-kmod port.
Either reboot, or run:
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/drm.sh start
then restart X (if its running, otherwise start it).
glgears should get several hundred fps on a G450. Total time from install to 3d support was around 3 minutes for me -- most of that shutting down and starting X (many many applications run by default for my configuration).
Rod Taylor
The G400 has become unsupported? When was that. Pity, that, because I was quite happy with the hardware accelerated 3d graphics that I could enjoy since the release of XFree86v4.
I don't see how any of this is relavent. What you're complaining about is that:
This is of course true. That will be true of any system. Obviously you're going to give up something in the trade-off between "easy to use and stable" vs. "bleeding edge".
No it's not. Distributions are the out-of-the-box solution. Your problem is that you aren't satisfied with the out-of-the-box solution. Would you have faired better with one of the BSDs? Do they even have XFS?
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
The linux kernel already has 3 trees. Adding more trees will fragment the kernel development even more. The 2.2, 2.4 and 2.5 trees are enough. By adding more trees, kernel development will be slowed way to much. Lets concentrate on standardizing, not fragmenting the kernel. The different tracks for this new tree aughta be incorporated into the 2.5 tree. If anything works out to be a big improvement, then back-port it into the 2.4 tree.
I take no responsibility for what I say. Even though I'm never wrong
I did that, but it locked up HARD. That's because the code from the ports drm-kmod and the ports xf86 had some mismatch. This should probably work with XF86 4.2.0. Take a look here. The maintainer confirmed it too.
-- The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
Obviously you're going to give up something in the trade-off between "easy to use and stable" vs. "bleeding edge".
If I were trying to do anything "bleeding-edge," I'd be the last to complain. As it is, I was trying to use supported (whatever that means in this context) hardware with a packaged distribution.
My point is simply that the distributions with which I have had experience (not all of them, by any stretch) are incomplete. They do not support, out of the box, everything they claim to support.
A counter-example is my QL2200 fibre channel adapters. Thanks to Red Hat, those suckers work as soon as you plug them in.
That level of functionality should be there for everything on the "supported" list. It doesn't appear to be.
While we're at it, let's get _all_ of RML's patches into the _main_ kernel. Show your support by visiting here and signing the petition!
RML NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT!
er, G400s are supported fine in Linux... (from the posts above it appears not in FreeBSD)
WindModems are shite because they do all the signal processing in software - so you take a CPU hit and a transfer rate hit. Much better to have a real modem (for like $5 more..) that does it in hardware, no bandwidth loss and no CPU wastage...
But I love to hear whining lamers from the *BSD world bitch about linux kernel short commings. Gee, couldn't get XFS running by inmod'ing the binary into a fresh kernel. Well XFS on FreeBSD will save the day? Ooops, no XFS on FreeBSD you say, well that solves your problem. Less features makes it much harder to screw up. No one fooled you, No one advertised otherwise; The misconception comes from rejects from the proprietary OS world where closed-source REQUIRES binary kernel driver compatability.
BTW, bitching about binary compatability of kernel modules, in a open source OS; PuhLeeaase! The linux kernel, of all open source kernels, doesn't give two shits about binary kernel module compatability.
no more retarded Linux VM
Oh lord of all mercy! Commetary from the below 100 crowd, Joy. Linux's VM did have serious suckage, news at 11. But these things become harder when you actually have FEATURES. Like fine grained locking of all the major sub-systems. FreeBSD 4.x is languishing in the BKL world of Linux 2.x. Wow what superior technology! Look at how SMP-ng in the upcoming FreeBSD 5.0 is lagging behind schedule. That is because it is HARD, not EASY. So yeah the FreeBSD VM is well balanced, but it's maintainer admits it's short commings, and BSD as a whole lags far behind Linux in many other areas (like your beloved XFS filesystem).
I'd like to state once more for the non-moron *BSD crowd, that the *BSDs are great and I hope competiion between *BSDs and Linux is as productive as the Gnome v. KDE competiion seems to have been.
-- I am not a fanatic, I am a true believer.
Sigh... Feeding trolls one more time....
Because winmodems are a fundamentally stupid idea, you idiot troll, and G400s aren't. Think about it: With a winmodem you're wasting 10% of your CPU time doing the modulation and demodulation - something a custom chip in a real modem can do. G400s are the OPPPOSITE IDEA - you're offloading 3D and display processing that would take CPU time onto a custom chipset.
In summary: G400 good, WinModem bad.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/12/23/03142
It's more like a merge of experimental advanced kernel features, but much more faster and rapidly maintained than the dying FOLK project.
Basically it could be a good idea maintaining (read *actively* maintaining) more diverse ports of the kernel tree, though it's more coatic than just having a stable and development branches.
The problematic side of this stable-expermintal tree is locating the cause of crashes when instabilty strikes. When the patches are seperated, it's easier to isolate the cause.
"* It uses the overly-complicated runlevel system for startup scripts so it's harder to write your own."
/etc/init.d and run "update-rc scriptname defaults runlevel"?
How hard is is to put your script in
"* Most of the Debian people are Free Software zealots. Sorry, but I prefer not to be at the mercy of a bunch of RMS clones when it comes to what software I run. Plus it makes them real assholes."
This is just too stupid for words. You do know that Debian has a non-free section right? I'm grateful to the Debian folks for being such "zealots" because it means that I don't have to worry about licensing issues when I sell or modify a Debian based product.
Isn't it enough that you use it? (speaking generally here, not specifically to the previous poster) Or do you need the masses to agree with you before your choice can be validated?
Amen! This attitude characterises any number of 'religious wars' in the geek world: emacs vs vi, amiga vs st (going back a bit), mac vs pc.
I have favourites in each of those (pc, st, emacs), but I don't care if you like them or not - why does it matter?
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
Yet another *linux branch. Big deal. I know
people who are still running 2.2! There really
is no need to keep on updating just to keep up
with the Jones.
...starts screaming about how he needs to be able to reboot it when it crashes.
Now you're being silly. What would you if your boss said he has to "kick the machine when it makes funny noises"? Would you plate the bloody machine with foam or something?
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
It's funny. With all these naysayers who say they only want ONE branch, you have to begin to wonder what the benefits of open source are really supposed to be to them. The ability to grab source and create an improvement is the heart and soul of open source. If you don't like that, do yourself a favor and run windows. Or something.
C//
Will this new dev patch increase performance when playing Linux Quake on my 486DX/2??
--- Do you believe in the day?
Ok. I see what you're saying. Sounds like a quality issue with Red Hat. Certainly if it says on the box that it's supported then it should work.
What I was trying to say with my original post was that Linux distributions fill the same role as the *BSD distributions. They represent the safe, stable solution for the end user.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Just two points:
a) there is a port for DRM kernel module in the
FreeBSD ports tree and last time I checked it worked just fine. WITH_MATROX_GXX_DRIVER was
working fine too. Together two will give fully
functional DRI for Matrox.
c) Sound card - blame Creative for their semi-
binary driver with lack of all and any documantation.
Most ./ readers seem to think that it is all about Servers vs. The Desktop.
:-)
I can safely say: IT IS NOT!!!
For a great deal of embedded applications it is a necessity to have lower and deterministic latency. Therefore these patches will raise the acceptance of Linux as an alternative embedded OS.
I guess it will be a long time though before Linux itself will have REALLY low (microseconds) latencies and hard real time behaviour. Right now this can only be achieved with addons like RTAI or RTLinux.
The RTAI and RTLinux addons are really real time schedulers that run the Linux kernel as lowest priority thread. This gives an added complexity for the real time programmer. But maybe this "sandbox" approach is really a good thing and the way to go for hard real time, as it will be almost impossible to guarantee hard real time with a complex beast like the Linux kernel.
But for many applications the latency and quality of service you can get with the patched kernel will probably be enough - so keep up the good work!!!
I actually have resources...but I can not see paying $300 for winXP when it wont even load on my computer because I do not have IDE??!! Jeez! Redhat I got off an ftp and installed for nothing.....and this is wrong???
btw...did anyone tell microshit that some ppl have SCSI cd-roms?
I like linux because it works, it is flexible, I can modify it to my hearts content, and billy did not get one red cent from it. They can fragment it to hell and back and I still prefer it.
:)
What I was trying to say with my original post was that Linux distributions fill the same role as the *BSD distributions. They represent the safe, stable solution for the end user.
Okay, I'll buy that. I only wish in my case my choice of distribution and hardware had been safer and more stable.
Erm, I don't suppose in your zealotry that you've ever examined the Debian release cycle?
stable, testing, unstable
-RELEASE, -STABLE, -CURRENT
Seems quite similar to me.
The ST sucked compared to the Amiga!
The Amiga had a cool OS with an integrated GUI and CLI, preemptive multitasking, pluggable filesystem drivers, the ST had... TOS/GEM crap.
The Amiga had 4096 colour display... The ST had 16 colour display.
The Amiga had hardware graphics acceleration, DMA disk controller, extenal sync capability for video editing, the ST had... a piece-of-shit off-the-shelf graphics chip, and the CPU to do everything else.
The Amiga had proper function keys, the ST had wierd crappy plasticy buttons.
The amiga stored 880K on a floppy disk, the ST 720K. The amiga could read PC and ST disks, but not vice-versa.
About the only thing the ST had going for it was a built-in (and relatively crappy) MIDI interface - and a much better MIDI interface was a $30 external add-on cartridge for the Amiga. Amiga ProTracker and later OctaMED and Bars'n'Pipes kicked the ass of any ST sound tools.
Amiga had Lightwave, Imagine and Real3D for raytracing. ST had... a dodgy port of POVRay.
AMIGA RULEZ, ST DR00LZ !!!!!
I like Freebsd technically and the more stable development model. But its a pain in the ass to setup and until version 4.5 shows up, java support sucks. I recently purchased FreeBSD 4.4 and it does its job fairly well but as I workstation I need to setup every menu item manually. Quite unacceptable when you have over a thousand apps installed. With Linux distro's the menu items under the window managers are already setup. After the install just start x and all your apps are there. Under WindowMaker you can select sample menu's and drag your distro's name into the main menu and voila. All your program menu's are there. Also I never installed the freebsd ports collection without an error causing the installation to pause. This means I can't do an unattended installation and that all the software I select will be installed. Its a painfully slow installation as a workstation OS. Also I need to select each package manually on the other cd's which is a huge pain in the ass when dealing with dependancies.
Linux has proven to be questionable as a server os thanks to the recent bugs found in all the patches. A year ago I would but my job on linux as a server OS but today I would not. But as a unix workstation I would have to pick linux untill Freebsd becomes more desktop friendly. Freebsd is great technically but its hampered by the elitists attitude by the developers who only think about server use.
http://saveie6.com/
I personally like doom1 better then quake1 and I find the graphics better. Doom1 and Doom2 run fluidly on 486 systems with decent video cards. You would need the windows program Kali to play an internet game. I don't think there is a linux equilivant. Doom1 and Doom2 are freely available now and there is an active linuxdoom port believe it or not. Just don't download the really old one from idsoftware. ITs not compatible with any linux version above 1.1x. Try Tkdoom which is currently under active development and should run on modern linux kernels. It may eat up memory on your 486 though.
http://saveie6.com/
http://saveie6.com/
Since when was Debian == Linux? It packages the kernel, and probably manages some bugs related to it in it's sizable bug database, but it and it's release methadology are nothing to do with the kernel.
/testing to be quite good, even if they should have implimented it before hell finally froze over.
And yes, even behind my huge mask of zealotry that's so thick I can barely think about computers without screaming "USE FREEBSD!! LUNIX SUXX!!!1", I have used Debian, and found
Stop complaining, start writing code if you think you can do better! And, a normal user shouldn't have to bother with the kernel, AC/Linus said that many times on the LKML
Linus has made some comments relevant to this;1 00 948142802025&w=2
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=
Here's a tiny summary;
- competition keeps people honest.
- Different taste.
- Different goals.
- And imperfect patch retention.
Yep, which is cool, but unfortunately I've got a T21. Even more unfortunately, it's got one of the 3Com/3Com mini-pci ethernet/modem cards, instead of one of the Intel/Lucent ones.
As much as I hate buying Intel hardware, I'll probably have to spring for the Intel/Lucent if I ever need a modem.
8(
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
If you don't want to keep up with kernel development in Linux, you don't friggin have to, so STFU, you're full of shit.
note: My apparent hostility is not actually real, I'm only being halfway serious, so, no offense is intended.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
"im sure top is a lot faster in *BSD since its a system (binary) call."
/dev/kmem and see how long it lasts.
Its actually far worse than that. top (and ps, and about a billion other things) are SGID kmem. This is so they can mmap the kernel's address space into their own. This also means that there are far more points of vulnerability, since if you want to be able to list processes programmatically, you have to be able to read ALL of kernel memory.
Linux's way is clearly superior since it gives you finely grained access to this information using the standard unix permissions scheme. This way, non privledged programs can list all processes, and get their status and memory usage, but only privledged processes can do sensitive things like access a processes address space or open fd list.
I'll gladly take a small speed hit on an uncommon operation to greatly reduce the number of privledged binaries on my system. And don't give me any bullshit about how ps and top only have READ access to kernel memory. If you're so sure of that, how about giving me non-privledged access to your production freebsd boxes, and chmod a+r
Look, I like FreeBSD too, but this uninformed "FreeBSD good, Linux BAAAAHHHD" nonsense has got to go.
You know what I would have had to do in FreeBSD? I would have had to just turn on Soft Updates. No screaming and pulling hair, just messing with a config file or two.
Messing with a config file or two!? Dear god man, while you're at it, why not build an atomic bomb out of household appliances?!
We don't all have the luxury of beaming our servers up to the Enteprise so Captain Kirk can reconfigure them. Fortunately, we do have Debian:
Since the occasional Slashdot reader is humor impaired [not to claim that I'm funny], the moral of this story is that sys admin tasks are all relative, and difficult to measure fairly. FreeBSD rules, Linux rules, let's all hug and eat pudding.
and comapred to ATIs or NVidias, G400 look pretty damm poor.
Hey mike_really_does_suck, as a Matrox owner, I'm going to have to correct you a bit -- A Matrox G400 is one of the best quality 2D cards ever made, not to mention the fact that it supports 2 monitors or TV out.
Maybe you wank yourself playing games 24x7, but most of us normal users are staring at an editor or a spreadsheet 90% of the time, and would rather not have blurry Nvidia OEM budget 2D damaging our eyes. (Well, some of the newer ones are supposedly better, but it's historically been crap). Not to mention, when Quake 3 released, the G400Max was arguably the fastest card available for it (about tied with a TNT2), so it's adequate for older games.
Furthermore, Matrox has some of the best Open Source support in the biz -- they release specs and support an open source XFree driver (modulo the binary macrovision crap). Anyway, it's not some semi-documented on-board POS like a winmodem, and should be a highly recommended card for someone building a Unix workstation.
This is a microsoft employee whose only job is to troll public web sites and make outrageous claims in order to make it appear that that open source and free software are at war with each other when in fact the opposite is true.
hate to break it to you but 3D != games for a lot of people. A lot of people need 3D graphics for their jobs.
For years most of the real technological advances in computer hardware were driven by the ever-increasing requirements of gaming. Do office applications use hardware accelerated graphices? No. 5.1 channel audio DSP? No. I'd also wager that the vast majority of home boxes see primarily gaming and multimedia use, so saying that gaming isn't real desktop use is more an expression of elitism than reality.
LOL! There's a little "from the blah-blah-blah" dept" subtitle for each /. article. Here are the depts for 3 articles posted this morning (January 1st):
WTF would you even bother going out of your way to add an advanced filesystem to a machine that was essentially being a dumb text terminal?
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
a stable Kernel is because the're not stable or they're not a performace enhancement. Robert Love's "preemptable kernel patch" will crash an SMP system with certain drivers. If you have a UP system or you know your hardware is kosher then you'll be OK. I don't think it's for production systems. It's more of a desktop performace enhancement. As for Rik's reverse mapping VM code, the last graphs from Safemode (it's a person), showed Andrea's VM still performed better. In fact, Rik's code still has problems on low memory systems (caused a lockup in one of Safemode's tests). But of course it's good to see these patches getting some visability. They might prove to be useful after some time.
Recently I made a big system upgrade, to a new Pentium 4 system with USB everything. I installed Linux; I heard FreeBSD wouldn't install with a USB keyboard and this system doesn't have a PS/2 keyboard port.
FreeBSD is great stuff, but it doesn't have the PC hardware support that Linux does; there *are* advantages to having hundreds of hackers working on supporting any concievable device you could think of.
"Redhat I got off an ftp and installed for nothing.... and billy did not get one red cent from it"
well neither did Redhat
This must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
WTF would you even bother going out of your way to add an advanced filesystem to a machine that was essentially being a dumb text terminal?
I'm an SGI guy. My life is easier if I only have to keep one set of filesystem commands in my head. Since the option was there, a better question would have been, "Why not use an advanced filesystem?"
I have a G400... I bought it because it had the dual monitors and TV out. You're right, it is an awesome 2D card... beautiful quality, i've got a couple 17"'s here running 1152x864 at 85hz... cheap AOC monitors, but the picture is perfect. However, I won't be buying another Matrox card because the 3D sucks ass... It is "acceptable" in low resolutions, but good luck getting a decent frame rate in any game at over 800x600. And though I don't play games that often, I play them enough to want to have as high as resolution as possible, and it looks like Matrox isn't going to be able to handle that for a while. (Judging from the benchmarks of their most recent stuff)
all your points are true. but i still loved my 520stfm.
Out of curiosity, what changed? The kernel you were so happy with a year ago - did it suddenly fail to work?
Or are you saying current kernels aren't as stable as the then-current kernels? If that's the case, just keep using those. I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about the stability of 2.2.16 - 2.2.20 - people complaining about kernel instability are generally referring to 2.4. The 2.2 series isn't dead yet!
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
fork.
Actually, that's system-dependent includes, and the reason is historical. Five years ago you had to #include<linux/*.h> for quite a few random things ... but that was five years ago.
The world changed - glibc 2.1 came out - and nowadays you should never include <linux/*.h> except for OS-dependent stuff like CD burner software. The reason the directory still exists is that other files in /usr/include make use of it - but that's an implementation detail which as a mere software developer you shouldn't have to worry about.
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
<SARCASM>Act now! Avoid the rush! You too can distribute a personalized Linux kernel -- with your OWN INITIALS tacked on to the end!</SARCASM>
What with the recently defunct (?) 2.4.x-ac, the new 2.4.y-mjc, the merged 2.5.z-dj, and also the 2.a.b-aa and others (not forgetting the 'official' kernel), this is getting a bit confusing!
For something like this (-mjc) I'd most likely find it easier to track the particular patches I need for my system, as someone else is unlikely to replicate my exact setup. It's the same reason I compile my kernel in the first place, instead of blindly accepting the distro default.
Is the likely usage of this branch worth the effort of maintaining it? I guess that's up to the maintainer to decide...
deus does not exist but if he does
No, you can run G400 3d acceleration on non-CVS XF86 -- you just need a newer release version than whatever you have. That was only true around...what was it, XFree86-4.0.3? I'm using RH's XFree86-4.1.0-3.src.rpm with 2.4.17-rc2 and it works fine on my G450.
Then what's slackware? A rouge-rebel-rouge Unix distribution?
Would these be 'under the hood' updates, or are we going to have EVEN MORE UNDOCUMENTED COMPILE-TIME OPTIONS? I ordered OpenBSD to try it out because of the 6-month release cycle to escape the ./configure, download this, ./configure, etc. loop I keep getting stuck in.
ARG...
Java on Netware 5 is amazingly slow... It's make you wonder, "WTF were they thinking??"
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
[snip: rant about why Matrox cards don't suck]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I used to 0wnz a Matrox card. FTR, only my Windows games machine and my Linux workstation (at work) has Nvidia cards. When the game box was put together, NVidia wa sthe only option, but if I was doing it again I'd probably use an ATI. NVidia's drivers are nothing other than a pain in the ass for both Linux and Win, I probably won't be buying too many more.
Still, you have to admit, NVidia ownz Matrox for games performance..
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
Out of all the folks I know with computers at home (that includes pretty much everyone I know except for some of my older relatives), probably 10% focus on gaming. The rest are using their computers in their home offices, or for Internet access, or for hobby/craft stuff, or even dinking around with programming (retirees mostly).
"Wager" all you want; my observation is you'd lose your bet. Most of the folks I know who have computers have digital sound cards and video adapters with >=32MB RAM, and all but about 10% of them do anything that requires even minimal video and/or sound. I view the inclusion of such hardware a tax much like many of you consider the inclusion of MS Windows a tax. Good luck downgrading, too. PC builders don't like that.
I guess you and I walk in different circles. C'est la vie. (Don't call me an elitist, though. Ever. I can oppose your opinion without being an elitist.)