Bochs 2.0 Released

what a click can do by Slashdotess · 2002-12-21 13:00 · Score: 3, Informative

from the link inside the article Welcome to the Bochs IA-32 Emulator Project Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom BIOS. Currently, bochs can be compiled to emulate a 386, 486 or Pentium CPU. Bochs is capable of running most Operating Systems inside the emulation including Linux, Windows® 95, DOS, and recently Windows® NT 4. Bochs was written by Kevin Lawton and is currently maintained by this project. Bochs can be compiled and used in a variety of modes, some which are still in development. The 'typical' use of bochs is to provide complete x86 PC emulation, including the x86 processor, hardware devices, and memory. This allows you to run OS's and software within the emulator on your workstation, much like you have a machine inside of a machine. For instance, let's say your workstation is a Unix/X11 workstation, but you want to run Win'95 applications. Bochs will allow you to run Win 95 and associated software on your Unix/X11 workstation, displaying a window on your workstation, simulating a monitor on a PC. "

Would it have been so hard to say... by Anonymous Coward · 2002-12-21 13:01 · Score: 5, Informative

Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom BIOS. Currently, bochs can be compiled to emulate a 386, 486 or Pentium CPU. Bochs is capable of running most Operating Systems inside the emulation including Linux, Windows® 95, DOS, and recently Windows® NT 4. Bochs was written by Kevin Lawton and is currently maintained by this project.

Re:Would it have been so hard to say... by Tim+Browse · 2002-12-21 16:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

Not really - it is entirely appropriate for this comment to be modded to +5, Informative.

The reason? As usual, the article submission assumes basic telepathy on the part of the reader, and doesn't explain what Bochs is (although it gives a few hints - more than we usually get).

So you go to the page, think "what is Bochs?", and if you have comments ordered by score, then bingo - the first message is telling you what Bochs is, because the submission didn't. Who cares if it's lifted - it's just information that people needed.

This is a good application of moderation, imho - if you're carefully writing thoughtful posts just so you can score some karma, then I think you may have missed the point of moderation (and karma).

It's kind of like buying a raffle ticket from a charity because you think you'll probably win. It's a nice side effect, but it's not the point of the exercise.

Tim
Re:Would it have been so hard to say... by GT_Alias · 2002-12-21 19:01 · Score: 2

Geez man, calm down. You find it "depressing" when someone's comment gets modded up on Slashdot? I think they have doctors you can see about that kind of stuff. In the mean time, why don't you go outside or do something besides get depressed about Slashdot comments.
Oh, and another thing, I doubt the poster was "malicious" (New crime? Posting with malicious intent?). I would imagine they posted AC because otherwise every other Slashdotter would have broken out the "Karma Whore" cry.
Re:Would it have been so hard to say... by mackstann · 2002-12-21 22:03 · Score: 2

haha you are a fucking genius
Re:Would it have been so hard to say... by perlyking · 2002-12-22 00:34 · Score: 2

It was moderated as informative because it is informative. Your post on the other hand.... :-)

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no sig.

Anything would be faster... by Hadean · 2002-12-21 13:01 · Score: 3, Informative

I tried using Bochs 1.4.1 to play some old DOS games (since VMware doesn't support SoundBlaster Live! for whatever reason), and it was so slow that my type "md games" took several seconds! With a bit of tweaking, I was able to get it decently working, but games would be horrendously slow... "Jones in the Fast Lane" was so slow, I almost screamed! (Of course, then it froze, but oh well...) My point: anything would be faster than what it was... Anyone have any experience with it yet?

(My system isn't a super one, but 800mhz/512megs of RAM should be enough to play DOS games)...

Re:Anything would be faster... by Anonymous Coward · 2002-12-21 13:04 · Score: 2, Informative

Should be, but keep in mind BOCHs emulates everything completely in software. The benefit of doing it this way is that BOCHs will run on -any- arch capable of compiling it, whereas VMWare, which uses the existing hardware for 'emulation' will only work on x86 machines. As you've noticed though, speed is the obvious tradeoff, with BOCHs being considerably slower than VMWare.
Re:Anything would be faster... by garcia · 2002-12-21 13:05 · Score: 2

why wouldn't you use DOSEmu which is far better at running DOS games than BOCHS?
Re:Anything would be faster... by Hadean · 2002-12-21 13:07 · Score: 3, Informative

Er wait, it's still 1.4.1 on their site... 2.0pre4 only. Who said it was released?
Re:Anything would be faster... by Hadean · 2002-12-21 13:09 · Score: 3, Informative

Cause I don't use Linux?
Re:Anything would be faster... by slipgun · 2002-12-21 13:10 · Score: 2

I tried using Bochs 1.4.1 to play some old DOS games (since VMware doesn't support SoundBlaster Live! for whatever reason), and it was so slow that my type "md games" took several seconds! With a bit of tweaking, I was able to get it decently working, but games would be horrendously slow... "Jones in the Fast Lane" was so slow, I almost screamed! (Of course, then it froze, but oh well...) My point: anything would be faster than what it was... Anyone have any experience with it yet?

(My system isn't a super one, but 800mhz/512megs of RAM should be enough to play DOS games)...

For now at least, the best way to enjoy those classics is to get hold of a 486/low end Pentium, bung in a soundcard and CD-ROM drive and install MS-DOS 6.22 (or failing that, Win98 will do for most games). I've been playing Monkey Island 2 all day using this setup, and no, I don't usually spend my saturdays doing that :-)

I can still remeember how to complete Part One and get LeChuck resurrected, wahey!

--
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Re:Anything would be faster... by Hadean · 2002-12-21 13:13 · Score: 2

Sadly, that's what I'm currently doing... A lot of hassle, though when emulating DOS doesn't sound like a difficult thing to do (I'd assume, but of course, I'm not programmer).
Re:Anything would be faster... by reynaert · 2002-12-21 13:32 · Score: 4, Interesting

If you just want to play old DOS games, try DOSBox. It's specifically designed for this goal, and cheats in various ways to make it fast (for example, the BIOS and DOS are built-in instead of emulated). The main problem with it is the lack of 386 Protected Mode support.
Re:Anything would be faster... by athakur999 · 2002-12-21 13:34 · Score: 3, Informative

If you're running NT or 2000 you can try out VDMSound. I've had a fair amount of luck getting some old DOS games to work correctly in a command prompt box under 2000.

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"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
Re:Anything would be faster... by slipgun · 2002-12-21 13:43 · Score: 2

Hmm... just did a search on google, and found something called DosBox, which seems to be aimed primarily at games. It still seems to be in alpha stages, but better than nothing...

--
SpamNet - a spam blocker that really works
Re:Anything would be faster... by compwiz3688 · 2002-12-21 13:58 · Score: 2

I wouldn't call it SB Live! since it's PCI device. When I tried to run one of Craig's PCI Programs, it wouldn't show up as a PCI device at all.

According to VMWare's support files, it is compatible with an SB16. (Ok, so compatible != actual card, but if they say to use it...)
Re:Anything would be faster... by Hadean · 2002-12-21 14:40 · Score: 2

Looks like a nice program... Sadly it doesn't play Jones in the Fast Lane, no matter what I try it ends up with the error:

Exit to error: Call to interrupt 0xCD this is BAD

But, it's not finished yet... I'll give it a shot later down the road. I'll just stick with doing it the hard way (having a second computer)... *shrug*
Re:Anything would be faster... by runderwo · 2002-12-21 16:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yes, DOSEMU usually works better, but AFAIK it only works on i386 and Linux (and maybe some BSDs).
BSD has their own "doscmd". Dosemu currently only works on Linux/i386, but they are adding a 386 emulated core that should eventually release the architecture restriction. It is, however, highly dependent on specific features that have been merged into the Linux kernel.

--
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
Re:Anything would be faster... by nounderscores · 2002-12-21 18:02 · Score: 2

I think that DOSEmu is an OS simulator, while BOCHS is a hardware emulator. this means that with BOCHS if one day you get bored of Jones in the Fast lane, you can just install another x86 os from (cough) original disks....

Also, I believe that BOCHS is a smarter idea overall, because it deals with the better documented x86 architecture, rather than trying to emulate a bunch of byzantine APIs like WINE or worse yet reserved memory mappings of DOS. but that's just my nontechnical opinion.
Re:Anything would be faster... by JohnFluxx · 2002-12-22 04:43 · Score: 2

This is no excuse.
In fact a company that I will possibly be working for has managed to do this but get the code to run faster than it runs natively! It has to be seen to be believed. (If you are wondering how it can run faster, think of the whole code-morphing thing)
Re:Anything would be faster... by JohnFluxx · 2002-12-22 22:54 · Score: 2

Indeed - I don't believe it yet either :)

http://www.transitive.com

Tell me what you think. They seem very keen on patenting as much as they can.

Boch vs. VMWare by thopo · 2002-12-21 13:02 · Score: 4, Interesting

Does anyone one know which one of them is faster, or let's just say better?

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keep it simple.

Re:Boch vs. VMWare by damiam · 2002-12-21 13:07 · Score: 4, Informative

Bochs emulates the entire x86 instruction set, so it will run on any architecture. VMWare simply creates a virtual machine and passes instructions directly to the processor, so it only runs on x86 machines. VMWare is about a zillion times faster and easier to set up, but it also costs infinitly more than Bochs.

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It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Re:Boch vs. VMWare by Mitchell+Mebane · 2002-12-21 13:12 · Score: 5, Informative

That's like comparing apples and oranges. VMWare is a virtual machine; it only emulates certain parts of a computer. It's "passes through" most of the work to the host machine. This means that is a lot faster, but it can only run programs designed for the host architecture. Bochs, OTOH, is a full-fledged emulator, which, eventually, will let you run any program on any machine. Since it emulates every, though, it is FAR slower that VMWare. I hope they add some sort of JIT engine sometime.

--

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
Re:Boch vs. VMWare by Chris_Stankowitz · 2002-12-21 13:20 · Score: 2

> Does anyone one know which one of them is faster, or let's just say better?

As per the BochsFaq Page:

Q: Tell me about peformance when running bochs? Because Bochs emulates every x86 instruction and all the devices in a PC system, it does not reach high emulation speeds. Kevin reported approximately 1.5MIPS using bochs on a 400Mhz PII Linux machine. Users who have an x86 processor and want the highest emulation speeds may want to consider PC virtualization sotware uch as plex86 (free) or vmware (commercial).
Re:Boch vs. VMWare by ipsuid · 2002-12-21 15:54 · Score: 4, Informative

Precisely.

I've used all three (Bochs, WINE, VMWare) and each are designed for different purposes.

Bochs is quite slow for normal application usage, but it is absolutely ideal for low level OS development work. Compare crashing your real machine hundreds of times while debugging your bootloader and memory management code to having a "virtual" crash in Bochs. Also, Bochs provides stubs for implementing runtime instrumentation, so you can use powerful debugging techniques that remain 100% insulated from the debugee.

If you are primarily concerned with running one or two Windows apps under Linux that you just can't live without, then Wine is for you. Sure, there are still some rough edges, but in many cases, your application will actually run faster under Linux then under Windows. However, parts of Wine are still incomplete, so YMMV. The biggest plus with the Wine approach is that interaction between apps is a tad simpler.

VMWare creates a bit of a middle ground between Wine and Bochs. I've used it for the past two years to keep a copy of Win98 and Win2k on my Linux box. Because being an independent programmer/consultant sometimes requires me to use technologies I don't exactly embrace, the Windows in VMWare option allows me to maintain productivity while not opening myself to network *cough* problems. In addition, I can keep multiple OS's running concurrently so testing and debugging apps is fairly painless. Except for a few operations (installing software, for example) the virtual machine runs almost as fast as if I ran the OS natively. BTW, when Windows inevitably hoses itself, I have it running again in the time it takes to copy a 1G file ;-)

So in summary, if you are doing some hardcore hacking, get yourself Bochs... it will save you many many reboots.

If you want to run MS Office and can live with a few glitches, get yourself Wine.

Looking to simplify cross-OS application debugging, need to have Windows close at hand, doing tech support? Then VMWare is your answer.

Want to run the latest DirectX 9.0, wet your pants LOD game... yet run Linux as well? Get yourself a second machine.

--
It appears Ockham lost his razor and grew a beard.

The webpage hasn't been updated but... by orbital3 · 2002-12-21 13:02 · Score: 3, Informative

If you go to the sourceforge download page, located here, it has links to all of the 2.0 final downloads. Have fun killing the servers... I already got my copy. :)

Re:The webpage hasn't been updated but... by orbital3 · 2002-12-21 15:44 · Score: 2

Actually, it hasn't been updated with the final 2.0 release info. If you look in the top left corner, it says "Current Release: Bochs 1.4.1" and the link on the front page to the v2.0 info is pre-release info, and all of the links are to download the release candidates. And if you look at the early comments, there's people confused about whether it had actually been released or not. Sorry I tried to help out. :P

BeOS MHz by Anonymous Coward · 2002-12-21 13:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

Huh? I have a beta of it which is what appears on site. What was released, again?

I ran BeOS Max 2.1 on it, even though it hangs before running to completion. (As well as regular BeOS, so it's not the known AMD XP / Pentium 4 CPU bug.)

The debugging console reports Bochs running as 13MHz. My machine is 1GHz. Still, it's speedier than older versions.

I am still waiting to be able to run BeOS on it.

What we need now... by bakes · 2002-12-21 13:05 · Score: 5, Funny

...is some idiot to try to run Windows apps inside WINE running in Bochs under VMWare.

And don't tell me you didn't all think the same thing as soon as you found out what Bochs was.

--
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!

Re:What we need now... by Latent+IT · 2002-12-21 13:09 · Score: 2

Is the point of that to achieve a lameness or 37331 factor?

31337 there, champ!
Re:What we need now... by Valar · 2002-12-21 13:23 · Score: 4, Funny

No, he means eteel. Isn't everyone on slashdot seeking true eteelness?

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====
Crudely Drawn Games
Re:What we need now... by eMilkshake · 2002-12-21 13:43 · Score: 3, Funny

I once ran os360 on hercules (s/360 emulator) on linux in a vmware session in a windows terminal server session. Does that get me anything?
Re:What we need now... by compwiz3688 · 2002-12-21 13:53 · Score: 2

...is some idiot to try to run Windows apps inside WINE running in Bochs under VMWare.

But what about Virtual PC?

And don't tell me you didn't all think the same thing as soon as you found out what Bochs was.

Actually, I must admit that I tried to run an OS that has been installed on another (physical) partition.
Re:What we need now... by Wumpus · 2002-12-21 14:23 · Score: 2

Yes. You get the /. Geek of The Week award.

Re:It must be good! by Anonymous Coward · 2002-12-21 13:06 · Score: 2, Funny

Yeah, booting off that CD is pretty tough.

Last time, I had to like... select a computer name and everything! I was exhausted!

Seriously, what the hell is causing you trouble? Don't have a CD key? Forgot to connect a keyboard?

Upgrade to 2.0 then tell us by emptybody · 2002-12-21 13:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

Dude(ette?),
Maybe you should upgrade to 2.0 and test it out again. I think your case would be a valuable pice of information.

--
comment directly in my journal

What does it do? by glennard · 2002-12-21 13:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

anyone care to explain exactly what the software does? I don't really get it. Does it emulate different OS's while running an installed OS?

Re:What does it do? by TeknoHog · 2002-12-21 13:24 · Score: 4, Informative

It emulates x86 PC hardware. So you can run e.g. Windows 9x inside any OS+hardware where Bocks runs.

--
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.

2.0pre4 by Hadean · 2002-12-21 13:16 · Score: 3

I know I already posted something similar, but only 2.0pre4 is available on their site. I used it, and it was only a smidgen faster than 1.4.1 - other nice goodies, of course, not still not powerful (speed wise) enough to do anything useful (games, larger software, etc.) I can't wait until it speeds up, though, since it seems to work better than VMware for me... (no pretty GUI though)

(rant)
To Slashdot Editors: CLICK THE FREAKING LINKS. I'm getting really, really sick of all these false stories. I swear, although it's only a joke right now, the fact that people can't trust Slashdot is becoming a real issue...

Re:2.0pre4 by kpansky · 2002-12-21 13:22 · Score: 3, Informative

Sorry -- you are incorrect. The webpage for the site is not updated as fast as Slashdot can find out about their new releases. Look for a link on the left for "all releases" and download Bochs-2.0... it wasn't that hard.

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--Kevin

Re:How well does it work? by Chris_Stankowitz · 2002-12-21 13:23 · Score: 2

> Does anyone one know which one of them is faster, or let's just say better?

As per the Bochs Faq Page:

Q: Tell me about peformance when running bochs?

Because Bochs emulates every x86 instruction and all the devices in a PC system, it does not reach high emulation speeds. Kevin reported approximately 1.5MIPS using bochs on a 400Mhz PII Linux machine. Users who have an x86 processor and want the highest emulation speeds may want to consider PC virtualization sotware uch as plex86 (free) or vmware (commercial).

I need Windows on Linux.... by seanadams.com · 2002-12-21 13:28 · Score: 3, Interesting

But I have to admit I'm not all that well read on the state-of-the art in emulation. I know that Wine is like a clone of Windows running natively on Unix, so it's fast. Bochs is a full-blown, platform independent emulator, so it's compatible but slow. Vmware is X86 only, so it's faster, right?

So many choices, but I really don't have time to try everything out. Mainly I care about compatibility over performance. $250 won't break the bank, but free is better of course. I need to run a few simple apps like UPS shipping software, but also a bunch of specialty stuff where hardware compatilibty might be hard and the apps aren't likely to have been thoroughly tested already (OrCAD, Microchip MPLAB, Xilinx WebPack, stuff like that). I could give a flying sh*t about games, but I suspect that's mostly what people want these for.

Could anyone with experience using several of these emulators shed some light? It'd be really nice if the authors would provide some compatiblity/performance/stability matrices for popular apps, to help us choose.

Re:I need Windows on Linux.... by garcia · 2002-12-21 13:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

if $250 isn't going to break the bank, buy a Windows system and use it for Windows only. There is absolutely no valid reason for emulating under Linux if you have $250 to spend. You are going to get a lot more out of your money that way.
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... by ostiguy · 2002-12-21 14:49 · Score: 3, Informative

But 250 isn't just for one system. VMware allows you to run as many vms as your ram permits. If I were doing something where I needed to keep win 98 around, I'd probably use vmware to emulate it rather than keeping a crappy box around

ostiguy
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... by Elwood+P+Dowd · 2002-12-21 15:32 · Score: 3, Informative

Boy, do I disagree.

If, for example, you've got a laptop, and have needs for both Windows and Linux, a perfect virtual machine environment is absolutely desireable. You can take your laptop anywhere, and simultaneously run apps of different varieties.

I've got an iBook. I'd never have considered switching to Linux without MacOnLinux. With proper virtual machine design, and a native processor, there's no crippling speed penalty either. Even if I had $1200 for another iBook. I've got both right here.

Even with desktop machines, if you've spend $1500 on your primary system, WindowsXP on a virtual machine is going to be a hell of a lot faster than a new $250 machine.

Oh. Wait. You said emulation. In that case, I couldn't agree more strongly. I just don't know of any $250 processor emulation packages. VMWare is just a virtual machine, right?

--

There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... by garcia · 2002-12-21 17:36 · Score: 2

so a $1500 machine running UPS shipping software is going to seem like it is running so much faster than a celeron?

Whatever.
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... by grmoc · 2002-12-21 18:33 · Score: 2

And what about kernel developement?

It sure seems nice to have a development environment for kernel's in which you don't have to reboot the whole computer when you make a mistake.

Furthermore, debuging a kernel on real hardware is inherently intrusive. Doing the same on a hardware -emulator- such as Bochs is not.
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... by grmoc · 2002-12-21 18:48 · Score: 2

There are reasons other than running application-level software to use an emulator.

Application-level software users really want virtualization in most cases (Virtual PC is a different story).

Kernel-level developers really -do- want hardware emulation, even if it is slow.
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... by dubl-u · 2002-12-21 19:46 · Score: 2

I do this for various testing, including browser testing. With VMWare, I can keep a bunch of old browser combinations around with no extra hardware. Thanks to VMWare's "undoable disk mode", I never have to worry about windows corruption.

And even better, when a colleague needs to do testing, I just copy the virtual disk onto a CD. Much easier than hardware.
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... by stu_coates · 2002-12-21 20:59 · Score: 2

I just don't know of any $250 processor emulation packages.
I do! ;-)
Re:I need Windows on Linux.... by Elwood+P+Dowd · 2002-12-22 12:48 · Score: 2

Well, sure. And you won't need two keyboards, mice, etc. These are big virtues for me. Plus instantaneous boots. I would rather run Mac OS 9 in MOL than have a second computer, for free. It's that much more convenient. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that VMWare has similar virtues. Hopefully y'all PC users will get a free equivalent sooner of later, and you'll see what I mean.

--

There are no trails. There are no trees out here.

Possible for transparent x86 emulation on Linux? by Ryu2 · 2002-12-21 13:35 · Score: 3, Interesting

One thing Linux on non-x86 platforms lacks is transparent X86 emulation, like on the Macintosh with its transparent 68K emulation, you click on a 68K app and it just works. I should be able to run a X86 ELF image on a non-X86 Linux box and have it just WORK! The Bochs approach is not the best way, since it's a virtual machine and emulates everything. A better way would be for X86 emulation only when needed, such as the application program code itself (syscalls continue to use the native library)

Anyone look at the possibility of incorporating such emulation into the Linux kernel? It would be a enormous boost for acceptance of Linux on non-X86 platforms.

--
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

Will be usefull when... by gearheadsmp · 2002-12-21 13:37 · Score: 2, Interesting

..a non-x86 architecture supercedes chips like AMD's x86-64. But that's at least 4+ years away IMHO.

It's been released?? by Chester+K · 2002-12-21 13:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

It'd be nice if they'd have updated their webpage to say so.

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NO CARRIER

Be still my heart! by Isbiten · 2002-12-21 13:44 · Score: 2, Informative

* Added plugin support for Linux, Solaris, MacOS X , and Cygwin. Plugins allow you to compile Bochs with support for many options and load the pieces that you want at runtime. Be still my heart!!

--
I fought the corporate America, and the corporate America bought the law.

Re:Possible for transparent x86 emulation on Linux by Ryu2 · 2002-12-21 13:45 · Score: 2

Yes, most Linux software is open source... but there is lots of closed-source Linux programs as well. For instance, many high-end graphics programs, such as Maya and Renderman are available on Linux, but aren't open source.

--
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

Re:Do they use JIT? by paladin_tom · 2002-12-21 13:50 · Score: 3, Informative

Is BOCHS smart enough to let the host machine run the non-privledged instructions if the host happens to be an x86 chip?

No, Bochs is a pure interpreter. A less mature project that attempts to do this is Plex86, and a commercial alternative is VMWare.

--
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."

here it is: by SHEENmaster · 2002-12-21 13:55 · Score: 2, Informative

Bochs/VPC/ZSNES/GnuBoy emulates a machine on any other, so it will run on any architecture from x86(PC) to PPC(macintosh) to ARM(my sharp zaurus) but is slower because it has to recreate all of the target machine's functions.

Wine just emulates winshit's APIs; it will only run on PC computers. It is a hell of a lot faster, but has more errors due to lack of winshit documentation. Most WINE crashes also occur in windows btw.

VMWare/MacOnLinux is a middle-ground between the two. It is a PC emulator, but instead of making the virtual processor out of C it is made out of assembly on the same machine it is emulating. The processor knows every command the virtual one needs, making the processes a lot more efficient.

Other thing such as big endian v. little endian are involved, but the user doesn't need to worry about that.

--
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.

Re:here it is: by Malor · 2002-12-21 20:14 · Score: 2, Interesting

More precisely, VMWare virtualizes the hardware. Most of the time, the virtual machine programs are just X86 programs and just run on the native hardware at full speed.

However, PC I/O is (always??) memory-mapped. The processor writes commands to certain places in memory to cause things to happen. VMWare virtualizes this process; it uses the memory management unit to trap attempts to write to I/O devices on virtual machines. It then figures out what the virtualized program is trying to do, and does the actual correct thing with the real hardware. If the virtual machine is trying to write to disk, for instance, VMWare emulates the responses that the real hardware would make, but actually writes to or reads from a file on the host machine's filesystem.

Apparently this trickery runs at a lower level than the operating system, because you can run just about any OS that's out.

You notice this overhead the most on video and hard disk writes. Both video and disk I/O are *a lot* slower under VMWare. Network operations, however, aren't very affected; they run at nearly full speed. You can run most server-type applications very nicely under VMWare, unless they are extremely disk-intensive. You wouldn't want to run a database, but Apache runs great.

Games are pretty much a loss in VMWare; the video virtualization is simply too slow. Solitaire is fine. Quake would be a slideshow, if it ran at all.

To help avoid the disk I/O bottleneck, VMWare has the ability to assign a 'raw disk' to a virtual machine. This would probably be a lot faster, but I haven't worked with it. There are also versions of VMWare that are designed to entirely replace the host operating system. I imagine that they are much more efficient, but haven't worked with them either. (they cost thousands, not just hundreds.)

Bochs, on the other hand, emulates EVERYTHING, including the CPU. This full virtualization allows the emulation to run on any processor, but it's A LOT slower than a real CPU (which is essentially a highly-tuned hardware emulator of the X86 instruction set.) The X86 is devilishly hard to emulate properly, because of all the different instruction layers (8086, 80286, 80386, 80486, 80586, 80686). You have to spend a lot of CPU time figuring out what each instruction is: is it 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, MMX, or SSE? You can't take the same kind of easy shortcuts you can with cleaner instruction sets. Decoding takes a long time and a lot of host processor cycles, so you take an enormous speed hit.

On top of that, you ALSO have to virtualize the video, I/O, and network, so you get all the overhead of VMWare, above and beyond the CPU emulation bottleneck. You probably couldn't run a realistic server of ANY sort under Bochs.

Re:How well does it work? by mabinogi · 2002-12-21 13:56 · Score: 4, Informative

No, it IMPLEMENTS the Win32 API.

How the hell do you emulate an API?
Either you provide the functions or you dont

The difference is, an emulator emulates actual hardware in software, Wine runs directly on the hardware, and just implements win32 so that Windows programs can run.

Wine -> Implements Win32 API on Linux, all code run directly on hardware - requires x86 machine to run it on. Due to the Win32 API being badly documented, tends to have compatibility problems.

VMWare -> virualizes the hardware, ie. creates a whole new virtual x86 machine in which code runs directly on the hardware. Some things emulated due to being impossible or difficult to share between the host and guest operating system. Requires x86 machine to run it on, but is generally very compatible, and allows you to install (in theory) any x86 operating system.

Bochs -> Complete emulation of every aspect of an x86 machine, all code running within a Bochs machine is interpreted by software. Will be very slow, but can run on many different platforms and processors, and should be pretty much as compatible as VMWare. Will allow installing any x86 operating system.

Flex86 -> An open source VMWare clone, shares some code with Bochs, will have all the advantages of VMWare, and has source too. Still in development though....

--
Advanced users are users too!

Re:Possible for transparent x86 emulation on Linux by mirabilos · 2002-12-21 14:04 · Score: 2, Interesting

It actually has.

You can run x86-16 applications on x86-32 CPUs,
and you can run ELKS (Linux/8086) applications
inside GNU/Linux/x86-32 (Linux/80386).

Plus, x86 is a darn complicated architecture,
think of all the legacy parts.
This is why emulation writers have such a hard
job. Even coders of projects such as Wine or
the BSD Linuxulation (those are no emulation,
but just a transfer layer) have a hard time to
code, because most of the stuff is barely docu-
mented, if at all.
Again a problem is, the hardware basics books were
written in the late 80es or early 90es, and they
aren't available for sale usually any more (I tried
to get a BIOS book from Microsoft Press here in
Germany, but they couldn't even order it from the
USA, and that was about three or four years ago!).

If you actually have interest, I think the projects
(bochs, plex86, wine) have fora and newsgroups,
or at least irc channels (the webpage is a good
start; most free projects sit at irc.freenode.net)

--
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And /. still does not get UTF-8 right in 2012. Wow.)

If you do this enough... by raygundan · 2002-12-21 14:05 · Score: 5, Funny

Just build layer after layer of virtualization like that (Bochs running Windows VMWare in WINE on VirtualPC in a Mac emulator on Linux on VMWare on Bochs etc...) and eventually you'll have enough virtualization that you can pull the original hardware out from under it all, and your "virtual PC" will just run on it's own without hardware. The trick is just getting enough layers of software in their so that they all support eachother's hardware needs.

Re:It must be good! by zulux · 2002-12-21 14:05 · Score: 4, Informative

Yeah, booting off that CD is pretty tough.

Last time, I had to like... select a computer name and everything! I was exhausted!

Err.. The myth of 'Windows is Easy to Install' must be crushed.

Let me illuminate the joys of installing Windows 2000 server.

Boot of of CD-Rom
Wait for drivers to load ~ 5 min
Partition Drive
Reboot
Wait for drivers to load ~ 5 min
Format Drive
Reboot
Wait for drivers to load ~ 5 min
Choose crap
Wait for Windows to install ~ 10 min
Reboot
Copy cryptic crap off of security sticker
Choose password
Reboot
turn off 'helpfull' how to use windoes help thingy
move home-page off of MSN
install SP3 ~ 15 min
reboot
install ie6 ~ 10 min
reboot
move home-page off MSN again.
install 'critical updates' ~ 10 min
reboot
install office ~ 5 min
install office updates ~ 10 min
install office critical updates ~5 min
install antivirus ~ 5 min

Ugh

--

Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

Re:Mac hardware emu? by teamhasnoi · 2002-12-21 14:13 · Score: 2

There is NO PPC emulator. There have been many projects and hoaxes but nothing that is anything but vapor. The best 68k one I've used is Basilisk, but nothing short of killing Steve Jobs and replacing him with a clone (evil clone, of course) is going to get you OS X on a PC.

I know, I'd like that too. :(

Time to buy a mac?

Re:How well does it work? by Wumpus · 2002-12-21 14:20 · Score: 2

I hate to pick nits, but Wine is more than an implementation of the Win32 API. It also has a loader for PE executables and DLLs, and a server component which handles system state. (OK, arguably you could say that the system state is part of the API contract...)

Winelib used to be a straight Win32 API implementation, but I believe the Wine team changed that, so a Winelib application behaves more like a Win32 binary now.

Re:Trade off ? by Zzootnik · 2002-12-21 14:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

Interesting...I have the same problem...How about this for a solution...Use 98lite and install the absolute most stripped down version under bochs, then strip it down even more by replacing the shell with Photoshop (normally explorer, right?) which under windows is basically a replacement desktop anyway...

Result--> massively quick win98 install booting automatically into Photoshop...Almost like one (slightly overweight) application... at least that seems like it would be the slickest way to do it... Last time I checked, photoshop didn't run too great under wine, and the 98lite bare bones install could cut stuff down to about 40 megs...

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Sig currently under construction. Mind the gap....

Why so slow? by smagoun · 2002-12-21 14:21 · Score: 3, Informative

1.5MIPS seems awfully slow to me....like orders of magnitude slower than it should be. VirtualPC - a commerical product that emulates a PC - runs somewhere around the speed of a 233Mhz PII on my crufty old Powermac, which rockets along at 450Mhz. VPC provides full emulation of a PC the way Bochs does, but it's ~200x faster. That's an awfully big difference. What accounts for that difference? Is there any chance that Bochs will close the gap sometime soon? I'd much rather use a free product than VPC, but with a performance gap like that it's tough to justify...

Re:Why so slow? by larry+bagina · 2002-12-21 15:43 · Score: 2, Informative

PPC was designed with emulation in mind. When you have 32 gp registers, it's easy to alias them to the x86's 8 gp registers. Also, VPC is a commercial product written by people that have *years* of experience writing x86 emulators back when Macintoshes were running on 680x0s at 40mhz or less. The GNU coding standards state that it's ok to assume unlimited core memory, processing power, etc.

--
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

So what happened to plex86? by phr2 · 2002-12-21 14:28 · Score: 4, Interesting

www.plex86.org sends a 404. And plex86's Savannah project page doesn't show much sign of activity. Is it moribund? Dead? How did it compare with vmware at its last sign of life?

Re:So what happened to plex86? by TekPolitik · 2002-12-22 09:47 · Score: 2

Kevin Lawton got fired from Madrake (?) a couple years ago, and plex86 has been dead ever since.

It still exists here

Re:It must be good! by ostiguy · 2002-12-21 14:58 · Score: 2

When I upgrade nt 4 servers to win2k I login and run a batch file. It maps a drive, calls winnt32 and passed an unattend file (contains snmp settings, cd key, commands to stop install of IIS 5, install terminal services in remote admin mode). It installs the OS and sp3 (its a slipstreamed install), copies over a tree of utilities and drivers, completes the cmd mode and gui portions of install, autoreboots twice, autologins once, installs the intel nic drivers, runs script with qchain.exe to chain together all current hotfixes, runs a wsh script to send the keystrokes to create a fast etherchannel for the dual nic ports, installs server management utilities, installs the terminal services client, runs winn32 /cmdcons to install the recovery console. Total time is 40ish minutes.

Windows unattend files are just about identical for both new and upgrade installs. Sounds like you ought to check them out

ostiguy

server side office active X controls by DrSkwid · 2002-12-21 15:34 · Score: 2

and a host of other activeX stuff comes bundled with IE and office

plus they usually mae you upgrade IE to run windows update, it requires ie5 atm.

--
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter

Re:How well does it work? by Unknown+Lamer · 2002-12-21 16:00 · Score: 2

Wine -> Implements Win32 API on Linux, all code run directly on hardware - requires x86 machine to run it on. Due to the Win32 API being badly documented, tends to have compatibility problems.

Actually, you only need an x86 to run Win32 binaries with WINE. If you recompile the application using libwine it is a native binary and can therefore run on whatever architecture you want (stuff like endianess issues aside). Add yes, libewine does run on more than the x86.

--

HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!

Re:It must be good! by 1010011010 · 2002-12-21 16:48 · Score: 2

Have you tried that with "XP" products?

--
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.

Re:It must be good! by Moridineas · 2002-12-21 17:10 · Score: 2

A couple things--that's not a windows install, that's a windows install, get it up to date and customize it a good bit. Windows install itself has far fewer choices/points of screwing up than any *nix/*bsd install I've seen.

Also, last time I installed XP (this weekend incidentally) it was put in CD, reboot, format drive (it was already partitioned), install files, reboot, it installs more, username, passwords etc, reboot.

then just install XP service pack1 wich when I installed had all the critical updates.

like 90% of the steps you mentioned have direct equivalents in *nix/*bsd installs. Getting all the software up to date would probably take longer though! I also will say it takes me longer to get a *nix install customized the way I like it then it does in windows--more programs to set up is all.

Why to use Bochs... by pla · 2002-12-21 17:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

I love all these questions about "speed". If you want speed, use VMWare. Bochs EMULATES an 80x86, pure software, no hardware involved.

So why would you want to use it?

Personally, I use it mostly to run old DOS games. Games that won't run at all under Windows (you could insert "Linux" there just as well, or "OS X", or "HP-UX", or whatever you run on reasonably modern equipment). Games that run waaaaay too fast. Games that "don'y play well with others" and you wish you could have stuck in on its own machine even when you really *did* run DOS just to keep it from breaking other programs.

It makes a GREAT debugging tool, for those who know how to write low-level code. As long as your problem doesn't involve instruction timing or asynchronous events, Bochs works almost as well as a VERY expensive ICE.

Another nice use, I already mentioned partially, you can put a program in it's own "clean room". Ever wanted to see how some of the classic virii worked but didn't have the balls to risk your own machine? Put it in a Bochs and let it do its thing.

Additionally, IMO, the speed (as of 1.4, and they claim twice the performance for 2.0) suffices for any CPU or graphics non-intensive task under Windows 95 OSR2, with FAR better compatibility than Wine (Not to disparage Wine, a great and worthy poject, but you just can't beat the real thing for accuracy of emulation )

The one "bad" thing about Bochs, and I hope a developer for it reads this, you need to manually calibrate the IPS, and then everything else *relative* to that value. Although I understand why getting an *exact* value counts as an almost impossible feat, I don't see why a simple few-second internal benchmark at startup couldn't come to within 10% of the "right" value. Admittedly, though, I haven't played with 2.0 (away from home for a few days), so if you've added that for this release, my apologies (and thanks).

Sounds cool, but useful? by rve · 2002-12-21 18:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

What would a 386, 486 or pentium with windows and a NIC cost nowadays? Up to $50? It would still execute those old x86 apps and games fastre and probably more reliably... This sounds like a university research project. Useless but cool.

Re:Sounds cool, but useful? by grmoc · 2002-12-21 18:27 · Score: 2

I disagree. Something like this is a godsend if you are doing kernel development or other such low-level development.

Your view is too shallow. Think about more than just the "software users".

I'll tell you what Bochs is good for by Sex+Tourist · 2002-12-21 18:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

Reverse-engineering Windows applications. Normally it's easier to just guess how something works and re-implement it in Linux, but guesswork won't help you decode an undocumented compression algorithm or decrypt a DRM-protected movie.

True, SoftICE is much faster and has better debugging features. But Windows developers aren't stupid -- if they really don't want you stepping through their code, the program can either disable SoftICE, or detect its presence and refuse to run.

That's the advantage of Bochs: It's undetectable. Slow execution won't give it away, because the real-time clock is as fake as all the other Bochs hardware. It's like hardware ICE without the $40,000 price tag.

Also, because Bochs is open-source, you can put in useful hacks like "Copy this big chunk of memory from the virtual computer to a file on the real computer every time this line is executed".

Has anybody tried this? by BrokenHalo · 2002-12-21 19:00 · Score: 2

I have an old Umax parallel-port scanner for which there is no SANE backend to run it under Linux. Has anybody tried using Bochs to drive anything like this? I ask because I've (so far) had limited success with Wine...

Re:Possible for transparent x86 emulation on Linux by Christopher+Thomas · 2002-12-21 19:02 · Score: 2

One thing Linux on non-x86 platforms lacks is transparent X86 emulation, like on the Macintosh with its transparent 68K emulation, you click on a 68K app and it just works. I should be able to run a X86 ELF image on a non-X86 Linux box and have it just WORK! The Bochs approach is not the best way, since it's a virtual machine and emulates everything. A better way would be for X86 emulation only when needed, such as the application program code itself (syscalls continue to use the native library)

Dealing with endianness issues when wrapping all possible system calls would be so horrible it's not funny. Too many calls, too much mucking about to see what's *really* endian-sensitive under what conditions, and things like driver IOCTLs that you just plain don't know whether to wrap or not.

OTOH, emulating x86 is a horrid screaming nightmare. The 68k architecture is relatively clean, relatively simple. i686 is, well, *not*. A clean, easy to maintain implementation runs extremely slowly. An implementation based on JIT cross-compiling and re-optimization of code improves to merely "crawling so slowly you want to claw your eyes out", as you have to track *all* possible side effects of all instructions, in an architecture that was definitely not designed to make that easy. If you're a god and write an emulator that not only cross-compiles but that tracks all side effects, finds out which ones don't matter and discards them, speculatively unrolls and optimizes and maybe even skips loops with code that checks for premature exits and state changes (to roll back state to non-unrolled/skipped loops in case of mispredicts), and in all other ways just extracts the salient computations being performed while discarding all busy-waiting and non-computation cruft, then it'll just be "slow".

This would be a really cool series of PhD topics for about a dozen skilled CS grad students. After 10-15 years of work, this might be do-able, and the cross-compiling/optimization technology developed would have many other applications.

In the meantime, recompiling is probably the way to go.

In summary, good, real-time x86 emulation is a "pick one" scenario at the moment.

The Crusoe doesn't count, as they're mapping to hardware specifically designed to emulate x86 machines.

Re:It must be good! by zulux · 2002-12-21 19:50 · Score: 2

You put Office and IE 6 on a server? Something tells me you aren't actually using it as a server.

Actually, this one of my better Microsoft servers: it, with a crappy VB program I wrote,is used to automatically convert and .doc file into yummy RTF, PDF, or HTML on the fly for all the Unix boxes we've been using. I've munged the email system to strip off the .doc's and replace them with .RTF, .PDF or HTML detending on user preferance. Kinda fun.

--

Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

Re:Mac hardware emu? by dubl-u · 2002-12-21 19:52 · Score: 2

nothing short of killing Steve Jobs and replacing him with a clone (evil clone, of course) is going to get you OS X on a PC.

I think that must be a typo; the Steve Jobs who took millions from Bill gates, killed the Mac clones, and buried their x86 efforts is already the evil clone.

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2002-12-21 19:53 · Score: 2

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2002-12-21 20:00 · Score: 2

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Someone mod this up by drinkypoo · 2002-12-21 20:51 · Score: 2

This is hilarious, if I had any mod points you'd get them all. Well, okay, one of them.

This comment is rated SUPER A-OK!

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

Bochs Miscellany by digitaltraveller · 2002-12-21 21:05 · Score: 2

I hope they have fixed Bochs .bochsrc config file parser. In 1.4.1 (the last release) in certain parts of the file you have to write "romimage: file=path/to/somewhere" and other places just write "floppya: 1_44=/path/to/somewhere/" with no file directive. Annoying for newbies.
I did get Minix booting on top of Bochs on top of Linux. I should have tried Minix->Bochs->UML->Linux but I didn't bother. Shows the usefulness of good interfaces.

Re:The point of Bochs... by exhilaration · 2002-12-21 22:21 · Score: 2

That's correct - Bochs at this point is an OS development tool, *NOT* a replacement for VMWare or Win4Lin.

Those of you seeking Windows emulation should look at Plex86 (link was posted earlier) - which takes advantage of Bochs. On the mailing list archives you'll find instructions for getting Windows NT and Windows 98 running (saw a mention of Win2k as well). Plex86 might not be ready for general use, but power users should find it useful.

Doesn't boot plan9 by DrSkwid · 2002-12-21 22:34 · Score: 2

Booting from Floppy... [snip cos of /. lame junk char filter PBS...Plan 9 from Bell Labs entry: 80100020 cpu0: 2MHz GenuineIntel P5 (cpuid: AX 0x0513 DX 0x800111) 9486 free pages, 37944K bytes, 167544K swap ilock:: ad de ad de 06 00 00 00 3b 89 18 80 08 70 2c 80 01 00 00 00 70 65 01 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ilock:: ad de ad de 06 00 00 00 3b 89 18 80 08 70 2c 80 01 00 00 00 70 65 01 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

--
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter

You think windows is hard? by Erpo · 2002-12-21 23:59 · Score: 3, Funny

Let me illuminate the joys of installing Redhat Linux 7.3 (the last distro I installed):

Boot of of CD-Rom
Read several F(number) pages of information and decide which boot option is right for me ~ 5 min
Curse at a system that does not let my set my keyboard mapping to dvorak before forcing me to enter textual data ~ frustration +1
Wait for anaconda et all to load ~ 2 min
Select my keyboard mapping and mouse type (*)
Get to the partition screen and find out that the installer doesn't dynamically resize windows partitions to make room for itself. ~ frustration +2
Reboot
Warez partition magic
Use partition magic ~ 30 min
Reboot
Repeat above steps until the partition screen comes up.
Set up mount points and a swap partition because the system won't configure available space in a sane way automatically ~ frustration +3
Fsck & mkfs ~ 2 min
Choose 'custom' from the workstation/server/custom menu, and select package groups that I think I'll need.
Select "choose individual packages".
Realize that package management systems under linux don't descriminate between packages that users may or may not want to include (konqueror) and packages that are mandatory and must always be installed without bothering the user and making him/her read up on them (glibc) and should only be exposed as options when the user selects "ultra-expert" install mode ~ frustration +4, 5 min (to find the things I need [luckily I know what they are] )
Realize that standard desktop OS functionality requires a default install greater than 1 GB ~ 2 seconds, frustration +5
Wait for packages to install ~ 55 min
Install grub
Reboot
Enter install program because I didn't remove the CD and the CD boot loader isn't smart enough to present me with a "Press any key to boot from CD...." timeout option which boots from the hard disk if the OS is already installed ~ frustration +5
Remove CD
Reboot
Realize that even though linux has reached version 2.4 and redhat's distro has been around for so many years, no one has ever considered that long, fast-scrolling startup text barfed out by the kernel scares away users who "can't read the error messages fast enough to keep up" and instead replaced them with a progress bar by default, while still making advanced startup an option ~ frustration +6
Realize something similar while watching the init scripts ~ frustration +7
Appreciate that X just works and that I can log in graphically and that I don't have to configure anything in order to get to that point ~ frustration +6
Remember that windows has been this way for a very long time ~ frustration +7
Log in
Click the little red exclamation point, and read an error message that says I have to be registered in order to get automatic security updates ~ frustration +8
Remember that not even windows is that persnickety about giving out security patches ~ frustration +9
Remember that windows requires you to accept an agreement giving MS total access to your computer in order to patch critical security flaws ~ frustration +8
Register for rhn ~ 10 min
Change home page from redhat to my usual home page.
Be thankful that multiple reboots aren't necessary while downloading software updates ~ frustration +7, 2 hours
Download openoffice because it's been neglected in favor of inferior, splintered, buggy, incompatible individual office programs which were installed even thought I didn't want them.
Be forced to open a console, untar, find the setup file, and run it in order to install an office program because there is still no single, unified package management system for linux which results in confused users and puts extra strain on developers who package their own software by forcing them to either neglect certain distros, learn and use all of the major packaging systems, or write their own setup programs ~ frustration +8
Make an educated guess that even if package management system developers could put aside their egos, develop a decent universal package system, and get every distro to use it that it would still force me to use the console ~ frustration +9
Try to launch openoffice and find out that it crashes ~frustration +10
Read man pages, docs, visit IRC help chat, etc... ~ 2 hours, frustration +11
Give up for now, get a snack ~ 10 min, frustration +10
Realize the reason why the interface feels so uncomfortable: my wheel mouse doesn't work ~ frustration +11
Read up on XF86Config, hit IRC again, man pages, man pages, man pages galore ~ 30 min, frustration +12
Figure out how to turn on mouse wheel suuport ~ frustration +11
Be forced to edit a text config file in order to get a very basic feature to work that would be easy to autodetect and autoconfigure in the install program ~ frustration +12
Go through an incredibly long series of steps that I won't list here with lots of downloading, compiling (!), manual reading, IRCing, etc... to get 3D acceleration to work ~ 7 hours, frustration +15
Reinstall windows 2000 professional (it's a dual boot system), (it needed to be done anyway) ~ a whole lot less time, very little trouble.
Click "I Agree" for the first time after turning 18 ~ 1 second, freedom -<rotate clockwise="90 degrees">8</rotate>
Realize that gnu/linux will never take off as a mainstream desktop OS as long as it is hard to install, presents scary "informative" messages, forces the user to learn the console, has a default install that's more bloated than windows (yeah, really), and so on..., and that as long as windows remains the desktop OS of choice everyone loses, including gnu/linux users ~ frustration +<rotate clockwise="90 degrees">8</rotate>
Post on slashdot about my experience ~ -3 karma (I post at +2, slashbots who don't like to hear jaded but honest criticism of OSS can get it down to -1)
Sigh in despair ~ no net change

Re:You think windows is hard? by rseuhs · 2002-12-22 03:41 · Score: 2

The funny thing is that SuSE does most of what you are complaining about (make Windows partitions smaller, automatically partition available space, boot from harddisk when CD is in drive, support mouse-wheels out of the box, no registration for security updates, preinstall OpenOffice) and probably Mandrake, too (haven't tried it for quite some time).
It's also quite funny that you *expect* Linux to be able to handle partitions from another OS, to come with a full blown office-suite and use less than 1GB, while Windows does none of those. (And if Windows would include MS Office it would take even more space)
Seems we got quite a double standard here...
But SuSE can even handle your double standard: If you select minimum install without X, it takes somewhere between 200 and 500 Megs AFAIK. Yes that means no office suite, but you can't have everything.
Using RedHat as a desktop is like using a rackmounted computer as a desktop.
Sure it can be done, but it's (needlessly, desktop computers are just as readily available as Linux desktop distributions) complicated and awkard.
Saying Linux sucks for the desktop because of RedHat is like saying x86 sucks for the desktop because you had to install a graphics card in your rackmounted computer for desktop use.
Re:You think windows is hard? by Erpo · 2002-12-22 09:11 · Score: 2

The funny thing is that SuSE does most of what you are complaining about (make Windows partitions smaller, automatically partition available space, boot from harddisk when CD is in drive, support mouse-wheels out of the box, no registration for security updates, preinstall OpenOffice) and probably Mandrake, too (haven't tried it for quite some time).

Cool! I'll have to try it. :) Where can I download SuSE ISOs?

It's also quite funny that you *expect* Linux to be able to handle partitions from another OS,

Windows 2000 handles partitions from other OSs by default -- they're all other MS OSs so they don't really "count", but the support is there. With an add-in app, you can mount ext2 disks as drives or browse them with an explorer-like interface.

to come with a full blown office-suite

I don't expect it to come with a full-blown office suite. I would really like two changes to be made:

1. Don't install office software by default, or give me an option to deselect "office software" as a whole (meaning no abiword, no gnumeric, etc...) to de-bloat default installs.

2. Offer the integrated, compatible, newbie-frendly, full-featured, open-source package (openoffice) by default rather than a loose collection of apps that are "just fine for 75% of the things you want to do". In the OSS world, competition does not bring down prices; it divides the knowledge base, the developer base, and slows adoption.

and use less than 1GB

Windows 2000 Profession installs by default at about 900M on my machine. Pre-ultrabloat versions of windows that are still quite capable for 99% of the things people want to do (e.g. Windows 98SE) install in under 300M, or 400M with all the goodies.

If you select minimum install without X...

I'm sorry, but if it doesn't come with a GUI, it's not going to be accepted by the mainstream public.

Saying Linux sucks for the desktop because of RedHat is like saying x86 sucks for the desktop because you had to install a graphics card in your rackmounted computer for desktop use.

I'm not saying that linux sucks because redhat sucks. I'm saying that GNU/Linux in general is not at a stage where it can be expected to be adopted by the mainstream public. Yes, I've tried the other bigger distros (debian, slack, etc...). I helped out a friend with some minor issue when he was installing an old version of SuSe on his machine, but I've never used that particular distro myself.

I don't want you to get the wrong idea: I'm not defending windows. There are things I absolutely hate about windows, though the majority of them are ethical problems like DRM in the integrated media system, or unreasonable licensing terms. I'm saying that there's some real bottom-line, basic newbie-friendliness that's missing from gnu/linux distros. I also don't want you to think that the challenges and frustrations I listed above are necessarily the biggest problems for technical users. I actually have fun when I'm solving a problem or getting some strange feature to work. The longer it takes and the more involved it is, the greater the sense of satisfaction I get when I finish. My point of view is that making several simple changes to common distros could save a lot of hassle, greatly increase gnu/linux adoption among people who are fed up with MS BS, and even make the lives of technical people more productive and fun. I like solving problems, but at a certain point I prefer a system that just functions "like it should" so that I can get real work done.
Re:You think windows is hard? by rseuhs · 2002-12-22 10:03 · Score: 2

SuSE doesn't offer the newest version as ISO, but there is a ftp install option which uses SuSE's servers AFAIK.
You should also be able to download it (legally) from P2P sharing networks.
But I never really bothered, I just bought the box (I administer about a dozen machines, so the cost is neglegtible, even when I buy every version)
Anyway:
I'm sorry, but if it doesn't come with a GUI, it's not going to be accepted by the mainstream public.
I'm sorry, but the mainstream public doesn't care about the install taking less than a Gig. Sorry, but on one hand you talk about newbie-friendlyness, then you require ultra-l33t and useless features.
Yes, I've tried the other bigger distros (debian, slack, etc...).
... which happen to be the only distros less advisible for newbies than RedHat... (but with debian you get apt-get, which has it's uses) If you don't like SuSE, try Mandrake.
[..] basic newbie-friendliness [..] blah-blah-blah
Well, nobody expected newbies being able to install WinNT4, so what's the point?
We have several distros just as we have several computer makers. Just like people can choose what computer they will buy they can also choose what distro they use.
Why this double standard?
My point of view is that making several simple changes to common distros could save a lot of hassle, greatly increase gnu/linux adoption among people who are fed up with MS BS, and even make the lives of technical people more productive and fun. I like solving problems, but at a certain point I prefer a system that just functions "like it should" so that I can get real work done.
Exactly my point of view. I switched to Linux because Windows kept crashing and now I'm so used to multiple desktops, Unix-style copy paste and real 3-mouse button support that the Windows GUI appears to me as the archaic, primitive GUI it is. I'm twice as productive on Linux than on Windows. Hell, I always have about 50 windows open, Window's GUI just can't handle that, even with their measly 4-desktop extension.
3 years ago, it was exactly as you described. But today, no. Even RedHat is only worse than Windows if you have a double standard (as you have) and good desktop distros like SuSE or Mandrake beat it right away or Debian and Gentoo beat it on different merits (harder to install but easier to maintain).
The only thing Windows really is better than Linux is at running Win32 software.
Re:You think windows is hard? by hayden · 2002-12-22 12:14 · Score: 2

Curse at a system that does not let my set my keyboard mapping to dvorak before forcing me to enter textual data ~ frustration +1
Isn't this the first option to set? (And yes, I also use dvorak).
Get to the partition screen and find out that the installer doesn't dynamically resize windows partitions to make room for itself. ~ frustration +2
Realise that Windows doesn't even recognise linux partitions as there much less attempt to resize them. And don't get me started on the Windows boot loader.
Set up mount points and a swap partition because the system won't configure available space in a sane way automatically ~ frustration +3
Ease of use, exactly what you want. Pick one.
Choose 'custom' from the workstation/server/custom menu, and select package groups that I think I'll need.
See above action.
Realize that package management systems under linux ...
Realise that windows doesn't actually have a package management system.
Realize that even though linux has reached version 2.4 and redhat's distro has been around for so many years, no one has ever considered that long, fast-scrolling startup text barfed out by the kernel scares away users who "can't read the error messages fast enough to keep up" and instead replaced them with a progress bar by default, while still making advanced startup an option ~ frustration
Realise that hiding the messages would piss the vast majority of your users off.
Make an educated guess that even if package management system developers could put aside their egos, develop a decent universal package system, and get every distro to use it that it would still force me to use the console ~ frustration +9
Realise that "One size fits all" means that everyone is equally pissed off with it.
Realize the reason why the interface feels so uncomfortable: my wheel mouse doesn't work ~ frustration +11
Wonder why you are using a version of Redhat that is over two years old. Consider the possibility that the user didn't pay attention during the install.
Realise that Redhat != linux.

--
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Re:You think windows is hard? by Erpo · 2002-12-23 00:20 · Score: 2

the mainstream public doesn't care about the install taking less than a Gig.

I know. That was actually one of my personal pet peeves (that the install is over 1GB, not that the public doesn't care that the install is over 1GB). However, just because they're unaware that install size is important (beyond that it should be, at a maximum, less than the size of their entire hard drive) doesn't mean it doesn't matter. The smaller the install, the more likely the tiny partition they create from what's left of their windows free space will be adequate. Not everyone has a second hard drive in their computer that's not being used. But that logic can only take you so far -- the size reduction has to stop at some point. I guess what I'm saying is that the default install comes with too much stuff, and there's a particular quality that, in my experience, many many windows converts posess that can be taken advantage of in order to make the creation of a lighter distro easier: When confronted with a computer lacking a particular piece of software and a software installation CD, most users are at home inserting the CD and clicking next a few times until the software is there. Combining a thinner distro with a software installation system that is a serious competitor to installshield or MSI in terms of user interface would be, in my opinion, a great improvement.

on one hand you talk about newbie-friendlyness, then you require ultra-l33t and useless features.

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, but I don't remember requiring any ultra-l33t and useless features either. I don't think a smaller default install, a less cluttered program menu, and a lack of useles (to the average user) startup messages qualify as ultra-l33t or useless.

Well, nobody expected newbies being able to install WinNT4, so what's the point?

That's an easy one. If distro maintainers want to convert a bunch of windows users, gnu/linux needs to be easier to install than NT4. That's the point. Most mainstream distros are partly there, but partly better than NT4 isn't all that impressive to a newbie.

We have several distros just as we have several computer makers. Just like people can choose what computer they will buy they can also choose what distro they use.

We have too many distros. The more computer makers there are, the better it is for consumers (up to a point). It means competition in price, competition in customer service, and competition in quality. Of course, the fact that the average computer user doesn't know the difference between Intel and AMD dulls this competition a bit - why bother to make a product better when the user won't notice and the money could be better spent on marketing? However, and this is the key point, all computers sold by major manufacturers (meaning full computer systems including speakers and a monitor) go through pretty much the same process when they get to a user's home:

-Unpack it.
-Plug in the color coded connectors according to the manual, and plug it into an outlet.
-Turn it on.
-See the start button, taskbar, and desktop.
-Insert user action here.

There is no deviation, with the possible exception that there may be a newer version of windows on the new computer than on the old one. Competition among computer manufacturers is good.

On the other hand, competition among multiple distros (once they number more than, say, 2 or 3) is a terrible thing. They all try to "innovate" or play to a particular ideology, but all they end up changing is the stuff that should be the same everywhere. Destkop environments, the location of init scripts, etc... If those things and a few others remained contant from distro to distro, users could hop from their new gnu/linux install at home to their brand new gnu/linux at work without having to re-learn basic skills. If there were only one filesystem layout and standard set of base software, app developers could spend a lot more time developing apps and a lot less time compiling binaries and packaging them in a million different formats for a million different distros.

GNU/Linux distros are availabe free for download. Developers of OSS are not getting paid what their commercial counterparts are receiving on the whole. Competition does not increase quality nearly as much as it does when _physical goods_ are being _sold_ -- it divides the user and developer base.

Why this double standard?

GNU/Linux needs to be better than windows if it's to be accepted as a mainstream desktop OS.

Windows kept crashing and now I'm so used to multiple desktops, Unix-style copy paste and real 3-mouse button support that the Windows GUI appears to me as the archaic, primitive GUI it is. I'm twice as productive on Linux than on Windows. Hell, I always have about 50 windows open, Window's GUI just can't handle that, even with their measly 4-desktop extension.

Those are all good arguments and things about gnu/linux that don't need much more refinement, if any. I'm not saying gnu/linux has no positive points (It most certainly does!), just that some areas are lacking. The stability argument doesn't hold up any more, though. Yes, gnu/linux is still much more stable than even a well-maintained windows installation, but with windows 2000 and xp (yuck) stability has improved to the point where _desktop_ users aren't going to demand much more. Yes, there are certainly a lot of computers out there still running older versions of windows, but we're talking about new offerings here. The fact is, windows 2000/xp can now (most of the time) last the eight hours from startup to shutdown without crashing. Now that users have preemptive multitasking and protected memory, they have as much "stability" as they need. Those users never wanted or needed multi-day, multi-week, or multi-month uptimes in a desktop OS.

3 years ago, it was exactly as you described. But today, no. Even RedHat is only worse than Windows if you have a double standard (as you have) and good desktop distros like SuSE or Mandrake beat it right away or Debian and Gentoo beat it on different merits (harder to install but easier to maintain).

GNU/Linux distros have improved a great deal but I maintain they're still not a satisfactory windows replacement in many important areas.

The only thing Windows really is better than Linux is at running Win32 software.

Actually, that's not entirely true. Just a few days ago I downloaded and (tried) to run an old "NT4-only" program on my w2k system and it crashed every time I opened a particular window. I tried running it under wine and it worked perfectly, with a few minor visual glitches. A lot of people laughed when slashdot posted that story about the group that was trying to run wine in cygwin, but I'm anxiously awaiting the day when it compiles.
Re:You think windows is hard? by Erpo · 2002-12-23 00:45 · Score: 2

Isn't this the first option to set? (And yes, I also use dvorak).

Yes, after you finish reading through the info in the bootloader and typing out your "linux a=b c=d" line.

Realise that Windows doesn't even recognise linux partitions as there much less attempt to resize them. And don't get me started on the Windows boot loader.

Being like windows isn't the goal. Getting a toehold in a market that is dominated by windows is.

Set up mount points and a swap partition because the system won't configure available space in a sane way automatically ~ frustration +3

Ease of use, exactly what you want. Pick one.

Choose 'custom' from the workstation/server/custom menu, and select package groups that I think I'll need.

See above action.

The kind of ease of use that is needed on a desktop OS and getting exactly what you want are not necessarily mutually exclusive in a well-designed system.

A decent set of automatic defaults for partitions would be very little trouble to implement, and a non-bloated default install would alleviate the need to dive into individual package selection.

Realize that package management systems under linux ...

Realise that windows doesn't actually have a package management system.

Installshield? Add/remove programs? Superpimp? They work just fine. Sure, sometimes they leave stuff behind, but they're many many times more user friendly than (for instance) gnorpm. If you define a package management system as one where mostly system code is executed during package installation, then windows didn't have one in the past. Now it does: MSI. It's not the most beautiful file format, but it works and it's easy. Double-click.

Realize that even though linux has reached version 2.4 and redhat's distro has been around for so many years, no one has ever considered that long, fast-scrolling startup text barfed out by the kernel scares away users who "can't read the error messages fast enough to keep up" and instead replaced them with a progress bar by default, while still making advanced startup an option ~ frustration

Realise that hiding the messages would piss the vast majority of your users off.

Possibly. That's why an advanced startup option is needed.

Make an educated guess that even if package management system developers could put aside their egos, develop a decent universal package system, and get every distro to use it that it would still force me to use the console ~ frustration +9

Realise that "One size fits all" means that everyone is equally pissed off with it.

Other than the fact that the windows package management system often leaves stuff behind on uninstall, name three things that a novice user thinks are wrong with it that a gnu/linux package managemnt system does right with a graphical tool.

Realize the reason why the interface feels so uncomfortable: my wheel mouse doesn't work ~ frustration +11

Wonder why you are using a version of Redhat that is over two years old. Consider the possibility that the user didn't pay attention during the install.

Hang out in #linuxhelp. People still ask questions about mouse wheels with the latest distros.
Re:You think windows is hard? by rseuhs · 2002-12-23 05:37 · Score: 2
When confronted with a computer lacking a particular piece of software and a software installation CD, most users are at home inserting the CD and clicking next a few times until the software is there. Combining a thinner distro with a software installation system that is a serious competitor to installshield or MSI in terms of user interface would be, in my opinion, a great improvement.
It's better when it was already installed with the distro - and in (I must really sound like a employee by now, but I'm not) SuSE you do just that:
1) Open config-menu (right beside K-menu): 1 click
2) select for example install software -> games -> arcade -> penguin command: 2nd click
3) insert root password
4) insert DVD/CD if needed (I actually copy the DVD to the harddrive) and wait ~30 seconds
Wow that was hard. The whole procedure included only 2 clicks and inserting the root password. Sorry, but I don't know how it can become any easier and more comfortable than that.
Alternatively you can of course use a packet manager to install more than just one package at a time.
[..]gnu/linux needs to be easier[..]
RedHat is not Linux, please acknowledge that already.
We have too many distros.
No we don't. First, all distros are compatible. Win9x and WinNT never were fully compatible for example. Then people have no problems choosing computers from many different vendors and also don't have problems choosing from many different vendors for thousands of other markets, why should the operation systems market be any different? Just because Microsoft sais so?
On the other hand, competition among multiple distros (once they number more than, say, 2 or 3) is a terrible thing. They all try to "innovate" or play to a particular ideology, but all they end up changing is the stuff that should be the same everywhere.
All commercial distros except RedHat install KDE by default so they look quite similar. The only differences are config stuff, but that's different between Windows versions, too.
GNU/Linux needs to be better than windows if it's to be accepted as a mainstream desktop OS.
It is already better and it isn't accepted. (I already outlined several GUI-features, you can add apt-get)
This "Linux must change to be accepted" is bullshit. Complete nonsense.
Linux needs not change at all. There are just 2 things:
- Linux needs more apps or near-perfect Win32 compatibility
- Linux needs better marketing (especially be preinstalled more often
Those have nothing to do with the product Linux itself (well maybe Win32-compatibility). Linux itself is already able to do everything needed. We need more PC-vendors preinstalling Linux and more apps for Linux.
Just look at 3D-modelling: These machines are operated by artists, not computer geeks, yet Linux (even the mediocre RedHat) made big inroads in this market and can already be called the standard - every new movie is created on Linux workstations.
Why? Because the apps were available.
As more and more businesses and governments switch, more and more business apps will be ported to Linux and Linux will reach critical mass there.
*After that* it will go after the home market and games will appear more frequently.
Linux itself is ready for the home market. The Linux software library (too few games to summarize it) is not.
In the business market, things are different. While not every niche market has Linux software, the mainstream (office/browser/etc.) software is available.
And that's why we already see businesses and governments switching. I think Linux will go a similar route as WindowsNT, which also was used in businesses long before it was used at home. In countries where RedHat doesn't scare away users, Linux desktop market share is already somewhere between 5% and 15%, at least in newsgroups. (In US-newsgroups, Linux is nonexistant, usually below 2% - thank you, RedHat) If you don't believe me, just do some statistics for a few newsgroups, this is what I did. (non-technical newsgroups only, of course)
GNU/Linux distros have improved a great deal but I maintain they're still not a satisfactory windows replacement in many important areas.
Correct, but that's because of the software library, not because of Linux itself.
Re:You think windows is hard? by Erpo · 2002-12-23 07:32 · Score: 2

It's better when it was already installed with the distro - and in (I must really sound like a employee by now, but I'm not) SuSE you do just that:

1) Open config-menu (right beside K-menu): 1 click
2) select for example install software -> games -> arcade -> penguin command: 2nd click
3) insert root password
4) insert DVD/CD if needed (I actually copy the DVD to the harddrive) and wait ~30 seconds Wow that was hard. The whole procedure included only 2 clicks and inserting the root password. Sorry, but I don't know how it can become any easier and more comfortable than that.
[...]
Alternatively you can of course use a packet manager to install more than just one package at a time.
[...]
Wow that was hard. The whole procedure included only 2 clicks and inserting the root password. Sorry, but I don't know how it can become any easier and more comfortable than that.

How many users do you know that install windows software by opening my computer, control panel, add/remove programs, add new program, browse to the installer executable (Is it install.exe or setup.exe on this CD? There are both. Or maybe autorun.exe? Or ar.exe?), clicking ok, going through the install process, closing out of add/remove programs, control panel, and my computer? How many insert the CD and wait for the first thing that pops up?

From a very high-level (or newbie-ish) perspective, software is added by to the computer in windows by bringing the two into contact. It is not usually added to the computer by instructing the computer to absorb the software. Also, do you see an add/remove programs entry for msvcrt.dll or hal.dll in windows? No. Do you see an rpm for glibc under linux? Yes. Even in a gui package manager? Yes. Two easy changes can be made to make conversion from windows easier without making life harder for more experienced users:

1. Hide system packages by default. Joe average doesn't know or care about glibc. When he wants to remove a program, he wants to see entries for the seven or eight big app packs that he uses, not hundreds of entries for things he doesn't care about.

2. Make software installation work by selecting the software, not the software installer. It doesn't matter that that would be implemented by creating an association between files of type (package format) and the installer program to handle double clicks. It just matters that the user not have to go the "add/remove programs, install software route.

We have too many distros.

No we don't. First, all distros are compatible.

Install an apache rpm on a debian system, startup scripts and all. No tweaking.

Run a binary from a distro that's still using last year's libwhatever on a distro that uses the incompatible this year's libwhatever.

Then people have no problems choosing computers from many different vendors and also don't have problems choosing from many different vendors for thousands of other markets, why should the operation systems market be any different?

Two markets:
Non-free computer hardware and software markets need competition to keep prices down and proprietary/monopoly products out.

Free software (including OS software) does not need competition to keep prices down and proprietary systems out. Competition among free software products divides the user, developer, and support base.

All commercial distros except RedHat install KDE by default so they look quite similar. The only differences are config stuff

Newbie overall (but intermediate KDE) users cannot jump into GNOME and do everything exactly the same way. The opposite is also true. Config files are important.

but that's different between Windows versions, too.

Yes, there are incompatibilities between versions of windows but they're nowhere near as bad for most popular software packages. If they were, how could XP have become so widespread so quickly? People are pretty docile when it comes to options on new computers, but if Joe's favorite app just won't work on the new PC, he takes it back to the store.

Just look at 3D-modelling: These machines are operated by artists, not computer geeks, yet Linux (even the mediocre RedHat) made big inroads in this market and can already be called the standard - every new movie is created on Linux workstations.

In those environments, choosing linux over other windows or unix can save a bundle and greatly increase performance. The average computer buyer thinks windows comes "free" with his computer and only really needs raw performance when it comes to games, which is not one of GNU/Linux's strong points.

Linux needs not change at all. [...] Linux itself is already able to do everything needed. [...] Linux itself is ready for the home market. [etc]

Linux is ready, although it's not absolutely perfect in every way. GNU/Linux distros are not quite ready yet.

I think Linux will go a similar route as WindowsNT, which also was used in businesses long before it was used at home.

I know two people who use Windows NT at home and they're both old, male computer geeks with degrees in tech fields. The rest use 98SE, 2000, or XP -- the ones that are less stable but with good UIs.

In countries where RedHat doesn't scare away users, Linux desktop market share is already somewhere between 5% and 15%, at least in newsgroups. (In US-newsgroups, Linux is nonexistant, usually below 2% - thank you, RedHat) If you don't believe me, just do some statistics for a few newsgroups, this is what I did. (non-technical newsgroups only, of course)

Joe non-technical user doesn't know about newsgroups anymore. They're just not hot stuff like the www and instant messaging. I'm not saying nobody knows about them or that news dying by any means -- only that newsgroups are not a random sample of the population at all.

GNU/Linux distros have improved a great deal but I maintain they're still not a satisfactory windows replacement in many important areas.

Correct, but that's because of the software library, not because of Linux itself.

IDE-SCSI for cd burning. USB support. Interruptable kernel mode code. ATA133. DRI/DRM. Software libraries wouldn't work without kernel support for hardware. I agree with you though, GNU/Linux has improved a great deal due to leaps and bounds in userland software development.

RedHat is not Linux, please acknowledge that already.

RedHat is not Linux. RedHat is not GNU/Linux. RedHat contributes to Linux and is a part of the set of GNU/Linux distros. GNU/Linux distros need to improve to be widely accepted desktop OSs.
Re:You think windows is hard? by rseuhs · 2002-12-23 09:08 · Score: 2

1. Hide system packages by default. Joe average doesn't know or care about glibc. When he wants to remove a program, he wants to see entries for the seven or eight big app packs that he uses, not hundreds of entries for things he doesn't care about.
Most package managers are able to manage hundreds of packages well because they are organized hierarchically, why make them as crippled as Windows' with it's linear list of installed software?
That would be a step backwards. While I agree that you could have an option to hide system packages for morons, it's certainly no showstopper.
You have the major delusion that Windows is perfect and that if something is like Windows, it will be a success. That is both wrong. Windows is not perfect, it is not intuitive, it is not user-friendly (for example newbies have big trouble with single vs. double click. It's just not consistent, while KDE (at default settings) is. Newbies will have much less problems picking up KDE than picking up Windows. You also have drive letters and a lot of other cruft you don't notice because you are used to it.) - but it is preinstalled.
Joe Average will use what is preinstalled.
2. Make software installation work by selecting the software, not the software installer.
Did you even read what I wrote?
Install an apache rpm on a debian system, startup scripts and all. No tweaking.
Why should I do that? Every distro supplies the appropriate packages. Commercial packages (like Loki's games or VMWare) can be made to run on all distros easily and without any problems.
Run a binary from a distro that's still using last year's libwhatever on a distro that uses the incompatible this year's libwhatever.
Run a game that requires DirectX8 on a system with only DirectX6.
Newbie overall (but intermediate KDE) users cannot jump into GNOME and do everything exactly the same way. The opposite is also true. Config files are important.
Why should anybody want to jump into Gnome?
how could XP have become so widespread so quickly?
Again: - BECAUSE IT IS PREINSTALLED ON COMPUTERS - BECAUSE IT IS PREINSTALLED ON COMPUTERS - BECAUSE IT IS PREINSTALLED ON COMPUTERS -
Microsoft could sell any version of Windows, everything would become widespread quickly. The only thing it has to do is run most Win32 programs and it will be widespread quickly. They could sell Win95 again and most people would buy it because the computer maker don't give them another choice of software that will run Win32 apps. (And the computer maker wouldn't get any other version of Windows)
That's the hard reality.
The average computer buyer thinks windows comes "free" with his computer and only really needs raw performance when it comes to games, which is not one of GNU/Linux's strong points.
Exactly.
Linux is ready, although it's not absolutely perfect in every way. GNU/Linux distros are not quite ready yet.
Yes, of course it's not perfect in every way. For example I think the whole CD mounting is a bit awkard.
But those are little things, not showstoppers. The problems are Win32-compatibility (perceived and real) and being preinstalled. Both problems don't touch the any core of a Linux distribution technically.
I know two people who use Windows NT at home and they're both old, male computer geeks with degrees in tech fields. The rest use 98SE, 2000, or XP -- the ones that are less stable but with good UIs.
Exactly, NT started as a business and geek OS, then became a home OS for non-gamers (Win2000), then became a home OS for everybody (XP).
Linux will go a similar path.
GNU/Linux distros need to improve to be widely accepted desktop OSs.
While I sure like improvements, this is just plain wrong.
Most of your wanted improvements are readily available in SuSE, is SuSE a widely accepted desktop OS in the US? No. Because everybody thinks RedHat is Linux, tries RedHat and is scared away. Those are no technical problems, these are marketing problems. RedHat has the worst distribution, but one of the best at marketing of all Linux distros. Even you seem to fail to accept that most of your eagerly wanted improvements are already available. You keep repeating the mantra GNU/Linux distros need to improve but at the same time ignore the fact that these improvements already exist and are readily available. You know what that tells me? First, you are a victim of RedHat's marketing, second those improvements are not even half as important as you pretend. Otherwise you would just order a SuSE-box. So even one of the crappier distros (RedHat) seems to be already good enough for you.
But even that makes RedHat merely the one-eyed among the blind, marketing-wise. Linux needs marketing. Marketing. Marketing. Why did you try RedHat before SuSE? Because RedHat has successfully marketed itself as "the standard" distro. (Actually I think Lindows may pull it off: They probably have an even worse distro than RedHat (didn't try it, but what I heard doesn't look too great) but great marketing: They get preinstalled at Walmart! At the moment it's a bit early to tell what Lindows will turn out to be, but I think they are the only one who really understand the market.)
No matter how great Linux is, Joe Average will not notice when it's not preinstalled.
No matter how great Linux is, if you need Win32-only software you are often out of luck (Wine is great but needs much more compatibility and easier set-up and handling)
So, no, for wide acceptance, further technical improvements except for Wine are not necessary (although they won't hurt)
Look at 3d-modellers again: More and more graphics apps are ported to Linux and Photoshop will be ported when the market is big enough. When photoshop is ported, Linux is viable for many 2D-artists in addition to 3d-artists, the market gets bigger, more apps are ported, etc, etc.
Similar in mainstream office computing: Whole communities in Europe are switching to Linux, software makers will have no other choice than offer Linux versions. For example both major German tax software products are already available for Linux (one since last year, the other became available this month). Then accounting software will follow (SAP is already available for quite some time already), then other office-related software and finally games.
Of course this doesn't happen overnight, but it happens. With PCs becoming cheaper and cheaper, Windows and MS Office is taking a larger and larger part out of total system costs. So the incentive to switch to Linux becomes bigger and bigger every year (Especially under the new licensing regime) and with more and more software available, the hurdles in switching become lower and lower.
It's really just a matter of time.
Only marketing and getting software makers to port their software to Linux will accelerate or slow down this process. Further technical abilities of Linux distros (except for Wine) will not have any major inpact of when it will be used by the masses.
Re:You think windows is hard? by Erpo · 2002-12-23 12:21 · Score: 2

Most package managers are able to manage hundreds of packages well because they are organized hierarchically, why make them as crippled as Windows' with it's linear list of installed software?

That would be a step backwards. While I agree that you could have an option to hide system packages for morons, it's certainly no showstopper.

GNU/Linux can have package grouping without losing its hierarchical layout. Example: make mozilla uninstallable as one group rather than 8+ individual packages, like the add/remove programs applet in windows.

While I agree that you could have an option to hide system packages for morons [...]

It's hard to have a low opinion of users and try to see technology from their perspective. Their talents may lie outside the realm of technology.

You have the major delusion that Windows is perfect and that if something is like Windows, it will be a success. That is both wrong. Windows is not perfect, it is not intuitive, it is not user-friendly (for example newbies have big trouble with single vs. double click. It's just not consistent, while KDE (at default settings) is. Newbies will have much less problems picking up KDE than picking up Windows.

Who said I thought things were perfect just because they were a part of windows? IE. Outlook. The registry. *gag*

You also have drive letters and a lot of other cruft you don't notice because you are used to it.

The _letters_ part sucks as it imposes artificial limitations. Other than that, presenting different "groups of free space" as different icons or "drives" (where a drive could be a tape drive, a stripe set, a cd, etc...) is a useful feature in a visual interface -- it allows users to have a useful mental concept of data transfer and what it means to copy a file from one location to another. This can be implemented while still keeping the "mount point"/VFS low layer design which gives knowledgable script-writers a boost to functionality.

2. Make software installation work by selecting the software, not the software installer.

Did you even read what I wrote?

Yes, but I don't think my response was clear enough. From a high-level point of view, the user should indicate that he wants to install new software by bringing that software to the computer, not by instructing the computer to absorb software which will be brought to it when prompted.

nstall an apache rpm on a debian system, startup scripts and all. No tweaking.

Why should I do that? Every distro supplies the appropriate packages. Commercial packages (like Loki's games or VMWare) can be made to run on all distros easily and without any problems.

You shouldn't because you can't. That's my point. Different, incompatible package management systems and filesystem layouts force the "packaging" stage of distribution to be done an unnecessary and wasteful number of times. Yes, you can use custom installers like many commercial packages do, but that defeats the purpose of having a package management system.

Run a binary from a distro that's still using last year's libwhatever on a distro that uses the incompatible this year's libwhatever.

Run a game that requires DirectX8 on a system with only DirectX6.

A simple upgrade to DX8 lets DX8 games work while keeping compatibility with DX6 apps. Not all gnu/linux important packages are backwards compatible (e.g. libc5/libc6).

Newbie overall (but intermediate KDE) users cannot jump into GNOME and do everything exactly the same way. The opposite is also true. Config files are important.

Why should anybody want to jump into Gnome?

*shrug* Dunno. I don't have a strong preference for one environment over the other - they both have their strong and weak points. My point was that 1 desktop environment is better than 2 from the point of view of linux adoption (see previous post re: OSS competition).

All commercial distros except RedHat install KDE by default so they look quite similar. The only differences are config stuff, but that's different between Windows versions, too.

how could XP have become so widespread so quickly?

Again: - BECAUSE IT IS PREINSTALLED ON COMPUTERS - BECAUSE IT IS PREINSTALLED ON COMPUTERS - BECAUSE IT IS PREINSTALLED ON COMPUTERS -

Microsoft could sell any version of Windows, everything would become widespread quickly. The only thing it has to do is run most Win32 programs and it will be widespread quickly. They could sell Win95 again and most people would buy it because the computer maker don't give them another choice of software that will run Win32 apps. (And the computer maker wouldn't get any other version of Windows)

Microsoft could not sell any version of Windows and expect it to become widespread quickly if that version of windows were not backwards compatible with older versions of windows. (Yes, I know 2K had problems with this. They were few and far between. After SP3 they are virtually nil, barring some very old dos games.) The idea is that if backwards compatibility were as bad between XP and previous versions of windows as backwards compatibility is with linux on a comparable timescale, XP wouldn't have had nearly the level of success it did.

Yes, MS does have a stranglehold on the market. That means nothing if new products don't work. What do you do with a blender that doesn't blend? Take it back to the store.

Linux is ready, although it's not absolutely perfect in every way. GNU/Linux distros are not quite ready yet.

Yes, of course it's not perfect in every way. For example I think the whole CD mounting is a bit awkard.

But those are little things, not showstoppers.

Too many little things add up to become a "showstopper". What would you change about CD mounting?

The problems are Win32-compatibility [...]

I agree totally. Perfect win32 compatibility would put linux on every desktop in a heartbeat -- computer manufacturers don't like paying the microsoft tax any more than consumers do. Perfect win32 compatibility is not an attainable goal. Even running supposedly "portable" .Net apps targetted at windows under linux would require a working wine implementaion; MS can "innovate" contorted new API additions faster than they can be reverse-engineered and reimplemented perfectly.

Depending on win32 compatibility to make gnu/linux mainstream is not going to get anyone anywhere. Instead, UI issues need to be fixed, a standard packge management system must be deployed across all distros, very minor distros much be feature-merged into significant ones or eliminated entirely, and other changes must be made.

know two people who use Windows NT at home and they're both old, male computer geeks with degrees in tech fields. The rest use 98SE, 2000, or XP -- the ones that are less stable but with good UIs.

Exactly, NT started as a business and geek OS, then became a home OS for non-gamers (Win2000), then became a home OS for everybody (XP).

NT4 did _not_ become a "home OS" for non-gamers or anyone at all. New versions of windows that fixed (or adequately changed) problems with NT4 were created, based on NT4, and then sold after they were made suitable for the mainstream market. In the same sense, GNU/Linux needs to metamorphose from an NT4 caterpillar into a Win2K butterfly. It's a stupid metaphor, but it conveys the idea.

Most of your wanted improvements are readily available in SuSE

[...]

No matter how great Linux is, Joe Average will not notice when it's not preinstalled.

I don't agree. I seriously doubt that if SuSE were really the jewel of usability that you say it is that it would be such a well-kept secret. Of course, that's not proof, it's an educated guess so I'll have to try out SuSE for myself before I can comment on it directly. I also gather from what you said about usability that while you may consider SuSE to be a wonderful, perfect distro that just needs marketing and preinstallation, I would probably disagree. But again, the only way to be sure is to try it.

Of course this doesn't happen overnight, but it happens. With PCs becoming cheaper and cheaper, Windows and MS Office is taking a larger and larger part out of total system costs. So the incentive to switch to Linux becomes bigger and bigger every year (Especially under the new licensing regime) and with more and more software available, the hurdles in switching become lower and lower.

I can be optimistic with you on this point. I think evolving windows APIs are pushing this goal further away nearly as fast as the gnu/linux community is chasing it, but we're getting closer all the time.

It's really just a matter of time.

But now we have a deadline: palladium. Linux is no good if nobody's making hardware that will boot it. Of course, the DRM component of palladium will fail, as conditional or metered access to information on hardware to which the consumer has unrestricted physical access is impossble, but it will leave the tech industry in a situation where MS has so much power it could charge users for access to their own documents and get away with it. As I said, DRM is always breakable, but this doesn't make breaking it legal, even if breaking it means being able to access your own documents in an unrestricted format. GNU/Linux doesn't have time to rest on its laurels while wine crawls forward and the TCPA comes racing toward us.
Re:You think windows is hard? by rseuhs · 2002-12-23 13:30 · Score: 2

Other than that, presenting different "groups of free space" as different icons or "drives"
KDE does exactly that.
Yes, but I don't think my response was clear enough. From a high-level point of view, the user should indicate that he wants to install new software by bringing that software to the computer, not by instructing the computer to absorb software which will be brought to it when prompted.
Well, OK so instead of an Autorun, the user has to click on the "CD-ROM" icon in KDE and select the install-script. While I agree that some Autorun mechanism would be nice, it's certainly not a prerequesite, even for home users. Clicking on a CD-ROM is not really rocket science.
You shouldn't because you can't. That's my point. Different, incompatible package management systems and filesystem layouts force the "packaging" stage of distribution to be done an unnecessary and wasteful number of times. Yes, you can use custom installers like many commercial packages do, but that defeats the purpose of having a package management system.
A few posts ago you claimed that Installshild was the best since sliced bread, now it defeats the purpose?
A simple upgrade to DX8 lets DX8 games work while keeping compatibility with DX6 apps.
This is not true for all games. Enough games break when using a different version.
Not all gnu/linux important packages are backwards compatible (e.g. libc5/libc6).
So? You can have both installed. Also the big changes should be over by now and we shouldn't see any binary incompatible upgrades for quite some time (knock on wood)
*shrug* Dunno. I don't have a strong preference for one environment over the other - they both have their strong and weak points. My point was that 1 desktop environment is better than 2 from the point of view of linux adoption (see previous post re: OSS competition).
You are overestimating that. While it is sure good to standardize within an organization, it's not really a big issue because KDE-apps run in Gnome and vice versa. (Yes I do know that I don't follow the herd-view here)
Microsoft could not sell any version of Windows and expect it to become widespread quickly if that version of windows were not backwards compatible with older versions of windows. (Yes, I know 2K had problems with this. They were few and far between. After SP3 they are virtually nil, barring some very old dos games.) The idea is that if backwards compatibility were as bad between XP and previous versions of windows as backwards compatibility is with linux on a comparable timescale, XP wouldn't have had nearly the level of success it did.
So we finally agree that the major selling point of Windows is Win32-compatibility.
Yes, MS does have a stranglehold on the market. That means nothing if new products don't work. What do you do with a blender that doesn't blend? Take it back to the store.
The majority still runs Win98 (4 years old) which is really just Win95 (7 years old)with more drivers and a couple of bugfixes - and it's good enough for them, it seems. Anything that can run the apps is good enough and most users just use what is preinstalled.
Too many little things add up to become a "showstopper". What would you change about CD mounting?
CD mounting is IMO one of the few things MS got right, that should be like in Windows. - Can't think of anything else right now...
I agree totally. Perfect win32 compatibility would put linux on every desktop in a heartbeat -- computer manufacturers don't like paying the microsoft tax any more than consumers do. Perfect win32 compatibility is not an attainable goal. Even running supposedly "portable" .Net apps targetted at windows under linux would require a working wine implementaion; MS can "innovate" contorted new API additions faster than they can be reverse-engineered and reimplemented perfectly.
Actually, I think perfect .NET compatibility is far easier than perfect Win32 compatibility, first because the Mono and other projects are in the game right from the start and second because .NET's bytecode structure should make it easier.
Depending on win32 compatibility to make gnu/linux mainstream is not going to get anyone anywhere. Instead, UI issues need to be fixed, a standard packge management system must be deployed across all distros, very minor distros much be feature-merged into significant ones or eliminated entirely, and other changes must be made.
What UI-issues? Why merging distros? What's the point of that?
Wrong, we need apps, apps, apps. Nobody cares about package management. Some users may curse (if it were so bad which it isn't) at install-time, but in day to-day work, only the apps count. No Photoshop on Linux = no Linux for many people. So we need apps, either through ports or through Win32 compatibility.
I don't agree. I seriously doubt that if SuSE were really the jewel of usability that you say it is that it would be such a well-kept secret. Of course, that's not proof, it's an educated guess so I'll have to try out SuSE for myself before I can comment on it directly. I also gather from what you said about usability that while you may consider SuSE to be a wonderful, perfect distro that just needs marketing and preinstallation, I would probably disagree. But again, the only way to be sure is to try it.
All your technical requests what needs to be done are met by SuSE. You formed that requests, not me.
But now we have a deadline: palladium. Linux is no good if nobody's making hardware that will boot it.
Actually, I think Palladium is the best thing that can happen to Linux.
You really want to tell me that users are supposed to stop pirating mp3s and Videos? You got to be kidding me. Most home users would go back to DOS with all the IRQ conflicts if they could avoid copy protection.
Actually, TCPA is already so unpopular that the members no longer publicly admit that they are members in TCPA (the member list got removed from the website).
I would be surprised if it would actually be implemented and I would be surprised if it would last longer than 1 month if implemented.
Also, TCPA is designed very stupidly, for example if you have a TCPA-enabled computer, you just have to run *one single* non-TCPA approved app and the computer will shut down all TCPA-contents and apps. There goes your backwards compatibility.
About half the servers run Linux/BSD, in Europe about 2/3. More than half of all new embedded systems projects are using Linux. There is a market for Linux-hardware and companies will sell it.
Re:You think windows is hard? by Erpo · 2002-12-23 23:17 · Score: 2

Other than that, presenting different "groups of free space" as different icons or "drives"

KDE does exactly that.

Cool!

Well, OK so instead of an Autorun, the user has to click on the "CD-ROM" icon in KDE and select the install-script. While I agree that some Autorun mechanism would be nice, it's certainly not a prerequesite, even for home users. Clicking on a CD-ROM is not really rocket science.

Let me ask you a question to clarify. When you were talking about the process you go through to install software, does clicking on the CD provide, for instance, a popup hierarchical menu system that allows the user to select software to install from what is available on the CD, or does the system provide that hierarchical menu of software compiled from what is available on the CDs and DVDs that came with the distro. If the latter, what is the procedure to install packages that did not come with the distro?

So we finally agree that the major selling point of Windows is Win32-compatibility.

Win32 compatibility is the major "selling point" of windows in that if you were to ask a user if win32 compatibility makes or breaks the deal in terms of OS choice the average user would say yes. However, that's not to say that win32 compatibility is the only positive thing about windows.

Actually, I think perfect .NET compatibility is far easier than perfect Win32 compatibility, first because the Mono and other projects are in the game right from the start and second because .NET's bytecode structure should make it easier.

Windows.Forms :(

What UI-issues? Why merging distros? What's the point of that?

Having too many UIs and too many distros divides...well, I already wrote it a couple times. (see OSS competition in previous post)

Wrong, we need apps, apps, apps. Nobody cares about package management. Some users may curse (if it were so bad which it isn't) at install-time, but in day to-day work, only the apps count. No Photoshop on Linux = no Linux for many people. So we need apps, either through ports or through Win32 compatibility.

That would be great, I agree. The classic, enduring problem is that market share for linux is too low to merit porting photoshop (although OSX -> linux is a lot easier than win32 -> linux or classic mac -> linux), and market share for linux isn't going to get the huge boost it needs until there are apps available (like photoshop). Beyond writing letters to Adobe, there's not much that can be done about that. We can, however, create an environment that doesn't scare away newbies so that when linux usage creeps past the "critical mass" point for porting photoshop, photoshop will not be a lure to pull newbies into a scary and otherwise intolerable environment, but an extra app that makes a sweet deal even sweeter.

Actually, I think Palladium is the best thing that can happen to Linux.

You really want to tell me that users are supposed to stop pirating mp3s and Videos? You got to be kidding me. Most home users would go back to DOS with all the IRQ conflicts if they could avoid copy protection.

Palladium won't be a successful implementation of DRM because there is no such thing; users won't have to go back to dos. The real problems with palladium are:

-Users will be even more at the mercy of MS, to the point where MS could charge them for access to their own files.
and
-It's unclear as to whether or not hardware that boots non-MS OSs will continue to be manufactured.

Actually, TCPA is already so unpopular that the members no longer publicly admit that they are members in TCPA (the member list got removed from the website). ...which means TCPA members don't want people who are _checking to see if they are TCPA members_ to know that they're TCPA members. As for the almost infinitely larger, ignorant section of the population, they are totally unaware. If you were to go out onto the street and ask people what palladium is, I predict you'd get these answers (from most to least frequent):

1. I have no idea.
2. A transition metal.
3. A wooden statue of Athena from greek mythology.
4. A copy-stopper chip from MS that's going to put an end to piracy...I think.
5. A DRM system that's going to take away our rights.

Also, TCPA is designed very stupidly, for example if you have a TCPA-enabled computer, you just have to run *one single* non-TCPA approved app and the computer will shut down all TCPA-contents and apps. There goes your backwards compatibility.

Not true. Unsigned apps cannot trap to trusted mode, access certain new TCPA-only system calls, or access any data stored in the TPM. Since unsigned, non-TCPA apps aren't programmed to do any of those things, they'll run fine in conjunction with TCPA apps on the same system.

About half the servers run Linux/BSD, in Europe about 2/3. More than half of all new embedded systems projects are using Linux. There is a market for Linux-hardware and companies will sell it.

Server and embedded market penetration is not desktop market penetration and that's what's really needed to defeat palladium.
Re:You think windows is hard? by rseuhs · 2002-12-24 00:17 · Score: 2

Let me ask you a question to clarify. When you were talking about the process you go through to install software, does clicking on the CD provide, for instance, a popup hierarchical menu system that allows the user to select software to install from what is available on the CD, or does the system provide that hierarchical menu of software compiled from what is available on the CDs and DVDs that came with the distro. If the latter, what is the procedure to install packages that did not come with the distro?
No, it's just the contents of the CD in the file manager.
Windows.Forms :(
You really want to tell me that just one measly group of classes is as hard to implement as the whole Win32 API? This just illustrates my point: Mono is much easier at succeeding than Wine.
Also, as I said the projects are in right from the beginning. If some .NET application gains wide acceptance (which I don't really see happening BTW, .NET is moving much slower than MS would like) Mono et al will make sure it will work on Linux very soon. They can concentrate on one app at a time.
-Users will be even more at the mercy of MS, to the point where MS could charge them for access to their own files.
Which hits a nerve. Users will not accept that. Users want their pirated mp3, porn and videos and be left alone. They don't want MS knowing what they do on their own computer. People are not as dumb as you think they are.
-It's unclear as to whether or not hardware that boots non-MS OSs will continue to be manufactured.
Well all concepts I have seen are backwards-compatible, that means while Linux may not run in TCPA-mode, it will run in non-TCPA-mode.
But actually, there is a huge anti-TCPA movement and guaranteed TCPA-free hardware will stay very popular and will be sold because the demand is there. Intel and AMD will not sacrifice themselves for the RIAA. TCPA-hardware will be more expensive and less popular. Sorry, but I just don't know how TCPA should ever be able to get a foothold in the market, even with backwards-compatibility.
The average consumer might not know right now what TCPA or Palladium is, but the average consumer has at least 20 Gigs of mp3s, porn and/or videos on his harddrive (or on CDs) he doesn't want to lose. Just look at how big Napster, Kazaa etc. are/were, we are talking about millions of people here - the majority of home users.
You know how a radio ad were for a DSL-vendor around here? I'll tell you:
male voice: I'd like to show you my big music collection.
female voice: You have a music collection?
male voice: Well, I could just download one anytime...
narrator: Download music and videos in real time - company name
That's right: The main selling point for DSL is piracy. This is not a niche application for geeks, it's the killer app. Something interfering with that won't be accepted in the market.
Also did you know the absence of TCPA in future CPUs? TCPA will not get into AMD's Hammer. The way I see it, TCPA will stay the "technology that will get into all chips not now but in a couple of years" forever - No chip maker dares to actually do it. The outrage and absymnal sales would be terrible.
Only few people need to upgrade. If a system is twice as fast but cannot play pirated mp3/videos/software, it is worth less than the old system for the majority of people - People just won't upgrade.
TCPA will not happen - unfortunately, because as I said, it would be the best thing that could happen to Linux.
Anyway, a merry christmas for you!
Re:You think windows is hard? by Erpo · 2002-12-24 08:12 · Score: 2

You really want to tell me that just one measly group of classes is as hard to implement as the whole Win32 API? This just illustrates my point: Mono is much easier at succeeding than Wine.

Also, as I said the projects are in right from the beginning. If some .NET application gains wide acceptance (which I don't really see happening BTW, .NET is moving much slower than MS would like) Mono et al will make sure it will work on Linux very soon. They can concentrate on one app at a time.

It's not going to be as difficult, chiefly for 2D apps, just because most of the work has already been done in wine. The problem is that, unlike Java, .Net "leaks" into the host OS -- C# is a portable language, but the apps themselves can be OS dependent. MS is free to "embrace and extend" it as much as it wants to to make sure that compatibility is always an inch or two away, at least for the latest apps. (Or would it just be "extend" because it's their own product?) But as you said originally, this isn't going to do much good unless .Net takes off, and it doesn't look like that's happening.

-Users will be even more at the mercy of MS, to the point where MS could charge them for access to their own files.

Which hits a nerve. Users will not accept that. Users want their pirated mp3, porn and videos and be left alone. They don't want MS knowing what they do on their own computer. People are not as dumb as you think they are.

I was pretty freaked out when I saw the first ad in PC World (side note: I recently did a page count. More than half of the pages are full-size ads.) for an IBM laptop with built-in security hardware -- there's only one thing that could be considering it's built on a P4 which has already implemented LaGrande technology. Anyway, they were billing it as an eliminator of viruses and spam, not freedom. People may not want to be so tightly bound by MS, but I don't think they're going to be aware of what's happening until MS hits the "on" switch one day and they're prompted to buy another year's MS Office license.

-It's unclear as to whether or not hardware that boots non-MS OSs will continue to be manufactured.

Well all concepts I have seen are backwards-compatible, that means while Linux may not run in TCPA-mode, it will run in non-TCPA-mode

Well, it's just that -- unclear. The TCPA specs define what the behavior of trusted hardware must be when it is requested to load a signed OS (it must load it), but it doesn't say whether or not it will load an unsigned OS even when it's in inactive mode. It's a mystery from that point of view or up to the hardware vendors (take your pick). Add to that that one of the features that I've seen asked for numerous times on anti-TCPA sites is the ability to "totally turn off" the technology, and it's not clear how much of it will actually be an option.

But actually, there is a huge anti-TCPA movement[...]

How many people?

guaranteed TCPA-free hardware will stay very popular and will be sold because the demand is there.

Who's demanding it? What percent of the market specifically wants TCPA-free hardware?

Intel and AMD will not sacrifice themselves for the RIAA.

They already have. Intel has included support for "trusted mode" in its P4 chips that are currently being manufactured -- they're calling it "LaGrande Technology". AMD has committed to including support for it in its Hammer line of CPUs.

TCPA-hardware will be more expensive [...]

I agree, and this could be a deterrent. However, eventually everything will be integrated into a single chip. Besides, people buy antivirus software (which costs money) to add to their unprotected system. From a consumer's point of view, doesn't it make sense to spend a little more money now and buy a system that is (heh heh, yeah right) spam-proof and virus-proof from the start?

The average consumer might not know right now what TCPA or Palladium is, but the average consumer has at least 20 Gigs of mp3s, porn and/or videos on his harddrive (or on CDs) he doesn't want to lose. Just look at how big Napster, Kazaa etc. are/were, we are talking about millions of people here - the majority of home users.

You know how a radio ad were for a DSL-vendor around here? I'll tell you:

male voice: I'd like to show you my big music collection.
female voice: You have a music collection?
male voice: Well, I could just download one anytime...
narrator: Download music and videos in real time - company name

That's right: The main selling point for DSL is piracy. This is not a niche application for geeks, it's the killer app. Something interfering with that won't be accepted in the market.

First, TCPA/Pd will not stop piracy. No DRM system is unbreakable, and if it really gets in the way it will be broken. Even if there were no solution to TCPA/Pd for a year, the ..AA won't dare stop selling CDs and DVDs which can always be ripped on a non-TCPA/Pd system and floated out on the net. The way that it pretends to combat piracy is by allowing media companies to impose iron-clad DRM on downloaded media files, and I guess the long-term goal is to get away from physical distribution entirely. Media companies don't want KaZaA to crash or refuse to run; they want your search results to slowly dwindle over time until they always number 0.

Also did you know the absence of TCPA in future CPUs? TCPA will not get into AMD's Hammer. The way I see it, TCPA will stay the "technology that will get into all chips not now but in a couple of years" forever - No chip maker dares to actually do it. The outrage and absymnal sales would be terrible.

Nope, AMD has committed. Have you seen a significant slump in P4 sales lately? It's already there. People aren't outraged because they're ignorant.

Only few people need to upgrade. If a system is twice as fast but cannot play pirated mp3/videos/software, it is worth less than the old system for the majority of people - People just won't upgrade.

Pirated files will play in TCPA/Pd systems because a "trusted" player app is not required to play them. The goal is to stop the creation of new files, which won't succeed.

Anyway, a merry christmas for you!

I'm not celebrating Christmas this year; I'm celebrating Postmas. That's the holiday where you show your friends and family how much you really care about them by getting a better deal on a present they'll enjoy more by shopping after the post-christmas price drop.(*) There are still festivities and food on the 24th and 25th, but Santa is going to be a little late this year at my house. ;)

Happy holidays.

(*) Note this isn't about being cheap. The idea is gift giver spends the same amount of money that they probably would have (or possibly less), while getting something the receiver will enjoy more.

Re:It must be good! by rseuhs · 2002-12-22 03:24 · Score: 2

I'm searching something like that! Is your program available anywhere on the net?

If not, please send me a copy, thanks!

Re:It must be good! by 1010011010 · 2002-12-22 03:35 · Score: 2

How about the silly WPA reg keys?

--
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.

Re:It must be good! by JohnFluxx · 2002-12-22 04:57 · Score: 2

Just use VB to control word to open the file, and save as. It's not hard - I've done it lots of times.

Re:It must be good! by Moridineas · 2002-12-22 04:59 · Score: 2

I must have missed that--perhaps you could point out the bad things in the EULA to me?

Times have changed by DrSkwid · 2002-12-22 05:49 · Score: 2

Lucent even now provides a pre-packaged VMWare image

You have to click a EULA to get this link but it exists :

http://plan9.bell-labs.com/magic/9down4e/compres se d/$CODE/vmware.zip

start here - http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/download.html

--
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2002-12-22 06:00 · Score: 2

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Like this by benjamindees · 2002-12-22 07:56 · Score: 2

Cygwin inside Wine

--
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"

Re:Possible for transparent x86 emulation on Linux by Christopher+Thomas · 2002-12-22 14:28 · Score: 2

Anyway, I don't get what cool possibilities for a PhD you are seeing there, since a dissertation is supposed to be new research, not reimplementation of existing technology.

I wasn't aware that anyone had implemented a really good cross-compiling optimizing emulator, which would have made such a thing a viable research topic. My mistake. Expressing it in terms of PhDs was an attempt at pointing out exactly how much work is involved in developing such a thing, to forestall "can we tweak bochs to do this?" comments.

Re:It must be good! by 1010011010 · 2002-12-22 16:59 · Score: 2

Unfortunately, "volume editions" are not available to small businesses. Happy you, with the corporate version.

--
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2002-12-22 17:11 · Score: 2

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:It must be good! by 1010011010 · 2002-12-23 03:38 · Score: 2

> You can get these editions in quantities of 5.

Hm, not according to the Microsoft rep I talked to ("500 and up"). I like to use Ghost. Your "automated rollout" takes a couple of hours, it looks like. Ghost takes 15 minutes.

--
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2002-12-23 07:01 · Score: 2

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:It must be good! by 1010011010 · 2002-12-23 07:22 · Score: 2

I can see that. In my operation, ghost takes care of the desktops. I re-ghost all the machines every couple of months, to clean off the cruft and enforce having the latest patches, etc. I have a Ghost image with all of our common software on it, along with drivers for every desktop we have (they're all recent Dells), so the ghost image "just works." Of course, we're not using any XP products, but the (yes, properly licensed) 2000 versions. For the servers, I install a "base" image via Ghost, and add things to that (for instance, web apps come out of CVS). It takes ~20 minutes to go from unpacking a new server to having it running with the web app on it, all patches applied, etc. But we're probably smaller than you.

--
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.

Re:nonsense by JohnFluxx · 2002-12-26 10:20 · Score: 2

Sorry to be naive, but whats the difference between having a virtual CPU which at some level must turn the virtual cpu instructions to the native cpu instructions and what they are doing? They are both boxes that you feed in one set of instructions in one language and get out another set of instructions in another language.

Is the only difference whether you optimise by converting chunks of asm at a time, and reuse them (Like the java JIT interpreter).

Sincerely,
JohnFlux

Re:Re(2):nonsense by JohnFluxx · 2002-12-28 15:25 · Score: 2

Dealing with the machine code bit first - most likely surely you will be most likely converting machine code into asm, then converting the asm, then converting back into machine code - which was my reasoning behind talking about asm rather than machine code.

Anyway... I agree mostly with what you say, but not sure it would be particulary slow in the majority of cases to morph code. You are no doubt familiar with the 80/20 rule - 80% of the time you are running 20% of the code. Doing an expensive conversion (in terms of time) is worth it because it will pay back many fold (assuming you cache and rerun that chunk of code).

As for the whole wider busses etc, I agree it can get very very ugly, and you are most likely right in such cases.

I'm a bit drunk right now. I'll reread the whole discussion in the morning :)

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